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A Cold Case Frozen in Time

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In early February, Rich and Carol Lesmeister went to Paul's house for dinner. After they ate, Paul and Rich went down to the basement, and Paul started complaining about Teresa. He said he'd come home from work to find her still in bed or partying next door with a neighbor, leaving Sarah to take care of the baby, Rich remembers. He was going to seek a paternity test, kick Teresa out of the house and sue for full custody if the child was his.

On Saturday, February 6, Paul kept an eye on Jerry Bybee's eleven-year-old son, Matthew, while Jerry went out on a moving job. Matthew later told his father that he and Sarah had stayed outside in the playhouse to get away from the loud argument that Paul and Teresa were having inside. Jerry, one of just three Tuff Movers employees at the time, was scheduled to work the next day, too, but he asked Paul if he could take Sunday off so that he and his siblings could get together to order flowers for their grandfather's memorial service. Paul told Jerry that he'd cover for him, even if he had to take his daughter along on the job. "He really didn't like to work when he had Sarah, but sometimes he did," Jerry remembers.

On his day off, Jerry had lots of time to reminisce with his family — a little too much time. He got so drunk that his brother had to drive his car home, and Jerry puked on the way. He had to drag himself out of bed Monday morning and then clean the mess out of his car, so he was late to work. It was at least 9:30 or 10 when he got to the Tuff Movers yard — a fenced-in parking lot at 72nd Avenue and Raleigh in Westminster where Paul kept his trucks. Jerry was supposed to go on a job with Paul and Lorenzo Chivers, but they weren't there.

Right away, Jerry noticed that the big moving truck Paul always backed into a specific spot had been pulled in front first and crooked. "Paul was a neat freak, anal about everything, so I'm thinking, 'Oh, I can't wait to hear why the truck's parked like that' — because Paul would have a story," he says. "That guy could tell a story about anything. He described things like nobody else could. He'd describe food to you and you could actually taste it. I was waiting for him to come in ranting about something that had gone wrong. It looked like somebody had just pulled in the yard at 50 miles per hour and hit the brakes."

When Jerry went to open the gate, he realized that the lock had been changed. It was strange, but Paul did buy a new lock whenever he fired someone. Maybe somebody had screwed up, maybe that would be part of the story.

Jerry waited outside the gate for Paul and Lorenzo to show up.

Meanwhile, Sarah's mother called police to report that Paul hadn't brought their daughter back from his weekend visit. The two had been in court over custody issues before, and Michelle had recently told Paul she might be moving out of state. The Grand County Sheriff's Department issued a warrant for Paul's arrest. As far as the authorities were concerned, the incident was a parental abduction and Sarah wasn't believed to be in any danger.

But if that were the case, then where was Lorenzo?

Lorenzo Chivers had been working for Paul for a few months. They'd met through Teresa, since Lorenzo lived with her sister. He was a mellow, nice guy who could strike up a conversation with anybody. He was a father of two — fifteen-year-old Josh, who lived with him, and twelve-year-old Aubrie — and it wasn't like him to just take off and not let his kids or their mother know where he was. Even though Lorenzo was separated from his wife, Misha, they were still close. Recently, they'd even talked about reconciling.

Misha didn't know what to think when Josh called her that Monday to say that his father hadn't shown up the night before. She asked to talk to Bobbi Jo. "I know he's not coming home," she remembers Bobbi Jo telling her. "I know something horrible has happened to him."

It was Wednesday before anyone could convince the police to check out the Tuff Movers lot. A Westminster officer met Jerry there and told him to open the gate. Jerry said he didn't have the key, and didn't want to cut the lock in case it was evidence. Irritated, the officer slammed his car into the fence, then jumped onto his hood and over the gate.

"You coming?"

Inside, Jerry tried to think of what was different from how he'd left the lot Saturday. He noticed a puddle of oil partly covered by a piece of plywood and pointed it out. "Can you prove that he didn't change his oil?" the officer asked.

Jerry went up to the big moving truck that he'd noticed parked funny on Monday and tried to peek inside the cab without touching anything. "That's unusual right there," he said. "The truck's clean. We live in these trucks."

The cop grabbed the driver's-door handle and whipped it open.

"I feel he destroyed more evidence than he was willing to look at," Jerry says. "To him, there was nothing unusual there. I was disgusted with him."

The officer left the lot unconvinced that a crime had been committed.

Another day passed with no sign of Sarah, Paul or Lorenzo. Josh Chivers had been staying at his mom's house. On Thursday night, Misha took him to his dad's so that he could pick up some clothes. They found everything from Josh's room packed up and waiting by the door. "I guess you don't have a room at Daddy's house anymore," Misha told her son.

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