Opinion ID: 2624500
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Crawford interviews

Text: Detective Crawford of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department interviewed defendant on June 9 and 10, 1979, in the Love County Sheriff's Office in Oklahoma. Crawford made audiotapes of each interview, and the prosecution played both tapes during trial and gave each juror a written transcript of each tape. In the first interview, defendant said he ran into Calvin Spencer, also known as Spider, a friend whom he had not seen since 1973, and Spider's old lady, Fran, at College Billiards in San Diego on Wednesday, May 30, 1979. Fran had left her husband, and she and Spider were driving across the country. Defendant, who told Spider and Fran he would like to do some traveling, agreed to travel with them. Defendant told them he had no money, and Spider and Fran said they would take care of expenses. Defendant told Crawford he thought he might be able to make some money with a check writer machine he brought with him from home. Defendant told Crawford he, Spider and Fran drove to his parents' house in Linda Vista to pick up his clothes and shoes before leaving San Diego. They drove east on Interstate Highway 8, using Fran's and her husband Terry's credit cards to buy gas along the way. Throughout the trip, all three of them signed the credit card receipts. Defendant told Crawford he dropped off Spider and Fran in Shreveport, Louisiana, after Fran gave him permission to drive the van on his own to his cousin's house in Oklahoma City. Fran and Spider were to call him there the following day. Fran also left the credit cards with defendant for him to use for gas and stuff along the way. Defendant explained that Spider had exchanged the California license plates on the van for Oklahoma license plates in order to minimize any difficulty defendant might encounter in using the Buchanans' credit cards at gas stations when Fran would not be there to vouch for his use of the cards. Defendant first learned there was something wrong when he tried to use one of the credit cards at the Stuckey's restaurant in Marietta, Oklahoma, and the cashier called the police. Defendant said he bought the butcher knife sheriff's deputies found in the van at a variety store in Shreveport, Louisiana, explaining that he thought he might need some protection on the road and, since he was an ex-con, he could not purchase a gun. He denied purchasing the saw and rope found in the van, and denied picking up any hitchhikers along the way. Defendant acknowledged that Terry Buchanan's name was on the credit card he used. He told Crawford that Spider sometimes referred to Fran as Eleanore, that a photograph of Eleanore Buchanan holding her newborn baby, shown to him by Crawford, looked like Fran, and that Fran was wearing light-colored jeans and carrying a beige cloth purse when they were traveling. He said he last saw her in Shreveport, Louisiana, on Thursday, June 7, and she was alive, well, and hiding from her husband. In the second interview, conducted the next day on June 10, 1979, defendant told Crawford that earlier in the evening of Wednesday, May 30, 1979, before going to College Billiards where he met Spider and Fran, he visited a friend, Theresa, at her house in San Diego. Theresa then drove him to the house he shared with his parents, where he stayed until at least 9:00 p.m. Five or 10 minutes later, without speaking to his parents, he left and went down the road hitchhiking. He then walked to College Billiards, arriving shortly before 10:00 p.m. There he ran into Spider, whom he had not seen in quite a few years. They discussed defendant's desire to get some paper with which to print up and write bad checks on the check writer, and defendant suggested that Fran would cash the checks he wrote. He also stated that he brought the butcher knife from his parents' home, and he did not remember telling Crawford the day before that he had bought the butcher knife in Shreveport, Louisiana. He also said he might have bought it in Benson, Arizona. He acknowledged police in Texas had stopped him for speeding and issued him a warning ticket while Spider and Fran were with him. Defendant told Crawford he never went near San Diego Mesa College on the night of May 30, 1979; he had not seen any blood in the van but any blood found there was his; and no crime had been committed but the police just got stuck with a corpse and a runaway wife.