Free And Then She Killed Him by Robert Scott Page A

over the past six months, he had become harder and harder to reach by phone. Portia began getting only voice mail; and even when she called him back, he did not return the call. In frustration Portia started calling Miriam’s cell phone number, asking that her father call her back. Even then, he did so only infrequently.
    Portia told Investigator Norcross that her father had been very sick between January 2008 and the end of April 2008. He was so sick, in fact, that there were many days he couldn’t get out of bed. Alan said he felt dizzy, his legs hurt, and he was always tired. Portia didn’t know what was making her father so sick, but there were a few times he had to check into the hospital in Grand Junction. It got so bad that her father told her at one point that he had bedsores, and Miriam was only giving him Gatorade to drink.
    Portia told Norcross that she found this scenario very suspicious, because her father had always been a healthy man before meeting Miriam. Portia became so concerned about her father that she started showing up at his home unannounced. Around May 1, she did see that her father was feeling better. He seemed to be his old self, happier and more vibrant.
    And then Portia switched subjects. She told Investigator Norcross that when Miriam moved in with her father, they started owning horses. Portia thought this was strange, because up until that point, her father had never shown any interest in animals at all. Going further into this horse-owning business, Portia said that she knew her father had fired a horse trainer named Stephanie because he thought she had lied to him about how many hours she had worked during one period. Alan and Miriam then hired another woman, whose name she thought was Julie, as the horse trainer, but Portia didn’t know Julie’s last name.
    Another thing struck Portia as strange. When Investigator Norcross told Portia that Miriam had phoned Alan several times on the morning he was killed, Portia said that things were not usually like that. Portia related that her father and Miriam almost always went to town together. And it was not like Miriam to be phoning her father and leaving him messages about where she was and what she was doing. Miriam did not go out on her own very often.
    Portia also said that recently she had been receiving odd phone calls about her father’s finances. That was completely out of character for him. On June 4, 2008, she received a call from American National Bank. They were calling her about a loan that her father had with the bank; and even after numerous phone calls to him, he had never called them back. Alan Watkins, the man at the bank, knew that her father had been sick for a prolonged period of time, and Watkins wanted to make sure her father was okay. Then Watkins told Portia that he needed to talk to her father about his account right away.
    Portia tried calling her father about this situation, but once again got no answer, just a recorded message. Around that same time, Portia received a phone call from a woman named Savanna at the State Farm Insurance Agency in Delta. Savanna told Portia they were closing Alan’s policy due to a lack of payment. This was completely out of character for her father, Portia said.
    Portia told Norcross that between June 4 and June 9, she had called her father three times per day, with no response. Miriam did call Portia back on June 5 and said to her that on May 29, 2008, while on the way to Lake Powell, Alan had told her to call the bank and lie to them. The lie was supposed to be that Alan was in Denver receiving electrolyte treatment, and to ask the bank to let Miriam cash a check for him. Then Miriam added that this was information she would not even tell her best friends. Portia thought this comment was very odd, since she and Miriam were not close, and the so-called information Miriam had just provided did not make sense. Portia related that she did not believe her father would ever ask anyone to