(Note: The recent discovery of two bodies buried outside a home in Saline County, Arkansas, just south of Little Rock, bears a disquieting connection to the deaths of Don Henry and Kevin Ives, the teenagers whose murders—and others—I explored in “The Boys on the Tracks.” Marissa Wright, then known as Marissa Bragg, was implicated in one of those murders.)
(Yesterday, under terms of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, I asked to see the search warrant documents that led to unearthing the bodies. I was told that those records were sealed. This morning, however, I was notified that the seal had been removed.)
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Marissa L. Wright of Traskwood confessed that she murdered Joe Lee Richards, Jr., and Randall Craig Anderson, whose bodies were found Oct. 5 in the backyard of her home, according to documents released this morning and provided to me by the Saline County Circuit Court clerk.
Among the documents are sworn affidavits claiming that Wright told police she had ”used an automotive ‘creeper’” to move one of the bodies through her house and that she had written about the murders in journals.
Wright, 50, has been charged with two counts of capital murder in the killings. Despite several searches of her residence, and a search of a nearby house, the documents did not report that a journal describing the murders was found.
A second woman, Myra Terry, 53, has been charged with hindering a police investigation, abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence in the case.
The documents unsealed today outline a series of search warrants sought and granted over the course of 10 days as the investigation developed. The series began on Sept. 28, when a Saline County circuit court authorized police to search Wright’s house for cleaning supplies, a gun, ammunition, and any “evidence that a crime has been committed.”
On Oct. 4, a second warrant was issued for “any human remains.”
According to one affidavit, Wright “attempted to commit suicide by taking medication and turning on the gas on the stove” hours before the second search warrant was granted.The affidavit seeking it noted: “She had left a note with a family member to give to the police if anything ever happened to her.”
Police said they interviewed Wright after the failed suicide attempt. Det. Jeremy Riedmueller told the court that, during that interview, Wright told investigators “that she buried Richards, Jr., under some blocks behind her residence” and that “another person named Randy was buried under the Koi pond.”
The bodies were discovered the following day, Oct. 5, during a search conducted by officers from the Benton Police Department, the Saline County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI.
A request for a third search, filed by a Saline County sheriff’s detective, claims that Wright admitted striking Anderson “with an ax or ax handle prior to killing him” and using “sheet plastic or visquine (sic) to wrap Randall Craig Anderson up in after killing him.” It continued: “Marissa L. Wright also divulged that she had used an automotive ‘creeper’ to move the body of Joe Lee Richards, Jr. around through the residence.”
On Oct. 7, Judge Robert Herzfeld authorized police to search for “an ax handle, an automotive creeper, rolls of plastic sheeting in clear and black, and journals or notebooks.”
A fourth search warrant was issued on Oct. 10, this one specifically for the particular journal or journals in which police believed Wright had written about the murders.
All told, the documents report that police seized three journals, eight spiral notebooks, one sketchbook, one composition notebook, three pages of handwritten notes, a letter and some shredded paper. These items were in addition to other reported evidence, including drug paraphernalia, two pistols, ammunition (spent and live), “aged ax handle,” and “two human bodies.”
The Sept. 28 affidavit
The documents released this morning also provide a glimpse into how police pursued the search for Richards, who was missing for almost two years, and where their breaks in the case came. According to Riedmueller’s affidavit on Sept. 28, for the original search warrant:
Joe Lee Richards, Jr., was reported missing by his father, a Benton alderman, on Oct. 20, 2010. Wright, who was Richards’ girlfriend, said that he was at her house until about 1:30 a.m., and that Myra Terry, a former girlfriend of Richards, was also at the house that night.
Terry reported that Richards had left the house at around midnight, after he and Wright had argued “about him owing her money.”
On Nov. 16, 2010, “a female called 911 from the pay phone at the BP Food Mart in Benton. She refused to give her name for fear of her life, but said Rissa Wright killed Richards, Jr., in the bathroom of her home by shooting him.”
The caller “also said Marissa tortured and killed another person named Randy in the bedroom of her home two or three years ago. She said there was blood everywhere, and the room had been repainted to cover it up.”
During further investigation, Riedmueller wrote that he learned that a person named Dana Creech had been present at Wright’s house when Richards was shot.
Riedmueller wrote that he interviewed Creech on Sept. 16 of this year, when she told him that she and Terry were with Wright that night, along with James Marcus (Marc) Fisher ,“cooking methamphetamine.”
Riedmueller wrote: “Dana said she heard a noise at the front door and the next thing she knew, a white male she learned to be Richards, Jr., was pushing his way into the bathroom, where the meth cook was taking place.
“She said Richards, Jr., jumped on top of Marc and started fighting with him. She said she then heard two pops and Richards, Jr., started saying, ‘She shot me!’
“Dana said she saw a pistol in Marissa’s hand and Marissa said, ‘I had to do something to get you to calm down.’
“Dana said she and Marc then ran out of the house to leave, but he could not find the keys to his truck. She said they then left in Marissa’s Jeep. She said Richards, Jr., was still alive and talking when they left.”
On Sept. 23, a second police officer interviewed Creech. She told him she was not in the room when Richards was shot and that she was not “the anonymous 911 caller from Nov. 16, 2010.”
On Sept 27, Fisher and his wife went to the Benton Police Department to be interviewed. Fisher reportedly said he had gone to Wright’s house on the night of the shooting.
“Marc said at some point later in the night he heard a commotion and saw Richards, Jr., storming into Marissa’s bedroom, which is next to the bathroom where the meth cook was taking place. He said Richards, Jr., picked Marissa up and threw her on the bed, then came into the bathroom and tackled him onto the floor.
“Marc said Richards, Jr., was on top of him, when he heard a pop. He said Richards, Jr., partially rolled on his side and said, ‘She shot me!’
“Marc said he saw Marissa holding a pistol in her hand, which he believed to be a Ruger .22 that belongs to her dad, who still lives at the house with Marissa. He said she told him to leave the house.”
Riedmueller wrote: “Marc also told me that Marissa later told him that nobody would ever find Richards, Jr.”
The detective added: “I learned during the investigaton that Marissa had been involved in the murder of Jeffery Rhodes in 1989. Saline County Court records show she was granted immunity for her testimony against the co-defendant.”
“Dana and Marc both stated they knew about Marissa’s involvement in the Jeffery Rhodes murder and are in fear for their lives, if Marissa finds out they provided information about the Richards, Jr., case.” For that reason, Riedmueller asked the court that the affidavit be sealed.
The affidavits of Oct. 4, 7 and 10
Reidmueller restated much of the above when he returned to court the day after the first search was conducted. Shortly before 5 p.m. on Oct. 4, he swore out an affidavit for a second search.
Reidmueller wrote that earlier that day, an Arkansas State Police trooper had contacted Benton police “and stated he learned through Marissa’s dad’s pastor where Richards, Jr.’s body was located.” The trooper said that Wright’s father, R.B. Wright, had also told him the alderman’s body was “under the fish pond.”
The detective wrote that less than an hour before, “at about 4:15 p.m.,” another detective had informed him of Marissa Wright’s attempted suicide, and the note she’d reportedly written, identifying the location of the bodies.
Reidmueller asked the court to allow a second search because he now had reasonable cause to believe that Richard’s body was on the property. The next day, Oct. 5, not one, but two bodies were found.
Two days later, on Oct. 7, Herzfeld considered an affidavit for a third search warrant, this one presented by Det. Stuart of the sheriff’s department. This time the police wanted to look for the ax handle, the “automotive creeper, the plastic sheeting and “an unknown number of journals or notebooks.”
Stuart wrote that, the day before, pathologists at the state crime lab had performed autopsies on the two sets of remains. He added that the bodies were identified through fingerprints as those of Richards and Anderson and that, “These identifications matched information obtained from Marissa L. Wright in a letter left prior to attempting suicide on the day the bodies were uncovered.”
After Wright’s failed suicide attempt, Stuart wrote, two sheriff’s detectives interviewed her. It was during this questioning, he said, that she spoke of striking Anderson with the “ax or ax handle” and wrapping him in plastic, and of moving Richards’ body through her house with the automotive tool.
The documents released indicate that police did seize an ax handle from the property, along with many forms of notebooks, but not that a creeper or any plastic sheeting was found. And it seems the police still did not have the one journal they most wanted.
Stuart also filed the final affidavit to date, for a fourth search warrant, on Oct. 10. This one sought permission to search a second residence in hopes of finding “certain items, mainly journal(s) or notebook(s).”
The warrant was approved but, at least according to these documents, that journal was not found. An officer with the sheriff’s department said the investigation is ongoing.
