All the parents I know are terrified at the mere thought of losing their child and would climb Mt. Everest in order to get them back. By everyone’s account Sonya had been gone far longer than expected by the end of the summer. John was her sole custodial parent; he could have literally walked away from Tennessee with her.
We know he sent two friends to Tennessee in an attempt to retrieve Sonya and that they were rebuffed. But that’s John sending someone else to get his daughter back -- it doesn't answer the question of why he didn’t go himself. John also never filed a kidnapping complaint or pursued any other legal action to get Sonya back.
And despite what I read a few of his defenders saying, John was perfectly able to go. Until December of 2005 John was under no court supervision whatsoever--his parole from his robbery convictions had long since expired, and it wouldn’t be until December that he got into another yet another mix-up with the law. Almost six months goes by from the time that Sonya left Nebraska until John was arrested again … yet he makes no attempt to personally retrieve her. Amidst all the controversy about this case, this one question has gone stubbornly unanswered.
Until I saw the following quote, and then it seemed obvious:
The simplest and most psychologically satisfying explanation of any observed phenomenon is that it happened that way because someone wanted it to happen that way.
-- Thomas Sowell
John’s testimony at Hoover’s murder trial about how he knew Hoover, about how he knew that Hoover had killed Fowler and Johnson, and about how he continued to hang out with Hoover afterwards wasn’t the most shocking thing John said that day. That information came during John’s direct examination at Hoover’s trial from the United States Attorney. The more shocking bit came out during John’s cross-examination from Hoover’s attorney.
Once again we’ll let John speak in his own words. We’re picking up right as Hoover’s attorney is questioning John about his sudden eagerness to share his knowledge of Hoover and the murders after being indicted on his federal firearms charges:
Q. Let's get that straight, because I don't want you to be confused by my questions. I asked you -- I thought I asked you at the time that you were indicted, did you have some understanding about what the potential sentence would be in your case if you were convicted?
A. I was looking at thirty months in the beginning.
Q. And did that change?
A. Yes.
Q. Why did it change?
A. An enhancement.
Q. And after you learned about this potential enhancement, what was your understanding about the sentence you would be facing?
A. That it gets enhanced from two and a half years to fifteen.
Q. I take it somewhere in your learning experience on these matters you learned that if you provide substantial assistance to federal prosecutors in the prosecution of other individuals that you may avoid that minimum term; is that right?
A. It could be possible.
Q. Let's face facts, that if you don't do something dramatic you're going to do the minimum term, right?
A. Yeah.
Q. And there is no parole, right?
A. No.
Q. And you knew that if you could provide substantial assistance, that's the word that is used, if that doesn't sound familiar to you let me know, against somebody, in the prosecution of another person, that you might avoid that sentence, right?
A. Yeah.
Q. And that's what motivated you to sign that proffer agreement, right?
A. Yeah.
Q. And you understood that proffer letter, or that proffer agreement, gave you the opportunity to sit down and tell law enforcement everything you knew about this case, or that case, or any other case, in hopes that you might be able to help yourself out at sentencing, right?
A. Yeah.
Q. And how many other kinds of criminal activity were you involved in during that time period for which you might have been prosecuted but for your cooperation?
A. The only thing I was charged for was gun crimes.
Q. Well, were you concerned that the government had information involving -- is it true that the government had information involving your participation in narcotics trafficking?
A. I don't know if they did or not.
Q. Did you have some concern that they did?
A. I wasn't charged with it.
Q. I know you weren't charged with it. Did you have some concern if they looked carefully at what you were involved in, that one of the things that you might face is potential drug trafficking charges, right?
A. There is a possibility, right.
Q. And there was some information about weapon caches and other things involving the Hell's Angels, right?
A. Yes.
Q. So you had a whole bunch of information and you were willing to sit down with law enforcement and tell them what you had, right?
A. Yes.
In the nine years since being released from prison on his robbery convictions, John McCaul couldn’t resist getting mixed up with more illegal activity. So much for that fourth chance to turn his life around.
But this may answer the question of why John McCaul never went to Tennessee to retrieve Sonya after she’d been gone longer he'd agreed to, and why he sent only surrogates instead. Maybe he did “want her” on some level … but maybe his work running guns and drugs was more important. Or perhaps it was just too dangerous for him to leave town without fulfilling his end of the bargain. For whatever reason, not going to get Sonya back is what he wanted to not do.
Unfortunately for us, Hoover’s attorney didn’t probe the depths of what John was up to more deeply. For that we’ll have to do some of our own detective work. As we do, let’s hope for Sonya’s sake that John doesn’t have any old debts someone’s looking to collect on.