[Small Town Dicks theme]

Scott:  This became an overwhelming investigation, because right about at this time, another complaint came in involving a Police Officer Francisco, who had been Robert’s recruit. Robert was the field training officer for Francisco. And now, we were getting complaints from a person saying, “Francisco was doing the same stuff.”

Yeardley:  Same vulnerable population, complaining about Francisco now?

Scott:  Yes.

[music]

Zibby:  This particular episode is a follow up to The Sociopath and the Whistleblower, a four-part series we cover in Season 1. If you haven’t yet, we highly recommend that you go back and listen to The Sociopath and The Whistleblower before going any further.

Yeardley:  I’m Yeardley.

Zibby:  And I’m Zibby. And we’re fascinated by true crime.

Yeardley:  So, we invited our friends, Detectives Dan and Dave.

Zibby:  To sit down with us, and share their most interesting cases.

Dan:  I’m Dan.

Dave:  And I’m Dave.

Dan:  We’re identical twins.

Dave:  And we’re detectives in Small Town, USA.

Dan:  Dave investigates sex crimes and child abuse.

Dave:  Dan investigates violent crimes. And together, we’ve worked on hundreds of cases, including assaults, robberies, murders, burglaries, sex abuse and child abuse.

Dan:  Names, locations, and certain details of these cases have been altered to protect the privacy of the victims and their families.

Dave:  While we realize that some of our listeners may be familiar with these cases, we hope you’ll join us in continuing to protect the true identities of those involved out of respect for what they’ve been through.

[music]

Yeardley:  Today on Small Town Dicks, we have a follow up to The Sociopath and The Whistleblower. And with us, we have the usual suspects. We have Detective Dan.

Dan:  Pleasure to be here.

Yeardley:  Detective Dave.

Dave:  Good afternoon.

Yeardley:  And our very special guest, Lieutenant Scott.

Scott:  Thank you for having me back.

Yeardley:  So glad to have you.

Zibby:  So, this episode is specifically a follow up on Francisco, who was the training officer below Robert from our Sociopath and the Whistleblower series in Season 1.

Scott:  Yeah. So, he was uniquely different, but similar as far as being a predatory sex offender. What I mean by that is that, for instance, with Robert, Robert was really deliberate about hiding his activities. He did his best to try to conceal what he was doing. He would check out one place and then we would determine later through forensic analysis in comparison of confidential police databases and police activity that he was somewhere else. But he was trying to be somewhere else. He also never acknowledged that he had done anything wrong, that he had any contact with these women. So, uniquely, Francisco acknowledged interactions with these women.

Yeardley:  To you or to everyone?

Scott:  To me. Yeah.

Yeardley:  Oh, my.

Scott:  Later and he also checked out at these places on the radio, so he would status himself with dispatch at geographic locations that were consistent with where he was at.

Yeardley:  Really?

Scott:  So, I think he was a lot more sophisticated and complicated than Robert. Robert was described as being crude, and abrupt and really predatory, and women got a sense of danger with him. They didn’t so much with Francisco because of the way Francisco operated. So, he would represent that he was single, and available and interested in these women when he would interact with them on calls for service.

 Many times, he would be dispatched to a location involving a woman. And so, it was really just random although not always. We’ll talk about Liza, who I mistakenly referred to as Lisa, when we talked about The Sociopath and The Whistleblower.

 Liza was different, he did target her. But some of these women, he wouldn’t target. Necessarily, he would just encounter them during the course of his normal business, and he would then use his legitimate law enforcement interaction with them to target them.

Zibby:  And I remember you saying that Francisco was younger and certainly better looking,-

Scott:  Yeah.

Zibby:  -which sounds like that is in line with the way people received him versus Robert, who was really rough to look at and had more of an aggressive vibe to him.

Scott:  I think he was more sophisticated in his approach. He did not look as threatening, I guess, if that makes sense.

Yeardley:  Sure.

Scott:  So, that was a contrast to the Robert case. During the course of the investigation, it really was focused on Robert, we heard from Bobby. She mentioned to us that, “Robert is not your only problem at the police department.”

Yeardley:  Who was Bobby? Was she another frequent flyer? Like, so many of the other women from The Sociopath and The Whistleblower?

Scott:  She was not necessarily a frequent flyer. She had some documented contacts with the police. But they really happened after she started using heroin. So, she had, otherwise, led a legitimate life. She had children. She had jobs in the community, and I think was well liked. She was educated. She got hooked on heroin and she started that decline that we’ve talked about.

Zibby:  Did she come to you unsolicited once the Robert story had made its way around the community?

Scott:  Yeah. She came forward. She and I had some history also.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Zibby:  How so?

Scott:  When I was a detective in the violent crimes’ unit, she had reported a sexual assault, and I was the assigned investigator. It was one of those cases that– We call them he said, she said cases. It was a situation where all the evidence was equal and there was no compelling evidence to substantiate a forcible rape.

 When that came down to that kind of a circumstance, sometimes I used my credibility scale that I have talked about that was flawed. But I used that in consulting with the district attorney that was assigned to Bobby’s case, and the District Attorney’s Office ended up not filing any charges.

Zibby:  By your scale, do you mean, like how as a cop, you tend to give more weight to the credibility of your fellow officers than, say, someone who is a frequent flyer, or who’s got a record of some sort or has a history of trying to lie to the police?

Dan:  Absolutely. Part of our job, actually, is to listen to other cops. Sometimes I act on another cop’s probable cause, his PC, just by his word. So, when he’s not credible, it really shakes you to the core as a police officer.

Scott:  Exactly. And so, Bobby held me responsible for that. She certainly remembered me when she came forward on the Robert case.

Zibby:  Interesting.

Yeardley:  Did she remember you fondly or not fondly? Because they hadn’t brought charges. So, she’s like, “You’re–“

Scott:  Not fondly. Yeah.

Yeardley:  “You’re an asshole.”

Scott:  Totally. She did. She, in fact, used that word. She’s like, “So, you’re the asshole assigned to this case?-

Yeardley:  Wow.

Scott:  -Do you remember me?” “I didn’t really.” So, we had to mend that fence. We talked about that. We talked quite a bit about it. She was with a lawyer and she vented to me, I would say. She finally was one who, in the end, was a very strong supporter of me. She trusted me. She reached out to me after the fact. But she was one of those people that I think made the most impact on me because of that prior relationship with her where, like I said, I had been flawed in my thought process, where I look on now and go, “Well, knowing what I know now, I probably made a mistake.”

Zibby:  Wow. And so, when she came back to you saying, “Robert’s not your only problem,” and she also simultaneously was venting to you about the history that you shared, you were in this softer spot, because your credibility scale was already in the middle of being shifted drastically, right?

Scott:  Yeah.

Zibby:  Hmm, it’s interesting.

Scott:  Yeah. So, I did. I apologize. I had my hat in my hand, and I said, “Look, I was wrong. I’ve learned a lot since then, and I’m in the process of going through that transition right now.” And so, anyway, we got past that. She said, “This Francisco guy is also a problem for you guys.” And I said, “Well, how so?” And she said she had been dealing with Robert. Again, she’s involved in heroin, and she’d had some sort of a sexual assault, and Robert was the assigned patrol officer.

 Robert used that investigation as an excuse to have contact with her routinely under the auspices of following up on this sexual assault investigation, which, by the way, he never documented.

Zibby:  You’re kidding.

Scott:  Yeah. He would tell her, “I need to talk to you about the case.” She’s tolerating him and his behaviors, because she thinks he’s investigating her as being the victim of a sexual assault.

Yeardley:  When he would continue to visit her, posing as though he’s following up, would he then sexually assault her himself?

Scott:  Yeah, he would take advantage of the circumstances and he would do things with her. She was a very assertive person. Like I mentioned, when she found out it was me, she didn’t pull back any punches. She said, “I’m assertive. But with a uniformed cop and plus, he had this leverage with me, because he was my assigned investigator on this case that I really felt like I needed to deal with.” So, she tolerated him. She allowed him to do these things.

 And so, yeah, he would make suggestive comments to her. He fondled her. He ultimately compelled her to perform oral sex. But she said, “One night, he came over,” and she said, “Hey, I talked to another officer. She had been involved in some kind of a neighborhood dispute, and Francisco had contacted her.”

 Francisco, she said, “was doing some of the same things. He was checking me out. He commented on my breasts, and asked me about my relationships, and if I was single and all that kind of thing.” When she told Robert about having been visited by Francisco, Robert said, “Oh, he’s my protégé.”

Zibby:  Jesus.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God.

[Break 1]

Scott:  Robert was Francisco’s field training officer. As we talked about, they were in the critical phase of the shadow aspect of that training. And so, Robert was shadowing Francisco for a period of time.

Yeardley:  Mm-hmm.

Zibby:  Right.

Scott:  So, we hadn’t really found any official documented training where Robert was passing along his, “Hey, here’s how to pick up women on this job aspect.” But they were clearly alike. So, that was interesting. And then the other thing is that when Bobby and Francisco had a conversation about Robert, and Francisco said, “Oh, yeah, I’m really good friends with Robert. “

Zibby:  Oh, wow.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God. Scott, remind us how the Francisco case came to your attention, because it was while you were investigating Robert.

Scott:  Yeah. The Francisco case started with a letter from a guy named Matt. Matt had been previously convicted regarding a marijuana grow at his house. As you’ll recall, he sent that letter to the District Attorney’s Office, and he claimed that the marijuana case was contrived and that the probable cause, Francisco said that he–

Zibby:  He smelled it.

Scott:  Right.

Yeardley:  As he was walking by the street, right?

Scott:  Exactly. Yeah. So, he makes this open-air observation about the scent of green marijuana and uses that as a means of getting into the house. He claimed in his police reports that he had never heard of this Matt person prior to randomly smelling the odor of marijuana.

Yeardley:  Francisco claimed that?

Scott:  Yeah. So, Francisco, then we learned, during the course of our investigation, that actually, prior to making that observation, he had run Matt’s name, like, 28 times-

Yeardley:  Wow.

Scott:  -prior to when this happened. And so, then we concluded that Matt was in the way that really Francisco was targeting Liza. So, when Francisco first met Liza, Liza was advertising as a prostitute on a website.

Zibby:  Liza and Matt lived together, didn’t they?

Scott:  Yeah. And she said that Francisco was her first response when she opened that website.

Dave:  He’s not trying to do an official sting, like we do on occasion. He’s a real customer.

Scott:  Yeah. So, she advertises as an escort. And he contacts her. They communicate by way of instant message. They ultimately arrange to meet and they meet at a coffee shop in our city. Francisco’s wife and kids are out of town, and he invites Liza to go back with him to his house.

Zibby:  Oh, in the home.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God.

Scott:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  It’s so bold.

Scott:  And so, the concept behind advertising as an escort, whether it’s boldly printed out or if its underlying is, this is prostitution, this is sex for money. And so, our theory is, obviously, he’s the first customer, at least as far as she’s concerned on that website. They meet. Thats her idea, “Why we were meeting is were meeting to have sex for money.” But he explains to her, “I’m a cop. I’m not interested in paying for sex.” But she had disclosed during the course of their brief conversation at the coffee shop that she was having problems with her ex-boyfriend, a different guy, not Matt. And so, she had described some domestic violence, and he said, “I can help you take care of that, but I’m not going to pay for sex.”

Zibby:  Wow.

Yeardley:  Hmm.

Scott:  So, obviously, the implication is–

Zibby:  I’ll take care of you. You take care of me.

Scott:  Exactly.

Zibby:  No money will be exchanged.

Scott:  Right. And that’s leverage.

Yeardley:  Right.

Scott:  So, he drives to his house, a short distance from the coffee shop. She follows him, and she says, “They have sex.” She tells me later they have sex at his house. And initially, she says, “It’s consensual.” She says, “During the course of the act, she sees a wedding picture of Francisco and his wife in the room.”

Yeardley:  How awkward.

Scott:  And so, she says, “I changed my mind,” is what she tells me. She said, “I tried to stop. I tried to separate myself and get away, and he didn’t let me.” So, she implies that he forcibly continued to have sex with her. She later reported that that was a rape.

Zibby:  And she reported it as a rape much later, right?

Scott:  Right. So, of course, when we talk with Francisco later, he describes it differently and says, “It was consensual.”

Yeardley:  So, at this point, how is all this information landing on you? Because you’ve got the case against Robert, which just seems to go on and on and on. Every time you turn around, another woman is telling you how he sexually assaulted her. And now, all of a sudden, you have all this new information about his protégé doing a lot of the same stuff. So, where does it go in you?

Scott:  When we get this information, I’m still a little bit skeptical, “What’s the odds I figure in our small town? And now, we have two.” I have already crossed that bridge where I think I’m more agreeable to believing that this kind of misbehavior can happen, as I talked about with the Robert transition. But I’m still a little bit skeptical. So, I called Liza and Dennis and I had talked about it.

Yeardley:  Sorry to interrupt. I just want to remind our listeners that Dennis is the veteran detective that you brought out of retirement to help you investigate Robert.

Scott:  Yes. Right. And our theory was, if she’s been in his house, she can describe it. She can describe where he lives, she knows his phone numbers, those kinds of things. Because at this point, we are learning this information through the letter that Matt had written to the district attorney. So, she knows his personal cell phone number. She knows his home phone number. She knows the hours that he works. She describes the house. She describes the inside of the house, vivid detail about the wedding pictures and all that stuff. And that obviously makes, in our minds, she’s credible.

Zibby:  And I’m assuming that she knows all of these things, including the hours that he works. Because after that initial encounter where they went back to have what was started as consensual sex turned into what was reported to be rape from her perspective, she kept seeing him because he had stuff on her?

Scott:  Yeah. So, they continued to see each other-

Zibby:  Okay.

Scott:  -for a period of time. Again, as I said, she worked as a stripper. She worked at a strip club downtown, and he worked at night. That’s another consistent theme. These things happen at night under the cover of darkness. It’s a little easier to hide at night and conceal your activities. I think Dan and Dave can testify to this as well. At nighttime, there’s a little bit less supervision. All the bosses go home after 5 o’clock.

Yeardley:  Right. And has Robert been arrested yet at this point that you’re finding this stuff out from Liza and Bobby?

Scott:  Robert had been put on administrative leave.

Yeardley:  So, he knows something’s up, Robert does. He knows you’re investigating him.

Scott:  In theory, I think by that time, he does know.

Yeardley:  Okay.

Scott:  Yeah. Again, we were trying to keep it quiet, but I think within the agency, people know when somebody doesn’t show up to work, a rumor starts,-

Yeardley:  Sure.

Scott:  -“What’s up with him?”

Zibby:  And Francisco was still working, or was he suspended after that first complaint letter from Matt?

Scott:  No. So, he was still working.

Zibby:  Boy.

Scott:  But we find out, that during the course of her telling the story, and Matt also mentioned in his letter, that Francisco had forced Liza and one of her girlfriends, or compelled them to perform oral sex on him at the same time in a park after a traffic stop.

Zibby:  How does something like that even happen?

Scott:  She says that he had followed her to work. He hung around after work. He knew when she got off work, and he saw Liza and her girlfriend leaving the club. He could tell they were intoxicated. It was like 2 o’clock in the morning. He pulled in behind him and he pulled them over.

 Apparently, they talked and visited. Obviously, they’re familiar with each other, because this is after she’d had this meeting with him and had sex with him at his house. And he said, “Hey, where are you going?” And they said they were going to the neighboring city. They referenced a park near the university in this town. And he said, “Meet me there.” So, they did. The park’s closed at 10 o’clock and he knows that. But this is a really remote park. There’s a covered area and he said, “Meet me at the covered area.”

 And so, they went up there. He met them. Liza describes Francisco got a call for service. So, he said, “I got to go, but I’ll come back if you guys want to hang out.” So, they hung out.

Zibby:  They hung out. Wow. This is one of those stories that makes you realize that victims don’t always act or feel like the classic victim portrayed in the movies, you know?

Yeardley:  Yeah. In the movies, these women never would have waited around in the park for Francisco to come back. Oh, it’s awful.

Dan:  You have to understand that the uniform itself is a use of force. Its presence will cause people to act in a certain way, most of the time. And in this case, it almost creates an unspoken hierarchy between these three people. These girls are driving drunk, and they can certainly get in trouble. So, they use this as an opportunity, “Hey, I’ll meet up with Francisco, and maybe I won’t get in trouble.”

Yeardley:  It’s still so devastating.

Scott:  Yeah. So, he ended up coming back. He describes during the course of our later recorded interview, he said that the girls were into each other, as he put it. He said that they were kissing and fondling each other. And then, he said they turned their attention to him.

 Well, he’s operating a mark patrol car. He’s in a covered, but lighted area in this park in uniform, and he says that he is having them perform oral sex on him. What’s unique, again, about Francisco is at the time when we talk to him, he is under the opinion that, “Yeah, this may be misbehavior and is probably against policy,” that kind of thing. But he says he doesn’t perceive that it’s criminal, that there’s anything criminal about this.

 It’s misconduct in his official capacity. He’s allowing these women to drive while they’re intoxicated. The benefit that he gets is when you get to your destination, “You’re going to perform oral sex on me, and I’m not going to arrest you.” But he’s very candid, obviously, in sharp contrast with Robert, who, when I give him an opportunity, he does give me a story. It’s certainly not the truth. And from that point on, he doesn’t acknowledge any wrongdoing at all.

Yeardley:  Francisco doesn’t put together the fact that Robert is on administrative leave because of his sexual misconduct. Francisco goes, “Oh, that doesn’t apply to me,” even though it’s exactly the same act that Robert has done?

Scott:  I’m just speculating. But I believe that Robert and Francisco talked. I think that after Robert went on administrative leave, during that investigation, they talked.

Yeardley:  It makes sense. Of course.

Scott:  It makes complete sense. And then, you see these behaviors that are similar. The preferred sex act is the same, the shared victim not only Bobby, but we talked about Miriam, who had been contacted when they were together in a training phase, where they were working in the same car. And there was that commentary, strip search, right?

Yeardley:  Right. This is how you do it. And he found a little bindle of heroin.

Scott:  Right.

Zibby:  Yeah.

Scott:  And then Miriam later tells us. there was a subsequent contact where the two of them contacted her again. And this time, she says, “Francisco did the search, and Robert commented as it was taking place.” So, again, there’s a circumstance where there’s no official training, but certainly, by exposure, that training is happening.

Zibby:  If Francisco and Robert spoke, once Robert was on administrative leave, what do you speculate was the nature of that conversation? Because still, I’m trying to figure out why Francisco would be, in a way, so cavalier or as if everything he did was like, “Well, may not be great, but it’s not criminal.”

Scott:  Yeah.

Zibby:  You think he was instructed?

Dave:  I have a theory-

Zibby:  Yeah.

Dave:  -is that we’ve talked about, if you lie, you die. And Robert knows that he hasn’t been honest with Scott during his interviews. He got caught, and he got jammed up, and now he’s on admin leave and probably going to get fired. If you lie, you die. So, there could have been a conversation coupled with Francisco thinking, “I’m charming these girls. These are consensual acts where Robert knows that he’s compelling, forcing, intimidating, coercing women into this contact,” whereas Francisco thinks, “These are consensual because these girls are really into me.”

Yeardley:  Right. Like, “I’m cleverer than that.”

Scott:  Yeah.

Dave:  “When I tell the truth, I’m telling the truth. It’s probably a policy violation, but I’m being truthful about it. I should be in the clear.”

Scott:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  Wow. That’s just disgusting.

Scott:  I think probably what happened is that Francisco regarded himself as smarter than Robert. You wouldn’t have to spend very much time in a police car together and realize that Robert’s a rock, paper, scissors sort of a guy. He’s not-

[laughter]

Scott:  -very bright. I think, in contrast, Francisco had a degree. He was smart. He’d been in the Marine Corps.

Zibby:  Oh, right.

Scott:  If I had to speculate, he was probably listening to Robert. And whatever Robert was disclosing, he was probably thinking, like Dave said, “That’s not me. I’m different.”

[Break 2]

Yeardley:  What’s the thing that ultimately sank Francisco?

Scott:  We started going down a similar investigative path with Francisco.

Zibby:  God, this investigation, you were fielding so much corruption. I can’t even wrap my mind around it.

Scott:  Yeah. And the thing is that when it became public that we were investigating now two officers, then we started getting calls on the tip line. We had a designated tip line.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  And we’d have women approach the District Attorney’s Office and say, “I have a story to tell about Francisco.” You remember I talked about going to the prison.

Yeardley:  Yes. You went to the prison to interview one woman’s complaints about Robert.

Scott:  I ended up talking–

Yeardley:  To 10.

Scott:  Yeah. When I got there, one of those women wanted to talk about Francisco.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  She described having been a robbery suspect. She was in prison at the time for that very robbery. It was a home invasion style kind of a robbery where she was involved. She said that she was contacted by Francisco at a time when the other officers all knew that she was wanted in connection with this robbery. They were seeking her. She is a publicized target within the police department. And she was arrested, ultimately by some patrol officers.

 During the course of her arrest, she disclosed, “Well, I was contacted yesterday by Francisco, and he didn’t arrest me, you know?

Zibby:  Huh.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  Why are you guys arresting me?” So, when I talked to her at the prison, she said, “He let me go, he took me into custody, and he detained me for a period of time. He ultimately let me go, and he instructed me to meet him at a park.” Well, it was the same park that Robert had had that sexual encounter with Janine.

Zibby:  In the bathrooms.

Yeardley:  In the disgusting bathroom.

Scott:  Exactly. And this was right in the heart of the hood. It was a pretty bad park. And these guys were geographic with respect to their predatory behavior.

Yeardley:  Sure.

Scott:  And that was right in the same area. And anyway, he directed this girl to go to that park. And she didn’t.

Yeardley:  She did not?

Scott:  She did not.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  She took advantage of that situation. She knew what he wanted. She told me, she said, “I knew he was talking to me sexually. He wanted me to meet him there, and I knew that he was going to want sex. I could tell. He talked to me about it.”

Zibby:  Did she say, “Okay, I’ll meet you there, and then didn’t go”?

Scott:  And she fled. Yeah.

Zibby:  Yes, girl.

Scott:  Yeah, she’s savvy, like many of these girls who are on the street.

Yeardley:  Mm-hmm.

Scott:  Of course, we could go back and look at the record. He had checked out with her at a location. He didn’t check out with her by name, but she told us where this interaction happened, and we were able to verify that. Again, we had several women that contacted us during the course of that time after it became public that he was also under scrutiny and had also been placed on administrative leave.

Zibby:  I remember back when we were covering The Sociopath and The Whistleblower, you said that with regards to Francisco, at some point, you were forced to stop looking, because he took an Alford plea.

Dan:  Right.

Yeardley:  Dave, I see you sitting over there nodding. Tell us what an Alford plea is.

Dave:  So, they’re basically saying, “I’m not pleading guilty. I’m taking an Alford plea to say that the state has evidence that could convince a jury that I’m guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” And so, it’s an acceptance of, “You guys have a really strong case against me, but I’m not going to say that I did it.”

Zibby:  Right. How many women do you know were victims of Francisco’s?

Scott:  He was charged related to– I think there were nine women that he was charged related to. But I knew of more. And I had talked to more. In fact, there was one case where a woman had been contacted by Francisco and another officer. He was a transplant that came to us. He was very experienced. His name was Jimmy.

 So, when Francisco’s information came out that he was also under scrutiny, officers came forward and started telling stories, just like on the Robert case. They said, “Hey, now that I know what Francisco is all about. I got a story to tell you.” And this Jimmy officer came to me and he said, “Hey, I got this story.” So, he said, “Francisco and I got sent to this trailer park, and we ended up contacting a man and a woman.” He said, “There’d been a dispute.”

 And so, what is protocol is that you separate the two involved combatants. And he said, “Francisco went into the trailer with the woman,” and Jimmy said, “I stayed outside with the guy. We just do that for officer safety and we typically keep each other in sight, but we separate them, so we can get a straight story about what’s happening and try to resolve whatever the conflict is.”

 Jimmy said, “At one point, it became awkward. Like, I had been out there, and I had already talked to this guy about what the situation was.” And then, we started talking about his car. He was working on a car parked out next to the trailer. And he said, “We were just making small talk about the weather.” I started to realize, “Where is Francisco?” So, he said, he excused himself from this guy for a second, because he said the guy also, the male half of the dispute was like, “Are we done? Right? Dude, what’s going on?”

Yeardley:  Mm-hmm.

Scott:  So, Jimmy goes up and knocks on the trailer and says, “Hey, Francisco, we about ready?” And Francisco opens a window, to what turns out to be the bathroom, and says, “Yeah, we’re just about done. I’ll be out just a second.” Jimmy tries the door, and Jimmy notices the door’s locked, but he doesn’t-

Zibby:  Oh, my God.

Scott:  -really think anything of it. And so, he hangs out for a little longer. And pretty soon, Francisco comes out and the officers leave. So, he tells me about the situation, and he says, “You might want to check into it.” So, I end up learning the names of the two involved parties. And I contact this woman, Becky. I talk to her about it and I say, “Hey, do you remember this situation where there was this dispute? Do you remember what happened?” And she says, “Yeah, I’ve heard about what’s happening with Francisco.

 I was thinking about maybe coming forward and talking about it, but she said, “I’m sick.” Again, she was a heroin junkie and she said, “But yeah, he came to our house. We had been in a dispute when he came in.” She said there was a bong and marijuana on the counter inside. He closed the door, and he said, “I can charge you with this. You end up going to jail. I’m sure if I search, I’ll find more.” He says, “Or, you can give me a blow job.” And so, she says, “While the other officer and her partner are standing outside, that he’s in the bathroom forcing her to perform oral sex.”

Zibby:  Come on.

Yeardley:  Disgusting.

Scott:  Yeah. Again, this is another consistent theme. She says, “He starts to lose his erection during the course of this sexual encounter.” And so, he takes his gun out and puts it to her head, and she says, “He recovers his erection.”

Yeardley:  What?

Scott:  Yeah.

Zibby:  What?

Dave:  That just gives you a little insight into how he fuels his fire where he’s coming from.

Zibby:  Yeah. Power.

Scott:  Right. Yeardley’s response is shocking. It’s like, “What?” When the cop is outside with–

Zibby:  And her partner.

Scott:  Her partner, with an earshot. We’re talking about a single, wide trailer.

Zibby:  It’s a living nightmare.

Scott:  Right.

Yeardley:  Oh, my God.

Scott:  And brazen. But I think that risk factor is exciting for him. I think he derives sexual arousal from being in that situation, at risk.

Dan:  So, at some point during your investigation, it comes time to confront Francisco. How did that go?

Scott:  After we got the letter from Matt, and the district attorney disclosed the details, he went into great detail about not only the fact that he had been targeted for this marijuana grow, and it was his impression that he was targeted in order to get him out of the way, so that Francisco could have direct access to Liza without having interruption or interference from the boyfriend, Matt, that also he had these allegations that there had been these sexual encounters, and that there was some forcible component to it, and that there had been a search where Liza’s panties and photographs of her naked were also taken during the course of the marijuana investigation. So, Liza lived in a new state. She and Matt had moved away.

Zibby:  She and Matt had moved away after Matt was released from jail?

Scott:  Yeah. And he had gotten criminal conviction, and they had moved away.

Zibby:  Okay.

Scott:  He learned later, through the course of discussion with Liza, she told him about what had happened.

Zibby:  I see.

Yeardley:  I see.

Zibby:  And that’s when the letter was written.

Scott:  Right.

Zibby:  Got it.

Scott:  So, I reached out to Liza, and we decided to do a phone trick.

Zibby:  What’s a phone trick?

Dave:  Phone trick usually only works if they don’t know the police are involved, the suspect side of the phone conversation, where we live is a one-party state. Meaning, only one participant in that phone conversation has to know that it’s being recorded. So, it’s basically a confrontation call where we put victim, or maybe younger children will put the parent of the victim on the phone with the suspect and confront them and say, “What do you have to say for yourself?”

 It creates some urgency for the suspect to come up with a story right now. So, I’m not sure what script you went with there, but it’s just a recorded conversation. It’s pretty compelling evidence if it’s a situation where it could be a he said, she said, and we’ve got no physical evidence.

Zibby:  Oh.

Dave:  Let’s hear what happened when the victim talked to the guy on the phone, and she calls him out.

Yeardley:  Mm-hmm.

Zibby:  So, who’d you put on the phone with who?

Scott:  So, what we did is Liza had a cell phone with an area code that was consistent with her new home state. So, Dennis and I decided, “If she’s agreeable, let’s bring her back here where we can participate in this phone trick, where we will record a conversation that she initiates to Francisco, and we can monitor that conversation. Let’s see if he acknowledges what she says happened, or maybe he puts it into a context that’s different, but let’s find out.”

 So, we fly her back to our town. Liza, we gave her specific instructions. The whole idea is, “We want to get you here. We want him to think when he’s talking to you that you’re there in the other state.”

Yeardley:  I see. Okay.

Scott:  “Certainly, don’t tell him that you’re coming. Don’t tell anybody that you’re coming.” So, she gets in early in the morning. We go to the airport. When we get there, Dennis and I, she’s there, and there’s a girl that’s meeting her and we say,-

Zibby:  Oh.

Yeardley:  What?

Scott:  “What happened to not telling anybody that you were coming into town?” “Oh, she’s my girlfriend. She’s good. Well, she’s in the industry.”

Yeardley:  In the stripper industry.

Scott:  Yeah. My experience had been in dealing with some of these girls that they had a hard time keeping secrets. I was afraid that if extra person knows, then it’s going to get carried around, and it has the possibility of getting back to Francisco-

Yeardley:  Yeah, of course.

Scott:  -who still, as far as we’re concerned, he’s frequenting these clubs.

Yeardley:  Mm-hmm.

Scott:  So, we started getting a glimpse at Liza that she might be a little bit difficult to manage. We regroup and we say, “All right, listen, don’t talk to anybody. We had booked a room for her at a hotel. We made a late-night phone call, recorded it, and said, ‘Just leave him a voicemail. Tell him, ‘Hey, I want to talk to you. It’s been a long time.’” So, she does that. And I said, “If he calls back during the night, just let it go to voicemail. Don’t answer it. So, good night.” We go home. About 5 o’clock the morning, I get a phone call from Liza, and she says, “Oh, my gosh, he’s on his way here.”

Zibby:  Oh.

Yeardley:  What?

Scott:  That’s my question. “What?” And she says, “I accidentally answered the phone, and then I told him where I was. And so, he’s on his way over here right now.”

Yeardley:  Meanwhile, you want him to think she’s in the other state.

Scott:  Right.

Yeardley:  She has fucked this up-

Zibby:  -so bad.

Scott:  Yeah. And it’s like, “Okay, I get that. Maybe you accidentally answer the phone. But how do you accidentally tell him that you’re here, and how does he know where you’re at?” So, obviously, I’m starting to question her motivations a little bit. I’m thinking, “Is there more to this story?”

Yeardley:  Like, maybe the sex they had was more consensual than what she had stated or–

Scott:  Yeah, I don’t know.

Zibby:  It just sounds like she wanted to see him, frankly.

Scott:  Yeah.

Dan:  She’s just not going with the program. She’s not following any direction that-

Yeardley:  Any.

Dan:  -she’s been giving.

Scott:  Right. We, as investigators, you get this anecdotal from people about, “Yeah, that person has not been completely truthful,” and this is an example of things that they’ve done that I think I question their integrity or their honesty, reliability. And of course, I’m looking at it going, “Well, I’m having a personal experience with this right now there.”

Yeardley:  Right.

Scott:  So, for me, I’m starting to question what her motivation might be. I know that Francisco is on the job. When she tells me he’s on his way there now, I’m like, “Well, crap.” So, I call Dennis, and wake him up, and I say, “I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m heading over there right now. I’m going to try to get an eye on the hotel and see what’s going on, but apparently, he’s on the way there now.”

Zibby:  Were you going to intercept or just observe?

Scott:  I wasn’t really sure.

Zibby:  Yeah. No time to think.

Scott:  I’m going to go see what I can see and react to it. So, it’s like, “This is a fluid situation.”

Yeardley:  Wow.

[Break 3]

Scott:  As I get there, and I’m driving my personal vehicle, I don’t think he recognizes or would recognize. I see his car leaving. She calls me as I get in the parking lot and she says, “He just left, but he fondled me while he was here.” So, she’s describing attempted sexual assault.

Yeardley:  Okay. Can you call it that if she invited him? That’s a real question. Like, I don’t know.

Zibby:  That’s a good technical question.

Scott:  Sure. And for me, it’s like, “Well, okay, what’s going on here?” This is all evolving in front of me, and I’m having the same questions you guys are. I’m thinking, “Is she credible?” But she is saying something happened. So, Dennis and I decided, “Let’s just call him in and while interviewing.”

Yeardley:  Call Francisco in?

Scott:  Yeah.

Zibby:  Because I’m assuming she told him, “Oh, yeah, they brought me here.” Did she give all the information up to him, does he know why she’s in a hotel?

Scott:  No, she didn’t disclose that. She just said, “I’m in town.” She said that she was there for a photo shoot, something like that. She comes up with that during the course of the conversation. Dennis and I decide, “Let’s just see what’s happening.” I think whatever Liza has told us during the course of this investigation so far, we’re beginning to have a little bit of a question about what exactly is happening, and what’s reliable and what’s not. So, we decided, “Let’s bring Francisco in. Let’s talk to him.”

Zibby:  So, you bring him to the department. I guess he’s still working, but you say, “Hey, we need to question you,” and you bring him in.

Scott:  Yes. So, we brought him in. He was on the job. He had no idea it was coming. We just called him to the station. He came in uniform, and sat down and we had a conversation about it.

Zibby:  So, you get some information from him in this interview, but is it incriminating enough to do anything, or do you have to just send him off and go slap on the wrist and keep your investigations going?

Scott:  No. He acknowledges misconduct, and he acknowledges public indecency. He says that he’s in a public park, and he’s exposing his penis and he’s engaging in a sex act with two women. So, he acknowledges to us these criminal violations. We’re interpreting them as misconduct and crimes. He again, as I said, he’s thinking, “Oh, this is misbehavior and misconduct. I’m probably going to get a day off or two, but it’s not criminal,” he thinks, but it is.

 And so, we put him on administrative leave. We take his badge and gun. We go down that path. Just days after we put him on administrative leave, I called him and said, “Hey, you were very forthcoming. Is there anything else we should know about?” And he said, “Yeah, there are some other sexual interactions that happened with women that I met on the job.”

 And so, he agreed to meet us. So, we met. Just coincidentally, I designated the same coffee shop that this whole thing started. I said, “Let’s meet there.”

Dave:  I thought you were going to ask him to the park.

Zibby:  I did too.

[laughter]

Zibby:  I’m not going to lie. I did too.

Scott:  Yeah. I said, “Why don’t you meet me at that same coffee shop?” And so, he met us there. Then, we recorded the conversation, and he went with us and we went as he directed. First, he took us to Amanda’s house.

Zibby:  He took you there?

Scott:  Yeah. He directed us to her house. So, Dennis was sitting in the backseat with him. I was driving, and he was talking and he was just telling us where to go.

Dave:  This is like what you would do with a burglary suspect who’s hit dozens of houses is, “Drive me around town and tell me where to go for the houses you’ve hit.”

Scott:  Sure. You bet.

Zibby:  So, we took you on the victim tour.

Scott:  Yeah, exactly. So, he told me about Amanda. He told me about Jennifer. He took us to another house where he met a girl named Sherry. He had interaction with her. He told us about Shannon.

Yeardley:  Good grief.

Scott:  Helen.

Yeardley:  [gasps]

Zibby:  Oh.

Scott:  And so, he just directs us around. He’s spilling his guts. He’s cleansing his soul. He’s acknowledging in his mind, I guess he’s telling us about these other women, so that he can get this out in front of him, and then get it behind him and get back to work.

Yeardley:  Is he remorseful or is he matter of fact?

Scott:  Nah, he’s just matter of fact. He tells us in retrospect, “Yeah, I regret doing this, and I know I’m probably going to get in trouble for him, probably going to get some time off.” But in his mind, these are all consensual interactions, because as I said, he’s different. He doesn’t behave the way Robert did. Maybe in some ways, Francisco just perfected what he had learned from Robert.

Yeardley:  Right.

Scott:  So, I think he eliminates the forcible compulsion, because in his mind, if they are reciprocating interest in me, that’s a green light.

Zibby:  So, he’s saying, Amanda, Jennifer, Sherry, Shannon, Helen, all of these women wanted to participate sexually with him, and that there was no abuse of power whatsoever.

Scott:  Right. But when we talk to these women, they describe a different scenario.

Zibby:  Can you tell us about some of the scenarios with the other women?

Scott:  Jennifer says that she has a dispute in her neighborhood with a woman over a bicycle, something had gotten stolen. And so, she says, “He came to my house. He helped me resolve that situation. He was flirting with me. I was flirting with him. I noticed he didn’t have a wedding ring, and that was one of the things that he said he did.” At night, he took his wedding ring off and left it in his locker.

 And so, he demonstrated that he was single and she was interested. She said, “He came back to my house, in this case, when he was off duty.” And she said, “We visited, and then he came back again on duty.” And she said, “He knocked at the door, and I opened the door.” And she said, “He started kissing me, and I was kissing back. It was awkward.” She said, “He was in uniform.” She described this full-frontal assault.

 She said, “I was interested in him, like, I want to get to know you. I want to go out with you. I want to go on a date.” She said, “He backed me into my kitchen, and he started pushing my head down toward his crotch.”

Yeardley:  Mm.

Zibby:  Oh.

Scott:  “That wasn’t what I had in mind. I didn’t feel like I could say no.” This is something that was repeated time and time again during this investigation,-

Yeardley:  Right.

Scott:  -because he’s in uniform. There’s that sense of power, that’s an element of force, is just presence in uniformity. Police departments acknowledged that in their policy. And so, she says, “I did it. I performed oral sex. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t feel like I could say no.” Like, one of the instances that we talked about with Robert, she said, “This was so upsetting to me. I vomited.”

Yeardley:  Ah. While he was there or after he left?

Scott:  While he was there.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  She says his reaction was she got up and left and went to the bathroom, and she came back and he still wanted more.

Yeardley:  Oh, no.

Scott:  And she said, “I did it.”

Zibby:  Oh.

Scott:  And so, this is one of many stories. The one I talked about with Bobby, the one where Jimmy, the officer, was there, and that situation occurred, I wanted to pursue forensic evidence to try to validate what Bobby said had happened. So, I went back there. My thought was, “I’ll find some DNA, because she said that he had ejaculated on the floor.” And she said, “I don’t clean house, there might still be trace evidence, so I went back there, and it was a couple years later.”

Yeardley:  Hang on. She didn’t clean house for a couple of years?

Scott:  Well, the trailer was gone.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  The trailer had been destroyed. It was moved and it was scrapped. So, that was one of those cases that we never were able to prove. But like with, I mentioned Brenda, Amanda and Jennifer, Sherry, Shannon, those cases, we were able to corroborate with evidence.

Zibby:  Tell us about Shannon because Robert preyed on her vulnerability in a particularly cold-blooded way.

Scott:  Shannon presented at the District Attorney’s Office, and they directed her to me. Shannon had been out one night. She was walking around late at night, and she was putting a bulletin, she was trying to find a runaway daughter.

Yeardley:  A runaway daughter?

Scott:  Yeah. So, her daughter had disappeared, and she was trying to find her and she was putting up missing posters.

Yeardley:  Had she gone to the police saying, “My daughter is missing as well”?

Scott:  She had. Her daughter was a runaway, and she would frequently come and go. At this time, she was missing again. And so, mom, Shannon, was out putting these bulletins out. Francisco saw her. She had a dog with her. She was walking a big dog. It’s late at night. So, Francisco came up and engaged her in conversation, started talking about what she was doing. She gave him a flyer, and he showed some interest in trying to find her daughter.

 Again, he was targeting her, obviously, we found later. She said that, “Because of his interest in trying to help her find her runaway daughter, she was flattered by the fact that he was also interested in her, and she felt safe and she felt motivated to keep in touch with him.” And so, she did.

 He parted with her, with the flyer and gave her his phone number and said, “Call me,” that kind of thing. And then, I think he put her on his regular routine of patrols, and he found her out walking again one night with her dog. He came up and re-initiated contact with her and started talking, and he kissed her. And she said, “I didn’t feel anything from the kiss. There wasn’t any spark there.” So she said, “I told him as much.”

 She was a spiritual person, as I would later find out. She was a hippie chick. She lived in a real humble surrounding. She’d never had a car. She walked to get around. But she had a daughter. I think she had two children.

Yeardley:  Was she a drug addict at all? Was she one of those vulnerable, marginalized women?

Scott:  No, she wasn’t. She led a simple life, I think. Because he would encounter her at night when she was alone, I think he perceived her to be vulnerable. Of course, he used that missing person, that runaway aspect, as leverage. So, she said, “I really just wasn’t interested.” But she said he persisted. She described a couple situations where she was social. She had another friend, a male friend, and they had been out to a movie, and they were sitting in front of her house in this guy’s truck, and she says, “Francisco drove by in a patrol car, and whipped around behind us, and turned the police lights on and shined the bright lights-

Yeardley:  What?

Scott:  -into our car.” Yeah. And she said, “I was interested in this guy, and I liked him.” And then, all of a sudden, here’s this policeman, and he comes up and he says, “Hey, Shannon. How you doing?” And he says, “Hey, can I see your driver’s license and registration” to the dude?

Zibby:  Oh, my God.

Yeardley:  Based on what?

Scott:  Yeah, he’s parked the wrong direction-

Yeardley:  Oh, my God.

Scott:  -in front of the house. And so, she describes it intimidation, and then she has to explain how she knows this officer to this man. Again, it’s subtle leverage, I think, is what he’s creating, intimidation. Ultimately, Francisco comes back to her house when he’s off duty. She invites him in and she says, “I’m not threatened by him, but I’m not interested in him.” She describes this forcible compulsion to perform oral sex.

Zibby:  Oh, that kills me.

Scott:  But she is the one who– I talked about when we first started talking about this, she ended up being involved in the Alford negotiations and the Alford plea.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  And in the civil part of this that followed, just like with Robert, she got a settlement from the city. She purchased a vehicle. She’d never had a car before. So, she buys this little pickup truck with a canopy, and she said she liked to pick mushrooms, and so she would take her dogs and she’d go out and harvest mushrooms. That was her thing. She got a personalized license plate for her truck to commemorate how she got it. This was all unbeknownst to me.

 Months later, she shows up at the station. She calls me and said, “Hey, I left something for you at the front counter at the station, a little souvenir.” So, when I got to the station, there’s this envelope for me, and I open it up and it’s this personalized license plate, and it says, “Bad cop.”

[laughter]

Scott:  Pretty cool. Yeah. So, she called me and she said, “I kept one, and I thought I’d give you one.”

Yeardley:  I’ve given you the other.

Scott:  Yeah.

Zibby:  Do you still have it?

Scott:  Yeah, I do. It’s really cool.

Yeardley:  I love that.

Zibby:  What a great acknowledgement.

Scott:  Yeah. Really, looking back on it, the Alford aspect of this case was something that the prosecution certainly arrived at. It wasn’t some undertaking that wasn’t a thoughtful process. I think the prosecutor felt like the Liza issue was complicated, Liza coming here from the other state and then going sideways on us. Her credibility got knocked down a little bit.

Yeardley:  But there were so many other women. Why would you let Francisco take an Alford plea? Why wouldn’t you just go to trial?

Dave:  Well, there’s some benefits to guilty pleas and plea petitions like this, that you have limited appellate rights, that you can’t come back multiple times down the road and keep appealing this and we have to rehash the whole trial again. So, there’s benefits to that. Also, that all these victims don’t have to get up on the stand and recount these horrible acts that occurred to them. They’ve got families, they’ve got significant others, they’ve got children.

 They know that this is a big publicity case. They don’t want to air all their dirty laundry. So, there’s benefits to this, and that you limit the exposure to the victims, you limit the exposure to post conviction relief where somebody could appeal and say, “Hey, I want a new trial, or I didn’t do this,” and they get a new trial. It’s more signed, sealed and delivered. This is what it’s going to be, and we’re done with it.

Zibby:  Can anyone make an Alford plea? Because also, what it seems like it limits is the possibility for him to get an insane and worthy sentencing for everything he was actually up to.

Dave:  Right. Alford pleas typically are a fairly sweet deal for the defendant, but they’re also a fairly sweet deal for the prosecution. It’s a negotiation. So, I’ve had Alford pleas where someone took an Alford plea said, “Yeah, you could prove my guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, but I didn’t do it.” And they took 20 years.

Zibby:  Oh.

Yeardley:  They still had to go to prison for 20 years?

Dave:  20 years-

Yeardley:  Oh.

Dave:  -on an Alford plea. So, it’s a balance of where do we want to go with this as the prosecution versus what’s the defendant willing to accept.

Zibby:  It’s a chess move.

Yeardley:  I can’t say I fully understand, and I certainly don’t feel satisfied for these women that Francisco got an Alford plea, although I do understand not wanting to re-victimize them?

Dave:  I can tell you from a law enforcement perspective that Alford pleas are not satisfying to law enforcement, because you’re not acknowledging what you did. There’s no accountability there other than this length of time that you’re going to be in a timeout.

Zibby:  And refresh my memory, what did he get?

Scott:  What he got was the equivalent of about a five-year sentence. But as part of the negotiation, he was given the ability to have access to programs. And one of those programs was an inmate boot camp. The concept behind that is you go through this boot camp that includes what you would obviously associate with a boot camp. There’s a physical fitness regimen routine, but there’s also counseling and that kind of thing. If you stay with it and you graduate, you get a significant sentence reduction. The conflict for me was this guy had been to Marine Corps, and so he’d been through Marine Corps boot camp. So, he could stand one hand and do inmate boot camp.

Yeardley:  Right.

Scott:  So, to me, that was a pretty sweet deal for him.

Zibby:  And he got out earlier than his original time.

Scott:  He spent about two years in prison, and then he got out. Dave hit on a point that I think is worthy of emphasizing, is that one of the considerations that the district attorney consulted in making this Alford decision was that none of these women wanted to testify. They were all pretty reluctant. But that was a factor that was also present in Robert’s case. Women in that case didn’t want to testify. And then, ultimately, when we went through this Alford process, each of the women ended up having to testify anyway.

Yeardley:  Really?

Scott:  Yeah.

Yeardley:  Why?

Scott:  That was just the way it ended up going. To me, I remember sitting there thinking, “Gosh, we might as well have gone to trial, because these women are having to testify and be cross examined.”

Yeardley:  So, the whole thing, just not in front of a jury, only in front of a judge, I’m assuming?

Scott:  Judge. Yeah, just a judge.

Yeardley:  A bench trial.

Scott:  Yeah. Right.

Yeardley:  Oh.

Scott:  So, anyway, yeah, it was not satisfying. I think that we scratched the surface, because we stopped once the district attorney said, “This is the way we’re going.”

Yeardley:  So, you really have no idea the full roster of women he may have abused.

Scott:  Yeah. I think if the Bobby disclosure at the trailer was any indication of the direction he had gone, I felt like he was as bad as Robert, certainly.

Zibby:  It’s just so vile.

Yeardley:  It’s unbelievable.

[music]

Yeardley:  Small Town Dicks is produced by Zibby Allen and Yeardley Smith, and co-produced by Detectives Dan and Dave.

Zibby:  This episode was edited by Soren Begin, Yeardley Smith and Zibby Allen.

Yeardley:  Music for the show was composed by John Forrest. Our associate producer is Erin Gaynor, and our books are cooked and cats wrangled by Ben Cornwell.

Zibby:  If you like what you hear and want to stay up to date with the show, head on over to smalltowndicks.com. And become our pal on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, @smalltowndicks. We love hearing from our Small Town Fam. So, hit us up.

Yeardley:  Yeah. And also, we have a YouTube channel where you can see trailers for past and forthcoming episodes. And we’re part of Stitcher Premium now.

Zibby:  That’s right. If you choose to subscribe, you’ll be supporting our podcast. That way, we can keep going to small towns across the country and bringing you the finest in rare true crime cases, told, as always, by the detectives who investigated them. Thanks for listening, Small Town Fam.

Yeardley:  Nobody’s better than.

[music]

Yeardley:  Hey, Small Town Fam. It’s Yeardley. I hope you’re enjoying Beyond Recognition, our special six-part limited series from all of us here who bring you Small Town Dicks. And for anyone who’s wondering, and it does seem like a few of you are wondering, I want to assure you that Small Town Dicks is coming back in September, as usual, per normal, with a full season of great cases told, as always, by the detectives who investigated them. So, don’t fret. Small Town Dicks isn’t going anywhere.

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