Jack Tracy—Page 7

Ward recalled other evidence that led the police to take the unusual step of publicly declaring Tracy the “prime suspect” without filing charges. That evidence included:

            [First:] Someone had kicked a hole in a wall of Horner’s home. Tracy’s right foot was deeply bruised and swollen.

            [Second:] Horner kept her door bolted and unlocked it only for her son or someone else she knew closely. [An earlier article reported that when she died, she was wearing only underclothes and a robe.]

            [Third:] Blood of Tracy’s type was found under Horner’s fingernails.

            [Fourth:] Criminal profilers say the vast majority of attacks in which victims are stabbed in the eyes or other parts of the face are done by family members.

            Finally, Tracy was the only heir in his mother’s life insurance policy, teacher’s pension and home. Eventually, he received a payoff of around $250,000, recalled his attorney, Roger Miller of Frankfort.

            In media interviews, Tracy proclaimed his innocence, pointing to—among other things—how the coroner had bungled the case.

            The prosecutor took the murder case against Tracy to a grand jury, but did not get an indictment —a decision that still sticks in the craw of local law enforcement officials.

            “Basically, I think Tracy just got lucky with the grand jury,” [detective] Ward said. “Did he do it? Who else was there? We never had another suspect.” Miller said the main obstacle facing the prosecution was being unable to prove Tracy was at his mother’s home at the time of the murder.

            Not long after the grand jury cleared him, Tracy moved from Bloomington to Las Vegas. [In The Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual the Rodens say that he “was prone to a number of allergies, which were ostensibly the reason for his relocating from Bloomington to Las Vegas in early 1996.”] His publishing business dissolved and he was running out of money, Ward said. Ward later interviewed people who knew Tracy. One said Tracy never talked about how his mother died, but made a point of saying that he despised her.

            On May 9, 1996, a nearly busted Tracy received a speeding ticket. A few hours later, possibly despondent, he drove across a median on an eight-lane Nevada highway, plowing into a huge semi truck. Tracy was dead at 51.

            “Of course it was a suicide,” said Miller, his attorney. “He was driving this little Datsun or Nissan and he crossed the lane and just zeroed-in on the (truck).”

            Detective Ward went to Las Vegas not long after the wreck seeking clues that would bring closure to a case that had bothered him for years. “Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything,” Ward said. “We didn’t learn about Tracy’s death until a while after it happened.”

            Miller [the lawyer] said that by that time, “I’m sure he had gone through all the money. He fancied himself as a writer. But there’s 10,000 people who fancy themselves as writers for every one that makes a living at it.”

            Because he represented Tracy in the murder case, Miller would not comment on whether he believes Tracy killed his mother. [What does it tell us when his own lawyer won’t say he was innocent, even when he’s dead and can’t be prosecuted?]. . . .

Best Friend Believes It Was Murder

David Hackett

December 1, 2001

            . . . After an October 13 piece about Jack Tracy—the Sherlock Holmes expert suspected but never convicted of murdering his mother—I received a call from Jody Davis.

            “You’re not going to believe this,” Davis began.

            It turns out that Davis and Tracy’s mother, Marjorie Horner, were best friends and fellow teachers in Frankfort. After retiring, Davis moved to Bloomington in 1991.

            Reading about the case rekindled deep emotions for Davis. Shortly before Horner was found stabbed to death in her Frankfort home in 1993, Davis twice had lunch with her.

            Horner said she was upset by her son’s demand for money. Tracy owned a small publishing company in Bloomington . . . but relied on his mother’s generosity to pay his bills.

            “I advised Marjorie to cut him off financially; she had to do it,” Davis recalled. “Less than two weeks later, I received a call that she was dead.”. . .

            Davis found herself in the difficult position of living in the same city—Bloomington—with the man she suspected killed her best friend.

            “I didn’t want to believe he did it, but, logically, I know he did,” Davis said of Tracy.

            “All the evidence pointed toward him. But it was an election year and the (Clinton County) prosecutor didn’t want to risk not getting a conviction. There were no witnesses who saw Jack at the scene.”. . .

            Davis said she was particularly distressed because documents she obtained show Tracy inherited less than $30,000 from his mother—not the $250,000 his lawyer told me for the [first] column.

            “Marjorie was such a wonderful, caring woman,” Davis said. “For her to die like this, it was a tragedy . . .”

            Davis herself was a fan of mystery stories, but after Horner’s death, she gave her collection of books to Goodwill.

            “When you see how something like this affects real lives, it’s hard to handle,” she said. “I’ve started reading mysteries again, but it took a long time.”