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

271 Pages·2016·5.85 MB·English

by  Steve Jackson

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