Opinion ID: 2624500
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The events of May 30, 1979, to June 8, 1979

Text: On May 30, 1979, 24-year-old Eleanore Buchanan, known as Fran, attended an evening math class that was scheduled to meet from 7:00 until 10:00 p.m. at San Diego Mesa College. Because she had missed several classes due to the birth of her second child, she chose not to take an optional quiz, given at approximately 9:15 or 9:30 p.m., and left the class. She was last seen walking toward the campus parking lot or a nearby street. She had driven the new blue van she and her husband Terry Buchanan had purchased weeks earlier; Terry used the van during the day to make deliveries for a dental lab. About 1:30 p.m. the following day, May 31, 1979, Harry Piper, a target shooter, discovered a body, later identified as that of Eleanore Buchanan, in a cul-de-sac in Pine Valley, [2] south of Interstate Highway 8. The head and hands were missing and there were ligature marks on the ankles and wrists. Forensic pathologist Dr. Joseph Luibel, who conducted the autopsy, testified the cuts around the head and right hand were smooth and consistent with marks made by a saw, while the cut on the left wrist was consistent with having been made by a knife. All of the amputation marks were consistent with having been made by someone without much knowledge of anatomy and with rudimentary knowledge of the use of a knife and saw. Although the body was exsanguinated, he was unable to determine with certainty the cause of death, and noted several postmortem wounds to the chest and abdomen. He noted that when the body was discovered, it was lying on its back and both forearms were raised several inches off the ground, a common result of rigor mortis. Based on an examination of the stomach contents he concluded the victim died between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. on May 30, 1979. Based on the stage of rigor mortis and the condition of the forearms at the time of discovery, he concluded the body was left in Pine Valley approximately six hours after death, or between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. on May 31, 1979. Defendant lived with his parents on Comstock Street in Linda Vista, California, approximately one mile from San Diego Mesa College. Donna Hatch lived in Terrell, Texas. She and defendant had corresponded since 1973, and first met in person in 1976. Telephone records from the Hamilton residence in Linda Vista revealed that at 1:52 a.m. on May 31, 1979, just hours after Eleanore Buchanan's classmates last saw her alive, defendant telephoned Hatch. Hatch testified defendant told her he planned to head for Texas that morning after he got some gas. During the evening of June 1, 1979, defendant showed up at Hatch's house in Terrell, Texas, driving a van. Hatch noted that the van had a broken window, a broken armrest, and a bent inside curtain rod. The next day, Hatch and her sister, niece, and daughter drove with defendant to Oklahoma and Ft. Worth, Texas, and back to Terrell, Texas, stopping to sleep at a rest stop where defendant used Buchanan's credit cards to buy gas. On June 4, 1979, defendant and Hatch stopped at a phone booth near a hotel where defendant made two telephone calls. After the second call, defendant's demeanor changed and he became nervous. [3] Hatch overheard defendant say he had traveled to Texas by airplane, which she knew to be untrue, and that he thought he had killed somebody, or thought he had killed a man. Defendant asked Hatch to go to a car lot and steal Texas license plates to exchange with the California plates on the van, but she refused. Defendant and Hatch talked about his former wife; defendant had led her to believe that his former wife was dead, but on this day he told her she was alive. When Hatch became upset about the lie, defendant asked her if she wanted him to kill his former wife. Hatch decided to end her relationship with defendant. On June 8, 1979, from Greenwood, Louisiana, defendant phoned Hatch at her house. Her grandmother answered the phone, and when Hatch got on the line, she heard defendant say, I'll kill you, too. On June 8, 1979, the use of Terry Buchanan's credit card at a Stuckey's restaurant in Marietta, Oklahoma, triggered an alert to the Love County Sheriff's Office to be on the lookout for the Buchanans' blue Dodge van bearing Oklahoma license plates. Officers thereafter found defendant driving the van. Upon his arrest, defendant told the officers he got the van from a friend of his sister in Oklahoma City. Love County Sheriff's deputies searched a site south of Marietta and, in a pile of dumped trash, found fast-food wrappers, unset false teeth, dental equipment, literature and pamphlets dealing with dental supplies, a Texas Department of Public Safety traffic warning slip bearing defendant's name and dated June 7, 1979, a collection of school notes and a quiz from a math class, a license plate bracket that said National City, Stanley Dodge (the dealership where the Buchanans purchased the van), and credit cards, courtesy cards and receipts bearing Eleanore Buchanan's and Terry Buchanan's names and bearing signatures that were not in Terry Buchanan's handwriting.