Cherished Memories of Home / Woman surviving horror of slayings
Suzanne Espinosa Solis, Chronicle Staff Writer
Published 4:00 am, Monday, November 3, 1997
1997-11-03 04:00:00 PDT HERCULES -- On the July 4 weekend, Susan Abernathy returned to her Hercules home, where five months earlier she had walked in to find her husband and son shot to death.
She surrounded herself with friends and relatives for a potluck gathering she described as a "house blessing." She told invited guests she wanted them in "good spirits," advising those who might feel too angry or upset to stay home.
"Certainly we still mourn and cry and are sad, but that day was a day to reclaim this territory," said Abernathy, who now shares the single-family home with two of her best friends, Darrell and Cheral Porter.
Police still cannot explain to Abernathy why somebody entered her home the afternoon of February 19 and killed her husband, Neal, and son, Brendan. And Abernathy is not pressing police for answers. Instead, weary from answering so many of their questions and from their reluctance to share information, she hired a lawyer.
Police say she is not a suspect, but they believe she may unwittingly hold a clue to why someone murdered Neal and Brendan Abernathy.
Abernathy, 41, spent the first months after the killings with friends in Martinez. She described her return to Hercules as an act of defiance.
"They can take a lot away from me, but I'm going to keep my job, my home and my car," said Abernathy, who agreed to an interview in the presence of her lawyer. "I'm not angry, but defiant."
She has transformed the house where investigators took days to analyze a bloody crime scene. Wood floors replaced the carpet, the walls have been freshened with paint, and a high-tech security system has been installed.
"I know people wonder how I could come back to live here," said Abernathy. But to understand that, she says, people would have to understand how much the home meant to the Abernathy family.
Overlooking San Pablo Bay, the house is where Susan and Neal, college sweethearts from the University of California at Davis, planned to live out the American dream. Their son was 3 months old in 1984 when the family moved in.
"This house was really positive," Abernathy said. "It always felt like a positive, warm place. We had lots of friends here, lots of potlucks. I never had any negative feelings here. I still feel like that."
Neal Abernathy, 43, was the proprietor of Precision Tune Auto Repair on San Pablo Avenue in Pinole, and Brendan, 12, was a seventh-grader at Pinole Middle School, where he excelled in computers and science.
Their killings jolted the tranquil community of Hercules, where violent crime is almost unheard of. In the days that followed, police volunteers stopped area motorists and handed out flyers hoping someone might have seen strangers in the neighborhood. Neighborhood crime watch groups held meetings with police. Some residents even took extra safety measures at their own homes, trimming back bushes and installing lights.
But as the months went by, it became apparent that the killings were not part of any criminal pattern. The case appears isolated.
The afternoon her husband and son were killed, Susan Abernathy was at her job as a lubricants research chemist at the Chevron refinery in Richmond. She said she could think of no reason why anybody would have targeted her family.
Abernathy said she knew little about the investigation because police were not willing to share details. She decided to hire a lawyer after spending countless hours answering police inquiries about nearly every aspect of her personal life, she said.
"I told them who lived next door to me when I was 4 years old. They were looking at who I knew in high school," she said.
After one six-hour session July 26, Abernathy hired criminal lawyer David Briggs of Richmond. She said she was emotionally and mentally exhausted and unable to focus on her job and life.
"Police were calling me every two or three days," she said.
Police Chief Mike Tye said he thought it was a peculiar decision.
"Now, with her attorney to some extent she's not readily available to us," Tye said. "It doesn't make the free flow of our investigation ideal."
Tye said the questioning was a routine part of any murder probe involving family members. "Our intent was to get an intensive interview about her son, husband, associates, friends and relatives," he said.
But at first, Abernathy could recall few details about the family's last weeks, Tye said. Police gave her time.
"It was a traumatic experience," Tye said. "After time passed, as we dealt with her on a daily or weekly basis, she seemed to me more cognizant of things that had happened around her at the time."
Since she hired Briggs, police have not asked Abernathy back for questioning. They say they have the information they need for now. Meanwhile, both Abernathy and Briggs stress that she remains cooperative. Both also stressed she is in no way critical of the investigation.
"I know nothing, really, about it," Abernathy said.
Police are sure of one thing: Whoever murdered Neal and Brendan Abernathy had it planned.
The Abernathys were most likely not the random victims of a home robbery, police say. The killings were not crimes of passion.
The killer or killers arrived prepared, with binding material -- police will not say what -- to tie up their victims. There was no sign of forced entry. The house was not ransacked, and little of value was taken.
There was evidence that father and son had returned to a normal atmosphere after a 1:30 p.m. dentist appointment for Brendan, who was out of school for a week's winter break. Neal had posted the next dental appointment on the refrigerator.
Police estimate that sometime between 2:30 and 5:30 p.m., Neal and Brendan Abernathy died on the living room floor. They were face-down and tied, each killed with a single gunshot to the back of the head.
"Brendan and Neal were laying face down. And it looked like Brendan was trying to help Neal -- he was kind of over him," Abernathy recalled, crying uncontrollably.
Abernathy said the killings had occurred during a particularly good time in the family's life.
"We were spending more time with friends at home," she said. "February 5 was Neal's birthday. He turned 43. Brendan got accepted in a student ambassador program and had just found out he was going to Australia. We spent our weekends with some of our best friends in Modesto. On Valentine's Day we spent the day at home together. Things were just great.
"Neal was talking about selling the business. He was going to do something different," Abernathy said.
On their last weekend together, one of Brendan's lifelong dreams was fulfilled -- viewing "Star Wars" on the big screen.
"He talked through the entire movie," remembered Darrell Porter.
Abernathy last spoke to her husband and son the afternoon of the murders.
"I called about 12:30 during my lunch break and talked to Brendan about having to get his teeth pulled. I told both of them that I loved them."
Neal's and Brendan's ashes are buried in Sonora at Mountain Shadow Cemetery, where Neal Abernathy once played with other children as a young boy.
"I just think life is uncertain," Abernathy says. "We all die. We don't know what the conditions of our death will be. It's sad when it's through an act of violence."
BRENDAN NEAL ABERNATHY
Posted on 12/02/2011 by Emmalee
BIRTH: May 21, 1984
DEATH: February 13, 1997
Brendan ~ Age 12 and Neal Abernathy (his father)
Brendan, 12, was murdered along with is father Neal Abernathy in their home. They were tied with electrical cords and shot execution style in the back of the head. Brendan‘s mother, Susan, found their bodies after arriving home from work. The house was in total disarray.
Police said, “We had an idea the house may have been staged to look like a robbery gone bad,”but this definitely looked different to experienced eyes.”
There were no signs of forced entry, not unusual because the family often left the house unlocked. The living room showed the dog’s presence after or possibly during the killings. All things considered, the place seemed pretty tidy and that struck police as odd.
Though cabinets were open, their contents appeared mostly undisturbed. The house also lacked signs of the life-or-death struggle that police would have expected. The things that were taken weren’t things of great value or considered by most items taken in a home robbery. More expensive things, like a $400 stereo, were left in the house untouched but the phone answering machine was taken. Some jewelry was taken and police searched pawn shops for a stolen necklace that Susan wore on her wedding day. The gold chain of Baroque design, with an amethyst and a pearl dangle, never turned up. None of the items taken from the house were ever found.
Kent Truscott, Susan’s current husband and a college roommate of Neal’s, was the only person who would not consent to a police interview about the murders. He refused again 10 years later. Susan and Kent married in 1999. Police view Kent’s refusal as vexing, not suspicious. They have no reason to suspect him, but the find it difficult to finish the investigation without clearing everyone who knew the victims and had access to them, and be able to gain access to Brendan’s and Neal’s home without forced entry.
The murders still remains unsolved.
Police ask anyone with information about the Feb. 19, 1997, murders of Neal and Brendan Abernathy to call Hercules Detective Sgt. John Eaves at 510-799-8272.
What We Know So Far
Here's what is known to-date about the murders. Most of this information was culled from the Contra Costa Times (CCT). Other information has been gathered from Susan, Neal's wife and Brendan's mom, and from friends of the Abernathy family.
On February 19, 1997, Neal Abernathy had taken the day off with plans to spend it with his son. Brendan, age 12. Neal and Brendan made the rounds of various appointments during the morning, including the orthodontist. Susan at work had talked to Neal at home on the phone in the middle of the day. At the time of that phone call, things appeared perfectly normal at the Abernathy house. But when Susan came home from work, she found the door into the house ajar and Neal and Brendan murdered execution-style in the living room, tied up with electrical tape and shot in the back of the head.
Police early on stated that the murder scene may have been doctored to look like a robbery (CCT, 31 Dec 97). An heirloom amethyst necklace was stolen from the house (CCT, 13 Feb 00; CCT, 25 Feb 00). That necklace once belonged to Susan's grandmother. There was also no sign of forced entry into the house (CCT, 31 Oct 97). The police also hypothesized that the murder may be the work of more than one gunman (CCT, 22 Feb 97). The Hercules Police would be happy campers if they could find two people: the author of an anonymous note sent to the police several months after the murders, and an anonymous caller who phoned a local church twice about the murders, both of whom may have information related to the crime (CCT, 22 May 97, CCT, 25 Feb 00). The note was actually rather rude, stating: "regarding the Abernathy shootings in Feb., there are no tears," signed by "someone who knows." Unless I missed something new, the most recent CCT article related to the murders is dated 31 March 2007, and presents a ten year overview of the case to date. This same article misquoted me in a very embarrassing way, which did not leave me feeling very happy.
One of the strangest aspects of the Abernathy murders is the potential link to a spyware software scandal that made all kinds of headlines in Canada. In 1998, one of the players in the scandal and a former Hercules resident, Michael Riconoscuito, contacted the Hercules Police and claimed that Neal's and Brendan's murders were related to the Canadian software scandal. At the time, Riconoscuito was in jail for a drug conviction - though he claims he was framed. He was interviewed by the Hercules PD but nothing has ever resulted from whatever he said to them.
While the Abernathy case appears to be cold and getting colder, the Hercules PD is still chasing leads as they come up. For instance, in 2002, some previously untested material evidence was sent to the then-just-opened State of California Crime Lab in Richmond, CA. One of the main purposes for the new crime lab is the examination of evidence, especially DNA, from cases like the Abernathy murder in danger of going cold.
What We Don't Know But Wish We Did
There's lots we don't know, the most obvious being the identity of the murderer or murderers. Motive is the other black hole for most of us who knew Neal and Brendan. There are other data gaps that are bothersome. There was no evidence of forced entry so who was it that afternoon that Neal opened the door and let them in? And where were the dogs, the terrible, fierce and protective corgies? If you had ever met those corgies, always wary of strangers and ever so protective of Brendan, I think you would wonder too how someone got into the house and murdered Neal and Brendan without trouble from the dogs. The whole bit with the mystery phone call and the beligerant mystery note is rather disturbing, even if the note and call turn out to be a cruel hoax. The results of the 2002 DNA sampling are unknown - and so are the results of the autopsy, whose results have not been made known even to the Abernathy family.
There are usually reasons why a case appears to have gone cold. First, it is not in the interests of an investigation to let the cat out of the bag as far as evidence is concerned before trial. Often, a piece of evidence is deliberately withheld from public scrutiny because it is something that only the murderer can know. Such evidence can be used to trip up a suspect in interrogation - a standard police technique, essentially a variation on giving someone enough rope to hang themselves with. There are other reasons not to disclose evidence. Spilling evidence too early can cause a suspect to flee, prompt a suspect to destroy undiscovered evidence, or cause a suspect to commit violent crimes against potential witnesses or criminal accomplices.
Another factor that effects the disclosure of evidence is insuring that the accumulated evidence is sufficient to gain a conviction. Before someone can be arrested and brought to trial, there has to be a convincing opus of physical evidence pointing to the murderer(s). If a crime scene is too thin as far as evidence is concerned, it's doubtful that a DA will want to risk a trial because of the double jeopardy dilemma. It is not unknown for law enforcement personnel to be certain that a particular suspect is guilty, but that's not good enough to win a conviction in court. A successful prosecution requires that there is sufficient and supportable evidence to lead to a conviction.
I'm sure the cops and government prosecutors want to solve this case as badly as the friends and family of Neal and Brendan, but being in the dark about the progress of the investigation doesn't help at all to mitigate the frustration we all feel.
Attachments:
