A Wolf in Suburbia: The Pesce Family Murders Part 2

Part two of the story continues with chapters 5, 6, and 7 of the book, "A Wolf in Suburbia: The Pesce Family Murders."

These chapters discuss the actions of Wolfenbarger and Lincoln before and after the murders and we meet William "Billy Wadd" Smith, notorious West Side Boss of the Devil's Diciples and uncle to John Wolfenbarger. 

Transcript

Welcome to Year 5 of the Curator 135 Podcast. My name is Nathan Olli and this is episode 83 - A Wolf In Suburbia: The Pesce Family Murders Part 2 

Chapter 5 - The Days Prior

Tuesday, December 17th, 2002

John Wolfenbarger arrived at the home of Steven Phillips unannounced. Phillips, John's 40-year-old second cousin, had a reputation of being the go to man for guns in the neighborhood. Wolfenbarger knocked on the front door, after a moment Phillips let him inside his slab home.

Without wasting any time, John pulled a .357 from his pocket and showed Phillips. The gun had no ammo and Phillips could see that he had broken the trigger lock off.  

“Can you get bullets for this?” Asked John.

“No. I’m a felon.” Phillips had various past charges and shouldn’t have legally owned any weapons. 

“Is there some kind of trade we could make?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Wolfenbarger told Phillips he would be back in a day or two and left. 

Wednesday, December 18th, 2002

At 6:00 p.m. Dennis Lincoln pulled into the driveway of John Wolfenbarger’s girlfriend Doreen’s Livonia home. Together, Doreen, John and Dennis sat in her living room and talked for a while before heading to Livonia Mall. The trio walked around the mall for an hour before settling down at the Pretzel Peddler, a food stand that happened to be directly in front of Rodeo Diamond Designs Jewelry Store.

They stayed at the mall for a little while longer before John and Dennis took Doreen back home. John walked Doreen to the door and then left, stating that he was spending the night at his mother’s house. 

Instead, the duo drove back to Livonia Mall and sat near the Frankly Yours hot dog stand watching and waiting for Rodeo Diamond Designs owner, Koko Vartanian to leave. The men followed Vartanian out of the mall and into the parking lot before getting into their separate vehicles. Lincoln and Wolfenbarger followed the jeweler, communicating via cell phone before ultimately losing him in traffic.  

Thursday, December 19th, 2002 

Just before 11:00 a.m. Linda Keimig grabbed her coffee mug and entered the hallway outside of Cybertech. She was filling her mug with water when she heard a noise at the base of the stairs near the entrance. Cybertech, a staffing company in Garden City, Michigan shared the building on the corner of Middlebelt and Ford Road with Orin Jewelers, its offices located above the jewelry store. 

Keimig noticed two men standing at the bottom of the steps, near a bank of mailboxes, looking at the directory for the occupants in the building. 

“Hello, may I help you?” She asked.

The two men, one white and one black, came quickly up the stairs, keeping their heads down as they approached her. The white male took the lead and stopped one step below Keimig. 

“Where’s the jewelry store?” Wolfenbarger spoke while still avoiding eye contact. 

“Oh, you want to go back downstairs, the entrance is at the corner, we have nothing to do with them.”

Without saying a word, both men turned, descended the stairs and left out the door. 

Wolfenbarger and Lincoln then headed back to Brightmoor to the home of Steven Phillips. They hoped the ‘second cousin’ had come up with something of value to trade for the .357 John had left behind. 

“You got anything to trade?” John asked, “Or did you find some bullets?”

“No bullets, but I do have an old .32 that just came to me. It’s got no clip though and no bullets.”

Wolfenbarger accepted the trade, tucked the gun into his pocket and he and Lincoln left. 

At 6:00 p.m. Dennis and John stopped by Doreen’s house and helped her get her dog, which was going to the vet, into her brother-in-law’s car. John explained that he was going to spend the night at Dennis’ house in Flint. Doreen then left for the vet.  

Later that evening, 31-year-old John Wolfenbarger and 27-year-old Dennis Lincoln of Flint were sitting in two separate cars as they watched a jewelry store in Livonia under the cover of night. The two men communicated via cell phone again and discussed following the owner home once he locked up for the evening. Their intention was not to rob the store; but the owner himself, whom they figured… or more so hoped, would have a nice collection of valuable items.

The middle-aged Italian man set the store’s alarm and locked the doors before entering his vehicle. As he pulled out onto Seven Mile Road he turned left. Wolfenbarger and Lincoln, still in separate cars, stayed in touch as they followed the man travelling westbound toward Newburgh Road. Unfortunately for the pair, as had happened the night before when tailing Vartanian, the men fell too far behind their target. They were able to see the side street he had turned down but by the time they got there, which driveway he’d entered was unclear.

At 10:00 p.m. the pair returned to Doreen’s house and asked to use her computer. Instead of going to Dennis’ house, they stayed the night with Doreen and her mother. 

Friday, December 20th, 2002

Frustrated from the previous night’s failure, Wolfenbarger and Lincoln returned to the strip mall that housed the jewelry store and waited in the dark parking lot across the street. Once again, the man locked up the store, entered his vehicle and made his way west toward his home less than two miles away. 

Still being cautious, Wolfenbarger and Lincoln stayed a safe distance behind the Yukon and waited for the driver to first head north on Newburgh before making a left onto his street. This time they had succeeded. Wolfenbarger made note of the address, 3-7-5-3-4 St. Martins. This would be the man they would rob and judging by his well manicured two story brick home, they were going to do well for themselves. Wolfenbarger returned to his girlfriend’s house on Merriman Road while Dennis Lincoln went to stay with his mother in Flint.     

Saturday, December 21st, 2002 

Wolfenbarger awoke around 8:00 a.m.. When not at his rented home, his friend Tracy’s place or his mothers (all three of which were a block apart in Detroit), he normally spent the night in the upstairs bedroom of his girlfriend’s house.

The couple had plans to attend Doreen’s family Christmas party at her cousin’s home later that day but first she needed to take her dog back to the veterinarian. John said goodbye and then ran to the phone as soon as she left.  

After weeks of staking out jewelry stores, following potential victims and losing track of them; Wolfenbarger was finally ready to pull off the job he and Dennis Lincoln had been preparing for since their days together at the Boyer Road Correctional Facility in Carson City, Michigan. Lincoln was asleep at his mother’s home in Flint when the phone rang.

 “Hey Dee, Let’s do the Italia Jewelry thing.”

“When?”

“Today.”

Lincoln hung up the phone, got dressed and hopped in his car, making the hour plus drive from Flint to Detroit. 

For a moment they had considered stealing a truck or van to use in the crime until Wolfenbarger remembered a friend he had made while shopping at the local Home Depot on Middlebelt and Schoolcraft. Her name was Paula Jo Kottyan and she owned the perfect vehicle to complete their ruse. John stopped by the store shortly after Kottyan’s shift started and asked if he could borrow her truck to ‘move a futon’. At first she said no, but John continued to ask and she eventually gave him the keys to her 1988 Ford Ranger.  

Around 11:00 a.m. Lincoln met Wolfenbarger at the home of John’s friend Tracy. Tracy had become friends with John while he served time in prison for a series of breaking and entering charges. They wrote to each other via letter and she had even visited him a few times. The two were never anything more than friends however and John actually became closer with Tracy’s 12-year-old twin children; taking the young boy and girl to the movies occasionally and having them help with chores around the neighborhood.

Tracy lived on Bentler Street across from Wolfenbarger’s mother and two doors down from his uncle Billy Smith. John’s rented home, which his parents owned on Chapel Street, was in the same neighborhood, one street west. 

John knocked on the door as Dennis waited in the car. Tracy was already at work but her son answered and let him inside. He entered Tracy’s room and grabbed a jar of loose change as well as a pistol he had hidden in the top dresser drawer. As he removed the gun, the boy walked into the room. Noticing that the young man saw the weapon, Wolfenbarger ordered the boy not to worry about it and not to say anything to anyone. 

Back in Livonia, Doreen returned from the vet at 1:00pm expecting Wolfenbarger to be there, at 2:00 p.m. her phone rang.

“Doreen, you’re going to kill me.”

“Why John?”

“I’m in Dayton, Ohio,” Wolfenbarger replied. Doreen was surprised and asked why.

“I’m going to my Dad’s house in Kentucky to pick up the money he got from selling one of my cars.”

He informed her that he wouldn’t be able to make the Christmas party as planned and that he was sorry but he would see her later. The truth was, Wolfenbarger wasn’t in Dayton, he was about to go shopping with Dennis no less than two miles from Doreen’s house. 

Their first stop was the K-Mart on Seven Mile and Farmington which stood directly across the street from Italia Jewelry. Once inside they purchased clipboards and various clothing items that resembled what a delivery man would wear. From there they went next door to Office Max and bought a stack of purchase receipt slips and then to Hallmark where they found a cheap teddy bear. 

Around 5:00 p.m. John received a call from his girlfriend, Doreen. She asked how his drive was going. 

“It’s going fine.”

Shortly after 5:00 p.m. the faux delivery truck pulled into the long driveway on St. Martins Street. Both men got out of the truck and were greeted by an older woman standing in the garage. Wolfenbarger approached the woman, teddy bear in hand and a Davis Industries P-380 semi-automatic in his pocket. She didn’t speak much English and was confused as to what was happening. What occurred next would confuse her even more. John revealed the gun and motioned to her to lead the way back inside; as he did he let an unarmed Dennis Lincoln know that he could ‘handle it from here’. Lincoln hopped into the truck and headed back to the K-Mart parking lot where he was instructed to wait for a phone call. 

At 5:30 p.m. Wolfenbarger watched from inside the house as Marco Pesce pulled into the driveway. He saw three children get out of the car and make their way into the open garage. They were expecting to see their grandmother at the door; unfortunately she wouldn’t be the one waiting for them. Once inside the children were greeted by Wolfenbarger, he gained control of the situation and made his first call to Dennis Lincoln. 

“When the dad gets to work, let me know.”

Lincoln watched from the parking lot across the street, waiting to see Pesce pull into the strip mall parking lot; a moment later, he arrived. He watched the middle aged Italian man exit his vehicle and walk into Italia Jewelers. He picked up his phone and dialed Wolfenbarger. 

“He’s there now.”

Wolfenbarger ended the call on his cell phone and called Marco’s oldest child and only son over to him. Wolfenbarger instructed Carlo to call his father at work and tell him that one of his sisters had fallen and broken a tooth. Before he could make the call, however, the Pesce’s landline rang. Wolfenbarger told Carlo to answer the phone and act normal. The voice on the other end was Carlo’s cousin Stefano; he was calling back to confirm plans for later, stating that his family would be there to pick up the kids before 7:00 p.m.. Wolfenbarger barked at Carlo to end the phone call and then had the twelve-year-old call Italia Jewelry.

Mr. Pesce was busy helping a customer when the phone rang. Anita Douglas, a long time employee and friend of Marco answered the phone. Douglas found Marco and interrupted his conversation with the customer letting him know Carlo was on the phone. She had learned early on in her employment that Marco insisted on knowing right away when one of his children was on the phone, no matter what he was in the middle of doing. 

After three or four minutes, Marco emerged from the back office stating that he had an emergency to tend to; Melissa had fallen and broke a tooth and he needed to leave. 

It is unknown when exactly Wolfenbarger killed Maria Vergati. Whether it was before or after the kids arrived, but as Marco raced to his home on St. Martins Street, Maria sat slumped over on the tan leather couch in the front room. She hadn’t known the combination to Marco’s safe in the basement and had been of no use to Wolfenbarger or his plan; a plan that entailed using an innocent man’s children as bait to lure in the big prize. 

Marco entered the home, searching for his injured daughter but instead found John Wolfenbarger, P-380 in hand, yelling at him to get downstairs. Once downstairs he received the combination and then ordered all four remaining family members to their knees. One by one he shot Marco, Carlo, Sabrina and Melissa. He then kicked open the doors that led to the safe and removed its contents.  From there he ran upstairs and went through the master bedroom and the children’s rooms taking anything he could find that looked valuable and easy to sell. 

The next time Dennis Lincoln, who had fallen asleep in the truck, heard from John was at 6:21 p.m..

“All set Dee, come get me.”

When Dennis arrived, Wolfenbarger exited the house and jumped in the truck. “Five dead bro,” was all he said. The two men then drove back east on Seven Mile, passing Italia Jewelry one last time. After disposing of Wolfenbarger’s boots they dropped the truck off to Paula Jo at Home Depot. From there they headed further east to Detroit. 

Chapter 6 - After the Murders

Saturday, December 21st, 2002 (continued)

Shortly before 7:00 p.m.. the duo arrived at the Brightmoor home of Tracy Letts, John’s neighbor and friend. Tracy wasn’t home yet but her twin children were. Lincoln and Wolfenbarger carried bags taken from the robbery into the home and placed them on the kitchen floor. The twins, Jessica and Patrick watched television and minded their own business as Lincoln and Wolfenbarger moved through the house. 

“When your mom gets home she’s going to take you to McDonalds.” The kids were excited. 

Minutes later Tracy’s boss dropped her off at home. John rushed outside to talk to her. After handing her some money, he instructed her to take Dennis’ car and take the kids out for a meal. He also wanted her to do some shopping, asking that she pick up some garbage bags. He just needed her out of the house for a while. 

After Tracy and her children left for dinner, Wolfenbarger walked to the home of his uncle Billy Smith. Billy and his wife Marjorie were already asleep, recovering from the previous night’s Christmas party at the Copa Lounge. He entered his uncle’s room and woke him up. 

“I need some clothes.”

Billy, frustrated by the rude awakening, woke up Marjorie. 

“Get him some clothes so he can get out of here.” 

While Marjorie looked around for clothes, Wolfenbarger leaned in and whispered to his uncle. 

“Have you seen the news?”

“I’m just waking up man, I’m tired.” Smith replied.

“Watch the news. Fives dead.”

Wolfenbarger then asked Smith to follow him down to Tracy’s house. Marjorie returned with a pair of blue jeans and Billy, curious to see what Wolfenbarger was talking about, followed him out the front door. Once inside the Letts home, Wolfenbarger showed his uncle some of the jewelry and asked if he knew anyone that could move it for him. Billy Smith replied that he would call around. As Smith looked around the kitchen he noticed a gun in the sink, Ziploc bags full of jewelry and coins and Dennis Lincoln standing quietly in the corner. Smith became nervous.

“You okay John?”

“Oh, yeah. Everything is cool.”

Before Smith left, Wolfenbarger gave him an envelope full of money and asked him to bring it across the street to his mother, Smith’s sister. He instructed him to tell her it was for back taxes on the house he was renting. 

At 8:30 p.m. Tracy Letts returned from dinner and errands. Wolfenbarger stood in the kitchen looking through bags while Lincoln sat in a recliner in the front room. 

“I took the kids to McDonalds.” Tracy spoke first.

“Did you get any garbage bags?” Wolfenbarger replied. 

Letts noticed white bags full of something; she couldn’t tell what, as she handed him the new package of garbage bags. Tracy turned her attention to her children as Wolfenbarger began shoving the white garbage bags inside the new black bags. None of the Letts family questioned Wolfenbarger as they helped him bring the bags into Tracy’s bedroom. The bag Tracy carried was light and fluffy, like a pillow.

“Leave these bags alone. Don’t touch them.” Wolfenbarger directed those comments to Tracy and her children. She assumed that maybe they were Christmas presents. Tracy sat down opposite Lincoln and retrieved the new 2003 calendar she’d purchased while out with the kids. 

“Why did you buy a calendar?” Wolfenbarger asked.

“Because I needed one.”

“Oh, Dennis makes calendars.”

The three of them talked about Lincoln’s new hobby a little while longer before Dennis and John asked for the keys to the car so they could leave, they had some shopping to do. Wolfenbarger retrieved a teddy bear from one of the bags, gave it to Jessica Letts and then Tracy followed him into her bedroom and watched him count out a thousand dollars from an envelope. He put the envelope into his pocket and placed the thousand dollars into her top dresser drawer. 

Lincoln and Wolfenbarger jumped into Dennis’ car and made the short drive to Fairlane Mall in Dearborn, MI. They parked near Sears and headed to the shoe section, the mall closed at nine so they needed to hurry. John quickly picked out a pair of Skechers tennis shoes while Dennis selected a pair of work boots. At 8:56 p.m. they paid for their shoes, threw away the ones they’d been wearing and walked out of Sears in their new ones. 

36-year-old Samantha Young was bartending at the Copa Lounge, a place she had only worked at for two months. The bar was empty of any patrons, the only other people there were her 16-year-old son Steven and his best friend, 17-year-old Markie. Steven didn’t like his mom working at the biker bar by herself and often accompanied her to work if she was going to be pulling a shift alone. 

Around 9:30 p.m., John Wolfenbarger and Dennis Lincoln entered the Copa. Samantha had seen Wolfenbarger four or five times before that night but had only spoken to him once before. They’d discussed her living situation. Lincoln, a “smaller framed black guy” as she would describe him during her testimony, she had never seen nor met. The two men strolled into the bar, grabbed pool sticks and started into a game of pool. 

After a few minutes Wolfenbarger, dressed in blue jeans, tennis shoes and a bright yellow canvas jacket, approached Young and ordered two Cokes and then returned to his game. The bartender poured two sodas and handed them to Wolfenbarger who delivered Lincoln’s before returning to strike up a brief conversation with Young. 

“I may have got myself into some trouble that could send me away for the rest of my life.”

Young listened but offered nothing much in the way of a reply. Wolfenbarger continued.

“What time did you get to work tonight?” He asked.

“I started my shift at six,” Young replied. 

“If anyone asks, I was here from the time you started working. Alright?”

Wolfenbarger returned to his game of pool, having conversations with Lincoln, most of which the bartender couldn’t hear or didn’t care about. A little while later he spoke up, getting Young’s attention. 

“This man right here (gesturing to Lincoln), I did six years with. He proved himself to be a true friend tonight, unlike that other person.”

Close to 11:00 p.m. Wolfenbarger and Lincoln left the Copa Lounge and drove to the home of Tracy Letts. Dennis departed for his parents’ home in Flint as John went in and retrieved the money he had left in Letts’ drawer. He returned to the Copa a short while later, approached the bar and sat down on a stool near the bartender. 

“How’s the house hunting?”

 Young explained to him that she was going to meet with the person who might rent her a house on the following Tuesday. After mentioning that the man wanted $1,400.00 up front, Wolfenbarger offered help.

“If my friend can move some things for me, I’ll lend you that money.”

She didn’t know where he would come up with that kind of money, or why he would lend it to her, but she appreciated the offer. At midnight Wolfenbarger left the bar, Young cleaned up, locked up and headed home for the night. 

Once in the car, Wolfenbarger called his girlfriend Doreen and told her that he would be at her house soon, his road trip was almost over. What he did over the next two hours is unclear but at 2:00 a.m. he entered Doreen’s home, looking tired.

“How was the trip?” Doreen asked.

“Fine,” he was holding a wad of money. Wolfenbarger counted it out in front of her, eight one-hundred dollar bills, ten twenties, and handed her a thousand dollars.

“I want you to put this towards your credit card.” Doreen had paid for things off and on to help Wolfenbarger get back on his feet, after ‘selling a car’, he now had the money to pay her back. 

“I had my jacket stolen,” he offered without being asked.

Wolfenbarger owned a black, three-quarter length, hooded leather jacket that he wore from time to time. He told Doreen that it had been stolen out of his vehicle during his return trip at a gas station truck stop.

Sunday, December 22nd, 2002

The couple woke up around 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning and Doreen quickly got out of bed and got ready for church. Wolfenbarger wasn’t going with her so they said their goodbyes and he began to get ready himself. 

At 9:30 a.m. he drove east towards Brightmoor returning to the home of Steven Phillips.  He pulled into the driveway, exited his vehicle and approached the modest three bedroom home. First he went to the side of the house and placed something underneath an old door mat, then he returned to the front door. After several minutes of knocking he gave up and headed towards his van. 

“What’s up?” A sleepy Phillips yelled from the front door. 

“I got something for you, it’s underneath the mat next to the side door,” Wolfenbarger replied. “Get rid of it.”

Phillips got dressed, went outside and lifted up the mat. Underneath was the .32 Beretta he had traded to John.  

Wolfenbarger drove down the street to his mother, Betty Faye’s house. After spending some time with her the two of them left to pick up the Letts children across the street. Every Sunday since John was released from prison in August he took his mother to church and recently Jessica and Patrick started tagging along with Betty Faye. Wolfenbarger merely acted as the chauffeur, never actually going into the church himself. Tracy Letts, the children’s mother, worked on Sundays so she liked knowing the kids were being looked after. 

After dropping his mother and the children at church he returned to the Letts home. Tracy, who had fallen back asleep for a few minutes, was surprised to hear him in her house. Wolfenbarger went out the back door for a moment then came into her bedroom. He removed a Tupperware container full of loose change from the closet and handed it to Tracy.

“Can you roll the quarters up?” 

“Sure.” Tracy kept her own jar of change so she had plenty of change wrappers in her bedroom. 

“Let me know how much is in there,” Wolfenbarger stated as he grabbed two of the garbage bags off of her floor and headed to the backyard. 

  Tracy took the container and began rolling the quarters. Aside from the four ten dollar rolls of quarters she made, she counted an additional $54.00 in silver dollars, half dollars and Susan B’s. In total, John had $94.00 in the Tupperware container. Tracy got dressed and went to tell him. 

Wolfenbarger was seated in front of Tracy’s barbeque grill, on top of the grill was a black and white speckled pot she’d never seen before.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

“Mind your own business.” He snapped back.

With lighter fluid in one hand, Wolfenbarger continued to toss documents into the pot, adding more fuel to the fire as he went along. One of the garbage bags appeared to be around a third of the way full of papers. He stopped throwing papers into the fire and grabbed a small wooden box, breaking it into pieces and adding it to the pot. Next came a long flat duffle bag that was too big for the pot. Wolfenbarger grabbed the lighter fluid, doused the bag and set that on fire. Flames leapt from the bag as it lay on Tracy’s back lawn. 

When the pot filled with ash, John grabbed one of Tracy’s 32-gallon garbage cans and dumped the contents from the pot into it. The ash smoldered inside the rubber trash can.

“John, you’re going to burn down the house!” 

He ignored her as she ran inside and got a pitcher of water to dump into the can. Tracy then grabbed a stick from the ground to stir the ashes with, ensuring they were all soaked. John then asked Tracy to retrieve the bag she had carried the night before, the garbage bag containing something light and fluffy. She did. 

“John, I’ve got to get to work.” She was nervous about leaving him there with the fires going. 

She explained to him that she was meeting her boss down the street and that he would be taking her. Wolfenbarger told her to call her boss and let him know that she didn’t need a ride, he would be taking her. 

After the fires were out Letts got into the van with John and they left for ‘Exotic Aquarium’ on Schaefer and McNichols.

“Do you know anybody that needs a leather coat?” John asked as they drove.

Tracy said she would ask around, she then asked if he could stop at the party store so she could pick up a phone card. Wolfenbarger pulled into the parking lot of a party store at Schoolcraft and Evergreen, it was closed. Before pulling out to try the party store across the street he asked Tracy for a favor.

“Can you throw this into the dumpster?” He pointed to a plastic bag laying on the floor of the van, between the two front seats. The bag was small and green, nearly see through, it had a rag resting on top of it. 

“Pick it up with the rag.” Tracy assumed it was greasy car parts. She picked it up as he instructed, and carried the bag to the Onyx dumpster behind the party store. As she tossed the bag into the dumpster she felt something that resembled the barrel of a gun. 

Wolfenbarger then took her across the street to a party store that was open, she purchased the phone card and the friends continued to Tracy’s work. As they neared Exotic Aquarium Wolfenbarger began mumbling to himself but loud enough for Tracy to pick up bits and pieces.

“The job didn’t go right… I was a day late… I had to shoot someone and bury him nine feet deep.”

Tracy looked at him like he was crazy as he continued.

“We left him there and when we picked him up, he botched the job. We shot him and buried him nine feet deep.”

She didn’t know how to respond, so she chose not to. Instead she changed the subject back to the jacket Wolfenbarger wanted to sell.

“As a matter of fact, I do know someone that might be interested in your jacket.”

“Get what you can get for it and put it towards your security deposit,” he replied.

While at work, Tracy called her friend Jamie Valez and told him about the jacket. He said he was interested and that he would stop by her house around six. 

Every Sunday the Copa Lounge held a brunch for the church going patrons of the bar. Wolfenbarger showed up around noon and quickly found his Uncle Billy behind the bar. 

“You see the news?” John asked.

“You talking about the carjacking in Wixom?” He returned.

“No, that shit was minor compared to what I did. The shit I did would be on CNN.”

Wolfenbarger hung out at the bar for a couple of hours, waiting for something to show up on the news. It never did. At 2:30 p.m. he received a call from his girlfriend Doreen, the two arranged a date later in the day. A little after 4:00 p.m. John arrived at Doreen’s house and together they went to the movie theater to see Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. After sitting through nearly three hours of Frodo Baggins, Gollum and Gandalf they left the theater and drove the short distance to John’s brother Chris’ house. 

While driving to Chris’ house a news report came over the radio regarding the murder of five people in Livonia. Doreen reacted in a typical ‘how sad’ sort of way while John sat silent, listening intently. After picking up candy that he had bought from his nephew to support a fundraiser, the couple went back to Doreen’s house where John spent the night again. 

Chapter 7 - Uncle Billy

Little is known about William Smith that isn’t gang related. He was born in 1967, twenty years after his sister, John Wolfenbarger’s mother, Betty Faye Smith. Although he was John’s uncle, he was only a few years older than him. 

He had risen through the ranks of the dangerous Detroit underworld as a member of the Seven Mile Dogs. The Dogs were a primarily African-American drug and street gang on the city’s Westside. 

Smith soon earned himself the reputation of a man who could generate money quickly. This earned the gang a great deal of income while also helping Smith to earn a new nickname. Known on the streets as “Billy Wadd” for the giant stacks of money he often carried, Smith dabbled in a wide variety of illegal income streams. 

By the late nineties, as the Seven Mile Dogs began to receive more attention from local law enforcement, Smith found a new home with The Devils Diciples Motorcycle Club (DDMC). The Devil's Diciples were a hardcore outlaw motorcycle club founded in Fontana, California in 1967. The club originally had six members. By the time Smith earned his way in, the club had chapters in Alabama, Arizona, California, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, and Michigan. 

A man named Jeff "Fat Dog" Garvin Smith, no relation to William, was the man responsible for helping to create the Michigan chapter of the Devil’s Diciples. He would later go on to become the club's National President. 

The DDMC spelled the word ‘Disciple’ without the ‘s’ on all of their patches. A rumor amongst motorcycle clubs was that they misspelled it intentionally to distance themselves from any form of religion. 

The true story according to the founding members however, is that when they traveled to Mexico to have their patches made originally, the misspelling was an error, but stuck. The club’s insignia is a motorcycle wheel with two tridents crossing over it. One of the club’s more famous members was Duane Chapman, known around the world as “Dog, the Bounty Hunter”. Chapman was a member of the Diciples before he straightened out and left his life of crime.

By the end of 1999 William Smith had risen up the ranks of the Devil’s Diciples and became the West Side Boss of the club. That year he also married a woman named Marjorie who would go on to purchase a tiny dive bar along Schoolcraft Road named the ‘Copa Lounge’. Together, they would host club meetings and social events for the Diciples. William and Marjorie lived in a small home on Bentler Street with Marjorie’s son from a previous relationship. William had two daughters of his own that would visit from time to time. 

Despite being Wolfenbarger’s uncle, Smith never had the opportunity to get to know John all that well. His nephew had  spent so much of the last twenty years in and out of prison, Smith only knew him as a criminal. 

In August of 2002, Smith drove his sister Betty and Wolfenbarger’s girlfriend, Doreen Beauchamp, to pick up John from prison. He’d been locked up since 1994 after being arrested for armed robbery. After eight years he was being paroled. 

Seeking a fresh start, Smith found his nephew a job working with a collection agency owned by Smith’s friend, the Westside Detroit Boss of the The Highwaymen, Anthony Clark. 

Within a month, Wolfenbarger was back to his old tricks and robbing homes. One of the homes he robbed was that of Ronald and Lenore Wedge of Canton. Mr. Wedge happened to be Tracy Letts’ landlord. 

On Monday, December 23rd, William Smith learned about the family of five that was murdered in Livonia. He quickly put two and two together and picked up the phone.  

“I know who did those Livonia murders.”

On the other end of the line was Dearborn Police Officer Erik Krawczyk. The two had met while Krawczyk was executing a search warrant on the Smith home on Bentler. Before he left, he’d given his card to Smith’s wife, Marjorie. It was the only cop that he trusted and he didn’t know anyone on the Livonia police force.

“I think it was my nephew,” Smith continued.

Officer Krawczyk took down the information and told Smith to sit tight, he’d call him right back. 

As Billy Wadd sat and waited for the phone to ring he questioned what he was doing. To ‘snitch’ on someone, especially family, went against everything he’d learned in his time running with various gangs and biker clubs. 

When asked later why he did what he did, Smith said, “The kids. I mean they’re kids. You can’t step over that line. They’re kids, man, you don’t do that.”

Krawczyk called back moments later and instructed Smith to head over to the Livonia Police Department immediately; they'd be expecting him.

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