It was the beginning of October, and Willis was starting to get edgy, authorities believe. His court date in New York was closing in, and it was dawning on him that it was only going to be a matter of time before someone noticed that while Sam Thomas might be gone, his credit cards were having a grand old time.

Willis was right.

Investigators tracking the disappearance of Thomas had picked up Willis’ scent. The first hint came from a relative who said that she had called Thomas’ cellphone a month after the old man vanished. Howard Hawk Willis had answered the phone, she said. With that piece of information as a starting point, investigators quickly found the credit card receipts that Willis had signed in his stepfather’s name. Then they located the surveillance tape. They may not have had enough to charge him with engineering Thomas’ disappearance, authorities say, but they had enough to bring him in, at least on charges of credit card fraud and violating the conditions of his federal bail.

By October 4, the authorities were almost ready to pounce, and Willis, they believe, may have sensed it.

The cops theorize that in his boundless arrogance, Willis had no doubt that he could stay one step ahead of the law, authorities say.

But Chrismer and his young wife were another matter. They were weak and vulnerable. And while those were the very attributes that authorities believe attracted Willis to them in the first place, in his mind, the couple was now becoming a liability.

While authorities in Bradley and Washington counties say they may never know for certain whether the young newlyweds were involved in Thomas’ slaying, they believe the couple knew most, if not all, of the grisly details.

Willis, they believe, was worried that with little pressure from the police, the unpredictable young couple, so impressionable and easily manipulated, would turn on him.

On the night of October 4, Chrismer and his wife had dinner with Samantha’s mother in Rossville. If the couple had any idea that they were in danger, they didn’t show it that night. Over dinner, Samantha told her mother that they planned to head north that night to Johnson City to meet with Willis. They’d be visiting with him at the home of his mother, they said.

Two days later, on October 6, Chrismer called his own mother. He told her where he was and that he was anxious to return home. “I have just one more thing to do for Howard,” he added.

It was the last time she ever heard from her son.