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Rough Trade: A Shocking True Story of Prostitution, Murder and Redemption PDF

271 Pages·2016·5.85 MB·English
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ROUGH TRADE A Shocking True Story of Prostitution, Murder and Redemption WITH NEW FOREWORD AND EPILOGUE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER STEVE JACKSON WildBluePress.com Some names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. ROUGH TRADE published by: WILDBLUE PRESS P.O. Box 102440 Denver, Colorado 80250 Publisher Disclaimer: Any opinions, statements of fact or fiction, descriptions, dialogue, and citations found in this book were provided by the author, and are solely those of the author. The publisher makes no claim as to their veracity or accuracy, and assumes no liability for the content. Copyright 2016 by Steve Jackson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews. WILDBLUE PRESS is registered at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices. 978-1-942266-57-0 Trade) Paperback ISBN 978-1-942266-58-7 eBook ISBN Interior Formatting and Book Cover Design by Elijah Toten Totencreative.com Other WildBlue Press Books By Steve Jackson BOGEYMAN: He Was Every Parent’s Nightmare Wbp.bz/Bogeyman NO STONE UNTURNED: The True Story of The World’s Premier Forensic Investigators Wbp.bz/NSU SMOOTH TALKER: Trail of Death Wbp.bz/st TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD CHAPTER ONE—A Chance Encounter CHAPTER TWO—Jane Doe CHAPTER THREE—Jim Burkhalter CHAPTER FOUR—A Suspect CHAPTER FIVE—Joanne Cordova CHAPTER SIX—Officer Joanne Cordova CHAPTER SEVEN—Inmate Joanne Cordova CHAPTER EIGHT—Robert Riggan, Jr. CHAPTER NINE—Joanne Cordova CHAPTER TEN—Anita Jones CHAPTER ELEVEN—Dr. Ben Galloway CHAPTER TWELVE—John Lauck CHAPTER THIRTEEN—Bad Luck CHAPTER FOURTEEN—Dennis Goodwin CHAPTER FIFTEEN—Judy CHAPTER SIXTEEN—Henrietta and Robert Riggan Sr. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN—Sandy CHAPTER EIGHTEEN—Rosie CHAPTER NINETEEN—Joanne Cordova CHAPTER TWENTY—Pamela Kay Hart CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO—The People vs. Robert Riggan Jr. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE— Opening Statements CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR—The Doctors CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE—Joanne Cordova-Direct Examination CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX—Joanne Cordova-Cross Examination CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN— The Defense Begins CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT—Dr. Chris Sperry-Direct Examination CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE—Dr. Chris Sperry-Cross Examination CHAPTER THIRTY—Milo Beaver-Direct Examination CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE—Milo Beaver-Cross Examination CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO—The Verdict CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE— Joanne Cordova CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR—The Death Penalty Hearing for Robert Riggan Jr. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE—A Question of Life or Death? EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PICTURES “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” John 8:7 FOREWORD August 23, 2016 Some true crime stories are like onions. I don’t really know what I’ve got until I’ve peeled back the layers. Such was the case with my true crime book ROUGH TRADE: A Shocking True Story of Prostitution, Murder and Redemption, which I wrote in 1999 and published in 2000 following the murder trial of Robert Riggan in Jefferson County, Colorado. At first glance, the May 1997 death of a young prostitute, Anita Jones, allegedly at the hands of Riggan, a drifter who lived in the shadows of Denver’s notorious East Colfax Avenue, was a sad but not particularly unique or gripping story. It certainly didn’t have the drama of the murder of a child beauty queen that had occurred just a few months earlier in her parent’s home in Boulder thirty miles to the north, or the impact of the depredations of the brutal killer Thomas Luther, who was also tried in Jefferson County, Colorado and became the subject of my first true crime book MONSTER. It is a sobering fact that the people who are largely invisible to us in life, except as nuisances or “undesirable,” are even of less consequence when they die violently or find themselves in the criminal system. It’s almost as though we as a society, including authors, expect that outcome and these ruined lives are material for police blotters, crime statistics and nothing more. As an author trying to both make a living, as well as examine subjects that interest me and fit my desire to write books that have something to say about the human condition, I try to choose my stories carefully. There are, after all, only so many hours in a day and only so many books in an author’s career. It’s not the blood and gore, or sexual titillation, I’m looking for when choosing a true crime story; I’m interested in the psychology and “ripple effect” of violent crime, and the back stories of the human beings involved: killers, victims, law enforcement, those involved in the justice system, and the community. And as an author, I’m interested in the “technical” aspects of professional book writing. Does it have the structural components of a good story: a dramatic beginning, a strong storyline, a climatic moment, and a satisfying resolution? Are the characters--like actors in a play—interesting and compelling? Are there heroes and villains? A good supporting cast? Is there some message, or theme, I can mine like a vein of gold that will reward my readers for giving me their time and hard-earned money? When I considered the Jones/Riggan case, I really didn’t know how true crime readers would react to a sordid tale about prostitution and a murder trial that hardly made the news in Denver, much less anywhere else. I knew it was a solid story. The battle in court between the prosecution and defense attorneys was a good one with both sides acquitting themselves well. There was interesting and conflicting testimony from the expert witnesses on such topics as coup and counter-coup head injuries, accident recreation models, and post- mortem medical examinations. It was also the first potential death penalty case to test Colorado’s then-new statute that left the decision to a three-judge panel, instead of a jury. But that alone wasn’t enough to separate this tragedy and its legal machinations from a million others. However, this was one of those stories where the main characters--people who otherwise existed only on the margins of society--made it more than a court procedural. There was the victim, Anita Jones, a young mother who’d followed a man from her home back east to Colorado where he’d got her hooked on crack cocaine, then used her body to make money, and subsequently abandoned her. What happened to her on a lonely dirt road in the mountains west of Denver made medical professionals who’d seen it all cry during their futile efforts to save her. However, there wasn’t enough about Anita to build a story around her; she was the raison d’etre that there even was a trial, but her short sad life could not carry a book. Anita was unknown, except to her family and friends, the police detectives who went after her killer, and the people she met on Denver’s seamy underbelly, one of them being Joanne Cordova and the other Robert Riggan. In writing terms, Joanne was the flawed heroine seeking redemption. But every hero needs a villain and for that there was Robert Riggan. On the surface, there wasn’t much to Riggan. He was no Ted Bundy, whose good looks, charming ways and evil cunning has enthralled true crime readers through multiple books. Nor was he a serial killer of historic proportions like an H.H. Holmes, or smooth-talking sociopath Roy Melanson, the serial killer in my book SMOOTH TALKER. Riggan was a physically scarred, psychologically stunted, inconsequential little man who lived on the fringes of society and sought the solace of prostitutes, as well as the release of violent sexual acts. Not much there to make him a villain worth writing about. It wasn’t until the horrifying story of his childhood emerged in court through evidence introduced by his lawyers through family members, counselors and psychologists that a multi-layered picture of Riggan emerged. Listening to some of that testimony, as well as researching his past on my own, I couldn’t help but think that sometimes the monsters in our real life nightmares are created in the

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Overview: Early one morning in May 1997, a young couple on their way to work in the mountains of Colorado spotted a man dragging a body up a secluded trail. The beautiful, densely wooded area off a dirt road seemed such an incongruous place for a violent crime that at first the couple had a hard tim
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