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Overview
A wealthy and well-connected legal ace and the proud owner of a champion show horse, Larry McNabney had every reason to love his life. But when he disappeared in September 2001, his wife, Elisa, claimed he joined a cult.
When Larry’s body was found in a shallow grave three months later, Elisa was already gone. In a red convertible Jaguar, her brown hair dyed blond, Mrs. McNabney was speeding toward a new life in Florida—and a brand new identity.
Who was Elisa McNabney? Beautiful, seductive, and ruthless, she had thirty-eight aliases and a rap sheet a mile long. Carlton Smith, coauthor of the true crime classic The Search for the Green River Killer, reveals one shocking surprise after another in this harrowing tale of broken vows and deadly betrayal.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504047593 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Open Road Media |
| Publication date: | 08/29/2017 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 340 |
| Sales rank: | 337,763 |
| File size: | 6 MB |
About the Author
Carlton Smith (1947–2011) was a prizewinning crime reporter and the author of dozens of books. Born in Riverside, California, Smith graduated from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, with a degree in history. He began his journalism career at the Los Angeles Times and arrived at the Seattle Times in 1983, where he and Tomas Guillen covered the Green River Killer case for more than a decade. They were named Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative reporting in 1988 and published the New York Times bestseller The Search for the Green River Killer (1991) ten years before investigators arrested Gary Ridgway for the murders. Smith went on to write twenty-five true crime books, including Killing Season (1994), Cold-Blooded (2004), and Dying for Love (2011).
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The sun was still below the eastern horizon as Gregory Whalen left his hotel room on his way to the barns and the horses. He always fed at 5, and the horses knew it, so they would be waiting for him. The early morning air was cool, but it would soon warm up.
Ahead in the early morning darkness, on a strip of grass walking her dog, Whalen saw his client — one of them, at least. Elisa McNabney was a beautiful woman — tall, dark, slender, with a vivacity that was inescapably seductive, at least to men. Elisa could look at you with her merry dark eyes and pin you with your own thoughts, even if you were, like Whalen, 72 years of age and old enough to know better.
Elisa looked up as Whalen approached.
"You'll never guess what happened," she said.
"What?"
"Larry's gone," Elisa said.
"Gone? Where the hell did he go?"
"He left last night," Elisa said. "We had an argument. He left. He's said he's going back to the cult."
Nonplussed by this disclosure, Whalen said nothing. Elisa's dog, Morgan, a Jack Russell terrier, sniffed at the grass. "So Larry won't be showing anymore?" Whalen finally asked, coming to grips with the practical implications of this surprise. That was Greg: forget the philosophy, focus on the immediate.
"No," Elisa said. "He said he's done with showing."
Whalen nodded. He turned and headed toward the barns, thinking the whole thing was strange, but then, rich people tended to be strange — at least, that was Whalen's experience with them. After all the work that had been done, all the money that had been spent, to just throw it all away on a whim — to go join a cult? It wasn't like Larry — or was it? As he entered the hotel elevator, Whalen thought back over the past few days, and when he replayed them in his mind, he realized that something had been brewing, all right.
They had arrived at the horse show in the City of Industry, about forty minutes east of Los Angeles, on the Wednesday before, September 5. Whalen had brought the horses down from northern California in his trailer, accompanied by his daughter, Deborah Kail, like her father, a trainer, as well as an insurance broker who specialized in casualty coverage on expensive show horses, like those of the McNabneys'. Larry and Elisa had followed them down in Larry's shiny new red Ford pickup truck, the one with the dark-tinted windows and dual rear wheels — a "dually," it was called — that had cost Larry close to $50,000 earlier in the summer. They'd all checked into the Pacific Palms hotel and prepared for the Pacific Quarter Horse Classic, the first of two four-day shows where trainers and owners of American quarter horses, like Greg and Debbie, and Larry and Elisa, put their prized animals on display. "Just like a big dog show," as Debbie Kail described it later, although it had as much in common with a fashion show as anything else. As the McNabneys' trainers, it was Whalen and his daughter's job to get the McNabney horses ready for the exhibitions. That meant exercising them, washing them, grooming them, all to make them look pretty as well as muscular. It was a full-time job, at least for Greg Whalen.
Whatever one said about Larry and Elisa, the McNabney horses, at least, were champions. One, Justa Lotta Page, Larry's yearling stallion, was worth at least $30,000 and maybe, quite soon, even a lot more. Tall, handsome, well-muscled, the sorrel-colored colt had a promising future in the American quarter horse sweepstakes. If things went right, Justa Lotta Page could eventually be sold to a breeder for many times what he had originally cost — just $12,500 — when Larry McNabney had bought him as an 8-month-old colt from Whalen at the first of the year.
Quarter horses were Greg Whalen's business — had been for more than forty years, ever since he'd quit riding rodeo bulls in his native Texas, and started making money from horse fanciers instead. It was a long way from the days when Whalen's father had raised broncos for the U.S. Army, back before World War II. From his ranch near Clements, California, north of Stockton, Whalen was something of a cross between a coach, a confessor, a barber and a chauffeur. His stock in trade was his knowledge of the American quarter horse breed. Greg bred the mares, picked the foals, raised them, trained them, then groomed them, mostly while acting as the agent of a steady stream of paying customers who formed the backbone of the horse show circuit — people, for the most part with a superabundance of both time and money, and an animating interest in displaying both. Exhibiting an American quarter horse wasn't for either the faint of heart or the weak of pocket, as more than one trainer like Whalen had pointed out to a would-be client. In a sense, participating in horse shows was a bit like owning a large yacht: if you had to ask how much it cost, you couldn't afford it. A serious exhibitor, like Larry was turning out to be, could easily spend $100,000 in one year on obtaining a horse, training, board and care, veterinary fees, transportation, accommodations and entry fees, and if the horse was a dog — so to speak — the money could never be recouped.
Whalen had known the McNabneys for about three years. Larry, he knew, was a big-time lawyer from Nevada who had made a pile in personal injury lawsuits, mostly in Reno. Elisa, almost twenty years younger than Larry, was his fifth wife. She was the one who handled all the money. As Elisa had explained it to Greg's daughter, Debbie, Larry didn't like to be bothered with financial details, that was her job. Larry's income, when it came, came in great gushing gobs, Elisa had explained; it was the nature of the business of representing clients in personal injury cases — feast or famine, as Elisa put it. Money would grow tight for a bit, then wham! — in came a huge settlement for some lawsuit, and the coffers would be filled to overflowing again. It all depended how fast Larry could make the insurance companies settle up, and for how much.
Still, it didn't seem to Greg that Larry was practicing much law these days. Ever since Greg had sold Larry Justa Lotta Page, on January 1, 2001, Larry had spent most of his time — and a lot of money — showing the horse. So far, Whalen and the McNabneys had been pretty much all over the West with the prized animal: Scottsdale, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Central Point, Oregon; Monroe, Washington; Fallon, Nevada; and a number of venues in California where prize horses were similarly exhibited.
Justa Lotta Page hadn't been broken to the saddle yet. Instead, he had been entered in halter competition, common for yearlings. This was where Larry, or Greg himself, simply led the colt into the center of the ring by means of a head halter. Points were awarded by the judge or judges based on the way the horse looked — it's "conformance," that is, its shape and muscle tone, along with its ability to respond to the directions of the human holding the rope. So, too, was the halter handler judged — on his own looks and demeanor as he directed the horse through a series of paces.
So far, Larry and Justa Lotta Page had done very well, although this was at least as much a function of the amount of money one was willing to spend as anything else — the more shows one entered, the more points might be accumulated. As of that morning, in fact, Larry was leading the nation in halter exhibition points; if he kept up his pace, it was possible that he would win the American Quarter Horse Association's Amateur Horseman of the Year Award to go with his AQHA Rookie of the Year Award from two years before. The rookie award had netted Larry a prized silver belt buckle inscribed with his name.
But it wasn't the prizes or even the fame that interested Larry in quarter horse exhibitions, although everyone who'd ever known him agreed he loved being the center of attention. The way Larry saw things, this was to be a year off for him, away from the law, which, if the truth were to be told, had begun to bore him. It wouldn't be a total write-off: instead, he hoped to lead Justa Lotta Page into the winner's circle at the AQHA's World Championship in Oklahoma City in October. A champion halter horse, a stallion with his best years still ahead of him, Larry knew, could make him rich. Larry saw Justa Lotta Page as Justa Lotta Dough, at least six figures, maybe even seven, once he had the title. Larry hoped to sell the horse for many times what he'd paid for him, thereby defraying all his exhibiting expenses (and Greg Whalen's not inconsiderable boarding costs and training fees), and making him a healthy profit to boot.
But now, if Elisa was telling the truth, Larry for some reason had decided to throw it all away.
As he thought back, Whelan realized that Larry's behavior had been off almost the entire weekend. True, he had been drinking: Larry was an inveterate imbiber of Chardonnay wine — he always seemed to have a glass in his hand. But Whelan knew that wine was only Larry's cover: the reason the glass never seemed to be empty was Larry's penchant for spiking it with vodka, and Larry's capacity for vodka was prodigious. Bob Kail — Greg's son-in-law, Debbie's husband — had played golf once with Larry, and told Greg that by the time they'd reached the eighteenth green, Larry had swigged an entire bottle of vodka between swings.
But Larry's experience as a drinker didn't account for his behavior that weekend. The booze usually made him ebullient, talkative, even boastful. In contrast, Larry that weekend had seemed withdrawn, quiet — almost spaced out, Whalen thought. Where usually Larry enjoyed interacting with people, that weekend he seemed to want to stay to himself. Even more significant, on Sunday Debbie Kail had chided Larry on his personal appearance — where he was usually extremely well-groomed, on that day he seemed a bit slovenly, at least to Debbie. She'd had to tell him to change his jeans, and in the arena during the halter competition Larry had seemed confused — unsure of himself. In an endeavor that prized how one looked and acted as much as anything else, that was an indication that all was not well with Larry. Debbie thought he was unusually depressed.
And then, on Sunday night, there had been the scene at dinner. Everyone had gone to an Italian restaurant — Greg, Debbie, Larry, Elisa, and Elisa's friend or secretary or whatever she was, Sarah Dutra. Larry had been drinking as always and seemed worse than usual, slurring his words and having difficulty in following the conversation. He seemed mad at Sarah, making faces at her and at one point calling her a "bitch." Debbie Kail thought Larry was drunker than she'd ever seen him.
Debbie had already noticed that Elisa seemed to be spending most of her time that weekend with Sarah, and the two of them well away from Larry. At one point, either on Friday or Saturday, Debbie had overheard Elisa telling another friend that they would make sure Larry had enough to drink so he would pass out, so Elisa and Sarah could go out and party without him. Larry didn't like Sarah, Debbie knew; it was almost as if he were jealous of the pretty 21-year-old blond student, who always seemed to be at Elisa's side. At the dinner, the tension between Larry and Sarah had been obvious to everyone.
"Fuck you, Larry," Sarah had whispered, raising her middle finger to her cheek in a more decorous version of the obscene gesture. Larry didn't say anything. Then, a few minutes later, Larry had grabbed Debbie's arm, and told her she was acting like a "bitch" herself, although he didn't appear to be angry at her. He was apparently trying to make a joke. Greg had been offended, Debbie had been hurt, and Elisa had been embarrassed. Sarah had just rolled her eyes. Greg told Larry to knock it off, and Larry had apologized. Later, Greg had to help Larry out of the restaurant, he was so wobbly. In fact, Larry fell down once on the way to his red truck. That night, after the dinner, Sarah had left, intending to drive back to Sacramento, where she had classes in art at Sacramento State University.
The following day, Monday, Larry seemed preoccupied, again withdrawn. Greg and Debbie both wondered whether Larry and Elisa were having serious marital difficulties, and the more Greg thought about it, the more likely that seemed. It wouldn't be the first time in Whalen's experience a younger wife had been seduced by the atmosphere around the horse show — the large, muscular animals, the smells, the rangy hired horse handlers, the traveling circus aspect of the exhibitions — and knocked something off on the side. Maybe Elisa was stepping out on Larry; maybe Larry had found out about it, and had decided to climb even further into the bottle to kill the pain. In fact, Greg wondered whether Elisa had something going with Sarah — Larry had already told him, months earlier, that he wanted his wife to fire Sarah, that they were "too close." What did that mean?
Still, Greg thought, over the weekend Larry had seemed enthusiastic about the immediate future: based on the performance over the weekend, Larry and Justa Lotta Page had passed his main competition for Horseman of the Year. He and Greg talked about taking Justa Lotta Page East, even to Florida, where there were many more horse shows, and the opportunity to win still more points, which would give Larry and his horse a shot at a national championship.
Others also saw Larry the same day, hanging around the barn near the arena, the ever-present glass of Chardonnay in his hand. To some, Larry seemed mellow, feeling no pain. If he was upset about something, he was hiding it well.
Nevertheless, by that Monday night, Larry had taken to his bed in the hotel. Greg called to invite him to dinner with him and Debbie, but Larry said he just wanted to rest, maybe watch a movie on television. Around 6:30 that night Elisa had come down from the McNabney room, just across the hall from the room shared by Greg and his daughter. At the table in the hotel restaurant, Elisa made a call on her cell phone to Larry, trying again to get him to join them, but Larry didn't want to come down. Elisa sat with Greg and Debbie for maybe twenty minutes, then picked up a bowl of soup, a salad and two glasses of Chardonnay, and took them upstairs to her husband. Later, Greg and Debbie went out to check the horses once more before retiring for the night.
Then, in the morning, Tuesday, September 11, Larry was gone, according to Elisa — off to join some sort of cult. To Whalen, it seemed flakey. He hoped Larry knew what he was doing.
About quarter to 7 that Tuesday morning, after his brief conversation with Elisa McNabney on the grass strip in front of the Pacific Palms hotel, and after he'd fed the horses, Greg Whalen returned to the hotel room he was sharing with his daughter, Debbie Kail.
As he came through the door, Debbie's eyes were glued to the television screen.
"You won't believe what just happened," Debbie told her father.
"You won't believe what just happened," Greg retorted. "Larry's left. He ran away to join a cult."
Then Greg noticed what Debbie had been talking about — there on the screen was a picture of the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York, smoke pouring from a gaping hole about two-thirds of the way up. And as they stared at the screen, the whole building went down in a tremendous cloud of fire and smoke.
Later, the terror attacks on the World Trade Center were to provide a sort of dividing line for everyone involved in the Larry McNabney mystery — while most everyone in America could recall where they were when the attacks took place, for those involved in the McNabney case, the attacks became a sort of reference point for recalling who did and said what in the hours immediately afterward. And like most such intensive recollections, recounted many times to many people, some portions became hardened in memory, whether real or imagined, and others evaporated. It was only by piecing together the various recollections of a number of individuals that a coherent scheme of the events became discernible, and it necessarily was a tale not unlike Rashomon, with different perceptions of truth depending on one's perspective.
Greg, for one, recalled that no sooner had he watched the first tower fall than both Elisa and Sarah Dutra entered the room. He recalled overhearing some vague conversation between Debbie and Elisa about Larry leaving the hotel to join a cult, but it didn't seem particularly important at the time, not with the disaster that had just taken place. Even as they stared at the screen, the second tower collapsed.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Cold-Blooded"
by .
Copyright © 2004 Carlton Smith.
Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
- Cover Page
- Title Page
- September 2001: City of Industry, California
- 1
- 2
- Larry
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Laren
- 1
- Shantar
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- Blanche
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- Elisa and Sarah
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- Scheffel
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- Shane
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- The Truth
- 1
- Image Gallery
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Copyright Page
