Miraculously, Jenny survived, but she lapsed into a deep coma. Sgt. Jim Byler of the Carlsbad Police Department was one of the officers involved in the investigation:
“Our first involvement in the case was to examine the evidence that was found at the crime scene, which consisted of the two-by-four that was used to hit Jenny and Curtis. So we examined that for physical evidence and didn’t find any fingerprints. There were some blood stains on it, which were determined to be Jenny’s. Curtis was interviewed that same day at the Carlsbad police station. His account of what happened basically was that he was giving Jennifer a ride home and they were driving down Rancho Santa Fe Road, getting ready to make a left turn.”
Curtis remembers that night vividly:
“We were just approaching the intersection, going pretty slow, and all of a sudden something struck me and I just go ‘Ow, what was that?’ It hurt really bad, and then the car zoomed by. I turned around to tell Jenny that someone threw something at me or something, I didn’t know what happened. She was out of it and so I just thought ‘Oh my God what’s happening?’”
Sgt. Jim Byler pieced the rest of the evening together based on Curtis’s descriptions:
“We believe it was a case where a truckload of juveniles had committed this crime. The white pick-up truck went by them at a high rate of speed. Curtis had the impression that there was a large group of juveniles in the back. That they were laughing as they went by and that the board came flying from the pick-up truck. Quite frankly, we expected it to be a crime that would’ve been solved just by the nature of juveniles having a tendency to talk. But to this date, we have yet to have anybody come up and supply us with any direct knowledge of what happened that night.”
Jenny’s parents hired private investigator Louie Crisafi, who interviewed students at Jenny’s high school. He surmised that Curtis was the target of the incident, not Jenny. Two years before the attack, Curtis had been convicted of dealing cocaine. By cooperating with the police, he had served less than half of his sentence. Sgt. Jim Byler:
“He developed a reputation as a snitch when he got himself in trouble. And young people, particularly young people involved in drugs, tend to look down on somebody who develops that reputation.”
Police investigated several people who might have had a grudge against Curtis. They learned that he had confronted one of his enemies on the night before the attack. Jenny’s parents believed that the boy he confronted might have attacked Curtis and Jenny because of the argument.
According to Curtis, the white pick-up truck was traveling too fast for him to see the attackers. He said it went by at about 55 miles an hour. Louie Crisafi didn’t believe Curtis. Using mannequins as stand-ins for Jenny and Curtis, Crisafi reconstructed the incident at two different speeds:
“We used the identical pick-up as far as the model year and the size and the same type of motorcycle and we used the same conditions. There is no way it could’ve happened the way he said.”
In the 55 mile-an-hour reconstruction, the board swung by the assailant fell about fifty feet from the scene of the crime. But after the accident, police found the board only a few feet from the spot where Jenny was attacked. The second reconstruction played out at only 10 miles an hour. The mannequins sustained injuries very similar to the ones Curtis and Jenny actually received, and this time, the board fell right next to the motorcycle.
Crisafi felt that Curtis did actually see the people in the pick-up truck. Crisafi pressed him for more information. Finally, Curtis named names. One of them was the same boy he had fought with on the night before the attack. Later, Curtis recanted, telling police he had given them the names because he felt pressured:
“The truck went by really fast and people try to say maybe I saw someone, but I really didn’t. And we’ve done lie detector tests on me. I’ve passed everything, I’ve told the truth. I’ve always been there to help. I’ve always caved to everything they’ve wanted me to do and cooperated with everything.”