The heinous crime spree of Robert Willie of Covington and Joseph Vaccaro of Pearl River did not end at Fricke's Cave with eighteen-year-old Faith Hathaway, whose parents - mother Elizabeth and stepfather Vernon Harvey - had promptly reported her missing. Continuing on to Madisonville, it was there, in the early morning of May 31, 1980, that Willie and Vaccaro kidnapped Mark Brewster and his girlfriend Debbie Cuevas on the Tchefuncte riverfront. They hadn't a clue that the young couple would lead to their undoing.
After the abduction, they journeyed from Madisonville toward Goodbee where Brewster was forced into the trunk and Cuevas was assaulted by Willie in the back seat. Then, they headed east toward Alabama where after retrieving Brewster from the trunk of his car, they tied him to a tree, beat him with a sawed-off shotgun, shot him in the back of the head with a .22 caliber pistol, and slashed his throat, leaving him for dead in the woods in Baldwin County.
Following this relentless evil, they headed back to Louisiana with Cuevas, returning to their old stomping ground - Fricke's Cave - situated just south of Franklinton, where Cuevas was assaulted again by Willie. Returning to St. Tammany Parish, they rendezvoused with a buddy, Thomas Holden, at his trailer where they spent the night and where Vaccaro assaulted Cuevas. But they eventually made their way back to Madisonville, where they released her.
Debbie Cuevas had outsmarted them. She had mettle, and the will to live. And though she was young (her name was withheld from all media back then because she was a minor), she was sharp as a tack. Cuevas kept her suffering secondary long enough to lead authorities back to the Alabama woods where Brewster was left to die. He survived. And Cuevas named Willie and Vaccaro as the culprits who committed these atrocities - derailing their career of crime.
In addition, she revealed to the authorities that Vaccaro had mentioned another girl that he had raped and whose throat had been slashed. And they had left her to die, just like Brewster. Cuevas sagely led detectives back to Fricke's Cave where her captors had taken her during part of the perilous period - thirty long hours - that she was held by them, from May 31 to June 1. Debbie Cuevas's strength and resolve far surpassed that of her captors. Though I never had the honor to meet her - we are the same age - I greatly admire her. The way I see it, Debbie Cuevas was indomitable. My hairdresser, who went to high school with Cuevas, described her exactly as I perceived from my reading - strong and brave and genuine.
It was on the first day of June, a Sunday, that belongings - clothing and a purse thought to be Faith Hathaway's - were found by picnickers in Fricke's Cave, the first physical sign that she might have been there. The authorities descended on Fricke's Cave. But no body was located during the intensive search. Unsuccessful, the search was over by Tuesday, June 3. Yet on a hunch, Michael Varnado, Chief Investigator with the District Attorney's office, who also had resolve, went back to the cave area, both that evening and the next day. He and another searcher, a deputy, took one final look on Wednesday. And Varnado found Hathaway's nude, ravaged body. Her throat had been cut, and she had been sexually assaulted.
I won't detail the many court proceedings against the two at this juncture. But in summary, in the fall of 1980 in 22nd Judicial District Court in the Washington Parish courthouse, the two villains were tried separately, with one trial upstairs and one in the basement, for the crime against Faith Hathaway. With Judge Hillary J. Crain presiding in the basement courtroom, Willie was found guilty of first degree murder and was sentenced to death. With Judge A. Clayton James, Jr., presiding upstairs, Vaccaro's jury likewise found him guilty of first degree murder. But they were hung, unable to unanimously agree, on the sentencing issue - life imprisonment versus the death penalty. Accordingly, Judge James in 22nd District Court sentenced Vaccaro to life imprisonment, without benefit of parole or reduction of sentence.
The two also received three life sentences for the federal kidnapping (of Brewster and Cuevas) charges against them. After three days of trial testimony, Willie and Vaccaro pled guilty to aggravated kidnapping of Brewster and Cuevas and aggravated rape of Cuevas in the proceeding in 19th District Court in Baton Rouge, where the trial was moved (due to pre-trial publicity) from 22nd District Court in Covington - each criminal receiving two consecutive life sentences for the kidnappings and two additional life sentences for the rape charges. Initially, I couldn't keep count of all of the life sentences they amassed. Some of them were for prior murders, including one for killing St. Tammany Deputy Sheriff Sergeant Louis Wagner II and another for murdering Dennis B. Hemby during a robbery for drugs in St. Tammany Parish. In a subsequent column in this series, I will clarify, relying on information from the terrific book authored by Detective Michael L. Varnado, Chief Investigator with the District Attorney's office at the time of Faith Hathaway's murder, and lawyer D.P. Smith.
Though one was as guilty as the other, my impression just from what I've read is that, of the two, Robert Willie was the chief evildoer. His cunning, manipulative nature, not only in court but anytime he had an audience, confirmed it for me. But Vaccaro certainly was part of the wickedness. Over the years, I have often wondered how many more unsolved cases could be attributed to this incorrigible pair. The villains left a trail of victims in their wake before they were apprehended.
And then came the cavalcade of books detailing these horrific crimes, that happened so close to home. After accumulating a legion of pertinent newspaper articles over the years, spellbound, I read each of three books - by the victim, the chief investigator, and the nun. Many recall the famous film "Dead Man Walking" released in 1995 with Susan Sarandon as Sister Helen Prejean and Sean Penn as Matthew Poncelet, whose character was patterned after the real Robert Willie. It was based on the book by the same name authored by Sister Helen Prejean in her crusade against the death penalty. This bestseller was based, in large part, on the story of Robert Willie on death row.
•Stay tuned for more in next week's column, the third in this sad series.
