Two men arrested in stabbing deaths

Jen Lawson

Tuesday, May 17, 2005 | 11:07 a.m.

The former treasurer of the Clark County Republican Party was arrested by Metro Police in the stabbing deaths of his ex-wife and her father last August.

Certified public accountant John Douglas Chartier, 36, and his friend and data entry clerk, David Lee Wilcox, 42, were arrested Friday in the deaths of Rachel Bernat and her father, Carlos Aragon, police said.

Chartier had been engaged in a custody dispute with Bernat, according to police records, and he had allegedly threatened to kill her.

"They were recently divorced and they have a young child in common," Metro Homicide Sgt. Ken Hefner said. "That was a point of contention between them."

Chartier and Wilcox were arrested after investigators discovered that blood found at the crime scene matched Wilcox's DNA.

Ezekiel Chartier, the 4-year-old boy at the center of the custody battle, is now living with relatives in Southern California, acquaintances said. Chartier had been given full custody after Bernat's death.

Professional associates were rocked by the news that Chartier had been arrested. They characterized him as an experienced, respected CPA with a hard-nosed demeanor.

After the murders Chartier had told Bill Merrow, a business consultant who had referred clients to Chartier, that all the evidence was pointing to someone Bernat knew through her job as a craps dealer at the Boardwalk.

Merrow said he was surprised when Chartier called him from the detention center at 3:30 a.m. Saturday.

"I think in those early hours there was still disbelief over what had happened," Merrow said.

Merrow helped him get a criminal attorney and is working to get power of attorney so Chartier's accounting clients aren't abandoned.

Asked if he thinks Chartier could have committed the murders, he said, "In my gut, no, but what I've been hearing about the evidence, it sounds very compelling. You don't want to believe someone you know could have done something like this."

Brian Scroggins, head of the Clark County GOP, said Chartier served as treasurer for about six months, from a week or two before his wife was killed until February, when he was asked to resign because he had missed too many meetings.

He said Chartier has a blunt, bullish personality, and Scroggins limited his contact with him to party-related issues.

Scroggins said he was surprised when he received a call from a distraught Chartier in early August.

"He said, 'Can you come to my office? I need to talk to you,' " then added that the woman killed the day before was his ex-wife and they were in a custody battle.

At Chartier's office, "he was asking me, 'How do I tell my son that his mommy isn't around?' " Scroggins said. "I didn't know what to say because that's not something you come across every day. He was obviously distraught and sorrowful."

The victims were killed about 4:15 a.m. on Aug. 18. Police found Bernat, 43, and her 65-year-old father stabbed to death in the driveway of their home in the 5800 block of Willard Street near Boulder Highway and Tropicana Avenue. Both were barefoot and wearing pajamas, police said.

Autopsies showed Aragon had been stabbed twice and slashed once. Bernat had been stabbed 14 times -- with most of the wounds in the left chest -- and slashed 11 times.

The medical examiner said he felt the attack suggested "personalized rage and/or overkill by Bernat's attackers," the police report says.

Detectives found four drops of blood in the street outside the house, which they suspected belonged to the assailant because neither victim made it to the street, according to the police report.

Samples of the blood were analyzed at Metro's crime lab and police said the results showed it was a mixture of Bernat's blood and that of an unknown man.

Neighbors told detectives about Bernat's ongoing battles with Chartier over their 4-year-old son. The boy's annual seven-week visitation with Chartier was scheduled to end two days after the killings occurred, police said.

Bernat's mother, Iola Jean Taylor, told detectives that she was awakened by screaming and went to investigate. The kitchen door flew open and she saw her daughter struggling with a man. She wasn't wearing her glasses at the time, police said.

Taylor tried to push the man away with her metal walking cane, but the man snatched it from her hand and swung it at her, grazing her head.

Bernat's two daughters from a previous marriage, ages 10 and 8, woke to screams.

The older girl told police that she saw Chartier, her former stepfather, push her mother to the ground and attack her with a knife. She told detectives she knew Chartier had threatened her in the past.

"About a week or two before the attack, (the girl) heard her mother talking to her grandfather (Aragon), saying John has been blackmailing her, and that if they don't get this over with, that he might send someone over and kill her," the arrest report says.

In an interview with detectives, Chartier said the couple ended their three-year marriage shortly after their son was born. Chartier had visitation 10 days per month and seven weeks in the summer, he said.

Chartier told detectives he last spoke with Bernat about a month before she was killed and told her he wanted the boy 50 percent of the time, but she had refused.

He said he was at home with his girlfriend and the boy at the time of the killings, his arrest report says.

Chartier didn't have any employees at his CPA practice, he told police, but in a second interview a week later he mentioned he had one person working for him: Wilcox, whom he had known for two years.

About two weeks after the killings, detectives said, they went to Wilcox's house and found him shirtless with several small scabby areas that appeared to be fingernail scratches on both of his arms.

Wilcox, who also worked as a night security guard, explained they were ferret bites he suffered during his work with ferret rescue, the police report says.

Police also said detectives noticed a short, double-edged sword that was out of its brown leather sheath, leaning against the wall.

"Aragon and possibly Bernat was stabbed with a double-edged weapon, which is not a commonly owned or carried knife," the police report says.

Detectives asked Wilcox to give a DNA sample and he became noticeably nervous and agitated. He refused to give a sample and said "he has post-traumatic stress disorder and does not trust the government."

Police conducted surveillance on Wilcox's home and took four closed trash bags from outside the house, according to the arrest report. DNA samples collected from the garbage matched the DNA in the blood from the unknown man found at the scene of the killing, police said.

Wilcox told detectives he couldn't explain why his DNA was at the scene. After his arrest, when detectives told Chartier that Wilcox's DNA had been matched, he replied, "So I guess you're telling me Dave did this."

Detectives told him they knew he was also involved based on witness statements, and because Bernat's daughter said she saw him stabbing her mother.

"Chartier replied it was someone who looked like me, or she is lying," the report says.

A detective asked him why she would lie about something as serious as the killing of her mother, and Chartier ended the interview by requesting an attorney.

Scroggins said he didn't know Chartier well, but he expressed surprise when he was told about the arrests.

Chartier showed up at a meeting last summer and said he was a CPA, Scroggins said. The county party had lost its treasurer and was looking for a replacement, so he was elected into office.

"None of us had met him before," Scroggins said.

Party officials were taken aback when Chartier gave a presentation shortly after taking office that was very critical of the party leadership's accounting practices.

"Some of the reports were very accusatory, saying that I hadn't been supervising the former treasurer," Scroggins said. "He would offend or push you to get his point across."

Earlier this year he was asked to step down after failing to show at meetings.

"We told him we needed someone a little more dependable," Scroggins said. "He told us he was busy running his business and taking care of his son."

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