"Can you get that information into the hands of the authorities without jeopardizing how you obtained the information?" I asked.

"Your pal Brennan suggested I play your game and say it was a tip we received at After. That's what I did. We'll keep on top of it and make sure they follow up. It killed me not to use the chance to rub their noses in the fact I beat them to the punch on this! We figure he's still in the east. A California plate on a motor home will stick out like a sore thumb." I congratulated him on the great work he'd done and he again thanked me for getting him together with Daniel Brennan.

"I've been checking old cases too, real old ones, to see if I can get a handle on when our friend Grasso started in business. I've found four unsolved abductions over a six year period that look very close to his work. The best I can figure, he never left California before his arrest so that's where I'm concentration. Problem is, it's a big state."

"How old is Grasso?" I asked.

"He was forty one, last July." Frank answered. "He may have been doing his dirty deeds twenty years or more."

Advertisement..

I did the math. Was it possible? "Where do you believe he was operating in California?" I asked.

"Goleta, Ventura, Lompoc, Santa Maria . . . all over. His early crimes were rape and that's what caused his arrest. It was always young girls so I started looking at old unsolved cases; missing children as well as murders."

"Are those places you named near Santa Barbara?" I asked.

"Do I sound like a geography teacher? Look it up on a map, Swami." Then he asked, "Was there a killing in Santa Barbara that you know about or you're looking at?"

"Annie Abbott. She was living in or near Santa Barbara." I gave him the year. "They closed the case when a guy named Willard Humphries they were sure did it was sent away for another crime. There's a strong indication they might have been wrong and he was innocent. That makes it an open case."

"She wasn't on my list, probably because the police considered the case closed. Was the M O similar to this guy?" Frank asked. "Was she grabbed at night?"

"No one in the family ever discussed the details. I do know the body wasn't found for six weeks."

"I'll check it out. It's tough on these old cases, especially if it's considered solved. The records may have been destroyed. Record keeping back then wasn't all electronic and paper took up space." Before he signed off, he added, "Keep your eyes peeled for a Pace Arrow Motor home with California plates."




Most Popular