The Alice Crimmins Case

by Ken Gross

  If the first trial of Alice Crimmins was like an enormous frontier brawl, the second seemed almost subdued. It was an argument that engaged the intellect and did not threaten, like the first trial, to burst its boundaries and spill out of the courtroom. There was also something weary about the supporting cast; and some athletic second effort seemed necessary to get through it.

  The trial began on a cloudy Monday, March 15,1971; it was almost six years since the deaths of Missy and Eddie. Time had wrung out much of the outrage. The trial was held in a smaller courtroom than the “Hippodrome,” and was presided over by a huge man with an austere manner named George Balbach. There had been public criticism of the conduct of the first trial and Balbach was determined not to repeat Farrell’s mistakes. He laced the corridors and courtroom with court attendants. Again there were crowds waiting for every vacant seat but they were quiet.

  The scope of the trial was larger than its predecessor, since the charges were enlarged. On July 13,1970, a Queens grand jury had reindicted Alice Crimmins, this time charging her with the murder of her son as well as manslaughter in Missy’s death. She had gone through another ritual of arrest and collapse, falling this time into the arms of John Kelly when she was being booked at the Fresh Meadows Precinct. By now only the most optimistic policemen held out any hope that she would confess. Jerry Piering, however, was at the booking to monitor her reaction, comparing it to the day he had met her; he was like a patient research chemist working toward a correct formula.

  Alice still insisted upon her innocence, but that didn’t affect the detectives’ basic faith in her guilt. It was apparent, as she was again freed on $25,000 bail, that she had changed. She had a haggard, hounded look and no longer displayed the jaunty overconfidence that had characterized her attitude during the first trial. In unguarded moments she was hesitant and’ aware of a vulnerability she had only guessed at before. Her drinking didn’t make her giddy or high, but was driving her into despair.

  Tony Lombardino had joined the United States Attorney’s office in the Southern District in Brooklyn. James Mosley had been reduced to bureaucratic chores. Tom Mackell had decided to orchestrate the second trial of Alice Crimmins with more dignity and attention to legal points. To handle the case, he chose forty-five-year-old Thomas Demakos, chief of the office’s trial bureau, a solid, sober man, who though lacking flourishes of eloquence, was refreshingly direct. What recommended him even more, perhaps, was the fact that he had beaten Herbert Lyon in a murder case—one of the few prosecuting attorneys who could make that boast. Demakos was handsome in a mature way, with gray hair and wrinkles to give texture and depth to his expression. He never displayed temperament or vanity, relying instead on what passed for an urban kind of homespun self-deprecation.

  For his assistant, Demakos selected Vincent Nicolosi, who had the virtue of fresh indignation. Nicolosi had his own identification with the case. He had taken his bar examinations on July 14, 1965—the day Alice’s children disappeared. He would be prepared to perform whatever unpleasant hatchet work was demanded in the second prosecution of Alice Crimmins. Under his bright blond hair he had an engagingly elfin face that seemed incongruous with his nastier chores. The new team was both better matched and more harmonious than Lombardino and Mosley, who had seemed to struggle for control. Nicolosi never challenged Demakos’ position.

  Lyon was surprised by the indictment of his client for the death of her son, but guessed correctly that the extra charge had been thrown in to make the manslaughter accusation seem trivial. He prepared his case as if defending Alice for the death of her daughter, believing that the murder charge would fall under the weight of law. Private detective Irwin Blye compiled dossiers on the major characters, but they were frustratingly similar to the information Harold Harrison had unearthed. He wondered if Alice’s familiarity with politicians and show-business people could have had anything to do with the killings, but it was a blind alley. The police contacts Blye knew dismissed his questions, saying that nothing would be served going into that area. Lyon was totally uninterested in pursuing it, so Blye tracked other areas. He found himself hacking at a great jungle of facts, getting almost nowhere. He thought he could dispose of the murder charge involving little Eddie, however. In the first few days after the disappearance, he found, police had carefully searched the undergrowth where Eddie’s body was found, leading him to deduce that the body had been deposited there later. Since Alice had been under constant police surveillance, it must have been done by someone other than her. Of course, this was not necessarily inconsistent with the police theory that Alice had had help.

  Lyon and Erlbaum neglected other clients to concentrate on the Crimmins case. In the fall of 1970, Eddie and Alice had finally been divorced. They had attempted several reconciliations, but Eddie could no longer ignore her affairs and she had grown weary of the pretense that kept them together. For the sake of the trial, Lyon decided, they needed Eddie. Alice’s reputation was bruised enough and they were desperate to win sympathy for her.

  Eddie would again stand by his ex-wife. He would offer to put up bail; he would swear in court that she was innocent, and he would admit that, despite everything, he still loved her.

  Irwin Blye, moving a few paces behind the police, managed to locate most of the people involved in the case. It was not easy—their lives were scattered like autumn leaves. Theresa Costello, the former baby-sitter, was a married woman. She and her husband, an Air Force sergeant, lived in Arizona. Some witnesses had died. Others had moved. Joe Rorech was separated from his wife and was working as a carpenter—his first trade—in Connecticut Several marriages had collapsed because of Tony Lombardino’s cross-examination of Alice Crimmins. Tony Grace’s wife, brokenhearted, had been hospitalized after the first trial. She had begun divorce action, but had died soon afterward. Policemen and doctors had retired. Most didn’t want to be reminded of Alice Crimmins.

  By 1971 the outrage at Alice’s past behavior had cooled. The nation had changed and women’s emancipation was not so frightening or unusual. Queens had not yet accepted it, but Alice Crimmins was not the contaminating symbol she had seemed to some in 1968.

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  In the foreplay of the trial Thomas Demakos consented to bail, but insisted that Alice Crimmins should not be permitted to speak to the press. He was determined to control the atmosphere during the trial.

  And before the start of jury selection, inside Judge Balbach’s chambers Demakos won his first victory. Balbach warned Herbert Lyon that he would remand his client if she violated this accord. He would put her in prison if she granted one interview. This was a terrible threat. Alice had recurrent nightmares about her brief time in prison and shuddered at the thought of going back.

  The decision annoyed Lyon. It gave Demakos almost exclusive access to the press. If Lyon wanted to get out his version, he would have to do it indirectly, without attribution. Lyon had always enjoyed a fine working relationship with courthouse reporters. He understood the ground rules and knew which reporters to trust and who would report back to the District Attorney.

  By the second trial a small corps of reporters had begun to ask tougher questions about the District Attorney’s case. Perhaps it was because there were more women covering the second trial or perhaps the cause of Alice Crimmins was no longer so lonely, but there was sympathy for Alice among a minority of the press. Demakos was aware of the trend and was pleased by the judge’s ruling isolating Alice.

  Herbert Lyon’s office was a converted three-bedroom apartment diagonally across the boulevard from the courthouse. The walls were covered with signs of the occupant’s vanity. There were sketches and photographs of Herbert Lyon, documents and diplomas he had acquired. In his inner office he was particularly fond of a pencil rendition of himself pacing before an expectant jury. In his sanctuary Lyon kept a bar inside a large globe. There was also a naugahyde couch upon which Lyon and Erlbaum plotted strategy or recovered from the daily contest.

 
The small conference room outside was formal, and Lyon preferred the comforts of his own office, with its telephone console, its soft swivel chair, and an iron rendition of the lonely and heroic Don Quixote. Like most good lawyers and actors, Lyon had a large ego. In his case, it was qualified by his ability and a sense of humor.

  William Erlbaum, a brilliant dialectician, was a more tentative personality. It was almost as if he didn’t trust his own intellect; he tended to make people nervous with incessant probing questions as he sought reassurance on any given decision.

  In the opening stage of the trial, a small group met in Lyon’s office to outline Alice’s conduct during the trial. She would no longer lunch in the Part I restaurant, entertaining reporters and bystanders. Lyon’s office receptionist would bring in sandwiches and coffee, and Alice would eat in her lawyer’s office. Lyon spoke to Alice in severe, fatherly fashion. He wanted her to understand that this was serious. He believed that she hadn’t gone through the first trial with the proper spirit.

  “What about Alice’s testifying?” asked Erlbaum.

  Lyon shrugged; he didn’t know yet. He was convinced that she had impaled herself on the witness stand in the last trial. But he knew how important it was for a defendant to proclaim innocence. Every lawyer is instructed that juries punish defendants who stand mute—an emotional reaction having nothing to do with evidence or law. Lyon would play it by ear.

  “Now, Alice,” he began in his deep, half-sleepy voice, and she would bolt to attention, “I want you to pay attention to this!” Lyon would pick her wardrobe and her moods. He would orchestrate the trial so that she would appear the wronged party. The main line of attack against Alice during the last trial had been that she was a “cold bitch.” Lyon would show a woman who suffered. Many people were convinced that she had been punished enough, and Lyon would expand from that base. It was a small price if she had to sit out the lunch hour in Lyon’s office.

  When Harold Harrison or Marty Baron had told Alice to do something, she would sometimes ignore them. But that had been before she felt the nameless, faceless, impersonal brutality of prison. Alice’s letters to Harrison, full of gratitude for his visits, had reflected the cold shock she felt in jail. If that was the result of ignoring legal advice, she would not make the same mistake twice.

  There were important differences between her relationships with Lyon and Harrison. During a pretrial conference Harrison was called into Judge Balbach’s office. Harrison knew his livelihood came from his relationships with the men in Balbach’s chambers—Demakos, Mackell, Balbach. He understood that they were hostile to Alice and regarded her as someone unworthy of any display of human emotion. But when Harrison walked into the room and saw Alice, he smiled and kissed her on the cheek. A small gesture, but it took courage. Lyon, who witnessed it, was impressed. Alice might not have listened to Harrison as she would to Lyon, but she liked him better.

  In the past Alice had suffered at the hands of the press. Even the reporters who genuinely liked her had mauled her in print. As a consequence, there were large gaps in her story. She had never sat down with a reporter and explained her version of the events. Most of the reporting had been from the District Attorney’s vantage point, partly because of Harold Harrison’s initial blunder of deceiving reporters into believing Alice was pregnant. In addition, the public was captivated by her sexual exploits. The District Attorney’s staff, on the other hand, was accessible and provided fresh material. During the first trial James Mosley had been the subject of a flattering biography, The Prosecutor. He had allowed the author, James Mills, unparalleled access to the secret workings of his office. He had even tried to infiltrate Mills into the actual investigation by introducing him to Joe Rorech as just another “investigator.” Mosley was rewarded by heroic depiction in print.

  Ironically, Alice always felt some affection for reporters—men that she romantically believed led lives of high adventure—but she never trusted them with revealing insights into her personality. Her reticence was so profound that even Harold Harrison never dared ask certain questions and retained doubts about his client.

  One afternoon before the start of jury selection for the second trial, Alice sat in the oak-paneled artificial night of a Long Island steak house having lunch with a stranger. Lyon and Erlbaum were close by, a backup of protection. The newcomer was a reporter for Newsday who was researching a magazine article on Alice Crimmins. Lyon had decided that it was time for Alice to display her wounds. It was painful, and a little mechanical, because such public intimacy did not come naturally. Yet there were glimpses behind the cosmetic barriers.

  “It’s not easy for me,” she said staring into the bottom of a whiskey glass. Her face, even in the dark, seemed a decade older than it had three years ago. “It’s very hard,” said Alice. “They want me to break down for them.” She never said who “they” were. “That’s what they’ve always wanted. They wanted me to cry and break down. I’d never give them the satisfaction.” The anger seemed more comfortable for her.

  The reporter had been handpicked by Lyon. He asked Alice why she didn’t grieve for her children.

  “Grief?” she flared. “That’s mine! They took my chil—” She couldn’t finish the word. She took another swallow of whiskey and went on quietly. “Afterward, everybody was talking about Alice. ‘What about Alice?’ they said. Everybody was thinking about Alice. Who was thinking of the children?

  “Oh, God,” she said hopelessly. “I can’t explain it. They were mine. Mine! The children were mine. The grief, it was mine. I wasn’t going to give them my grief. When this is over, I’ll grieve. Or maybe this is my grief.”

  So Alice Crimmins had postponed her grief and devoted herself to defiance or whiskey and kept the pictures of the children in her wallet, and when no one was around to see, she would take them out to weep over. After the trials were finished, she would grieve.

  “The people who felt sorry for Alice, didn’t they realize that I was suffering for my children? Didn’t they know I wanted them to think of my children? There was not one day, not one minute when they are not on my mind.”

  Alice Crimmins’ grief was complicated—it was connected with resistance to the District Attorney’s office, and with self-punishment. She would not give “them” the satisfaction of showing pain. But at the end of the interview, when the talk had turned elsewhere, something that had been in the back of her mind troubled her and she touched the stranger’s arm.

  “Missy would have been ten and little Eddie would have been eleven, you know. I keep seeing children that age on the street or somewhere and wondering what they would have looked like.”

  The two aspects of the case—the one taking place in the courtroom and the drama surrounding it—were related. One couldn’t help affecting the other. But Herbert Lyon was handicapped in the one outside. In the courtroom, his tactic was to understate things and hope the jury would develop trust in him. It was a brilliant plan and depended for effect on a slowly growing faith. Flashes of temper or indignation would merely create doubt about the defense.

  The jury seemed to take a liking to Lyon. During the voir dire when the jury was chosen, Lyon went out of his way to affirm that he would not require a special jury to acquit Alice Crimmins. Middle-level male Queens workers, of the sort that inevitably were picked, would see the justice of voting not guilty. Since he had very little chance of getting anyone but such people on the jury, it flattered those who were selected. As in the first trial, women excused themselves from the prospective panel, admitting to opinions about Alice Crimmins’ guilt. Demakos and Nicolosi, on the other hand, appeared tense and contentious in comparison with Lyon’s nerveless good humor. In his opening statement Lyon’s skill was deceptively masked behind what seemed a rambling, pointless essay on life’s random possibilities. The case was a mystery, he told the jury. There are such things in life, and people must learn to accept that, even when doubts are troublesome. The children were dead; of that there w
as no doubt. They could have been abducted by a sex pervert, fed a last meal, molested, and then murdered. Or they could have got out of their room by themselves and been picked up by someone. There were a hundred possibilities, and only one involved Alice Crimmins. That possibility, Lyon told the jury, was the least likely. They would find the prosecutor’s evidence unconvincing, he said.

  It was a beginning. Lyon didn’t expect much—it was hard for the jurors to keep their eyes off Alice Crimmins, now thirty-two years old. As the trial began, a subtle change took place in the copy flowing out of the courtroom. Instead of referring to Alice as a swinging cocktail waitress, the description had a slightly different tone, calling her “a 32-year-old former barmaid.”

  Alice was too fidgety to remain idle during the trial. During breaks and on the lunch hour she worked in Lyon’s office, typing briefs, filing, or clipping newspaper stories. On most days Anthony Grace waited there for her; he would sit almost motionless in Lyon’s inner office, saying nothing. There were rumors that he contributed toward her legal defense, but it is a point upon which neither he nor Lyon will comment. Grace would pay for her apartment and her new car and give her walking-around money; and he would remain loyally behind her. One of his major concerns was to keep out of the case the famous men Alice had known. None of the former city officials—still influential in political and business affairs—could afford to be linked to the case, even after six years. Tony Grace was still doing business with the city and he had given his word to protect the former officials. Demakos always read sinister implications into the relationship between Tony and Alice, claiming that it proved they were in on the crimes together.