Kathryn Casey - A Descent Into Hell: The True Story of an Altar Boy, a Cheerleader, and a Twisted Texas Murder

Kathryn Casey

A Descent Into Hell

The True Story of an Altar Boy, a Cheerleader, and a Twisted Texas Murder

In memory of Jennifer Cave,
the girl who dreamed of Oz.

Contents

The clock tower had placidly watched over Austin from 230

Bishop, Texas, lies thirty minutes by car south of Corpus

Parenthood is a dance of sorts. Mothers and fathers carry

Despite her hopes, Sharon moved Jennifer to Austin with some

On April 6, 2001, the spring Colton Pitonyak graduated from

Jennifer had been in Austin for nearly a year in

In Little Rock, the Pitonyaks moved that spring. They sold

Tell me about your friend, Colton, Sharon asked Jennifer one

Weeks after his arrest, Colton moved into a rented second-floor

Their paths had crossed the previous November at a party.

While Jennifer was busy setting up housekeeping with Scott and

On June 10, 2005, Colton Pitonyak appeared before Judge Wilford

I didnt know at first that Jennifer was back on

After hed blown his biology exam on Saturday, Colton Pitonyak

Less than an hour after Michael Rodriguez hung up the

At seven the next morning, August 18, a Thursday, Vanessas

Is it Jennifer? Sharon demanded again, when he walked outside.

At 1:30 A.M., Jim followed in his Suburban, and the

The first article on the case appeared in the Austin

An article on the West Campus killing in the Austin

They got him. They got him, Scott heard Vanessa screaming

Within days of the first Statesman articles on the case

At first, Henriette Langenbach didnt understand why the other inmates

West Campus was still percolating with the aftermath of the

In October, two months after Jennifers death, Sharon saw Colton

On Friday, June 9, 2006, Austin temperatures crept up, flirting

A year after Jennifer Caves death, at the start of

As she got ready to leave for Austin for the

Throughout the week, the UT dorm rooms, classrooms, and Internet

At 9:50 that Monday morning, court reconvened. The two alternate

That spring, following Colton Pitonyaks conviction, Sharon Cave tried to

The moon shone a tarnished red-gold over Austin just before

Some names and identifying features have been changed throughout this book. They include: Justin Walters, Eva Taylor, Brent, Frank, Tracey Ryan, Jared Smyth, Amy Pack, Michaela Sloan, Sammi Moore, Chris Collins, Louisa, Larry, and Nicole Ford.

The clock tower had placidly watched over Austin from 230 feet above since 1937. It was so loved that the sight of its vertical column soaring into a cloudless blue sky swelled alumni with pride. Few disputed that the imposing tower with its four twelve-foot faces rimmed in gold leaf was the symbol of the University of Texas, or that UT was the university Lone Star parents pushed their children to attend, the institution that inspired high schoolers to crash for exams and hoard birthday money in a college fund. For UT and its tower were much more than a university and a building; they were symbols of hope and the promise of a dream.

Yet the clock tower had another history as well, a much darker one.

On August 1, 1966, a twenty-five-year-old architecture student and ex-marine, Charles Joseph Whitman, climbed the UT clock tower stairs lugging a cache of weapons. The nightmare lasted eighty minutes. Before a police bullet found its mark and ended the carnage, Whitman murdered sixteen, including his wife and mother, and wounded thirty-one.

Fast-forward thirty-nine years to August 18, 2005. On this day, yet another shocking tragedy unfolded in the clock towers shadow.

On the universitys West Campus, a well-heeled neighborhood of sororities, frat houses, and expensive student housing, at 2529 Rio Grande, stood the Orange Tree, a block-long, three-story condominium project, one of the most prestigious on the campus. On the second floor, a locked red door with the number 88 marked the condo leased by Colton Pitonyak. A National Merit Scholar finalist whod had the advantages of a prosperous upbringing, Pitonyak was a former Catholic school kid, an altar boy who spoke French and played the guitar and piano. When he left Little Rock, Arkansas, four years earlier with a full academic scholarship to study finance at UTs esteemed McCombs Business School, many believed he would one day make his name as a Wall Street whiz kid.

This night would prove them wrong. Instead, Colton Pitonyaks legacy would be markedly more sinister. But then, no one could have predicted the horror that waited behind the door marked 88.

The heat that August was nearly unbearable, well into the nineties. Summer in Austin could be blisteringly hot. Yet a breeze ruffled the trees, and no one in the small group gathered outside Colton Pitonyaks apartment noticed the sweltering weather.

Theyd been there for hours: Sharon Cave; her tall, sandy-haired accountant boyfriend, Jim Sedwick; and Caves oldest daughter, Vanessa.

A petite woman with thick, dark blond hair, Cave stared at the locked red door to unit 88. Her second child, twenty-one-year-old Jennifer, was missing. No one had seen her in nearly forty-eight hours, not since she had left a bar with Pitonyak. When Sharon called his cell phone from her Corpus Christi home, a surly Pitonyak refused to answer questions.

Dude, Im having pizza with my friend, he replied. Dont bother me.

Worried, Cave and Sedwick rushed to Austin. Twenty-five-year-old Vanessa came, too, driving in from Dallas. They were all determined to find Jennifer, and their only clue was Pitonyak. But theyd pounded over and over again on his door, and no one answered. The afternoon wore on. Sunset passed, leaving the sky cloaked in darkness, as lights illuminated the somber tower. At the apartment marked 88, Sharon, Jim, and Vanessa stood vigil, for what they werent sure. All Sharon knew for certain was that she had to get into Pitonyaks apartment. The answer to Jennifers disappearance waited inside.

Like her mother, Vanessa, willowy with long, dark blond hair, understood things she couldnt explain. Sharon and all three of her daughters were like that, so connected it was a nearly psychic bond, an uncut spiritual umbilical cord that bound them together. Deep within them, Vanessa and Sharon unconsciously understood the importance of this day. Something grave had taken place, and they sensed the breaking of the tie that anchored them to Jennifer, the slipping away of her presence in their lives.

At 10 P.M. the University of Texas clock towers carillon rang, marking the hour, and for Sharon, Jim, and Vanessa, time stood still. When it started again, Jim Sedwick crawled through a window into Colton Pitonyaks apartment, and their lives changed, forever.

Bishop, Texas, lies thirty minutes by car south of Corpus Christi and inland from the Gulf of Mexico, but its a world away from the hubbub of the city. Surrounded by fields of sorghum and cotton, the town grain elevator weighs the bounty from the fields, determining the financial health of the townsfolk. With a population that hovers just over three thousand, its typical small-town America: a Dairy Queen and a truck stop, schools and churches that form the core of the community. The land is flat, the sky is big, and the horizon a full 360 degrees. Relentlessly straight roads appear to drop off the edge of the earth, and the local chemical plant is a city of pipe, its smokestacks burning off residue in a bright, hot, golden flame.