John Taylor - The Count and the Confession: A True Murder Mystery

Contents

FOR JEANNETTE

ACCLAIM FOR JOHN TAYLORS

The Count and the
Confession

Narrative nonfiction at its best.... You will be hooked on this tale of lust, love, greed, and murder. TheRoanoke Times

Mr. Taylor... has a gift for vivid descriptions, telling details and polished prose. The Wall Street Journal

Combine your favorite Gothic tale with the popular board game Clue and youll come close to realizing what a fascinating story John Taylor spins. TheOrlando Sentinel

A classic whodunit, a tale of did she or didnt she?.... This though, is nonfiction. The Washington Post

Taylor manages to navigate an extremely complicated case with humor and color to spare. NewYork Daily News

A gripping story of a suspicious death and the mysteries that surround it even a trial, a conviction, and a decade later.... Taylor gives enough information to allow each reader to form his one-person jury. RichmondTimes-Dispatch

In Taylors richly detailed account, this strange but true case makes for one mesmerizing whodunit. Pages

CHAPTER I

The Last Dooron the Left

What do you take to prison? Beverly Monroe had no idea. But her attorney had given her a list of some basic items she was supposed to bringwhite underwear, rubber-soled shoesand during the weekend before she was scheduled to surrender, in addition to setting aside money to pay her estimated taxes and signing papers giving her daughter Katie power of attorney, she packed. Each of her three children wanted her to have something personal of theirs to take with her. Her younger daughter, Shannon, gave her a blue thermal Patagonia shed gotten for Christmas. Katie had Beverly take her plaid flannel L. L. Bean pajamas. Gavin, her oldest child and only son, bought her a necklace, which she wasnt sure she would be allowed to keep.

Beverly also packed some of their old socks and a yellow tennis sweater that had been Shannons in the seventh grade. She added writing paper, her German dictionary, her French phrase book, and a few of her favorite books, including Peter Mayles A Year in Provence and a volume of poetry by Herman Hesse. Since she wasnt supposed to bring a suitcase, they put everything in a small cardboard box.

On November 9, 1992, exactly one week after she had been convicted of murdering Roger de la Burde, her children drove her up to the Powhatan County sheriffs office. The day was dry but cold. They took Beverlys dark blue Mercury Sable, following the Midlothian Turnpike west out of Richmonds suburbs and up to Route 13, a looping, narrow-shouldered road that ran through rolling fields past the Mennonite church and the local farm bureau office before reaching the village.

Greg Neal, the Powhatan investigator who had first interviewed Beverly back when everyone thought Rogers death was a suicide, waited for her in the sheriffs office. Neal seemed unwilling to look Beverly in the eye, she thought. He turned her over to one of the uniformed deputies, Tommy Broughton. Carrying her small cardboard box, she followed Broughton and a female secretary out into the parking lot and climbed into the back of an unmarked Chevrolet Caprice. A rack on the dashboard held a shotgun.

Broughton headed up to Maidens Road, which wound north through stubbled cornfields and stands of pine. Beverlys children followed close behind in her Mercury. Every minute or so, Beverly looked back and waved to them through the rear window. Throughout the trip, the secretary kept up a stream of polite conversation about the accomplishments of their respective children, as if they were at a church social.

They reached the slender bridge that crossed the James River. Beverly looked out at the dark green water. It was low at this time of the year, the muddy banks below the tree line exposed. Rogers estate, Windsor Farm, was three miles downriver, invisible beyond a bend.

Just outside Goochland, a small town on the north bank of the James, Brougton turned onto River Road West. Beverly saw the store where Roger had bought the fiberglass canoe he had used only once. Broughton pulled into the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, a cluster of old brick buildings with slate roofs and white casement windows set among magnolia and pecan trees. It was surprisingly pastoral. There was neither a wall nor a fence. Black Angus grazed in a pasture across the road. They passed a guard booth and stopped at an administration building. Beverly looked back at her children. The guard had halted them at the booth. They waved. She waved back and then followed Deputy Broughton inside.

The prisons intake room was noisy and chaotic. Guards in navy blue uniforms were bantering with other guards behind a counter as they passed heavy keys back and forth and signed clipboards. One of the women on the jury that had convicted Beverly worked somewhere back there. Beverly put her box on the floor. The guards ignored her and Deputy Broughton. After a few minutes, a door opened and a heavyset African-American woman, wearing a white jumpsuit with gold buttons, beckoned Beverly into her office.

The woman brusquely introduced herself as Ms. Wendy Hobbs, the warden. There was also a big man wearing mirrored sunglasses in the office. He sat watching Beverly in silence. The warden didnt introduce him. Instead, she launched into what seemed to be a prepared speech. Dont think that youre going to be treated any differently, she told Beverly, just because your case has had all this publicity and youve had a privileged existence. Here, youre nobody special. Here, youre not different. No one is going to cater to you. Youre a prisoner and youll be treated the same as all the other prisoners. Dont expect anything else.

Beverly just stood there and listened. She knew Warden Hobbs was making a point of cutting her down to size, and she said nothing. There wasnt any response she could think to make.

When the speech was over, Warden Hobbs dismissed her. Two guards escorted her across the grounds and down a tree-lined slope to a low brick building. A barred door opened and then closed behind them with a horrible electric buzzing noise. The building smelled powerfully of Lysol. In a waiting room, two other guards looked through her belongings and put them in a plastic bag, which they kept.

They told her to strip, then searched her body, gave her a towel to wrap around herself, and led her down a hall to a laundry room. A shower stall with a mildewed plastic curtain was wedged between the industrial-size washers and dryers. There were roaches on the floor and walls. One of the guards squirted a glob of anti-lice soap into her hand and instructed her to wash herself with it.

Beverly Monroe was the sort of woman invariably described as petite a word she hated. She seemed fragile, with her delicate bones and thin skin and startling hazel eyes, but she was actually strong and athletic. She skied and played tennis. She enjoyed hard laborbreaking soil with a mattockand liked to think of herself as a woman who was up to almost any physical challenge.

But the water in the shower was so cold that it shocked her. With only the one thin towel, she couldnt dry her hair. The guards gave her Katies flannel L. L. Bean pajamas to wear, then led her past another barred door, which opened and shut with the same horrible electric buzz, and down a quiet corridor. It had a low ceiling and brick walls painted white. On both sides of the corridor were doors with horizontal slots. Beverly saw the eyes of the people behind the doors watching her as she passed.