by Gregg Olsen
* * *
“NOW, WERE YOU communicating with Barbara Raber in the early morning hours of June 2?”
Edna Boyle drilled into the window of time when the murder occurred.
“I did, you know, en route to when we were going fishing, you know. Like when we stopped at the Wooster gas station. I didn’t when we were driving because they didn’t know I had a cell phone. So I had to, you know, watch when I used it and everything.”
That’s when Steve had been aware of Eli trying to hide his cell phone from others in the car.
“And did you receive any text messages from the defendant Barbara Raber on June 2 during the early morning hours?”
“Yes.”
“And do you recall the nature of those text messages?”
“The one was, you know, that she’s scared and she doesn’t have—it’s dark, you know. And she asked me if she could park by the pines.”
“And then do you recall sending a text message to Mrs. Raber June 2, 2009, at 2:56, ‘Morning! The bottom door is…’”
John Leonard objected to the prosecutor asking Eli questions that incriminated the defendant, Barb Raber. Leonard would protest time and again that the text messages between his client and Eli were not admissible. But the damaging texts, placing Barb at the scene, were allowed.
Boyle continued.
“‘Morning! The bottom door is open’?”
“I remember—like I said I remember I texted her that but I couldn’t tell you when it was, you know, what time it was or anything like that.”
“And you recall—do you recall receiving a text message June 2, 2009, 3:08, ‘You have no idea how I feel?’”
“Yes.”
“And that text message would have been from the defendant, Barbara Raber?”
“Yes.”
“Then June 2, 2009, 3:03, ‘How am I supposed to see in the dark? Damn, Eli, I don’t know if I can [do it]. It’s too scary.’ Do you remember a message of that nature?”
Eli did.
“And then did you send a message June 2, 2009, at 3:20, ‘Take a light with you hon,’ and then, I don’t know, ‘mh—mwha’ [sic]. Do you remember sending a text message of that nature?”
“I remember sending it, yes.”
“And this mwha, what does that mean?”
Eli looked embarrassed. “Like you’re blowing a kiss.”
The Amish in the courtroom were sickened. A few held back a laugh. It seemed so trivial. Eli’s wife is about to be murdered and he’s symbolically blowing a kiss to his coconspirator?
“Okay, June 2, 2009, 3:25 do you recall receiving a text message, ‘I’m so scared…”
“Yes.”
“… from the defendant Barbara Raber. June 2, 2009, 3:26, ‘Where are you?’ Do you remember receiving a text message?”
“Yes.”
“June 2, 2009, 3:37 do you recall sending a text message ‘We’re in Wooster … just don’t lose anything.’”
“Yes.”
“On June 2, 2009, 3:29 do you recall receiving a text message, ‘Do you think I can drive in behind the pines?’”
“Yes.”
It wasn’t until 4:47 that Eli wrote, telling her to park behind the pine trees.
“Did there come a point in time where you actually arrived at Lake Erie?”
“Yes.”
“Approximately what time?”
“I’d say it was probably around 6:00, 6:15, somewhere in there.”
“And did you have to come back?”
“Yes.”
“And why did you have to come back?”
“Because of the murder of my wife.”
* * *
WITHIN A FEW hours of the murder, it occurred to Barb Raber that her and Eli’s phones could tie them to the murder.
“I want to draw your attention to June 2, 2009, at about 2:46 p.m. Do you recall a text message, ‘Whatever you do don’t give them your cell phone, please,’” Edna Boyle asked.
Eli said he did.
“June 2, 2009, at approximately 5:55 p.m. Do you recall receiving a text message from Barbara Raber, ‘If someone gives the cops your number they can trace it down. The only way they can’t is if the number is changed.’”
“Yes.”
Again, John Leonard objected to introducing the specific texts, since they had not been introduced into evidence yet and no foundation had been laid for them.
Judge Brown allowed Boyle to ask Eli how he and Barb had covered their tracks.
“Did you have any discussions with the defendant about your phone number after the murder?”
“She asked me if she should change the phone number, you know, so that they couldn’t trace it down. And I said it’s up to her because I couldn’t do anything.”
“And why couldn’t you do anything?”
“Because the cell phone was in her name. The account and everything was in hers.”
“And so after you had those discussions what happened?”
“She changed the phone number, you know, sometime during that period of time. I don’t know exactly what time she changed it because I turned my phone off.”
* * *
UNDER MORE OF Edna Boyle’s direct examination, Eli admitted asking Barb to ask David Weaver to leave the threatening message on the shanty phone. He said he was scared, and that maybe a message would steer the detectives away from him.
“You can run but you can’t hide,” he had told David to say.
The phrase was prophetic in a way, but it was Barb Raber who couldn’t hide. She was on trial, her lover shining the spotlight on all that she’d done.
All that he claimed she’d done.
34
It Was Lust II
I couldn’t have what I wanted because of the rules.
—ELI WEAVER, TESTIFYING ABOUT WHY HE CONTINUED TO LIE AND CHEAT, YEAR AFTER YEAR
If Edna Boyle’s mission was to prove that Barb Raber had committed the murder, then John Leonard’s was to paint Eli in the worst possible light, discrediting him as Barb’s accuser. Eli was an adulterer who lied to his church, lied to the police, lied to his wife, and lied to his longtime lover. Leonard needed to create a shadow of a doubt, the possibility that Eli had killed his wife and framed Barb.
It seemed an impossible task. Eli wasn’t charged with aggravated murder, as Barb was. He was charged with, and pleaded guilty to, conspiracy to commit murder. But Leonard could make him recount his sins.
“While you were trying to work things out you continued to have affairs with multiple women, is that not correct?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, and, in fact, I think there’s been testimony you had affairs with maybe five or six different women during the time period that you were married?”
Eli looked almost proud of it.
“Yes,” he said, “approximately.”
“And you had indicated you left the Amish faith three or four years ago because you wanted more freedom and you weren’t happy. And then they shunned you and you were not welcomed back in?”
“Yes.”
“And I believe you were actually shunned more than once, correct, twice?”
“Twice.”
“And even when you confessed your affairs you still didn’t confess all of them did you?”
“No.”
“So you continued to lie to the church when you were asking to be let back into the church, correct?”
“Yes.”
“So you weren’t even honest with them when you were attempting to ask for forgiveness of your sins and apologize? You still weren’t honest with the church, were you?”
“Mostly I wasn’t honest with God and the church both.”
Eli admitted he’d conveniently forgotten to confess relationships he didn’t want the church to know about. The pull of the English life was so tempting.
Why? Why did Eli continue year after year to cheat and lie?
Eli said it was because of all the rules. They prevente
d him from having what he wanted.
The defense lawyer made a face. “Sure, because you like to use electricity and you like to use cell phones…”
Eli looked blank eyed. “Yes,” he finally said.
“And computers and all those kind of things that you weren’t allowed to use?”
“Yes.”
* * *
THERE WAS NO cheering section for the woman on trial, but some in the gallery began to feel sorry for Barb Raber. They saw her as a kind of fragile figure, ready to break into a million pieces.
Said one observer: “She was kind of pathetic in a way. Like she might not be all there, you know, mentally challenged. Eli was a kind of wheeler-dealer who ran circles around Barb. She was no match for him. I thought of her as a kind of sad sex slave, if you want to know the truth.”
That idea doesn’t seem to be far from the truth.
The lawyer pressed Eli hard on the point. “She pretty much was willing to do for you whatever you wanted done, right?”
Eli didn’t bat an eye. He almost seemed proud of the hold he had over Barb.
“Yes,” he said.
“You kind of strung her along a little bit there didn’t you?”
“No.”
“Well, did she know about the affairs you had with all the other women?”
“She knew of one, yes.”
Leonard could have rolled his eyes just then, but the point was made.
“Okay, well, she didn’t know about the other five or six, right? So that’s kind of not being honest with her was it? She didn’t know about them?”
“No,” Eli said.
“Right, and you certainly didn’t volunteer to her that you were seeing other women at the same time, right?”
“No.”
“So you lied to her?”
“No.”
In Eli’s world, omission wasn’t a lie. It was merely his way around the truth. He’d omitted things to his wife, his children, and his church.
Eli conceded he was supposed to pay for the use of the cell phone and laptop Barb had given him, but he’d thought they had a deal—he would trade her a musket loader. And he wanted his wife to know as little about where his money went as possible. He didn’t tell his wife he was paying child support, and he wasn’t about to let her know he owed the taxi lady thousands of dollars in phone bills.
“So you kind of took advantage of Barb Raber here knowing that she was willing to do it for you?”
Eli didn’t see it that way. Not at all.
“Not really took advantage of her,” he said, “no.”
Leonard went in for the kill.
“I mean, you’re kind of a charming individual to have all these different ladies and different relationships. You’re not asking for anything in return?” he asked, his tone broad.
Eli leaned back in the witness box. “I don’t really call it charming,” he said. “I mean, it was lust.”
“Well, for all these ladies to believe that you’re the man of their dreams and you’re the guy to be with takes a little bit of charisma, some charm, right?”
Boyle objected that Leonard was hounding Eli, but she was overruled and the debate over the extent of Eli’s charm continued. Boyle had let the Amish Stud escape scrutiny, but Leonard did not.
“It takes some charisma, some charm to have all these ladies you’re dating and you’re a married man.”
“Not really. I mean, I don’t call it charm. I mean…”
“Just comes naturally to you?”
“No.”
“Now, you indicated for example that you used the Internet. You went to a place, is it MocoSpace?”
“Yes.”
“And you had a couple different names that you used on MocoSpace, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And what was the first name you used?”
“Amish Stud.”
To the Amish and Mennonite in the courtroom, including Mark Weaver and Steve Chupp, it was the worst example of what their faith feared—the temptation of technology.
“Okay, and you used that one on MocoSpace and you used that to try to meet some ladies, right? Because you don’t call yourself Amish Stud to meet a buddy to go to a football game, right?”
“Actually I used that one for about two months and then I switched to Amish Guy.”
In reality, the two overlapped. For part of 2008 and 2009, both Amish Stud and Amish Guy were active on MocoSpace. Eli’s last visit to Amish Guy was the day before the murder.
But Eli knew that what he was doing online was not harmless—it’s why he was lying and deceiving his wife.
“And your wife certainly didn’t know about your Internet chats did she?”
“No.”
“Because she wouldn’t have approved of that, right?”
“No.”
“And the church that you had continually lied to wouldn’t approve of that either would they?”
“No.”
* * *
CRITICAL TO BARB Raber’s defense was Eli’s ability to influence her.
“And you testified that she was pretty much willing to listen to you and hear you out and pretty much do what you wanted her to do, right?,” Leonard asked Eli. “And, in fact, that was based upon the fact that you kind of were able to charm her, have a little bit of charisma, right?”
“I did never try to charm her.”
Leonard wasn’t willing to give up the topic of charm, or lying.
“You don’t think—you never thought that was the case?”
“No.”
“You were just straight—well, when you told her that you loved her that wasn’t true, was it?”
“No.”
Eli still had the power to devastate Barb. When he admitted to Leonard that he didn’t love her, her face fell.
“And so that’s a lie, right?”
“Yes.”
Leonard handed Eli the statement he’d given to detectives and signed the day after the murder.
“And in this statement you would agree with me it pretty much is a lot of garbage isn’t it? You didn’t say you knew anything about your wife’s death. You didn’t say anything about your plot with Ms. Raber to kill your wife. None of that’s in here is it?”
“No.”
Barb’s defense attorney kept at Eli, finally getting to the fact that it was his idea to kill his wife and he manipulated Barb into helping him.
Eli’s tale that he also intended to kill himself never held much water. But Leonard used it to show that Eli continued to refine his plan to kill his wife.
“And you were going to kill yourself and your wife kind of found out about it when she took a sip and then it was a moment for both of you and your wife was obviously okay at that point?”
“Yes.”
“And you still didn’t feel real concern for your wife’s safety and well-being at that point either, right? You had discussions with Ms. Raber under your testimony about these poisons and chemicals and then you still weren’t concerned when your wife may have accidentally ingested them. Nothing stopped you at that point, right?”
“No.”
“So you kind of let all your girlfriends know that you weren’t happy with your wife and you wanted to get rid of her. And it was your own testimony that my client’s the only person that took you up on it, right?”
“Right.”
“None of these other ladies called the police or any of these other gentlemen called the police and said hey, this guy’s talking about killing his wife, right?”
“No.”
“In fact, Ms. Raber didn’t think you were going to do it either, right?”
“No.”
“So when you moved on and you decided at this point it was very clear you wanted to get rid of your wife, correct?”
“Yes.”
“That you didn’t want to get back with her and, in fact, you were really happy to get rid of her?”
“No, not happy.
&nbs
p; “You were sad to get rid of her?”
“I had mixed feelings.”
“And again, the feelings of getting rid of her were a whole lot stronger than the ones not?”
“Yeah, I guess I got caught up.”
“Yeah, you weren’t concerned about the fact that your children weren’t going to have a mother anymore? You weren’t concerned that if you got caught your children weren’t going to have a father they could have contact with anymore? You weren’t concerned about your nieces and nephews or anybody in the family that were going to be missing relatives? You were concerned about the fact that you wanted to be a womanizer. You wanted to be the Amish Stud and continue relationships with different women, correct?”
“No.”
The prosecutor objected to the drill but was overruled. Leonard wanted to poke holes in Eli’s version of the morning he was to be picked up to go fishing.
“Okay, and you overslept and they were knocking on the door, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t go to answer the door right away when you heard the knocking, right?”
“My wife woke me up.”
“I understand that. That’s what you tell us. But the fact of the matter is that when you heard there was a knock on the door and I believe there was also a car horn beeping you didn’t go right to the door did you?”
“No.”
Leonard tried to pin Eli down—people were pounding on the door and a car horn was honking but he was busy tidying the bedroom where he had just killed his wife.
Steve remembered how hard it had been for them to wake Eli. Now there was the suggestion that Eli had been busy killing Barbara? That hadn’t occurred to Steve, who had sat patiently waiting for Eli that morning.
The attorney kept after Eli.
“So when you were made aware that somebody was there at your home you did not answer the door immediately did you?”
“All we did was make a light so they seen I was awake.”
“I understand that. But you didn’t answer the door immediately did you?”
“I never do when I oversleep.”
“And I understand there’s testimony it was five to eight minutes before you came to the front door? And nobody but you can testify here that your wife was alive at that point, right?”
“Yes.”