Her voice quavering, Hilary told the detective that she didn't know whether Hilary would have committed suicide.
"Part of me thinks no way and part of me thinks maybe," she said.
Brian Stauffer
Faylene and Doug Grant on the day of their remarriage, July 27, 2001.
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First of two parts. Read Part Two
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After a while, Hilary asked if she could step out and find her husband. Ray said she could do whatever she wanted.
"Hilary wanted to confront Doug," was how the detective put it in his report.
Ray soon sat with the couple as Hilary questioned Doug about several issues the detective had raised.
Ray chimed in, telling Doug his story didn't match "with the evidence," and that several people had brought up Doug's dishonest nature.
"I've been dishonest, that is absolutely true," Doug replied, speaking generally and not about whether or not he killed Faylene.
The Grants finally started to come to their senses.
"You've totally, totally lied to me," Doug told Detective Ray, sounding like many other suspects after police interrogations.
"Well, correct, I deceived you . . . You're right. I did, and I'm telling you why right now. Doug, my job is to find the facts, and any way I can uncover the facts and make sense out of what happened, I'm gonna do that."
"So how truthful do you have to be with things you [tell] me?" Hilary asked the detective.
"I don't [have to be truthful]," Ray replied.
Even if Doug Grant's account had problems, he had made no admission of wrongdoing during Sy Ray's extensive questioning, and he walked out of the Gilbert police station a free man.
The investigation languished over the next few years.
Then, in early 2004, Detective Ray got a call from Faylene's sister, Cherlene Patterson, who said she'd spoken to a onetime buddy of Doug's from Safford, Jim McElyea.
Cherlene claimed McElyea had told her Doug had confessed to "putting Faylene to sleep and putting her in the tub."
Ray phoned McElyea, who said he really didn't know anything and didn't want to get involved.
Another year passed.
On January 27, 2005, Cherlene called Ray again, saying McElyea had contacted her again, this time saying that if her family would provide him with a $10,000 "loan," he would tell police what he allegedly knew about Faylene's death — her murder, really.
Ray advised Cherlene to tell McElyea that the Eaves family would pay the $10,000, but only after he told them what he knew. He suggested a meeting in a parking lot somewhere, in a car wired for sight and sound, and with a team of undercover cops nearby.
"The bottom line is, we're going to use Jim," the detective said. "If Jim knows what happened to Faylene and has been sitting on it for so long, I'm sorry, we're going to use and abuse him."
Two weeks later on February 16, 2005, Cherlene Patterson and her husband, Darren, awaited Jim McElyea's arrival in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in Globe.
As planned, Sy Ray's team had wired the Pattersons' vehicle and hid nearby.
McElyea pulled up and stepped into the Pattersons' car. Cherlene handed him a $10,000 check.
He then told them of visiting Doug at his house in Gilbert one day after Faylene died.
"I had made a comment a couple weeks prior that [Faylene] was scaring me because she was like being around an angel," McElyea told the Pattersons.
"She just had this glow about her. Doug said, 'She is freaking me out, too' . . . And he said that she said she wanted to go to Heaven, and he just did what she wanted . . . He just helped her get to sleep."
McElyea said Doug confessed to him about crushing all of the Ambien, putting it in an empty capsule and giving it to Faylene.
"He had a suspicion that she was going to leave him again," McElyea said. "And I am sure [the murder] had to do with [her] half of the money."
Doug waited until Faylene was almost unconscious, McElyea said, ran the bath, undressed her, and placed her in the tub.
"Did he say anything about holding her under?" Cherlene asked him.
"It's not like she was comatose," McElyea replied. "I mean, she was kind of stirring around, and I guess he had to hold her under. Then, he said he waited and then he went ahead and called [physician assistant Chad White]."
McElyea said Doug also told him White had called 911 after arriving at the Grants' home, which would be huge for investigators if true.
"If she was going to kill herself, why would she take all of her clothes off? Everyone is going to see her," Darren Patterson wondered.
"Faye was even more modest than I was. There is no way she wanted to die like that," Cherlene agreed.
"How could you do that? How could you do that to her?" Darren asked.
"I didn't," McElyea replied.
"He is just evil; he is right there with Satan," Cherlene concluded.
Moments after McElyea left the car, police arrested him on charges of extortion and withholding evidence from authorities. Sy Ray soon promised him immunity in return for being "100 percent with us."
McElyea said he'd do whatever the cop wanted.
The detective interviewed McElyea in Gilbert a few hours later.
