Then No One Can Have Her by Caitlin Rother

you need anything else?” Boan asked, thinking he might need toiletries, a shaving kit or something from the bathroom.
    Jim said no, he would be fine, and they signed out eight minutes later.
    Boan told Jim not to talk to anyone about the case and asked him where he was staying, in case they needed to reach him. Jim said he was going to try the Marriott in Prescott.
    At 1:19 A.M ., Jim called his brother, Bobby, in Hawaii and told him the devastating news that Carol was dead.
    Boan didn’t bother to mention in his initial investigative reports that he’d searched Jim’s truck that night. It wasn’t until August that he did so, after another investigator pointed out the omission.
    The delay in including these details didn’t look too good—as if the officers had made a mistake—but this sort of thing happened a number of times, and they figured it was better to include the information late than not at all. However, it was these types of mistakes and omissions that became fodder for defense attorneys later as they accused the sheriff ’s department of failing to thoroughly investigate Jim as a suspect, especially when they had interrogated Steve all night and even photographed him in his underwear.
    The defense questioned, for example, why investigators didn’t ask why it took Jim Knapp so long to settle in for the night—it was ninety minutes before he finally checked into the Marriott Springhill Suites at 2:42 A.M . And how did he know about all the blood in the house if he wasn’t allowed into the crime scene that night?
    Responding to these criticisms, Mike Sechez, the former prosecution investigator, countered that the sheriff ’s team did look at Jim that night. They “searched his guesthouse, just like it was part of the crime scene, and they searched his truck and they interviewed him.”
    And the blood? Brown later testified that when Jim called him the next day to ask if he could return to the guesthouse, Brown warned him about all the blood in the house. “I didn’t want to have anybody walk into it and not to be expecting something that wasn’t pretty,” Brown said.

CHAPTER 7
    Around 1:30 A.M . on July 3, the detectives began a series of recorded interviews in separate rooms at the sheriff ’s station. Detective Brown and Sergeant Huante talked to Steve; Lieutenant Rhodes took Charlotte; and Commander Mascher spoke with Jake, trying to establish a timeline of everyone’s whereabouts and activities that day.
    At the start of Steve’s interview, he said he would really rather talk to the detectives the next day. “I want to help you—”
    â€œRight, I know, and—”
    â€œCharlotte—we just—it’s kind of a shock. I’d prefer not to be up all night.”
    â€œI’d prefer not to be up all night, either,” Brown said, proceeding with his questions.
    Steve asked for some water, then Brown started going through the text messages that had come into Steve’s cell phone while it was turned off. The first was one from Barb at 8:46 P.M .
    â€œWho is Barb?”
    â€œBarb is a—a former partner.... She and I have been working together for a long, long time.... We were really involved for years and we are both business partners, and, uh, um—”
    â€œHere’s one from Carol,” Steve said, referring to the one she sent at 7:27 P.M . about shipping Katie’s things. Steve said it had gotten stored on his phone while it was off, and it didn’t come in until 10:08 P.M .
    â€œIs that when you turned it on, then?”
    â€œThat’s when I—I remembered I had a, um, spare battery.”
    â€œSo your phone was dead?”
    â€œIt was, yeah.”
    Throughout the course of the night, Steve’s story about his cell phone changed. There wasn’t a good signal where he’d been riding. His phone battery died and he didn’t remember he had a