attendant failures and remorse. did envy the fact that he had he was successful. looked like he had no worries. but the friendship survived. bob and roger and now little eric. by the time eric turned 5, liana was pushing for another baby. but bob? i think he had given up on it long before that and felt trapped. still, no one could have prepared bob or roger for what happened then august, 1996. it was a blustery summer day, as bob recounted later, much like this one. he piled liana and little eric into this is jeep for a family outing and they meandered up here on this high rock ridge overlooking the reservoir way down there. the rock surface is shale. little eric was playing near the edge, throwing rocks off, chasing lizards, liana hovering by his side. bob says he went over to the jeep to get a soda. he heard liana scream his name. he turned around, they were gone.
by now, roger brauberger had suppressed his suspicion that what happened that warm summer day was anything but an accident. i didn t want to associate the bob duke i knew with the bob duke that wanted his wife and kid to go. i tried to separate it in the back of my mind. anyway, roger the drug addict was busy hitting bottom. i was stuck, a slave to that. would do anything for my next fix. then one january night, roger answered the phone. it was bob, calling from houston, where he had gone to live with his older brother. he called me and wanted to know if i could get him automatic weapons. there was work at a security high-rise and there were people who wanted certain people dead and he could make money at this. what was it like to hear his voice for the first time? it was like the nightmare all over again. bob knew roger s friends could get him connections, knew if anybody could help him, roger could. why didn t you just say no? i don t know why, maybe
eric was cute as a bug. the kid was a spitting image of bob. just a gentle kid. who seemed to love his daddy. neighbor karen yoke remembers how young eric looked up to his dad. bob had a trick bike. there was a lot of kids in the complex. he would go out in the parking lot and do tricks for the kids, and his son eric would love to watch his dad. bob had given up on college. he had a family to support. he was smart. people liked him and he soon built a solid business as one of green rivers premier carpet installers. they always had money. nice car, nice jeep, nice home. he took pretty good care of his family financially. roger, meanwhile, spiraled into drug addiction and all its
i went through about a box and a half of tissues before he showed up. it was two and a half hours later. and he had been planning the funeral already. i said, i need to talk to you outside. they stepped outside. he said, i need to know you believe i didn t do this. i need to know whether or not i need to cover my ass on this. i told him, there s no way you could possibly have done that. why would bob have said a thing like that? roger began to get a sickening feeling. he found himself brooding over memories of bob and the lack of warmth he showed toward his son. i remember one time he came back, his son ran up to him and he kind of liane, take care of your son, like he didn t have time for him. pushed him away. kind of stiff-armed him. did he behave his wife that way also? i never saw them lovey-dovey. liana and eric duke were buried side by side on a hill.
it s going to look planned. is there any way to make it look like an accident like you did with your wife and kid? dude, i did not do that. you didn t? i thought you said you did that. no. we talked about it. i didn t want nothing to do with it. he vehemently denied it and got upset. bob duke wasn t confessing to the murder of his wife and son. but the fbi thought they had enough on the plot to kill his parents and there was danger involved. they d take what they could get. the decision was made we would arrest him while he was on the phone. 25-year-old robert duke was arrested at his home in southwest houston. his brother, 31-year-old patrick duke was arrested at a business office near downtown. bob duke was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. his brother with failure to report the plot. finally, it looked like bob duke was going to prison. roger had done the right thing. it was finally over.