THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 13, 1996 TAG: 9609130544
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LYNN WALTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 116 lines
In April, 14 years after Pamela Kimbrue was raped and murdered on the Norfolk Naval Base, federal investigators staked out a neighborhood in Palmdale, Calif.
One investigator, posing as a market researcher, went from door to door, offering to pay residents to complete a questionnaire about their shopping habits - whether they preferred Kmart, Wal-Mart or some other store.
The investigator asked each, for confidentiality, to place the survey in an envelope, then lick and seal it. For most, it was an innocuous act.
But when Richard Whittle licked the envelope, he sealed his fate.
The saliva he left on the envelope contained the evidence investigators needed to charge him in Kimbrue's murder and rape. The DNA in Whittle's saliva linked him to semen left at the crime scene, investigators said.
On June 26, when investigators confronted Whittle with the DNA evidence in a hotel room in Burbank, Calif., Whittle confessed, telling several versions of what happened that foggy night near Willoughby Bay.
That confession was the topic of hours of debate in U.S. District Court in Norfolk on Thursday. Defense attorneys argued that it had been coerced by agents with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Everhart argued that it was given freely.
Judge Rebecca Beach Smith ruled that the confession was legally obtained and could be used at Whittle's trial on Sept. 24. He faces a life sentence on each charge if convicted.
In testimony Thursday, lead investigator Joe Kennedy - who oversees the NCIS ``cold-case'' squads around the country - laid out the strategies that led to Whittle's videotaped confession.
When investigators approached Whittle at work in June, Kennedy said, they already had a strong circumstantial case, complete with the DNA, a fingerprint match from the glass of the victim's car, hair samples similar to Whittle's and a ski mask left at the scene that had been linked to him.
And they already knew a lot about the crime.
They knew that on March 25, 1982, Kimbrue, a Navy courier, was killed as she left Breezy Point Communications Center with messages and packages about 3:40 a.m. They knew she had been beaten in the face and raped while her hands were tied behind her back in her car.
And they knew that her killer had wrapped a seat belt around her neck, put her car in gear and rolled it down a seaplane ramp into the Willoughby Bay, where she drowned.
They also knew a lot about Whittle. A forensic psychologist had prepared an extensive profile to help them prepare for the June interrogation. The psychologist told them Whittle didn't like police and to approach him in a friendly manner - no uniforms, no guns, no marked cars, no interrogation rooms.
They took Whittle to a hotel suite, ordered room service, offered to let him call his wife, and told him they knew it must have been an accident.
In one way, they were telling the truth. They don't think Whittle intended to kill Kimbrue, who was 21 when she died. But that changed once she ripped off his ski mask and recognized him, Kennedy said.
``It was a rape that turned into a murder,'' Kennedy testified Thursday. ``That's exactly what we thought happened.''
At first Whittle told investigators he and Kimbrue got high on marijuana and got into heavy petting. When Kimbrue changed her mind and started to fight him, things got out of hand, he said.
The seventh and last version was far more chilling.
According to Whittle's videotaped confession, played in federal court Thursday, here's what happened:
Whittle had run into Kimbrue the night before and said, ``Hi.'' He was attracted to her, and decided to come back the next night.
The next night, between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m., Whittle sat in his car smoking pot. As Kimbrue came out into a heavy fog, Whittle was waiting in the shadows. A green ski-mask covered his face. Two makeshift mittens made from stapled T-shirts covered his hands. He attacked from behind, forcing Kimbrue into her car.
``I said `Hey' and told her to get in her car and she won't get hurt,'' Whittle said.
Kimbrue screamed and dropped a stack of messages. Whittle picked up most of them and put them in the car. He drove to the edge of the seawall, away from the building. Kimbrue was quiet.
Then, when he pulled up her shirt and touched her breasts, she began to scream and fight back. She grabbed a Tab soft drink bottle and hit him with it. She pulled off his ski mask, saw his face and recognized him, he said.
That was when, investigators said Thursday, the rape turned to murder. Once Whittle knew she could identify him, investigators testified, he had to kill her. He told investigators, ``I knew I had to put her in the water.''
``She was fighting me like crazy, and somehow we ended up half in the front seat and half in the back seat,'' he said. ``She came up with a Tab bottle and she started to come down on me and I grabbed it away from her and hit her in the head and then I tied her up and told her to be quiet.''
Whittle said he doesn't remember raping her. Kimbrue kept ``kicking and fighting,'' he said, so he hit her with the bottle until she ``just kind of slumped. I checked to see if she was breathing and she was, so I got out of the car real quick and pushed the car right down towards the end of the ramp.
Whittle, who worked as a courier in a nearby building, went back to his office and splashed water on his face ``and tried to get a grasp of what had happened.''
``It scared the hell out of me,'' he said.
At the end of the confession, Whittle began to cry, his voice rising. ``I didn't mean to kill her. It was a total accident.''
Thursday in court, Whittle stood with his arms crossed, leaning forward to watch the tape. He showed no emotion.
In 1982, Whittle was one of about a dozen suspects in the crime. He was questioned at length right after the murder. Three years later, investigators showed up again, questioning him for about 45 minutes. Then, for 11 years, nothing.
Whittle made a new life, got a good job, married, had a child and, just before his arrest, bought a new home. Then, two casually dressed investigators showed up where he worked, and his reconstructed world fell apart.
The only phone call Whittle asked to make during the confession was to his wife. Investigators said he told her, ``I could not have told you because you would not have married me.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Investigators believe the 1982 killing of Norfolk Naval Base courier
Pamela Kimbrue was a rape that turned into murder.
KEYWORDS: MURDER RAPE KIDNAPPING U.S.
NAVY ARREST by CNB