Free Sleep In Heavenly Peace (Pinnacle True Crime) by M. William Phelps Page B

child was would come under considerable scrutiny later. Dianne changed her story several times throughout the years. In April 1989, for example, she was interviewed by the New York State Police (NYSP), where she signed a two-page statement in which she had given the police a detailed description of those months she spent at the lake with Mabel while carrying that first child.
    “…[In] the early part of 1972 I became pregnant by a person in New York City,” Dianne told police when they asked her who the father of the child was.
    Now, if she would have left her statement at that, there would have been no controversy later on. A “person in New York City” could have certainly meant her dad.
    But she didn’t stop there.
    “I only had met this person,” she continued, “once, and don’t remember his name.”
    This second part of the statement lent itself more to the obvious conclusion—that she became pregnant by one of the johns her mother had set her up with, or some random sexual encounter.
    In 1972, Dianne weighed approximately two hundred pounds. Later, however, she described herself during that same period as “skinny” and “average.” Was Dianne manipulating the police in 1989? Was she trying to save herself? What was her motive? John Molina was dead at that point. There was no reason for her to lie if, in fact, her dad had fathered the child. Furthermore, she had every opportunity to tell the truth. There was no reason to hide anything by then.
    Her motive would become clear much later when authorities found out what happened to Matthew, as she called the child, and what she had done with it—a fourth dead child, incidentally, who was not among the three dead babies found in Arizona.
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    Odell traded jabs with Thomas and Weddle regarding who else could have had a key to her self-storage unit. For about five minutes, they went back and forth: Odell swore it was a friend of her daughter’s, but wasn’t sure; while Thomas and Weddle tried to allow her to come up with another explanation, which she couldn’t.
    Finally Weddle asked Odell if she ever went back to the storage unit after abandoning it. Odell said she and her “common-law husband,” Sauerstein, had moved to Texas with the kids at one point, and “on my way back [to Safford], the car I was driving died. So I pretty much had to stay there and try to work to get another car and to put the kids in school….”
    “Was Mr. Sauerstein with you at that point?” Weddle asked.
    “Yeah.”
    “So when you left Pima, Arizona, that’s when you moved to Texas?”
    “Yes.”
    Odell was in an emotional jam back then, she explained later. She had never told Sauerstein, or anyone else, about her secret children, so getting back to Safford to clean out the storage unit was extremely important to her—but for reasons unknown to anyone else.
    After a few more questions, Thomas, a mother herself, wanted to know why Odell and Sauerstein had moved around so much, especially with “all these kids.” Thomas had worked child abuse cases for years. She knew the signs: a family that was always on the move was, generally speaking, a family running from something—usually child abuse charges.
    “I guess we were looking for that perfect place, you know. Like they say: The grass is always greener on the other side. But when you get there, it’s not so green.”
    For the record, Thomas had Odell then recite the names of her children and their ages. It was simple questioning; a prelude, perhaps, for what was coming.
    “Have you ever had a child anyplace other than a hospital? Like natural childbirth? Like in the home? Anything like that?”
    “No,” Odell said.
    It was a lie.
    “Have you ever been a midwife? Have you ever delivered children for anyone else?” Thomas was being thorough, giving Odell a chance to explain herself.
    “No.”
    “So you’ve had how many children?”
    “Eight.”
    “Eight?”
    “Not counting the miscarriages.”
    Thomas and