Read Online To Love and to Kill by M. William Phelps - Free Book Online

so it gets into the system very quickly. It’s an extremely efficient and fast way to get reports into the system so everyone can have access to them. “The Star Operators see hundreds of cases throughout the year they write up in the computers and begin to develop a sense for them,” Buie added. “They saw this case of Heather Strong going missing and something just didn’t appear to be right. And that’s how the case was brought to my attention.”
    Sometimes it just starts with a cop having a feeling. Buie then had his boss, Brian Spivey, look at it—and that was when he heard Spivey’s feeling that Heather was dead.
    Buie read through the case one day in mid-March. “And I immediately felt something was wrong. Lot of red flags. There was a lot of history between Josh and Heather.... Even if Heather didn’t live a grand lifestyle, she still worked as hard as she could to provide for her and her kids. It was unlike her to disappear. This was obvious right away to me.”
    One thing Buie noticed was that nobody had interviewed Josh and Heather’s oldest child. She was eight at the time. He wrote himself a note to get over to Josh’s mother’s, where the kids were staying, and talk to the child as soon as possible.
    Another interesting dynamic Buie found was that Josh and Heather “had a pretty open relationship.” Meaning, they often involved others in their sexual fun. Whenever that type of fact emerged, Buie knew, anything was possible.
    Love, money, revenge—that’s why people kill one another.
    Buie needed to run down everything that came in, so he contacted Greyhound in Ocala, the only local bus depot around. Its computers did not have any record of Heather (or Josh) purchasing a ticket to Mississippi or anywhere else.
    As investigators were in a meeting that afternoon talking about the case, Sergeant Brian Spivey interrupted.
    â€œWe got some information here about Miss Strong’s debit card being used right now at the Reddick Supermarket.” The MCSO had the equivalent to an all points bulletin (APB) out on the debit card, so any time it was used they’d get a call immediately. “Come on, let’s go. . . .”
    Spivey and another detective took off for Reddick. As they drove, Spivey said, “We think it’s got to be the husband, Josh Fulgham. We’re told he’s driving a maroon four-door Toyota car.”
    As they approached a traffic light after getting off the I-75, then headed east on Highway 318, near Highway 441, they spotted a maroon Toyota traveling through a traffic light heading north in the opposite direction.
    Spivey called it in.
    They followed Josh Fulgham as he drove into the Pine Grove Mobile Home Park, where he now lived, but they held back and observed Josh walk into his home.
    Spivey called for backup. It was time to make a move on Josh and have a more focused chat with him. Put his feet to the flame a little bit and find out what he knew.
    They sat surveillance on Josh’s mobile home. By early evening, they had a warrant for Josh’s arrest on charges of him withdrawing forty-two dollars from Heather’s account at the Publix ATM machine. According to the MCSO, Josh had committed credit/debit card fraud.
    Sergeant Spivey sat and watched the mobile home as several other detectives arrived to help out. Some were parked near Josh’s home; some waited across the way on Highway 441. The MCSO wanted to get Josh into its Ocala Major Crimes headquarters and sit him down, get him on record, maybe get Josh to tie himself to a signed statement. They could question him about Heather under the guise of a potential fraud charge. After all, the MCSO knew that a fraud charge like this would probably never fly in court. Josh was still Heather’s husband; maybe his name was even on her account. Still, it was a good ruse to get him downtown.
    Detectives Brian Spivey and Donald Buie met down the