Eddie nodded, and put down his fork. “First, I met with two of Benedict’s co-workers, the only two who are still on staff from the time he worked there. Benedict was, shall we say, eased out of his position at NAU. There was quite a stink about that. He was living with a woman named Elaine Hayden. They met at NAU; she worked in student services.”
“And?”
“She died just a year after Benedict moved in with her. It was a violent death, and the Coconino County prosecutor’s office tried her boyfriend, Sausalito's superstar gourmet chef, for murder one. But based on the evidence, that was perhaps an overreach. They probably could have sold the jury on a manslaughter conviction.”
“How did she die?”
“Broken neck," Eddie said with a wince. “She fell down a flight of steps in her own home.”
“Wow!”
“Bradley—I mean Benedict claimed it was an accident. The Flagstaff police and the county sheriff’s department had reason to believe it was a homicide.”
“Why was that?”
“Turns out that the older boy in one of those two pictures we found was Hayden’s son, from a previous marriage. The younger one was a foster kid who was placed in the house at the age of six, around eighteen months before Hayden's death.”
“But what made the cops think Hayden's fall was anything other than an accident? Did her kids witness the fall?”
“Let me back up a bit. You see, two weeks before she died, Elaine Hayden went to child welfare services claiming that Benedict had molested both boys. Of course, Benedict denied everything. He insisted that both boys fabricated the stories because he was strict with them, and it was their way of driving a wedge between him and their mother.”
“Then what?”
“Child services brought in therapists to talk with both of the boys. The older one, James, who had just turned twelve at the time, said he had been molested on and off during the time Benedict lived in the home. But Topher, the youngest of the two, denied ever having been touched by Benedict. Interestingly enough, however, it was the younger one who told investigators that our Mr. Bradley had pushed Hayden down the steps, but the defense shredded the kid’s story on the witness stand.”
“What about the older brother?”
“Bad luck for the prosecutor, great luck for Benedict. James was at a sleepover the night his mother died. He would likely have been a much more convincing witness than the little guy. He did give child services quite a credible description of Benedict's behavior from what I could tell reading through the trial transcript, but getting a murder one conviction on Benedict, based on the testimony of a seven-year-old foster kid, who came from a challenging background, was a very tall order.”
“What a sad story,” Rob said, shaking his head.
“The jury deliberated for four days and then voted for acquittal. If it had been a hung jury, Bradley could have been re-tried. Unfortunately, the prosecutor went for all the marbles and walked away with zip.
"Despite being acquitted, Benedict lost his job.”
“Couldn’t he have sued NAU?” Rob asked.
“Yes. But I guess in this case; Bradley must have felt he had just beaten a hangman’s noose, and thought it a better idea to thank God he was a free man. So he didn't make a big fuss about the dismissal, he just got the hell out of town determined to start his life over again.”
“Where did he go after Flagstaff?”
“One of the guys in the sheriff’s office took a particular liking to the boys, both of whom had been placed in separate homes after Hayden’s death. Like a lot of small counties, Coconino has limited resources, but the sheriff did his best to keep tabs on Benedict. The last he heard, he was living a thousand miles east of Flagstaff, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. That’s where I tracked down the name change he filed to go from Benedict to Bradley.”
“Doesn’t law enforcement keep a national database for child predators?”
“Yes. But remember, he was acquitted of the murder. As for the molestation accusation, somehow the new name became his loophole on that score.” Eddie sighed. “At least the kids had been placed far away from Benedict, regardless of what he did or did not do. Things calmed down, new cases started up, and old cases began to fade into the past. Flagstaff was simply glad to be rid of William Benedict. The city and county workers involved in the case were not overly concerned about where he went, as long as it was very far from their jurisdiction.”
“Any idea what happened to the kids?”
“Hayden’s son, the one who was twelve at the time of her death, later died of a drug overdose. Poor kid! From what I read in his file, he had a pretty miserable life after his mom died. He went to live with Hayden's parents but fell in with a bad crowd. I would love to have spoken with him about William Benedict before he became the Warren Bradley we knew.”
“What about the younger boy, and how does any of this tie into Bradley's murder?”
“I'm getting to that. The younger kid bounced from one foster home to another. At fifteen, by some miracle, he caught a break. He wound up in San Jose with a great family and stopped acting out. He went to San Jose State, studied criminal justice like yours truly, and his foster care dad got him a position with the San Jose police department. Could have been a happy ending, but…”
“But what?”
“You don’t know the name of that troubled little seven-year-old boy. Remember little Topher who got chewed up by Benedict’s defense team? He decided to take the last name of his San Jose family: Harding. He now goes by his given name, Christopher, you know, Chris, as in Chris Harding.”
“WHAT?” Rob, realizing how loud he had said that single word, grimaced. Fortunately, before five o’clock, Francesco’s was still mostly empty.
“The
