# 36 Craig gets arrested

Friday July 18th, 2003

All my notes show that Craig insisted on getting the kids back on Thursday, but I was able to keep them until Friday. I must have negotiated an extra day out of him.

On Friday when I had to take them back to Craig, I had spent an hour with Rocco who was crying about going back to Craig. He did NOT want to go to him. I felt so terrible driving them all the way from South Jordan to Kaysville, with them both begging me not to take them to him. So on the way to Kaysville I called my attorney, then the Victim Advocates and then our counselor. All of them told me the same thing. When it’s Craig's time to have the boys, I have to go along with it. There is nothing I can do unless I take him to court and have it legally changed.

When we arrived at Craig's house I wiped their faces with my hands and told them to take a deep breath and everything will be OK. I told them I would call them over the weekend and see them on Monday.

They got out of the car, with their cute little back packs, and headed to the front door. I started backing out of the driveway but wasn’t going to drive away until I saw them safely go inside. I watched the front door open and saw them go inside.

I was about to drive away when I saw the front door open again and both their back packs came FLYING out the front door! I stopped my car on the street. Then both boys came running out the front door, screaming “Mom! Mom! Wait!” They grabbed their backpacks off the lawn and ran to my car, jumped in and hit the locks. Then they both yelled  “GO!GO!GO!” So I put my foot down and got away as fast as we could. Both boys were shaking and crying and I decided right then and there that I was not taking them back until I get to go to court and address this issue about what was going on.

I asked them what had happened and they said Craig was so mad at them for being upset when they arrived that he literally threw them out (pushed them out the door) and told them not to come back until they wanted to see him. (What if I had driven away??) Within 30 minutes of us leaving Craig started calling my phone and both boys begged me not to answer, so I didn’t. Craig called over and over again, but I didn’t answer. I called Shondell, the counselor, and told her what had happened. We made an appointment for the following Tuesday the 22nd. She told me to call my attorney to let him know what had happened and to “take cover”. As I mentioned before, she found Craig to be very dangerous and always told me to be very careful with him. Little did any of us know that Craig had already killed a man 10 days ago and that I was next on the agenda. I called my attorney but since it was now Friday evening, all I could do was leave a message for him, which I did. None of us realized that that day would be the very last day we saw Craig as a free man. The next time I saw him, he was in jail, awaiting a trial for Capital Murder in the first degree.

Saturday July 19th, 2003

Craig called this morning and apologized for his “atrocious and negative behavior”. I told him the boys needed some space and time and that they needed to stay home with me for the weekend. He agreed to leave them with me until Wednesday next week. It was my turn to have Rocco for his birthday on Tuesday.

Tuesday July 22nd, 2003 (Rocco’s 10th birthday)...Sad that large events happened on both their birthdays….

Craig did not call Rocco to wish him Happy Birthday. I found that very strange. I asked Rocco a few times if he wanted to call Craig, to which he vehemently responded “No!”.  So I left it alone.

Later that day we had our counseling session with Shondell set for 2pm. Shondell wanted to speak to the boys alone first, about the events on Friday etc, so I waited in the living room. While I was waiting, Doug called me. He said there was a detective trying to get hold of me and that it was about Craig. He gave me the phone number to call.

I called the detective and he said that Craig had been arrested the night before. (Now I realized why Craig hadn’t called Rocco today). In my mind he was finally being arrested for everything piling up on his plate. I asked the detective what the charges were, and he said homicide!! He asked me to come down to Craig's house to talk to them because it was going to hit the 5pm news, but they had to first let me know the details. I was shocked. My first thought was it was probably a bar fight or something.

I went over to the room where Shondell was meeting with the boys and I called her out and told her about the phone call. Her first instinct was that it was a set up by Craig and she didn’t want me to go. I told her I felt it was real and needed to go. So she asked me to leave the boys with her and come back to get them when I was done. She told me to be very careful and not to go into Craig's house if there was not, in fact, police parked outside.

Craig’s house was just a 5 or 6 minute drive from Shondells house, and as I drove down the street I saw media vans on both sides of the road. As I got to the house, I noticed multiple police cars, forensic teams and there was yellow crime scene tape around the whole house. I knew this was real and not a set up. I parked and walked up to the detectives standing in the driveway. After I introduced myself they told me that Craig and Tamara had been arrested at 11pm the night before at her house in Clearfield. He said they were both being charged with Aggravated Murder of Michael Boudrero. That name didn’t mean anything to me, but they reminded me he was the plumber that had gone missing 3 weeks earlier in Logan, and then discovered dead in the basement of an empty house. I remembered hearing about it all over the news and was shocked and saddened that someone would do that to a father of 2 young kids. Now I was finding out that Craig had committed the crime!

The detective gave me his card and asked for my information. He said they would need to interview me about the goings on over the last few weeks and months. He warned me it would be on the 5 O’clock news on every channel and that I should warn as much family as possible.

“Where do I start? Who do I call first?” I decided to go back to Shondell and let her know first, and to ask her how I tell the boys. She was not surprised by the news at all. She offered to break it to the boys with me. Both Rocco and Richard seemed a little confused, but obviously they didn’t really understand much. Rocco’s first question was “So does that mean we don’t have to go back to his house?”  Sad, but true.

Since it was Rocco’s birthday, we had invited the whole family and a lot of friends to come over to our pool for a birthday party. That birthday party turned out to be a whole lot different than I had planned, as the news spread and my phone didn’t stop ringing for weeks…..

That’s it for today! Next time I will pick up right here where I left off, that same day as Craig's mug shot appeared on every news blurb on the TV, and radio, as Breaking News.

Thank you for all your support. The GOOD NEWS is I have purchased a computer and will be able to make this a whole lot more!! I will be reading this blog into a podcast so that you can hear it while working out, gardening etc. I will also be bringing the short telephone recordings in for you to hear.

Love always, and remember to TRUST YOUR GUT!

Eve

# 35 He is controlling all of us.

Sunday July 13th, 2003

I tried to call the boys at 9 pm to say Good Night (and check they were still in town). I got no reply. I continued to call for 3 hours! By now I was panicking. Eventually at midnight Craig picked up the phone. They had been at Tamara's house all evening and Craig said he didn’t take his cell phone. I don’t know why I don’t completely believe that, but at least he finally picked up. I spoke to the boys and they were fine, they liked Tamara’s kids so had fun playing with them.

Monday July 14, 2003

Craig called me at 8 am to find out if I was going to call my attorney to withdraw the discovery. Again. He was SO bent out of shape over that. I didn’t understand back then, but now I know he was hiding a lot of money, had trades going back and forth and obviously didn’t want to deal with revealing all of that. It is a formality of divorce, so that the court can determine assets and liabilities. Craig kept pushing me to call my attorney and get them withdrawn. I told him I don’t think that is even in my power but I will call him and see what he says. Craig yelled at me and said if I would drop the divorce then none of this would be happening. I told him I was trying to get ready for work and didn’t have time to argue. Once we hung up, he called me several times over the next hour but I didn’t pick up as I really was getting ready for work.

I called my attorney from the car and he said Craig is not in contempt of court and will not be arrested because we have a divorce hearing in August.

So I called Craig and told him, but he was still mad at me for pursuing the divorce. I told him if we could just agree on how to split the assets etc, he wouldn’t have to do the discovery. They required it of him because he was fighting everything in the divorce. And remember he told me he was going to kick it around the courts until the cows come home?  That is exactly what he was doing! He said I was using the discovery as a weapon to control him.

So that night I sent him a long email. I asked him to please stop fighting with me, and trying to control me. I asked him to please let me go. I was very nice to him and just plead with him to stop being angry with me all the time.

Tuesday July 15, 2003

I found out today that our West Valley house had gone into foreclosure. Craig had agreed to pay on the first mortgage ($350/mo) and I was paying on the second one we had on it ($700/mo). When you listen to the tapes (one day when I can get them on here) you will hear me telling Craig that I could not afford the $700 a month payments on that house and I really wanted to just sell it. He fought me tooth and nail on that. He said he was going to live in it. Then he said I had to hire someone to fix it. Then he said he wanted me to quit claim the deed over to him. Everyday he had a new agenda with that house and in the meantime I was going broke paying on that second mortgage to keep our credit up so that we could get the equity out of it. In the divorce agreement I had said we would split the equity between us after the expenses of fixing it up. Then he said he wanted to fix it up and be paid for it. I agreed to that at one point, but he never showed up to work on the house. He was determined to drag everything out as long as possible.

So now it foreclosed and we lost $60K.

I called him up and asked if he had been paying on the mortgage. He said “nope, not me”. I couldn’t believe it. I said I had been breaking my back to get the $700 paid every month and meanwhile he stopped paying on the first mortgage and let it foreclose. He didn’t care at all. He said it wasn’t his problem.

Then he sent me a reply to my email. He said part of him wants to let me go, but the other part of him wants to fight for our marriage.

That evening Rocco called me sounding very sad, and asked if I could come and get him. I told him he would have to ask Daddy because it’s his time to have them. Of course Craig said no.

Later in the night Craig and I tried to discuss our divorce and of course it got very ugly again. I do have this fight on tape too. After 2 hours of fighting, I told him I don’t want to fight anymore. Can we please call a truce. It had been a long day. He said I must call my attorney in the morning and have those papers withdrawn. I told him he has 6 weeks before we go to court, why is he panicking about it now. Obviously he screwed me over on the West Valley house, why would I want those papers withdrawn? Once again he got mad at me and said I was using them as a weapon. I reminded him that neither of us trusts the other. I asked him if we could try for a few weeks to be civil to each other. For 3 weeks. Let’s be civil. If we can’t do it for 3 weeks, then I am going through with the divorce. He agreed. He said he can do that. Then he managed to insult me twice within 5 minutes. I reminded him that we are supposed to be trying to be nice to each other.

Then I asked to speak to Rocco. Craig said he was asleep and didn’t eat a single thing the entire day, not even his favorite dinner, steak. This really concerned me. Rocco was depressed. I suggested maybe he was homesick and missing me. Craig got all mad and nasty again. He said Rocco misses us being a family, he doesn't miss me.

So I asked to speak to Richard. Richie was crying. I asked him what was wrong and he said he misses me. I told him I would see him tomorrow. Craig gave them permission to come home for one night.

After I hung up with Richie, Craig called me back and asked what Richie had said. I told him. He said no, Richie doesn’t miss me, he was just upset because he wanted to go pick up his pigeons tonight and Craig told him it was too late. Craig told me that Richie doesn’t want to come home tomorrow. I said that was fine, we could check with them in the morning and see what they would like to do.

I hated to see my boys going through this. It was so hard for them. I wish Craig had let them be where they wanted to be. He professed to me that the kids deserve their family back and to be happy, but he refuses to give them happiness when they ask to come home. He controlled all of us. Those poor kids. There was nothing I could do. My attorney said when it’s Craig legal time then it’s up to him if he wants to let them be with me or not. It seems so wrong. They deserve to be happy and to be where they feel safe and loved. Craig’s house is dark, he never opens the blinds anymore. His animal cages downstairs smell terrible because he never cleans them out anymore. Craig is obviously depressed and spends a lot of time sleeping while the kids have to entertain themselves and make their own meals.

Craig said if they do come home tomorrow, that they HAVE to go back on Thursday to him. My heart is breaking for them. I asked him, “What if they want to stay with me a little longer?” He said absolutely not.

Why?? Why is he so selfish?? Why is it only about what he needs and the rest of us just have to deal with it?

That’s it for today. I will update again next Sunday. Until then, be safe and please listen to your gut!

# 34 The week after...

My last blog was about the day Craig took an innocent mans life. It was a Tuesday night. The next morning Craig showed up at my apartment to pick up the boys. He told me he was going to keep them until school starts. Legally he was allowed to take them for 2 weeks so I couldn’t fight it, but I was so scared that he was going to leave the country with them.

So Wednesday night I called them to say goodnight to them, and Rocco was sounding very down. I asked him what he was doing and he said that Craig and Tamara had gone to a movie and her kids were at the house with Rocco and Rich. (This frustrated me because you would think he would rather be spending time with his kids. But now we know the story and know that Craig and Tamara were making final plans).

Rocco asked me if I would go and pick him up the next day. I told him he would have to ask daddy first. He said he would try talk to him tomorrow. Rocco was sounding very quiet and sad, I hope Craig lets him come home for a day at least.

Craig said no.

On Sat July 12th Craig called me while I was getting ready to go to a 10 o’clock meeting. He asked if I had a couple minutes to talk. Well it turned into a long argument again. I found the tape recordings from that day so will give you a brief summary. He started recording himself before he called me and he was talking to me, into the tape. Maybe he knew one day I would find these tapes….who knows? He said that I had become autocratic and dictatorial about a year ago when I started taking extravagant and dangerous steps towards my freedom by involving the police force, all because he “bugged” me when I wanted to be set free. He said he had been disciplined with police action. Then he goes on to say that I have never been disciplined in my life and that my parents had never told me I was wrong in anything. He went on to calling my parents too stupid to parent me properly and I nurture hatred to absolve myself from any wrongdoing. The tape stops and then starts recording again. He goes on to say that I have condemned him and criticized him for his illegal behaviour.

Is this all his justification for what he had in store for me? How does a man continue his normal daily activities, with his children, after he has just taken a life? I have been lucky enough to never hit an animal with my car, even though I have had many jackrabbits running across the street in front of me, I have never hit one. If I did, I would be mortified. I would feel so bad for killing a little jackrabbit! Craig and Tamara planned for over 4 months to take 2 lives. Mikes and my own. They took out life insurance on both of us, and I was lucky enough that Tamara actually chickened out the two times she was supposed to shoot me. That all came out in their guilty pleas after their arrest and I will go into more detail about that later.

Back to Saturday July 12th. After Craig was done recording that message to me, he called me. He asks if I have spoken to my attorney about getting the interrogatories dropped because he was going to be in contempt of court as of Monday. He reminded me that I am the one pushing for the divorce. I agreed. He stated that a few times, obviously he had a reason for it to be on tape that this whole divorce thing was my idea and that he wanted the family to be together again. He said divorce is very destructive for children. I agreed with him, but told him he should have thought about that all the times he was bringing women home and having affairs. I reminded him how many times I had begged him and told him how much it was hurting me, and he continued his relationships. I told him I am done, I am too hurt and I don’t love him the way he wants me to love him so I don’t see it working out. Then he calms down and admits it was all his bad choices that destroyed our marriage, but that I refuse to admit any guilt. I told him I was committed to him for ten years, never straying or turning him down. I said for ten years I gave him everything I could. And because he insisted on living his wildest dreams, no matter the pain it was causing me, I shut down. I built a solid wall around my heart and he was not going to be able to just break it down by threatening me and trying to make me feel guilty now that I have decided to leave the marriage. I told him it’s way too late.

Then he says he loves me more than anything in the world.  He said he doesn’t want to be with anyone else and all he wants is his family back. I told him if he really meant that, then he should start by proving it to to me. Stop having Tamara be with him all the time, even when the kids are there. I told him the kids tell me that Craig takes “his friend and her kids” boating with them all the time. They go to movies together. She is ALWAYS there. I told him there is no way in a hundred years I will even consider for a second going back to him while he has that relationship going.

His response was I date, so he can too. I told him I NEVER take the boys with me, and I have not introduced them to a single man that I have dated. When I am with the boys (which is 90% of the time) I am only with them. He gets the kids 10% of the time and still has to have his girlfriend be there with them. Craig told me if I would commit to him he would drop Tamara and Liz and everyone else immediately. I told him I can’t just commit to him overnight because he expects to be petted, loved and emotionally satisfied all the time and it’s going to take me time to get that back. I can’t just flip a switch and be that way for him. I suggested that if he really wanted us back that he should get rid of the women in his life, stop picking on me for every little thing I do and start being nice to me. Entice me to be with him. Make me WANT to be with him.

Later on in the day we got into another HUGE fight, and then he asked me if I wanted to see the kids. Of course I did. So we made plans to got to the Planetarium. He warned me not to encourage the kids to go home with me afterwards though. I had to make sure they knew I wanted them to be at his house.

Then he asked if I would like to go boating with them the next day (Sunday). He said to bring Doug and Wil and we can have a good family day again. I told him Wil and Doug could not make it, and that I would think about it. That started another fight. He said why can’t I commit to going with them? I told him because if he gets mad at me on the boat, for not touching him enough or being friendly enough, that I would have nowhere to go and I am uncomfortable with that situation. Boy, did he blow his top!! So then I told him I changed my mind about the Planetarium….he can’t control his temper for 5 minutes to keep the peace and I do not want to be around him. Another fight.

He called me a little later and I told him it would be less painful for me to bang my head against the wall repeatedly than deal with his unpredictable moods. He was calmer and apologized and I agreed to go to the Planetarium. I was so tired of all of this.

We had a pretty good time once we were there and it was a lot of fun to be there with the boys. Of course they begged me to come home with me, and I had to tell them no, which was so, so hard. Those little boys were so miserable over there because they could feel tension and uneasiness in the house...it breaks my heart.

I had to leave by 5:30pm so that I could get Wil to work.

That’s it for today.  Please stay safe, keep love in your heart and always listen to your gut!!

# 33 The day my husband took an innocent life.

On Tuesday July 8th, 2003 Craig was due in court at 10am for violating our protective order again. I think it was from the pool incident. I was working for my brother part time and remember clearly sitting at my desk waiting anxiously to hear from the Victim's advocates because they had told me Craig was going to be arrested and that they would have the INS there to take him in for deportation. I was shaking all day. I kept looking at the time, wondering what was happening. By this point I was so tired of all the drama and all the suffering the boys and I had gone through that I honestly just wanted it all to be over. Craig accuses me a lot on the audio tapes, of destroying his life and that he has to keep looking over his shoulder because he feels like I am always trying to get him arrested. He never understood his responsibility of his actions. He didn’t think about what he had done to cause me to call the police (like the pool incident). He only saw how I reacted to what he did. At the pool that day I had begged him, instructed him, reminded him that he was not allowed to be in the pool area with us (he was only allowed to pick up or drop off the kids, but not come harass me at the pool of my residence). So he was very, very angry with me for calling the police that day and now he was going to court and he knew the probability of being arrested was very high. The INS also had warned him that he was not to have any more violations. Nothing stopped him.

So, what did Craig do on Tuesday July 8th, 2003? Did he go to court? Of course not.

I waited all day to hear from the Victim's Advocates girls so that I could know what happened. I wanted to know if he was arrested or if I needed to double lock my doors that night.  They assured me on Monday, the day before, that they would call me immediately.

By 4pm (on Tuesday) I still had not heard anything, so I called the courts. I asked about the hearing and they put me on hold. When they came back to me they said that Craig had not shown up in court. My mouth dropped open. So I asked what happens now? She said “Well usually an automatic bench warrant would be issued and they would go pick him up, but it looks like they didn’t issue one.” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She said they would look into it and let me know if the judge will sign one for him.

Now I was really scared because Craig knew at this point they were probably looking for him. And of course, it was always my fault.

So I called the INS. I told the agent that I had been working with, what had happened, and they asked me if I knew where Craig was. If I could tell them, they would just go pick him up.

I made the phone call to Craig, and in the conversation I asked him where he was. He said he was at home, and then he told me he wanted to pick the boys up in the morning and keep them until they go back to school. Part of the divorce agreement gives the non custodial parent 2 weeks in the summer time. Of course he didn’t ever plan it ahead with me and would just spring it on me like he did here. The boys had told me that Craig was taking them on a big trip. This scared me too, because Craig knew he was leaving the country one way or another, he wanted to leave before they deported him, so I was always worried that he would up and vanish with my boys in the middle of the night. Turns out I wasn’t far off on my feelings.

I started to panic, it was getting close to 5 pm and I needed the INS to get Craig before he took off with my boys. I really felt like this was the week he was going to do that. He also told me for years that he would make sure I don’t ever get to raise the boys, and that he will take them away from me. It seemed like all the pieces were falling together…and no one could help me.

I called the INS back, told them that Craig was home, and I also told them that he was planning on taking the boys on a big trip that week. (The INS had said he was not allowed to leave the State, but that never stopped him).

I went home and held my breath. This was Tuesday July 8th, 2003.

HERE COMES MURDER

It turns out the INS did NOT pick Craig up that day. Instead, Craig and Tamara went through with their plans they had been making since February. Tamara bought 4 movie tickets (For her and Craig, and her 2 kids). That was their alibi. Pretty weak if you ask me. Then Craig drove up to Logan, went to the Walmart and bought a prepaid phone card. Then he walked over to the pay phone and made some calls. (The surveillance from Walmart showed all of this). He called Michael Boudrero, Tamara’s ex husband, who was a plumber. Craig told him he was looking at buying a home in Logan but would like Mike to check out the plumbing in the house first. Apparently Mike told his Mom that he felt uncomfortable with that call, but that he was going to go anyway. Side note...ALWAYS trust your gut!!

So Mike went up to the house, Craig had parked a few houses away so that his car was not visible to Mike, and they met at the house. Once they were in the basement, Craig pulled out a gun and shot Mike once in the chest and 2 or 3 more times in the back after he had fallen to the ground. Some of you may not know, but when you get shot from the front, you don’t fall backwards like in the movies. You actually fall forward, with an equal but opposite reaction. So he fell forward and then Craig shot him a few more times. Then Craig dragged the body into a cold storage under the house, took Mike’s glasses, keys, watch, wallet and cell phone, locked the storage door and went back outside. While doing this, Craig did step in some blood which left his unique shoe print on the cement floor in the basement. He also stepped in some mud outside the house. Craig wears a very unique size shoe. He is a 13 double wide.

Then Craig got into Mike’s car and drove it a few miles away from the house. When he got out he removed the car seat cover and locked up the car. He walked back to his car and drove away. He stopped at a gas station and threw the car seat cover into a dumpster. Craig then drove to the Salt Lake and threw all of Mike’s possessions, along with the gun, as far as he could into the lake.

When he drove home he called Tamara and told her he couldn’t go through with it and didn’t do it.

All of this detail came out months afterwards, but it fits right in with my story.

Now lets go back and revise what happened earlier in the day.

1. Craig no showed his court hearing for violation of a Protective Order.
2. The court failed to issue a bench warrant.
3. The INS told me they would go get him, but they did not.
4. I had warned both the court and the INS that something was coming down, something bad was being planned because Craig’s behavior was getting more and more erratic and with a lot more anger. The boys told me he had big suitcases in the bedroom, lots of guns and cash and they knew they were taking a trip.
5. If ANY of these organizations had done their job, Mr Boudrero would be alive today. And that is why I want to write a book. The system failed all of us, but most of all an innocent man lost his life.

The following day I didn’t know if Craig had been picked up by the INS or not. I didn’t hear from him at all on Tuesday night, (now I know why) so I sat with baited breath and waited to find out.

Then Wednesday morning Craig arrived to pick the boys up. I felt like I was seeing a ghost. Obviously I had no idea of what he had done the night before, but I REALLY believed that between the INS and the court, that Craig would have been picked up. And now here he was standing at my door to take the boys…...and I didn’t know if I would see them again. My gut told me that he was taking them on the big trip and I may not ever see them again.

Next post is about the following days after the crime was committed.

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Stay safe and remember to TRUST YOUR GUT!