Saturday, March 24, 1990

Officials beginning to doubt alleged

confession in Ann Gotlib case
By Cary B. Willis
The Courier-Journal

They haven't completely written him off, but investigators who searched Fort Knox for
the body of Ann Gotlib based on an alleged confession from a serial killer are having
serious doubts about his credibility.

Michael Lee Lockhart, a 29-year-old Toledo, Ohio, man already facing three death
sentences, was brought from a Texas prison to Fort Knox on Wednesday to show where
he had buried the "freckle-faced girl" he purportedly killed while stationed there in 1983,
police said. But an intensive search at a remote area near the southern edge of the post --
a search employing 15 to 20 people with shovels and another operating a bulldozer --
turned up nothing on Thursday, and officials now suspect they may have been sent on a
wild-goose chase. Lt. Col. Ken Lampe, assistant Jefferson County police chief, said it
was frustrating to watch what had been one of the strongest leads in the seven- year
history of the Gotlib case wither away.

"Having been through so many of these false alarms, it looks like the best thing in the
world," Lampe said. Police thought "we finally found her. Everybody's up, everybody's
high. And then to watch it just deteriorate in front of you . . .

"Who knows what motivates a serial killer to do something like this?" Lampe said. "I'm
past the point of trying to rationalize why people give either false information or
intentionally mislead you."

On the other hand, Lampe said, "he may not have intentionally misled us. He may have
killed a little freckle-faced girl somewhere else."

Phil Doty, a spokesman for the FBI, said it would be "premature" to say that Lockhart's
information was a false alarm.

"We're trying to re-evaluate the information we received. We may go back out there (to
Fort Knox) in the future. We need to go back and figure out what was said (by Lockhart),
how we got to that particular location, retrace our steps, and go from there," Doty said.

Doty said investigators thought "from the very start" that there was a possibility Lockhart
was taking credit for an abduction he had had no part in. But they had to check out his
information, he said.
Lampe said a county detective and an FBI agent had several conversations with Lockhart
in Texas in the past five or six weeks, and initially "he talked about a lot of things that
sounded extremely good." But as time passed, and Lockhart began giving "generic
answers to specific questions," they began to get concerned.

Lampe said another reason police had started getting suspicious about Lockhart was his
failure of a polygraph examination regarding the Gotlib case. But polygraphs are subject
to different interpretations, and people with psychotic tendencies such as Lockhart has
shown often give false readings, he said.

Still, they had to investigate Lockhart's claim, he said.

"He had his shot, and he didn't produce anything. I'd say he was blowing smoke," Lampe
said.

Robert Hobbs, an investigator for the Jefferson County, Texas, district attorney's office,
said he contacted Kentucky authorities several months ago after Lockhart told him in
interviews about having abducted a girl from a suburban Louisville shopping mall.

Hobbs said he has spent hundreds of hours talking to Lockhart at a Huntsville prison
since the former soldier and magazine salesman was sentenced to death in October 1988
after being convicted of killing a Beaumont, Texas, police officer. Lockhart has
confessed to, or been linked by investigators to, a variety of crimes across the country --
most in 1987 and 1988 -- and there is strong evidence to support many of the allegations,
Hobbs said.

Beaumont Patrolman Paul Hulsey Jr. was killed on March 22, 1988, after he chased
Lockhart to a Beaumont hotel on suspicion of car theft.

Information developed during the investigation of that slaying led Texas authorities to
link Lockhart to the murders of teen-age girls in Griffith, Ind., in October 1987, and
Pasco County, Fla., in January 1988. He was convicted by a jury of the Indiana slaying,
pleaded guilty in the Florida killing and received additional death sentences in both cases.

Las Vegas police said yesterday that Lockhart is still a suspect in the July 1987 slaying of
a 16-year-old girl whose mutilated body was found in the desert outside the Nevada city a
week after she was reported missing.

And Hobbs said Lockhart continues to admit to rapes, robberies and other crimes in "all
four corners" of the country.

"He talks very freely," Hobbs said. "I don't know how candid he is, but he talks a lot."

Lockhart's confessions have never led investigators to another body, Hobbs said, but he
pointed out that the Las Vegas murder and others are different from the case in
Louisville. "Those cases involve young girls who were definitely known to be dead, so
it's just a matter of finding their killer. Ann Gotlib's never been found," he said.

With Lockhart's confessions, "We've made some progress on solving some unsolved
cases," Hobbs said. And, he added, "I think there are more murders."

Lockhart hasn't been tried for any other crimes, partly because Texas is unlikely to send a
thrice-condemned prisoner to another state for an offense less serious than murder, Hobbs
said.

With all the crimes in which Lockhart may be involved, Hobbs said it's difficult to know
the strength of Lockhart's confession in the Gotlib case.

"He is most assuredly a killer of young girls. He was living in the area at the time. Those
factors alone make him a suspect," Hobbs said. But Lockhart also is "capable of playing
some real games. He could be jerking us all around."

Ann Gotlib, the daughter of Russian immigrants, moved to Louisville with her parents in
1980. She was 12 when last seen near Bashford Manor Mall on June 1, 1983. Her bicycle
was found outside the mall that night.

Lockhart had been stationed at Fort Knox for a little more than a year when Ann
disappeared, Army spokesmen said yesterday. He entered the Army on Jan. 28, 1982, and
received basic and advanced training as a combat engineer at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.
He arrived at Fort Knox on May 16, 1982, and was assigned to Company C, 19th
Engineer Battalion.

Lockhart left Fort Knox on Oct. 17, 1983, for Korea.

Ann's disappearance received enormous publicity, and Lampe speculated Lockhart may
have learned of her case through news reports.

As police reassess the case, "I'm sure there will be more conversations with him," Lampe
said.

"It's not a case that's going away," Lampe said. "It's been worked on this long, it's not
going to go away. The leads will continue to come in, and we'll still get into situations
like this."