no say in anything and nobody knew how he was hurting. “I had so much to share,” he said, “and nobody even knew.”
During the service, Tom Swinney and a lieutenant from his department, Jim Roberts, took license plate numbers in the parking lot, and afterward they scanned the crowd for suspicious faces.
The ashes of Delores and Janie were taken to Harrod’s Creek Cemetery beside Brownsboro Christian Church, a small country church on Covered Bridge Road only a couple of miles from the Lynch home, and buried on a maple-shaded rise.
Saturday morning at 9, Tom arrived again at the Jefferson County Police Department in Louisville with Detectives Swinney and Childers to face his second round of questioning from Ron Howard, the polygraph operator. The session lasted until 12:40, and Tom emerged emotionally drained and agitated. “I was terrified,” he recalled later. “I could feel I wasn’t doing well. I had a lot of pressure on me, self-imposed pressure. I was worried that somebody would think I did it. I could just see the headlines, ‘Son Fails Lie Detector Test.’ That would be great, and here I am knowing I’m perfectly innocent. I was so afraid I would respond that I did respond.”
Once more, Childers had to report to Davidson that the results were inconclusive, causing his normally placid lieutenant to explode with curses. Tom was leaving the next day for Albuquerque and wouldn’t return to deal with family matters for another month—a month of not knowing whether he had something to do with the killings.
The second week of the investigation began with a break that gave Davidson a better idea of what happened on the day of the murders as well as a new clue that might prove valuable.
A citizen called to say he was a sport bicyclist who rode regularly past the Lynch house. His route was marked for distance, and he timed himself as he rode. On Sunday morning, July 22, he passed the house without noticing anything unusual. A short time later, as he reached the entrance to Sleepy Hollow Golf Course, only a mile away, he heard two distant shots in rapid succession, followed a few seconds later by a third. The golf course entrance was one of his distance marks and he was looking at his watch. It was 10:47.
The man hadn’t connected the shots with the murders at first, because he thought the killings had occurred on Monday. He also remembered something else that might be significant. About a quarter mile from the Lynch house he had seen an empty, battered car—yellow with a dark top, maybe an Oldsmobile, 1960s model—parked by a road sign.
A trooper sent to the spot found a wrapper from a Budweiser twelve-pack and several empty cans. Had somebody parked there drinking beer and plotting murder?
The new information not only gave Davidson the exact time of the shootings, it told him that Janie had been alive when her mother arrived. The first two shots had been for Delores, the third, delayed, shot no doubt had been aimed at Janie when she came to investigate and the killer discovered her in the backyard. The fourth shot, fired inside the house, would have been too muffled for the bicyclist to hear.
Next morning, Tuesday, July 31, Davidson held a meeting of detectives in his office. He reviewed everything they had learned, including a new wrinkle—rumors that Tom was a heavy gambler. Assignments were divided. Davidson wanted all of Delores’s friends and acquaintances questioned, as well as people who had worked at the Lynch house. He also wanted all of Janie’s friends interviewed, particularly anybody she had dated. Even though Delores seemed the primary target, an angry suitor rejected by Janie couldn’t be discounted as the killer. Weeks of work lay ahead.
The detectives had been back to the house on Covered Bridge Road every day checking for specific items or clues they might have overlooked. Davidson had spent hours there alone, poking around and contemplating, as if he hoped the house itself
During the service, Tom Swinney and a lieutenant from his department, Jim Roberts, took license plate numbers in the parking lot, and afterward they scanned the crowd for suspicious faces.
The ashes of Delores and Janie were taken to Harrod’s Creek Cemetery beside Brownsboro Christian Church, a small country church on Covered Bridge Road only a couple of miles from the Lynch home, and buried on a maple-shaded rise.
Saturday morning at 9, Tom arrived again at the Jefferson County Police Department in Louisville with Detectives Swinney and Childers to face his second round of questioning from Ron Howard, the polygraph operator. The session lasted until 12:40, and Tom emerged emotionally drained and agitated. “I was terrified,” he recalled later. “I could feel I wasn’t doing well. I had a lot of pressure on me, self-imposed pressure. I was worried that somebody would think I did it. I could just see the headlines, ‘Son Fails Lie Detector Test.’ That would be great, and here I am knowing I’m perfectly innocent. I was so afraid I would respond that I did respond.”
Once more, Childers had to report to Davidson that the results were inconclusive, causing his normally placid lieutenant to explode with curses. Tom was leaving the next day for Albuquerque and wouldn’t return to deal with family matters for another month—a month of not knowing whether he had something to do with the killings.
The second week of the investigation began with a break that gave Davidson a better idea of what happened on the day of the murders as well as a new clue that might prove valuable.
A citizen called to say he was a sport bicyclist who rode regularly past the Lynch house. His route was marked for distance, and he timed himself as he rode. On Sunday morning, July 22, he passed the house without noticing anything unusual. A short time later, as he reached the entrance to Sleepy Hollow Golf Course, only a mile away, he heard two distant shots in rapid succession, followed a few seconds later by a third. The golf course entrance was one of his distance marks and he was looking at his watch. It was 10:47.
The man hadn’t connected the shots with the murders at first, because he thought the killings had occurred on Monday. He also remembered something else that might be significant. About a quarter mile from the Lynch house he had seen an empty, battered car—yellow with a dark top, maybe an Oldsmobile, 1960s model—parked by a road sign.
A trooper sent to the spot found a wrapper from a Budweiser twelve-pack and several empty cans. Had somebody parked there drinking beer and plotting murder?
The new information not only gave Davidson the exact time of the shootings, it told him that Janie had been alive when her mother arrived. The first two shots had been for Delores, the third, delayed, shot no doubt had been aimed at Janie when she came to investigate and the killer discovered her in the backyard. The fourth shot, fired inside the house, would have been too muffled for the bicyclist to hear.
Next morning, Tuesday, July 31, Davidson held a meeting of detectives in his office. He reviewed everything they had learned, including a new wrinkle—rumors that Tom was a heavy gambler. Assignments were divided. Davidson wanted all of Delores’s friends and acquaintances questioned, as well as people who had worked at the Lynch house. He also wanted all of Janie’s friends interviewed, particularly anybody she had dated. Even though Delores seemed the primary target, an angry suitor rejected by Janie couldn’t be discounted as the killer. Weeks of work lay ahead.
The detectives had been back to the house on Covered Bridge Road every day checking for specific items or clues they might have overlooked. Davidson had spent hours there alone, poking around and contemplating, as if he hoped the house itself
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