Girl Raped, and Stabbed 30 Times!

[Horace Hogg]

Monday September 29.
SHARON TWP. - Standing in front of a kitchen table piled highwith
mementos of her dead daughter, Elizabeth Farrell tries to make sense of
the path that led her to Florida and back -- away from the place she
once thought would be her family's paradise.
Initially, the 40-ish blonde looks tall and sturdy, but Farrell wears
her pain everywhere.
It's around her neck on a heavy gold chain along with her firstborn's
favorite gold rings.
It's in the diamond locket filled with a strand of her daughter's
platinum hair, and on the chunky gold cross bought from the two women's
favorite soap opera star on a shopping channel.
It's on the table in a flurry of images that chart Aimee Farrell's short
life to its violent end.
In one photo, teen-age Aimee jumps in front of the camera and gives a
goofy grin. In another, pixie-sized Aimee and her even-smaller younger
sister are dwarfed by a big, blue easy chair.
Finally, pictured at her funeral, Aimee wears a gray and black security
guard's uniform. Too large for her 105-pound frame, the shirt is
buttoned to the chin. A silver badge covers half her chest like a toy.
White carnations hide slender fingers that were shredded in a last
struggle with her murderer.
The mother's keepsakes are tangible proof of unfathomable loss. Farrell
has carried them with her nearly every moment since Aimee was killed
Dec. 11, 2001, in her efficiency apartment in Clearwater Beach, Fla.
Todd Wadatz, a 25-year-old Pennsylvania native, saw all these things in
September in a Florida courtroom, right before a judge ordered him to
prison for life without parole for Aimee's murder.
Farrell still is shocked that the images never moved him.
`The strong one´
Aimee was a Wadsworth native and 1998 graduate of Medina County Joint
Vocational School. She was 20 years old when she was killed.
The Farrell family loved Clearwater and had spent every vacation there
since 1963. At Aimee's urging, her mother, father and sister followed
her south in 1998.
``Aimee was the heart of our family -- the strong one,´´ Farrell
said. ``When her dad (Marvin Farrell) died seven months after we got to
Florida, Aimee told us we were the Three Musketeers and we could make it
together.´´
Pre-dawn phone call
The murderer's wife and children were his key into her world.
Aimee met Christine Wadatz while working part timeat a seaside motel.
The woman and her two small daughters often visited Aimee's apartment to
go swimming.
On July 4, Christine asked to bring her husband along to watch
fireworks. Aimee agreed but had told friends she didn't think much of
Todd Wadatz because he didn't work and wasn't spending his welfare money
on the girls.
But that Independence Day, she entertained Wadatz and his family in her
home. She didn't hear from him again until her phone rang a few hours
before dawn five months later.
At 4:01 a.m., Aimee called her mother. ``You´ll never guess who called
me,´´ she said.
Aimee told her mother that Wadatz had said it was an emergency and he
was coming over.
She asked Farrell to call every 10 minutes to check on her.
``He wouldn´t tell her what was wrong on the phone. She went through
every scenario in her head,´´ Farrell said. ``She told me, `I´m so
worried about the girls.´ ´´
Farrell called at 4:10 a.m. and, again, at 4:28 a.m.
Then she fell asleep.
When Aimee's mother called back at 4:50 a.m., there was no answer.
Worried, Farrell awakened her 16-year-old daughter, Cathy. The two women
drove to the apartment and let themselves in.
Farrell can walk you to the exact spot in the high-rise apartment where
her daughter was raped as she died after being stabbed 30 times.
``I waited 20 minutes... I shouldn´t have... I´ve never seen evil
like that,´´ Farrell said. ``I hoped she was still alive, but I
couldn´t even see the color of her hair.´´
She knows that Aimee fought for her life. A detective told her the
bloody fingerprints in the apartment and cuts on her daughter's hands
are proof she tried to get away.
Aimee's mother also knows the murderer showered in the apartment, then
left dressed in his victim's clean shorts and T-shirt.
It all happened less than 40 minutes after her daughter whispered,
`I´m going to get rid of him,´ and told her, `I love you mommy,´
in that funny telephone voice she reserved for having to say so in front
of company.
The next day, Wadatz told investigators he killed Aimee Farrell. He led
them to soiled clothing, towels and a kitchen knife he had thrown into
the mangroves off the causeway.
Driven to warn others
Farrell returned to Ohio with her daughter and mother last March. She
now lives near her childhood home, in a cozy, Medina County ranch house
next to a cornfield.
She fears closureistoo much to hope for. Instead, Farrell is buoyed by a
cathartic drive to tell Aimee's story until its details are purged of
everything but a warning.
``Aimee was going to be a police officer,´´ her mother said Monday.
``She was a trained security guard, and it didn´t save her.
``Now I see young girls, and I want to grab them up and tell themno one
has `I´m a rapist and a murderer´ written on his forehead. I saw him
in court, and you couldn´t see the evil. And he was small,´´
Farrell added. ``You can´t tell by looking -- you can´t trust.´´
Aimee's attacker had no criminal record; only her calls to her mother
made him a suspect. Police found drawings made by the Wadatz girls
posted on her refrigerator. A photo of Wadatz with his wife and
daughters on Aimee's sofa taken the night of their July visit was still
in her camera.
Death-penalty decision
Florida prosecutor Jan Olney said only Aimee's mother saved Wadatz from
facing the death penalty. Farrell made the decision to approve his plea
bargain providing a life sentence without parole while knowing that
Aimee had been a strong advocate of capital punishment. Farrell keeps
Aimee's class notes in favor of execution in her kitchen table
collection.
``Killing him won´t take our suffering away; it would have taken his
suffering away,´´ she said.
``It was a difficult decision to make, but I had to do what was best for
Cathy,´´ Farrell said. After Aimee´s murder, her younger sister
dropped out of school and would not leave the family´s Florida
apartment.
``Cathy knows her sister is dead, but she can´t relive it every 10 to
15 years. What would we do if somewhere down the line, he got off?´´
Farrell's parents moved to Florida to support their daughter and
granddaughter after Aimee's murder. Farrell describes the judicial
process that followed as ``20 months of hell´´ in which defense
lawyers tried to get Wadatz´s confession thrown out.
Bill McVay, Farrell's father, died of a seizure seven months before he
could see his granddaughter's killer sentenced.
Farrell and her mother, Joan McVay, attended every court appearance
wearing pictures of Aimee.
Wadatz looked away during most of Farrell's 20-minutevictim-impact
statement. ``He didn´t care what he did to my family,´´ she said.
``The only time there was a tear was when I asked about his
daughters.´´
Looking ahead again
Back in Sharon Township, the healing process is beginning, if slowly.
Cathy Farrell is attending a small religious school near her home. She
has been talking to her mother about college.
Elizabeth Farrell is looking for a job.
Aimee's mother and grandmother have even begun to discuss possibly
returning to Florida someday. ``When Cathy is older and happier, my mom
and I would like to be snowbirds. They´re the happiest people.
``I don´t feelAimee´s presence here,´´ Farrell said. ``She never
liked to be cold. In Florida, I felt her all around me.´´
During her daughter's short life, Farrell said, Aimee lived her dream.
After their last dinner together, Aimee talked for hours about the
future. ``She loved Florida,´´ her mother said. ``She finally got
back to college, a plan she put aside to be with us after her father
died. She decided what she wanted to be and had this great job.
``Everything had fallen into place,´´ Farrell said. ``Aimee thought
she was 10 feet tall. She was going to be a cop and go out there and
save the world.