her, went down the stairs, stopped at the bottom of the stairs, and thatâs when I saw them. I told Kalea to close her eyes and not open them for any reason. And I ran out and stepped over Bob and Robin. She was outside. Bob was bloody. He had blood behind his head. I didnât look at Robin.
âGabe was in Bobâs truck and I ran up with Kalea. And we got in and he had the truck started. He took off and sped down the driveway. We hit the embankments and I thought we were going to tip over and go down onto 42 South, but we didnât. It was very dark outside on the road.â
It was from there that Gabe made the drive to Fred Eschlerâs neighborhood and concocted his story about terrorists. Of this whole incident, Jessicaâs recollection was âHe told me when we went up to the Eschlersâ door, âFollow along. Do what I say.â And he went in and he told them that we were part of the air force and that he was like an air force special ops, or whatever itâs called. And there had been terrorists that had come and just murdered his mom and her boyfriend, and that Gabe shot one of them. And we needed help.
âFred told Laura to go clean out the car. And I think Gabe asked Fred something about borrowing it or having to drive us. But Fred said he couldnât do it because he had to work in the morning. Fred put together a bag of food for us. Some cottage cheese, apples, other things, and I was holding Kalea the whole time.
âFred gave Gabe the gun and they put the bullets in the slidey thing. I donât know what itâs called for a gun. And Fred gave him that gun. I asked for a car seat for Kalea, but Gabe said it wasnât necessary. And I wasnât sure how this was going to work. I wasnât sure if he was going to drive. So Kalea was put down in the backseat and he wanted me to drive. I got behind the wheel and we drove off.â
As Gabe and Kalea hid in the backseat of the Eschlersâ Ford Taurus, Jessica drove down the darkened road away from Coquille. She already knew there were no terrorists, nor were they fleeing for their lives from some radical cell of killers. She had seen no one else in the house, no other dead bodies except those of Robin Anstey and Bob Kennelly. She surmised correctly that Gabe had killed them.
Jessica recalled, âI drove to Roseburg (on Interstate 5) and I asked him which way we should go. Then I said, âSouth?â And he said, âI totally agree.â And so I turned south.â
Working up her courage, she asked why he had killed them. Gabe didnât even try to lie to her. His answer was âIt had to be done.â He gave no further explanation than that.
Once again, on a darkened road, they were heading south. This time it was not to collect money or to look for new job opportunities. It was to try and get beyond the reach of the law. Behind them they had left two bodies lying in pools of blood at a hillside residence on Highway 42 South.
No one except for Gabe, Jessica and Kalea knew about Robin Anstey and Robert Kennelly lying dead at their residence. This state of affairs went on for two days, until the afternoon of Wednesday, February 10. A citizen of Coquille complained to the Coquille Police Department about a pickup truck parked in front of his home on Dean Street. The police checked on this pickup truck and ran the license plate number. It turned out to be a pickup owned by Robert Kennelly, of Highway 42 South.
Since the address was beyond the CPDâs jurisdiction, they asked the Coos County Sheriffâs Office to make contact with Kennelly about the pickup truck. Deputy Adam Slater pulled the assignment.
Deputy Slater arrived at Kennellyâs place at around 1:45 P.M . on February 10. He thought he was there just to check on a very minor infraction. He drove up the hill from the highway and parked his vehicle where everybody else parked their vehicles, behind the residence near a
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