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Friday, May 8, 1998

Families, defendant face the tragedies of murder

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Some of the mystery surrounding the death of Heather Rich was removed by two confessions and a jury trial, but neither the grief nor the contorted legal case will end very soon. In the final installment of "A Death in Texas," the last defendant awaits his fate with calm resignation and other foes step out of the courtroom onto another stage.

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By MIKE COCHRAN / Associated Press Writer

WAURIKA, Okla. (AP) -- More than a year after the murder of Heather Rich, network cameras have come to rural Oklahoma to remove whatever regional obscurity surrounded her story.

Cherese Bagwell, stunned by her son Josh's conviction in a Texas court, agreed to a prison interview with Josh while continuing to claim her son was framed.

Gale Rich, Heather's mother, also cooperated for the pending segment on ABC's PrimeTime Live after producers convinced her they would not sensationalize the story.

Other TV overtures included money, but Mrs. Rich said she believes ABC will emphasize education instead of entertainment and reveal what "a very special person" her teen-age daughter was.

Prime Time also found a repentant Randy Lee Wood in the Montague, Texas, jail where he awaits trial on capital murder charges. Wood essentially repeated the story he told in Bagwell's trial after he reneged on his plea bargain.

Months in the making, the PrimeTime segment tentatively was to be aired May 13, just days before Wood's trial originally was scheduled to begin.

Interviews and postponements aside, it is doubtful that any TV production or any further prosecution can fully reveal what occurred that October night in 1966 in Waurika and on the backroads of north Texas.

Curtis Gambill, the first to be convicted in Heather's death, has offered three versions. Randy Wood has told his story under oath and clearly against his own best interests. But investigators know he, too, is capable of lying. A Texas jury did not believe Josh Bagwell, but the appeals courts will review that verdict and his life sentence.

Wood's fate remains undetermined. His trial date has been postponed from May until next fall because of publicity stirred up by the recent national interest in the case. It is possible, though not likely, a jury could give him the death penalty.

"There is no question about guilt, just punishment," said Montague prosecutor Tim Cole, who will not seek death. "Wood has confessed once under oath and now on national television."

In Cole's mind, the murder of Heather Rich is clear cut.

"Bagwell is not what he appears to be. I think Wood is. With Curtis, you could see this coming years ago.

"Randy and Josh," he theorized, "got caught up in a situation where they didn't have the courage to stand up and say, ÔThis is not something we're going to do.' "

The search for answers in this tragedy dates back even to the days immediately following Heather's death.

In an editorial, the weekly Waurika News-Democrat posed the question, "So what's wrong with our teenagers?"

Entitled "Boredom, lack of jobs more of a problem that drugs," the editorial concluded, "While just about all teenagers complain about a lack of something to do, local teens do so with some justification. There's church, school, the lake and cruising Main, but nothing else."

The newspaper cited a reader who complained "there's little to do but get drunk and party."

Jeff Hall, then and now the publisher of the weekly paper, believes Waurika's citizens don't condone the teen-age drug use, but they tolerate it. Mostly, the kids drink beer and smoke marijuana, no more or less than in other small towns.

There was no official response when drug use and alcohol were publicized after Heather's death, but Hall says parents began more serious monitoring of late-night carousing and "quite a few Main Street draggers calmed down" on their own.

"This is not a new thing. It's just the first time we had to confront it," he says.

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Wearing jail whites and sitting in a jail classroom, Randy Wood seems at peace with himself, and professes no regrets over his extraordinary decision about the plea bargain.

He says he met Bagwell when both were juniors at Waurika High. That was more than a year after he got to know Gambill while working a summertime job in nearby watermelon fields.

His voice sometimes little more than a whisper, Wood said he had used drugs as an adolescent in Haskell, Okla., and picked up the habit again after moving back to Waurika his freshman year.

"Once you're there, it's kind of hard to get out," he said. "And for a small town, Waurika has a lot of drugs going through it."

Wood and his pals found little else to do most nights but drive around and drink and do drugs, he said, which is eventually what led to the tragic events of October 1996.

"We did a lot of partying ... I like to party too much," he volunteered, blinking.

Wood revealed that one night after Heather's death, he skipped out on a date with his girlfriend to join Gambill and Bagwell for another evening of revelry.

"I don't know why I went with them," he said. "We did the same old thing, drinking beer. We went to Ryan and Duncan and by Josh's Mom's house and to the Taco Bell."

He said he didn't remember talking much about the shooting, but, if anything, he and his friends probably did shape the story they would later tell investigators.

How, a visitor wondered, did a night that began so routinely spin so irreversibly and tragically out of control? Was Gambill truly fulfilling a psychopathic fantasy to kidnap, rape and kill a beautiful young woman, as testimony in Josh Bagwell's trial indicated?

If so, how could two reasonably bright young men permit the unprovoked, cold blooded murder of a defenseless, unsuspecting classmate who obviously liked and trusted them?

"It happened all of a sudden," Wood suddenly whispered. "Things took a wicked turn."

Still, as the pickup rolled through the darkened backroads of southern Oklahoma and north Texas that fateful night, Wood said he made a halting attempt to head off the murder of Heather Rich.

"Curtis, think about what you're doing," Wood remembered saying. Gambill ignored him.

When the pickup stopped at the bridge in Texas spanning Belknap Creek, "I was both confused and scared...I should have had the guts to stand up and say something.

"But I didn't."

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Wood said when the horror of what occurred at that secluded Texas bridge finally sunk in, he had but one thought: "I wished I could change it. That's what I still wish."

He could not do that, but he did two things he could do. In addition to rejecting the plea bargain to help convict Bagwell, he apologized to the Rich family in an emotional face-to-face jail meeting in March.

"I told them I was sorry for it happening. Sorry for lying to them through the whole thing."

Gail Rich was deeply moved by Wood's remorse and repentance and his earlier decision to reject the plea bargain and still testify against Bagwell.

"He was risking the death penalty and he knew that," she says now. "He actually did something to show he was truly sorry."

That's not to say she favors leniency.

"I don't think Randy had anything to do with the shooting, but he did nothing to try to save my daughter that night. He helped kill her by not doing anything. I want Randy to go to prison."

For the first time, Heather's mother revealed doubts about the final moments of her daughter's life.

"I'm not actually sure that Curtis is the one who shot her in the head," she explained. "I think Josh could have done that. I can see Curtis shooting her eight times in the back. He enjoys the kill ... I'm sure he took great delight in that.

"But I can see Josh killing her, being the one who actually shot her in the head."

She said that's why she would like to see both Gambill and Bagwell dead.

"I really think those two boys killed her ... Randy's the only one who ever passed a lie detector test. Curtis flunked his."

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In March, Randy Wood asked the Rich family for forgiveness, admitting privately he did not expect it. ABC cameras were there to record the moment.

Gail Rich said she permitted the TV crew to capture Wood's apology and the family's response in an attempt to "show that something good can come from this tragedy."

And what was that response?

"We forgave him for the hurt he caused us," she said. "I can't forgive him for killing Heather. Only Heather can do that."