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Wednesday, February 23, 2005 --
1:15 PM
After Grant Sexton was transported to the Yoknapatawpha County
Sheriff's Department following his 911 call, the detectives talked with
him about what made him call 911 and about issues related to the Denise
Hartigan homicide investigation. The interview was conducted by
Detectives Armstrong and Murphy and was recorded on a portable tape
recorder with the witnesses' knowledge and consent.
- TA = Detective T. Armstrong
- SM = Detective S. Murphy
- GS = Grant Sexton
SM: Please give us your name, age, address and occupation.
GS: Grant Sexton. Twenty-five. Unemployed.
Address is 126 County Road 432 in Yocona.
SM: Talk to us, Grant. What's going on with this egg thing?
Are you honestly afraid of an egg or is this just some setup to try to
make us feel sorry for you?
GS: Okay, you don't understand. See, it's not just the egg;
it's the spiders too. I woke up and it felt like something was crawling on
my head and neck. There were spiders, like 20 of them,
in my bed and in my pillow. They come out of your ears.
I just knew they had. And when I looked inside my
pillow, there were feathers strung together with red wax.
I immediately got really scared. I looked around for
anyone sneaking around because I thought it happened
during my sleep. I mean, spiders come out of your ears
if someone has hexed you. That's a terrible hex!
SM: Okay...
GS: I ran outside to look for any clues, and I found
the egg hanging in the tree. It really scared me. I
went closer to inspect, and I saw that tiny crosses had
been carved in the bark. I'm sure you know how bad that
is, Detective.
SM: Uh-huh. Go on.
GS: It's a death fix. Old school.
TA: Get on with it!
GS: Well, that's it. I didn't need to see
any more. I knew it was Papa Bokor. I ran in the house, and I called him. No answer, of course, because
he was in Yocona. So I called you guys. And that's
that. I need protection. I'll do anything you want if you'll just help
me.
TA: So you just saw spiders on your pillow and an
egg in your tree and now you're in here wanting to spill your guts to us
if we promise to protect you from bugs and groceries?
GS: Yes. All of this has been weighing on me. I can't tell
you...
SM: What's been weighing on you?
GS: This whole thing has been making insane, I swear. I don't know who
could have done this. But I was scared that it was Papa Bokor coming for me after he'd done Denise.
SM: What is your relationship with Papa Bokor?
GS: I tried to get in with him. When Denise was down
in New Orleans, caught up in him and his voodoo church, I
went down and tried to get involved. I just wanted to be
near her. But she didn't want me around, so Papa Bokor
wouldn't let me come around when she was there. But I
just wanted to learn. I wanted to know what she knew.
So I went down there on occasion, and I stayed with him
when she wasn't around, which, I gathered, wasn't that
much toward the end. I think he had grown displeased
with her maybe.
TA: How so?
GS: He just got cranky when I brought her up. He was
off-putting, made some remarks that led me to think she
was a loser. I think he said she wasn't smart enough or
dedicated enough. But he still wanted to have her.
SM: Okay, and how is this related to your egg incident?
GS: I drove down to see him when I found out Denise
was coming back. I wanted to get a love potion. I
didn't tell him who it was for, but I'm pretty sure he
knew anyway.
TA: Why would he give you a love potion for Denise if
he wanted her for himself?
GS: I don't know. I think he wanted me to poison
her. Because he did said something funny when he gave me
the gris-gris. He said, "Sexton, it's gonna take more
than a sprinkle of love powder to woo a girl who wants to
kill you." I asked him what he meant, and he just
laughed.
SM: What did you do with this gris-gris he gave you?
GS: I can't remember exactly, but he must've told me to
sprinkle it on her food because that's what I did. Maybe the package said sprinkle on food.
SM: There were instructions printed on it?
GS: I ... I don't remember.
TA: You better start remembering. You fed this gris-gris to
the same girl whose head turned up in a creek! Maybe you killed her with
that junk.
GS: No, I didn't. That's not what was supposed to happen!
SM: Do you know of any reason why Papa Bokor would
want to kill Denise?
GS: I... I don't know the full dynamics of their
relationship. I know she used to run to him when the
chips were down, and he'd do whatever she wanted. He's a
hound, man. He's a sucker to that woman. But he ain't
above killing her.
TA: You're not really in a position to be making
accusations, so I'd be careful with that if I were you. If you don't know why
Papa Bokor would want to kill Denise, why would he want to kill you?
GS: I don't know, man. I guess he was jealous.
That's what this is about, right? You gotta know this
dude. He doesn't work by your police logic.
SM: Have you seen Papa Bokor in Oxford or Yocona?
GS: No.
SM: When was the last time you saw him?
GS: I last saw him about two days before I went to
get Denise from the airport. That's when I got the
gris-gris. After that... that's when everything went to hell.
SM: You picked Denise up in Memphis?
GS: Uh, yeah.
SM: Why didn't you tell us that before?
GS: I-- I was afraid to. Like I said, everything went to hell
after that.
TA: Start talking. What happened?
GS: Something went wrong with the gris-gris. I called Papa
Bokor that night after I'd
picked her up. I called him and said, "You know that
gris-gris? Well, it's ****** somebody up bad. Tell me
what to do." And he said, "You little ****, it
better not be Denise." I told him it was, and I told him
that I'd sprinkled the stuff on red beans and she ate it.
He told me it had rattlesnake venom in it, and that it
would make her blind and could even kill her if taken in
a large enough dose. I told him how much I'd given her,
and he said it wouldn't be enough to kill her but that I
should get her to a hospital.
TA: Why would he tell you to take her to a hospital
if he wanted you to kill her?
GS: I don't know that he did want me to kill her.
Hell, maybe he just wanted me to turn myself in right
then and there. It would have saved a lot of trouble,
and Denise probably wouldn't be dead.
TA: Yeah, just blind.
GS: Look, I got the idea about the potion because it has
really worked, or so Papa Bokor told me. Nicole told me
too. It was her idea. She was joking, but it made
sense to me. I needed everything I could get. So I went
to get this love gris-gris, and I had no idea it was
poisonous. I didn't know I was just supposed to sprinkle
it on her pillow.
TA: That was really stupid. You're responsible for this, you
know?
GS: I know... Please...
SM: So, now you think Papa Bokor has come to Yocona to
exact revenge on you?
GS: I don't know. He must be here. But like I said, I
haven't heard from him except for the spiders and the egg. I don't know anything about his
intentions.
SM: Do you have any proof that the spiders and egg came from
Papa Bokor?
GS: I know the man and his reputation. That's proof enough for
me.
TA: Did you know your name was found written on a
scrap of paper, rolled up and stuffed in the mouth of a
dead rattlesnake in Papa Bokor's apartment? Do you know
what that means?
GS: Y-Yes. I can imagine.
TA: From what I hear, these hexes are pure New Orleans voodoo death
stuff. You're liable to choke on your coffee right here. Heck, Papa
Bokor may be lurking around the office. He's
liable to have put strychnine in your chemical coffee
whitener.
GS: What? You gave me poisoned coffee? Here, take it. I'm not
drinking it now!
SM: Okay, gentlemen, we're getting nowhere here. Grant, you obviously
don't know anything valuable about Papa Bokor, at least
nothing you're willing to talk about. Let's start at the beginning. Tell
us how you
found out Denise Hartigan was flying into Memphis on December 22.
GS: Denise called the house one day. This is when I was
living with Nicole and Gina. I picked
up the phone and was startled to hear her voice. I was
elated, but she didn't want to talk to me. I gave the
phone to Nicole, and they talked for a bit. I could tell
by listening to Nicole's side of the conversation that Denise
was coming home. Nicole wrote the info down on a sheet of paper by the
phone, so I had that.
SM: But Denise asked Nicole to pick her up, not you. Right?
GS: Yeah. But then there was that message.
SM: What message?
GS: The one where Denise told Nicole not to pick her up.
SM: You heard that message?
GS: Yeah.
TA: I thought Nicole got that message after she kicked you
out.
GS: Well.. maybe. I don't know.
SM: So you knew about that message... how?
GS: I don't know. I mean, I moved out, yes, but it wasn't
like I never went there after that.
SM: You didn't think it was strange that Denise would call
Nicole and ask her for a ride and then call her back a few days later
and leave her a really angry message with no explanation saying she
didn't need a ride?
GS: Uh... I don't know.
SM: Was that typical behavior for Denise?
GS: She did it to me.
SM: But did she usually act like that with Nicole?
GS: I don't know.
TA: How can you not know? You and Nicole lived together. You
went to New Orleans looking for Denise together. You never had any
conversations that might tell you how Denise usually acted with her?
GS: I don't know.
SM: Okay, so for whatever reason, Denise leaves the message
for Nicole and you find out about it. What then? You decided you'd go
pick her up yourself?
GS: Yeah.
SM: How did you know she hadn't gotten someone else to give
her a ride?
GS: I don't know. I guess I didn't really care. I just
thought... I thought if she saw me there, she'd come with me.
TA: How did you know she was still coming? That she hadn't
cancelled her trip?
GS: I don't know. I just figured... I just wanted to see her.
It never even occurred to me that she might not be coming. I just wanted to pick her up myself. I wanted
to talk to her and let her know that I still cared about
her. She wouldn't listen to me. The few times I got to
actually speak with Denise, she would never let me tell
her how I felt. So I was gonna make it happen. That was
all, I swear.
SM: Were you under the influence when you arrived at
the airport?
GS: Yes. I'd been drinking and smoking some grass to
settle me down. I was pretty nervous, as you can
imagine.
SM: Did her plane arrive on time?
GS: Yep. And she was surprised to see me waiting for
her at baggage claim.
SM: What did she say when she saw you?
GS: She just kept asking over and over where Nicole was. I told
her I could take her to Oxford, but she kept denying me.
She started to make a scene, and then I told her I had
some ecstasy in the car. She seemed slightly more
willing to go after that.
TA: Why was she asking where Nicole was after she'd told
Nicole not to pick her up?
GS: I don't know.
SM: Did you pick up any luggage?
GS: She had a carry-on bag. That was it.
TA: No big suitcase?
GS: Well, we didn't wait around at baggage claim.
She could have forgotten though. She seemed pretty out
of it.
SM: Did you leave the airport immediately?
GS: Yeah, pretty much.
SM: Where did you go?
GS: Well, she wanted to go to her parents' house,
but she took that ecstasy and the more she
started rolling, the more she just kind of zoned out. But she
got real bitchy, and when I told her we were going to my
place, she started freaking out. I had to give her some
downers, she was so out of
it. We had gotten some liquor too.
SM: What kind of liquor?
GS: Rum, I think.
SM: Did you have some?
GS: No. My stomach can't handle it.
TA: Did she tell you why she had come home?
GS: She wasn't making a whole lot of sense. She must've done some heavy drinking on the plane. But I
gathered that she was tired of being on the road. And
she seemed to be angry at her parents. She kept saying
she was gonna show them what they had made of her, like
it was their fault that their daughter was falling apart.
SM: And what happened when you arrived at
Grimes's house at Coles Point?
GS: I guess it was around three or so when we got
home. She passed out and I guess I did too for a while. I woke up a few
hours later, but she was still dead to the world, so I started making dinner.
SM: The red beans?
GS: Yeah.
SM: And then what?
GS: I was so messed up, man. I just remember playing
loud music and drinking and getting more and more ******
up. God, it was like I was trying to create this
nightmare. I was scared and nervous and totally out of
control. All I remember is that when she finally woke up, we ate. And
before I gave Denise her bowl, I sprinkled the beans with gris-gris.
She was still bitching
about being at my place. She wanted to go home, but she
was bitching about that too. And she was
drinking too, getting more and more ****** up just like me.
SM: How long after she ate the red beans did she get
sick?
GS: Damn, I don't know. It was a little while after
we ate 'cause we talked for a while before she got so sick. It was a disaster. I was loaded
to the gills, and we talked about getting back together.
She was adamantly against it.
TA: What did she say?
GS: She kept telling me that I didn't know what I
wanted, that she wasn't right for me and that this was a
bad time for me to be popping up in her life again. She
kept talking about how messed up and rotten she was. She
kept saying that I was clueless, that I didn't know what
she had been through as a kid. She said she didn't want
me around because I reminded her of all that. And then
she started vomiting and going crazy. She
was sick and insane. I had to restrain her.
TA: How did you do that?
GS: It sounds crazy, but I made her lay on the floor,
and I put the sofa cushions on top of her and sat on
them. I didn't know what else to do. She kept shouting
about how she couldn't see anything, and I told her it
was because she was under a mountain of cushions. But
when I let her up, she couldn't see with her eyes open.
That's when I called Papa Bokor.
SM: What happened after he told you she would go
blind?
GS: I freaked out. I can't remember. I know I tried
to kill myself in the bathtub, but then I passed out.
Woke up in the bathtub freezing. I was still out of it,
but at least I could put together the scene. Denise had
split. All the doors were open, and the place was
wrecked. I just ran out back to find her. There's a
path that leads down to the lake. I ran down there and
didn't find her. I splashed around thinking I might find
her underfoot. But she was nowhere, and it was starting
to get light. So I grabbed my stuff and got the hell out
of there.
SM: And what about her bag?
GS: I don't know. She must have took it with her
'cause it wasn't in my car. If she left it at the house, I'm
sure Grimes would have found it.
SM: Do you remember where it was? I mean, if she was blind
as you say, was it somewhere that she could have found it just by crawling around and feeling for
it?
GS: I don't remember where we put it.
SM: Did you see any of the contents of her bag?
GS: No.
TA: Why didn't you call 911 after you found out you
may have blinded her? I mean, you called them after you
found the stupid egg in your tree; why not when you
blinded someone?
GS: I was scared, man. I wasn't thinking straight,
obviously. I mean, ****, I tried to kill myself.
TA: You're a sad failure, man. I think you're full of it.
SM: Where did you go when you left the house?
GS: I went to look for her. I drove all around Coles
Point and rode into Sardis. Then I rode toward Oxford.
I rode by her parents' house, but I didn't stop.
TA: Were they home?
GS: Maybe one of them was there. I remember getting
flustered and driving off. I rode up toward Wall Doxey
State Park, off Highway 7, and jimmied my way into one of
their cabins and got some sleep.
TA: When did you get the speeding ticket?
GS: That morning after I left Coles Point looking for Denise.
TA: Were you inebriated?
GS: I don't know. Maybe some, but mostly I was really freaked out. It's a wonder the cop didn't take me
in.
SM: Where did you go after you were at Wall Doxey?
GS: To Nicole's. They let me crash on the couch. I
told them Grimes had kicked me out.
SM: This was before he actually kicked you out?
GS: I guess. I don't know. I never went back to
Coles Point after that.
TA: Why not?
GS: Man, I was so freaked out. I had to lay low for
a while. I just... I didn't know what had happened.
SM: And you never heard anything else from
Denise?
GS: Nothing. Nicole had been waiting for her to
call, I remember. When she never did, I think Nicole
just dismissed it. After that phone message, Nicole had pretty much given up on Denise.
She didn't believe she was really coming to Oxford.
SM: And you never checked in with Denise's
parents?
GS: No. I tell you, I stayed with Nicole for another
day, then Len let me move in.
TA: Who else in this town practices voodoo?
GS: Nobody that I know of. As far as real-deal voodoo,
nobody around here is into it. Maybe some blacks in the county...
TA: How much did you practice?
GS: I was into it after I hung out with Papa Bokor a few
times. I got into the spells and stuff. I don't know. I
wasn't in it as much as Denise.
SM: Why didn't you come forward to begin with? Why
have you been lying?
GS: I was so scared I might've killed her. You mess
somebody up like that and then they disappear and turn up
weeks later all-- you know, like she was. I've been sick with this! I
haven't slept in months and months! And now I've got a ******* voodoo priest trying to kill me. You've gotta
call a witchdoctor in. I've gotta reverse this stuff.
TA: But you didn't kill her?
GS: No!
TA: How do you know?
GS: What do you mean?
TA: How do you know that poison you fed her didn't kill her?
GS: Papa Bokor said it wasn't enough to kill her! And I
didn't-- I would never-- I couldn't do that to her.
TA: What? Poison her? Apparently you could and did.
GS: But that was an accident! That other-- what happened...
the... parts. I could never do that to her. I loved her! I still do.
SM: Okay, I think that's enough for now. Grant, I'm going to
tell you the truth. You're in deep trouble. You've lied to us all along
and, quite honestly, I think you're still not telling us the whole
story. The officers are going to book you now, and I want you to spend
some time thinking about what you've told us and what you've left out.
We'll be talking to you again.
Interview ends --
2:53 PM |
