Gabby Moore had been alive at eleven P.M. the night before—Christmas Eve. He had been alive, according to his former father-in-law, at 12:15 A.M. when Dr. Myers talked to him on the phone and the two planned a lunch date for December 26. He was dead when his son came home an hour to an hour and a half later.
What had happened during that vital and mysterious time period? Had someone forced his—or her—way into Gabby’s apartment, pulled down the blinds to hide what was going on inside from the neighbors, leaving the back door propped open with a brick to assure a quick and fluid getaway?
Ever since Morris Blankenbaker’s murder, Gabby Moore had been telling intimates that someone was stalking him too, and that he was afraid for himself and his family. No one had taken Gabby very seriously when he insisted that someone was trying to get to him, just the way they had got to Morris. He had tried to tell Jerilee about it, to convince her that not only was he innocent of any implication in Morris’s death, but that he was in danger too. He had sworn to Jerilee that he would prove to her he was not involved in any collusion in Morris’s murder. Had he had to die to prove his innocence to her? Or was it possible that the real answers to two seemingly senseless murders were more bizarre than anything a fiction writer could possibly dream up?
Now Gabby was dead too, murdered too. The answers were not going to come from him.
Although both of the victims were coaches, both had been shot with a .22 caliber gun, both had been married to the same woman, and both had been killed during the holidays, there were dissimilarities too. Just as he had during the Blankenbaker autopsy, Dr. Muzzall had removed a blood sample from Gabby Moore to check for any alcohol content. Morris had had no percentage of alcohol at all in his blood; Gabby’s reading was almost .31. In Washington State, as in most states, .10 is considered evidence of intoxication.
Gabby Moore had done a remarkable job of convincing Dr. Myers that he had had only a “little” to drink. It was amazing that he was still standing when he was shot. For a person unused to drinking, much beyond .30 is life threatening; Gabby had undoubtedly developed a tolerance to liquor over the past few years, but even so, .31 was startling.
The killer had had the advantage over both victims; Morris had quite likely been taken by surprise. Gabby would have been too drunk to fight back.
On Friday, December 26, the Yakima Herald-Republic headlined the news that another popular local coach had been murdered: “Tied to Blankenbaker Slaying? Davis Mat Coach Moore Shot, Killed.”
Dr. Myers was as shocked as anyone. After all, he had spoken to Gabby within an hour or so of his death. Now, he remembered an odd question that Gabby had asked him once—something that had no meaning at the time. Gabby had wanted to know if there was any place on the human body where a person could be shot—not in an arm or a leg, but part of the torso—where it wouldn’t be fatal. Myers had pondered the question for a moment and then said that most people could probably sustain a gunshot wound in the shoulder blade and it probably wouldn’t hit any vital organs. From what he understood, Gabby had been shot somewhere near his shoulder. It was odd and troubling to think that what he had taken to be a casual conversation might have had a purpose, although for the life of him he couldn’t imagine what that purpose might be.
To the media’s frustration, Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan was playing his cards very close to his vest, and anyone outside the investigation was getting very little information. “It’s a real tragedy,” Sullivan said. “I’m very concerned. The police are working on it. So far we have nobody in custody, no answers.”
And, indeed, there did not seem to be any answers. From all reports, Gabby Moore had been his own worst enemy. Neither the Yakima Police nor the Yakima County Prosecutor had any idea who had reason to kill him. He had lost a lot of his credibility but not his popularity. Revenge for Morris’s murder seemed an unlikely motive. Everyone who knew Gabby well knew he had been in the hospital when Morris died. It seemed unlikely that anyone would be so convinced that Gabby had a finger in Morris’s murder that he had murdered Gabby in reprisal. Moreover, Morris Blankenbaker’s friends were good solid guys—athletes— some, the men who had worked climbing telephone poles with him, some who had gone to school with him. No, detectives couldn’t believe that any of them had killed Gabby for revenge. They had no proof. Even if they had had evidence linking Gabby to Morris’s murder, they would have gone to the police and not taken justice into their own hands.
The obituaries for Gabby Moore were all glowing, reminding Yakimans of what he had done for sports in their town. No mention was made of the fact that Gabby Moore had been asked to leave Davis High School at the end of the school year. In death, he had somehow regained the respectability that he had lost in life. The quotes from his superiors made it sound almost as if the administration regretted firing him.
Yakima School Superintendent Warren Dean Starr told the press, “We’re shocked. He’s been a fine employee and an outstanding wrestling coach. The administration is just sick about it.”
Funeral services for Gabby Moore were held on December 29, 1975, in the Central Lutheran Church in Yakima. Dr. Charles Wilkes of the First Church of the Nazarene officiated. Gabby’s family suggested that memorials be given to the Davis Wrestling Team or Yakima Youth Baseball. There was a decent-sized group of mourners, but not nearly as many as those who had come to pay their respects to Morris Blankenbaker five weeks before.
The apartment on Eighteenth Street that had become a shrine to Jerilee was vacated. Derek Moore went to live with his mother, sisters, and stepfather.
Jerilee Blankenbaker looked for a way to pick up the fragments of her life. If she was afraid, few would blame her. Both of her husbands had been murdered within five weeks, and the police had no idea who the killer was. It was easy to imagine all kinds of frightening scenarios. She wondered sometimes if she did have a phantom admirer, someone even more obsessed with her than Gabby had been. What if there was still someone out there who was watching her, now that the men in her life were dead? What had happened already was beyond comprehension. She could no longer believe in a safe, protected existence; she knew that the whole world could blow up without warning.
For her, it had done so. Twice.
Two coaches. Two murders. One at Thanksgiving. One at Christmas. There was no way that anyone was going to write this off as coincidence.
What on earth did it mean? Who would have a reason to hate both of the dead men enough to kill them? A disgruntled former athlete? Some other man who was fixated on Jerilee—from a distance, perhaps—and seethed to see her with Morris and Gabby? No, that was fictional plotting. It didn’t fit in Yakima, and it didn’t fit with Morris Blankenbaker and Gabby Moore. That didn’t stop the rumor mills from churning out motives both plausible and utterly ridiculous.
One tale that circulated around Yakima County was that there was a “drug connection,” that both of the victims had known too much about illegal narcotics operations in the area. Another strong rumor was that “organized crime” was involved.
Lt. Bernie Kline told the press that the Yakima police had found nothing that suggested either motive. Nor had they found any connection at all between Morris and Gabby’s murders and the shooting death of Everett “Fritz” Fretland, a restaurant owner in nearby Selah, Washington, who had been found shot to death on September 6. Aside from the parallels in time and place, Fretland’s murder had nothing at all to do with those of the two coaches.
Kline would say only that Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan and the police were making progress on Blankenbaker’s and Moore’s murders, although neither would give any details. “I have every confidence that both killings will be solved,” Sullivan said. “The investigation is proceeding and progress is being made. We are looking into a number of possibilities. It is just a process of putting them together.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
In truth, Sullivan and the others were baffled—but only for a short time. Then they dug in hard to solve this seemingly
insoluble double-murder case. In the years ahead, Sullivan would prosecute dozens of felonies and supervise many times that number, but he would never forget this case, a baptism of fire.
In 1976 Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Sullivan was thirty-two years old, the same age as Morris Blankenbaker. Indeed, they both graduated from high school in Yakima in 1961, but Morris had gone to public school at Davis, and Sullivan had attended parochial school: Marquette. Basketball was Sullivan’s sport and football was Blankenbaker’s. Sullivan would come to know Morris Blankenbaker—and Gabby Moore—better in death than he had ever known them in life.
Jeff Sullivan was very handsome, a tall man with a thick shock of blond hair, who bore more than a passing resemblance to John F. Kennedy. After winning the election in November 1974, Sullivan was just embarking on the first of six terms as the elected prosecutor of Yakima County. He was a native Yakiman, the son of a family who had run a dry cleaning business in the area for many years. Sullivan had worked long and hard to achieve the responsible position he held at such a young age. His BA degree was from Gonzaga University in Spokane; he had a Bronze Star from his service as a first lieutenant in Vietnam where he was platoon leader and executive officer.
Returning from Vietnam, Sullivan, who had a wife and two children by then (a family that would swell to four children), worked a full-time job as a trust officer of a Spokane bank during the day and attended law school at Gonzaga at night. Despite his punishing schedule, he graduated third in his class in the spring of 1971. Two months later, he was a deputy prosecutor in Yakima. The next year, he changed hats and worked as a public defender.
The first case that Sullivan won was against J. Adam Moore (no relation to Gabby). He managed to get the second-degree murder charges against his client reduced to manslaughter. “Well, I think I won.” Sullivan laughs. “Adam Moore claims he won.”
Adam Moore and Jeff Sullivan would continue to meet on the legal battlegrounds of Yakima County over the next three decades. During trials their friendship was always there—but on hold. Sullivan considers Moore “the premier defense attorney in Yakima County—probably in the whole state of Washington.”
The two attorneys had no way of knowing in December of 1975 how challenged both of them would be by the Morris Blankenbaker-Gabby Moore homicide case.
Gabby Moore’s death left a huge void in the lives of his current and former athletes. His connection to them had been so much more than that of a teacher to his students. Coaches-—good coaches—shape the lives of their athletes forever after. They are often the father figures that some boys and girls never had. They can instill a sense of self-worth and an inner confidence that lasts a lifetime. Teenagers may be cocky on the outside, but most of them are unsure of their own capabilities, tough or sullen because they are scared inside. Sports bring discipline and the courage to keep going when it looks as though the athlete has no more heart, muscle, or breath left.
For most of his life, Gabby had been a superlative coach; only the last few years had sullied that image. Gabby had coached both football and wrestling, but, like most coaches, he excelled in one—and that was, of course, wrestling. Wrestlers have to practice more self-denial than participants in almost any other sport. In order to “make their weights,” most wrestlers diet or fast the last few days before a match. They may also “sweat out” water weight in saunas. A football player can still play his position if he goes into a game weighing 195 instead of 190; a wrestler cannot. His sport is one-on-one; in a match, he is on his own: just the wrestler and his coach against another team’s wrestler and his coach. And, of course, almost to the end of his life, Gabby Moore had been there with his boys all the way.
Gabby had recruited his wrestlers when they were in junior high. In Yakima, many of them had the choice of attending either Eisenhower or Davis High School, and Gabby had scouted for up-and-coming young athletes when they were way back in the seventh or eighth grade. With his chosen boys, he became a large part of their lives from that moment on. Little wonder, then, that his murder left dozens of young men shocked and grieving. Gabby Moore had been invincible to them, the strongest, toughest man they had ever known. If something could happen to Gabby, their own mortality suddenly stared back at them when they looked in their mirrors.
Hurting the most were the handful of young men who had counted on Gabby for advice and inspiration and friendship, who had continued to see him on an almost daily basis, even when his life had blown all to hell over a woman who didn’t love him anymore. Now they were left free-floating with no anchor.
All of the massive media coverage of Gabby’s mysterious death and his obituaries had mentioned that his Davis wrestling team took the Washington State Championship in 1972. That was his dream team. The stars were Kenny Marino, Greg Williams, J. T. Culbertson, Mike McBerb, and Angelo Pleasant. Angelo was probably the most outstanding athlete Gabby had ever coached. Together, that 1972 team had shown what small-town athletes with a superb coach could do. Those were glory days, days that none of them forgot.
And now all the glory was ashes.
Angelo Pleasant was the shining star of the 1972 Davis wrestling squad. His family was proud of him, just as he was proud of them. The Pleasant family had carved a place for themselves as one of the most respected families in Yakima. Coydell Pleasant and her husband, Andrew, ran the Pleasant Shopper Market on South Sixth Street. In order to make ends meet and see that his children all had a good education, Andrew also drove a garbage truck for the city of Yakima. In the summer, when Vern Henderson was between college terms, he and Andrew Pleasant had worked together on the garbage routes, and the two became good friends.
The Pleasant Shopper Market was a typical neighborhood grocery store with a little bit of everything from canned goods to dairy products to produce, and even had a small line of clothing. The Pleasants’ strength was that they gave a lot of personal attention that customers didn’t find at chain supermarkets. They went out of their way to help customers find what they wanted, they were unfailingly friendly and they were just plain nice people. A black family in a small town populated mostly by Caucasians and a few Hispanics, the Pleasants worked long hours themselves and so did their three sons and three daughters. A close family, they were highly respected for what they had achieved.
“We were always close,” Coydell recalled of the good days. The two younger boys, Angelo and Anthony, who were two years apart in age, were especially tight. “They never really fought much … They did things together,” Coydell remembered. “They hunted, they fished, picnicked … bowling.”
The boys were always tussling around and wrestling with each other. They were in Boy Scouts together—in Pack 22 to start with. Later, they both wrestled for Gabby Moore.
One of the things the elder Pleasants preached over and over to their children was the value of education. “I have always taught the kids,” Coydell emphasized, “to listen and do what their teacher tells them because the teachers that’s teaching them have their education, and they [the kids] are there to try and get theirs. We were really wanting them to go and get an education and that was the only way to do it. They would have to listen to their teachers and learn.”
By 1975 the Pleasants had been in business for a decade and their children were just about grown, ranging in age from eighteen to twenty-nine. They had all either completed their higher education or were in the process. The boys all had “A” names: Andrew, Jr., Angelo, and Anthony. The girls had pretty “S” names: Sarita, Sondra, and Selia.
Andrew, Sr., and Coydell were proud of all their children, but it was Angelo who had truly excelled in sports. Andrew and Anthony were good, but Angelo was championship material. Gabby Moore had dropped by the store and told the elder Pleasants that he couldn’t see that anything would keep Angelo down; in fact, he figured that Angelo might even make the Olympic Team.
Angelo worked hard in the store. His parents loved to fish, and when they took short vacations, he took over the market and ran it for t
hem. He was an energetic shelf stocker too, and good at getting his friends to help him. Angelo was the kid with the biggest smile and the broadest shoulders. But it was Angelo who had given his parents the most grief too. Every family with more than one child has its problem kid—or kids. If one of their children was going to be in trouble the Pleasants knew it would be Angelo. He was tremendously strong and he was as quick to fight as he was to laugh. He did a lot of both. Schoolwork was harder for him than it was for his older brother, Andrew, or for his sisters. And it was Angelo who chafed most at his father’s strict guidelines for behavior.
To his everlasting regret, it was Angelo who once raised his fists to his own father.
Eventually, all three of the Pleasant sons went out for wrestling at Davis High School and wrestled under Gabby Moore’s tutelage. Angelo and Anthony admired their older brother, Andrew, and they wanted to follow in his footsteps.
In keeping with his pugnacity, Angelo had a nickname that made his complete name sound like an oxymoron; everyone called him “Tuffy”—Tuffy Pleasant. Only on formal occasions did anyone call Angelo anything but Tuffy.
Tuffy was a good-looking kid with a wide smile. You had to like him when he grinned. He was born on January 28, 1954, in Yakima and spent most of his school years there.
“I was in the sixth grade at Adams Elementary School,” he remembered, “when my parents went into the grocery business.”
Tuffy Pleasant went on to Washington Junior High, and that was where he first met the man who would become his hero. Tuffy was in the ninth grade. Everyone knew Gabby Moore, and when he showed up in the gymnasiums of middle schools, it was like a Broadway producer showing up at a college play. There was a buzz.