3.Dave Lawrence — Direct (Part 1)

DAVE LAWRENCE: David, middle initial M, Lawrence, L-A-W-R-E-N-C-E.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yes, sir.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I am.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I have a contract polygraph examination services I do for different entities.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It does.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I started -- I grew up in a little small town, in Johnsonville, in Florence County where I was a dispatcher and a part-time police officer and emergency medical technician, EMT, with the local rescue squad. I later went to Richland County Sheriff's Department, spent about 13, 14 years with them. And then went to SLED in May of '99 and spent the rest of my career with SLED. I did retire, came back about four years. And then after that, also, I served as Interim Inspector General out at the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I was.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I was the Lieutenant in our Midlands region, which is investigation services.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yes, sir, I was.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I do.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I went with Lexington County Investigator Sergeant Adam Creech and FBI Agent Dave Mackey.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We got to Mississippi September the 8th.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Of 2014.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yes, the interview was conducted by Agent Mackey and Sergeant Creech.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I was not.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I was briefed by Sergeant Creech who informed me that Jones had admitted to killing his five children and had agreed to try to help locate the bodies.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was late that afternoon whenever we got there. This was into the night. It had to be probably 8:00, 9:00 o'clock p.m., at least, or so. That would be central standard time as well.

DAVE LAWRENCE: No. It was nighttime. And the information I had received that the bodies were still quite aways, away from where we were, so we decided obviously we needed to wait until the daylight hours.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We did. Jones was brought over to like a conference room there at the Court House, which was in the complex of the sheriff's office and the detention center. And when we did, several of us were there, myself, Agent Mackey, Sergeant Creech, several other Mississippi State investigators, they were there. And we were trying to look at some maps and Google Earth search images and try to get somewhat of a general idea of the vicinity of where we were, you know, going.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We did. There, obviously, was a caravan, so to speak. I drove, Agent Mackey rode with me. We were directly behind a marked patrol unit that had Jones and Sergeant Creech in it. There were, at least, two other -- two or three other vehicles as well, too, that was with the Mississippi State police officers as well as the Sheriff of Smith County in Mississippi as well.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was quite aways. We traveled what I thought, certainly, at the time between 175, maybe 200 miles away from where the sheriff's office was, where we actually started.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We did. When we left the sheriff's office and got out to I-20 at the interstate, we stopped at a convenience store. Everybody wanted to make sure their vehicles were gassed up. We didn't know how far we were going to be going. And, also, during that time, I actually bought Jones something to eat from Taco Bell.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yes, sir. It was -- that was around -- at that time, it was around about 12, you know, 45 p.m. or so, again, central standard time that we were there. That was at the time that I had purchased him something to eat.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was closer between like 2:30 to 3:00 p.m. at that time.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was several hours. We went down I-20 east to Meridian, Mississippi, and then took Highway 19 to Highway 10 and went quite a ways. Then we got to some area that they refer to as Oakhill between Camden and Greenville, Alabama.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was very remote. We went for miles on end, you know, without seeing houses, then maybe you may see one. But it was an extreme rural area, more than what we have here in Lexington County.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Well, as we got on Highway 10 and, obviously, we were quite a ways in, like I said, I was driving the vehicle that was directly behind the patrol car that was carrying Jones. They slowed down two or three times. Because we were in an area -- if I could maybe try to describe it to you, wooded area, two-lane highway and they had several like dirt driveways, so to speak, off of it, as if you were about to enter a hunting club is what it was and they all looked the same. And the car slowed down a couple times and we actually turned around and went into one of them just for a brief moment. Nobody even got out it was so brief. And then the patrol just got back on the highway and proceeded on, so we said, obviously, this is not where it is. It just -- again, we were letting him try and direct us to where we were going.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Well, I said I could understand, you know, this area looks the same, but, obviously, you know, that wasn't where we were supposed to go. So again, we were letting him lead us to wherever we were going.

DAVE LAWRENCE: As I recall, that is correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yeah. And that's one -- something I was obviously impressed with the fact that he was taking us to these bodies in the reverse order from where he originated from to where he had dumped them off. So, you know, we didn't go back to where -- the original -- location was where, apparently, the children were killed. We were going from the location where he had gotten arrested back to the bodies. So yeah, we were in reverse order trying to locate these bodies.

DAVE LAWRENCE: The road, again, kind of looked similar to where we actually turned around, but it was a -- again, a dirt, kind of gravel road. Again, it looked as though that you were going into an area that might be, you know, somebody's hunting club. And we drove about 40 to 50 yards or so off of the highway until we got to -- which was woods on both sides of the road. We got to an area that was much more open. It appeared to be clear cut and logged at one time, clay, dirt and we actually stopped the vehicles. And whenever I saw the patrol car doors come open, I thought oh, okay, we are -- we're actually going to get out on foot and then look.

DAVE LAWRENCE: They were, at least, another hundred yards, maybe 150 yards away from where we actually stopped after driving about 40 or 50 yards off the road.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I do.

DAVE LAWRENCE: You had to walk, you know, a ways, but whenever he got out of the car, he -- he didn't wander around. He just walked almost like directly to a location that was in the brushy, again, kind of clear cut area and probably as -- if I can try to illustrate something. Maybe about as far as where you're standing, Mr. Hubbard, to the back of the courtroom.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We made a decision then that he needed to leave the scene. So Sergeant Creech and the officers who were in the marked unit, they said go ahead and take him back. And myself and Agent Mackey stayed at the location.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was Sergeant Creech, Jones, two uniform officers from the Smith County Sheriff's Office, Sheriff Charlie Crumpton, two agents from the Mississippi State Bureau of Investigation, myself, Agent Mackey. And it was very close to that time that an Alabama State Trooper came up.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yes.

DAVE LAWRENCE: There was a lot of officers who showed up after that.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yes, and there was really no need for him to stay there any longer at that point. He just needed to be taken back to, you know, where we came from.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's right. He stayed with him the whole time.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Well, at that time, I was.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Like we just stated earlier, obviously, whenever we discovered the bags there, the State Trooper that was there with us notified a coroner's office. We ended up notifying two coroner's offices because we weren't even exactly sure what county we were even in. And then, obviously, he called -- contacted his superiors. And then yes, quite a few officials from the local sheriff's office, the Alabama State Police came and next thing I knew, there were two helicopters flying over us. They were dropping off Alabama State Law Enforcement officials in suits that were there. So, obviously, word had got out that, you know, five dead bodies of children had been located in this remote area of Alabama. So yes, quite a few people showed up.

DAVE LAWRENCE: My role then, you know, is this, yeah, this is a situation where you're in somebody else's jurisdiction, but that wasn't necessarily where the actual crime or the killings actually took place. At that time, we had information, we had reason to believe that the children, you know, were killed in Lexington County. So we were going to have to make a very methodical coordinated effort with the local authorities and with us. And what I was discussing with the Alabama State and the local authorities there is that even though this is in your jurisdiction, I would really prefer if our crime scene from Lexington County Sheriff's Office and from SLED came and participated in the initial processing of the crime scene. So -- and as well as coordinating with the coroner's office there and the coroner's office here and coordinating with the prosecutor's office in that jurisdiction and our prosecutor's office here because I knew this was going to be, you know, a joint effort. And yeah, we've got five dead bodies and I was just asking everybody if we could just please -- can we cooperate, let's put this thing together like we're supposed to.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It did. We even had -- the actual acting Chief of the Alabama State Bureau of Investigation was there. We had to coordinate that. I actually contacted Mr. Hubbard, who was Deputy Solicitor at that time and had him contact the prosecutor in that jurisdiction to coordinate that. We actually had the coroner, two coroners from that jurisdiction contact the acting coroner here in Lexington County to coordinate what we were going to transport, you know, the bodies. So yeah, it was a rather sensitive coordination effort there on everybody's behalf. And, obviously, they were very eager themselves to process this crime scene because, again, you know, you've got five dead bodies that's in your jurisdiction. So yeah, it was quite a coordinated effort.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We got there between maybe 2:30, 3:00 o'clock or so.

DAVE LAWRENCE: They didn't get to us until almost 7:00 p.m., again central standard time.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yeah, the State Trooper from Alabama, Trooper Morgan, he and I just put up some crime scene tape between two trees. It was kind of like a little ways away, but then, again, you know, we're in a big open area. And also during that time, I had asked the Alabama State authorities would they take some aerial photographs and footage for us since they had two helicopters there. And then the Alabama State Police Crime Scene, we asked if they could participate in kind of like this outer perimeter cursory search to see if we saw anything around where we were, not in the immediate area where the bags were, but like in the outer perimeter area during that time.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We did have some information about the possibility of some saws or saw blades on that information. We did look for anything such as that or anything else that may be of any kind of evidentiary value, but we did not locate anything. We actually called asking one of the Alabama State Crime Scene guys days after that would he send another team out there, even after we left, and see if they would just search again. And that turned out to be with negative results as well.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Well, it was September. We were in Alabama, it was hot. It was very hot. It was very dry, very hot.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I do.

DAVE LAWRENCE: This is a compact disk that I actually initialed just a few days ago as well as viewed it a few days ago.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It is a video of -- as if you were walking up to the bags that were in the woods.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Yes, sir.

DAVE LAWRENCE: The smell.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Describe the smell? Well, it is a smell of, obviously, decomposed human remains. And there are several, I guess, illustrations I could use to try to relate it to you so you could, but it was -- it was horrendous.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was beginning to get dusk and nearing dark.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Well, I'd ask the -- I knew it was going to take a while, again, for our crime scene to get there. So I had asked the Alabama State authorities would they try to get us a light source because I knew we would be into the night, you know, with these. Again, I knew we were going to be there for a while. So they were able to provide some light source, you know, for us, I think through the local fire department. And then at that time, I -- we wanted to, first of all, obviously make sure what was actually inside of the bags without disturbing it no more than what we had to. So one of the coroners, I asked him would he provide some body bags for us, and they did. So after a lot of photography and after Burke, Ms. Burke wrote the labeling, you know, the bags in the immediate area, that's whenever we started slowly taking each bag one at a time, lifting it no more than what we had to and putting it on the opened unzipped body bag. Because we wanted to make sure -- we were trying to preserve everything we could. We didn't want to try to lose anything. And it was after we had placed it on the open body bag that we cut or opened the bags as much as we could to actually see what was actually inside.

DAVE LAWRENCE: No. We wanted to make sure what was in the bags, you know, to begin with. So immediately, whenever we were able to identify what appeared to be that of a human body, that's where we stopped, zipped the body bags up and then labeled them accordingly. And that's what we did actually one by one on each one. So that's why I knew we were going to be there for a while. And we were trying to preserve everything that we possibly can, but, again, only be able to do that enough so we could identify there was a body in the bag.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I did.

DAVE LAWRENCE: They were.

DAVE LAWRENCE: I did.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Okay.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Okay.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Ms. Burke did.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It did.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It is.

DAVE LAWRENCE: They do.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: No sir, we did not.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: They do.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: They do.

DAVE LAWRENCE: You could not on this one. There was -- as you see, there was -- appeared to be some type of bedding, quilt-like there as you can see. So we actually had to probe around just a little bit more to actually see what was in that bag. And we actually did have to cut that one open as opposed to you can see the previous two, but, yeah, we actually did have to cut that one open.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It is not.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That would be number three, Gabriel, yes.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: They are.

DAVE LAWRENCE: It was not.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: We could not. This one had some more bedding that appeared to be some type of a quilt or sleeping bag type item.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: Correct.

DAVE LAWRENCE: That's correct.