Suspect Said He Slew Polly Klaas to ‘Cover Tracks’

Richard Allen Davis, the accused killer of Polly Klaas, confessed to police shortly after his arrest that he strangled the 12-year-old girl the same night he took her from her Petaluma home “to cover my tracks,” according to police transcripts released Tuesday.

Davis told police that he slew Polly so she could not identify him later and that it took two tries to kill her, first using a knotted piece of cloth and then a piece of cord.

“I strangled her,” he told police. “. . . I just sat there and waited until there was no movement.”

Davis said he was in a haze of drugs and alcohol and did not plan the kidnapping before he entered Polly’s house the night of Oct. 1, 1993, and carried her away from a slumber party.

A parolee with a long criminal record, Davis seemed to be at a loss to explain why he abducted the girl, but repeatedly denied sexually molesting her. “Didn’t do nothin’ to her,” he insisted. “You guys gonna find that out. I didn’t do nothin’ to her.”

Davis also told police that on the night of the kidnapping, Polly was alive, untied and waiting for him on a nearby hillside when Sonoma County sheriff’s deputies pulled his car out of a ditch and sent him on his way.

Davis, 41, is on trial in San Jose on charges of first-degree murder, kidnapping, burglary, robbery and committing a lewd act upon a child. Prosecutors contend that Davis stalked the girl, planned the kidnapping and molested her before strangling her.

In opening arguments last week, Davis’ attorney, Barry Collins, told jurors that Davis had slain Polly but argued that he never molested her. The defense was forced to concede that Davis was the killer because of the taped confessions. The defense strategy now is to make Davis appear as sympathetic a figure as possible so the jury will spare him from execution.

Polly’s kidnapping touched off a massive search that mobilized hundreds of volunteers and helped prompt passage of the state’s “three strikes” law in 1994.

Her body was found more than two months after the abduction when Davis was apprehended and led police to a field off U.S. 101 near Cloverdale, 50 miles from Petaluma, where he had hidden her body under a bush and a piece of plywood.

In the 262-page transcript of police interviews, Davis said he was high on two quarts of beer and a joint of marijuana that may have been laced with PCP when he entered Polly’s house on a quiet street.

According to his account, he was uncertain what to do with the girl and began driving around. At one point, as they talked, she complained that her hands were tied too tightly and he loosened the cord, he said.

Then, on a secluded road near Sebastopol, his car became stuck in a ditch and he said he untied the girl and asked her to sit on an embankment while he worked to free the vehicle. Before he could get it out of the ditch, a neighbor called sheriff’s deputies. Suspecting that he had marijuana in the car, they searched it but found nothing. Using a chain, they helped pull his car free.

According to Davis’ account, he left Polly on the hillside while the deputies escorted him from the area. Then, finding his way back with difficulty along the dark roads, he returned half an hour later and picked up the girl, who was still waiting in the same place, he said. At first, he thought she was sleeping because she was curled up and he had to call her name several times before she answered.

“I was lucky I found [her]; guess it wasn’t lucky, wasn’t lucky for her,” he said.

Davis said he then drove toward Cloverdale, with Polly sleeping on the front seat beside him.

“And (a) few times along the way couple sheriff’s car (sic) pulled up alongside me I guess to check the car out,” he said. “She was sleeping and they buzzed on by.” When Polly awakened, he said, “she kept asking me when she was going to be able to go home.”

Davis insisted that he did not kill her until they reached a deserted stretch of highway just south of Cloverdale. He strangled her with the cloth, he said, after he pulled over to the side of the road to let her relieve herself.

Davis told police he was standing behind Polly as she started to get back into the car near Cloverdale. “She didn’t know what hit her,” he said.

When he thought she was dead, he relaxed the cloth and she groaned, he said, so he used the cord to choke her until she was dead. Then he threw the body as far as he could into a clump of berry bushes, he said.

Davis said he got the idea of strangling her from when he faked his own suicide “one time to escape outta county jail.” He recalled that he had immediately blacked out after fashioning a noose, putting it around his neck and stepping off a toilet.

“Figured well, was the quickest thing I know,” he said. “. . . Couldn’t see beatin’ her with anything.”

Davis told police that before he killed Polly, he drove around with her for hours knowing he had made a big mistake by abducting her. At one point, he said, he stopped at a gas station and bought her a soda and let her use the bathroom.

In the end, he killed the girl to keep from being identified, he said. With his criminal record, he said, he knew a simple kidnapping charge was enough to send him back to prison “forever.” Davis also said he could not remember what he had done in Polly’s house and feared he might have harmed others there. “I didn’t know if I left a blood bath,” he said.

At another point, he explained: “The reason why I did what I did up in Cloverdale ‘cause I was tryin’ to cover my tracks. . . . I didn’t know what else to do.”

Despite persistent questioning by the Petaluma police and the FBI, Davis insisted that he did not molest Polly. But at other times he conceded that he may have but just did not recall it.

“I could have blocked something like that out of my mind, I mean if I did something,” he said. At another point he added, “God, I hope I didn’t do nothin’ with her. . . . If I did do anything to her, I don’t want to know.”

One of his interrogators, FBI Agent J. Larry Taylor, told Davis that semen was discovered on Polly’s back--a statement not borne out by later forensic tests.

Davis, expressing relief, pointed out that at least no semen was found inside her body.

“Well at least I didn’t rape the little girl or nothing,” Davis said. “At least I didn’t hurt her in that way.”

Repeatedly during the interrogation, Davis insisted that he did not know Polly, her parents or her sister. Asked by Police Sgt. Michael Meese why he had abducted Polly, Davis replied: “I don’t know. . . . I don’t know why I took her.”

In his conversations with detectives, Davis repeatedly referred to his mother, who he said abandoned him and his younger sister Darlene when Davis was in fifth grade. He said he had gone to Petaluma the night he abducted Polly hoping to track down his mother and talk to her. He never found her that night, Davis said.

He also said he believed he would probably be put to death for having killed Polly, a fate he said he was prepared to accept. He said he was eager to plead guilty to the crime, and preferred a hearing before a judge to a jury trial.

“I want to get it over and done with as quick as possible,” Davis said. Although he said he was high on marijuana and alcohol that night, “it doesn’t matter if I smoked some f---ed weed that had some s--- in it. . . . It’s what I did. Don’t matter how f---ed up you were, if you were hallucinated out or whatever, it’s the act itself.”

The trial, which began last week, was moved to San Jose from Santa Rosa after a Sonoma County judge concluded that pretrial publicity prevented him from finding an impartial jury.

In the police interview, Davis repeatedly insisted that no one else was involved in the kidnapping and that he told no one what he had done.

The only one responsible, he told police again and again, was “just me, myself and I.”