And the Sea Will Tell

by Vincent Bugliosi

  In fact, nothing in our encounters alerted me to the trouble I would have with her down the line.

  ONE OF my main problems with Jennifer was her vague recollection of certain events, which caused her to vacillate and, more dangerously, introduced damaging inconsistencies that would certainly be exploited on cross-examination. Some inconsistencies were so subtle they only emerged clearly when I would discover that the lines of questioning I was preparing for her direct examination were taking me in conflicting directions.

  There were several areas, however, in which Jennifer was consistent, and a few where she remained particularly resolute throughout the period of our trial preparation. For example, there was the question of Buck’s influence after the Grahams disappeared.

  “Buck gave me three options,” she told me again and again. “I could sail away with him on the Sea Wind. I could go it alone on the Iola. Or I could stay on Palmyra by myself.”

  She felt Buck left her no option other than to leave with him on a sailboat they didn’t own. “I didn’t want to stay on that island alone,” she explained, “and I was afraid to go by myself on the Iola.”

  From my first talk with Jennifer back in early 1982, I knew there was a central issue I’d have to thread my way through. It had been apparent to me that Buck was the dominant party in their relationship. Not only didn’t this trouble me, I preferred* this circumstance, so long as she hadn’t been completely under his thumb, which she assured me she was not.

  If we couldn’t make it convincing to the jury that Jennifer could and would stand up to Buck, the jury might readily conclude that she had been influenced to go along with the murders, even against her natural impulses not to. I stressed to her how absolutely critical it was that we show the jury she had drawn lines in the sand with Buck.

  I asked for examples. “Anything,” I said. “Even little things.”

  She thought for a moment. “Well, one time when we were living in the cabin on the Big Island,” she said, “we got in an argument and he threw a plate of spaghetti at me and stormed out of the house. When he came back a few hours later, the spaghetti was still all over the wall and floor. I hadn’t touched it. He ordered me to clean it up, but I told him he would have to clean up his own mess. He did. Buck knew his limits with me.”

  It wasn’t much, but we were headed in the right direction.

  IN EARLY February 1984, Len Weinglass and I met to discuss trial tactics.

  There is no other profession with as many members who have managed to fashion for themselves out of thin air such a mighty and jumbo-sized image as that of the trial lawyer branch of the legal profession. Almost humorously, hundreds of trial lawyers in various sections of the country are known as “brilliant,” “great,” “high-powered,” “silver-tongued,” and so on. One reason why this high regard is so very easy to come by is the strong myth that successful trial lawyers are supposed to be these things, when in reality, so much less is required to achieve success.* (Many trial lawyers have these adjectives routinely applied to them who aren’t even successful, merely having been associated, if even in a losing way, with one or more high-visibility cases.) In fact, if the average prominent trial lawyer met his reputation out on the street, they wouldn’t recognize each other. Unfortunately, many clients have to learn about, and pay for this, the hard way.

  When we finally got to trial, I was pleased to find that Len Weinglass approximated his reputation; I found him to be a very competent, professional, and experienced trial lawyer, and it was a real pleasure working with him.

  But, pleasure aside, it immediately became clear at our first meeting on tactics that we had a major disagreement.

  “I don’t think we should concede there was a murder,” Len said.

  A chasm suddenly yawned between us.

  “If we deny there was a murder, Len, we’ll lose credibility with the jury. Credibility is essential when I give my final summation. The jurors will know, as everyone else does, that Muff was murdered.”

  Len’s position was not outlandish. It went against every fiber of this veteran defense attorney to concede commission of the crime in a situation where at least an argument could be made, albeit weak, that the prosecution hadn’t proved it beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact, standard defense attorney dogma is that you should always put the prosecution to the test on every major issue. From a tactical standpoint, however, I felt we should tell the world that a gruesome murder had unquestionably been committed on Palmyra, then go about proving that our client had nothing to do with it.

  Although Len and I were co-counsel, with an equal say, it developed that whenever we had a divergence of opinion Len usually deferred to me. Not because he had to, but more likely because he’s more agreeable than I. Out of the courtroom, I’m relatively easy to get along with. But when I’m on a case, the trial is open warfare to me. And in my battle to prevail I am frequently at odds not only with the opposing counsel (which is normal), but also with the judge, my co-counsel (if there is one), and sometimes even my own client. This may not be the prettiest of profiles, but it’s an honest one.

  HONOLULU

  HAWAII’S LEGAL machinery turned full circle with the assignment of U.S. District Court Judge Samuel P. King to handle the two Palmyra Island murder cases. King had presided at the boat-theft trials of both defendants, and following their convictions, had meted out their prison sentences.

  At Jennifer’s sentencing, Judge King had commented: “I’m satisfied that quite a few of your explanations of what happened were, if not untruthful, certainly not the whole truth. Though you’ve not been charged with murder in this case, there is the underlying nagging question of just what happened to the Grahams.”

  With such a negative opinion of my client’s earlier testimony (though an accurate one given her obvious perjury), I wondered how King would treat Jennifer at her new trial.

  King, of Hawaiian ancestry, was born in Hankow, China, in 1917, and had ascended to the bench in part because of useful connections, both political and familial. In 1953, his father had been appointed governor of the Hawaiian Territories by President Eisenhower.

  The King family was staunchly Republican, and the younger King, a graduate of Yale Law School, served as Hawaii’s Republican Party central committee chairman from 1953 to 1955. During the 1954 elections, Sam King earned the sobriquet “Redbaiter” with this remarkable outcry: “No one is accusing all the Democrats of being Communists, but they are politically obligated to the Communists.” In 1961, King was appointed judge of the First Circuit Court of Hawaii.

  In 1970, showing how deep his political roots ran, he stepped down from the state bench to run for governor. He won the Republican primary, but was defeated in the general election by Democratic incumbent John Burns. King spent the next two years in the private practice of law, meanwhile serving on the Republican National Committee. In 1972, King received his reward for loyal service to the GOP when President Nixon named him to the federal bench.

  As early as January 1982, Honolulu attorney Peter Wolff, then representing Jennifer as Len’s co-counsel, had anticipated that King would be handling the Palmyra murder case. In a letter to Len at that time, Wolff wrote: “Both Earle [Partington] and I are concerned that Judge King has already made up his mind about the case. He has indicated pretty much that he has decided that both defendants are guilty of murder.”

  That possible predisposition aside, in King the defense finally found a judge who agreed that the Palmyra murder cases should be moved from Hawaii. The defense filed with the court yet another change-of-venue motion on June 8, 1984. This motion, virtually the same that two other federal judges had earlier denied, was granted by Judge King on August 8, 1984.

  “The defendants previously were tried and convicted in the District of Hawaii on theft charges relating to the same set of events from which the present felony-murder charges arise,” read Judge King’s order. “That trial, as well as subsequent proceedings involving the defendants, received ext
ensive media coverage. As a result, the local community is all too familiar with the Palmyra story. In sum, the likelihood of prejudice to the defendants and the attendant probability of an unfair trial in the District of Hawaii far outweigh any inconveniences that a change of venue would cause this court or the prosecution. Therefore, it is hereby ordered that the defendants’ motion for a change in venue to the Northern District of California is granted.” As is customary in federal court, Judge King would follow the case to its new locale.

  From the bench, King’s remarks to the attorneys were considerably less formal than his official order. “I’d like to be in San Francisco for the opera season,” he said, smiling.

  CHAPTER 23

  SEATTLE

  FEBRUARY 22, 1984

  THE TYPICALLY WET, DREARY winter in the Pacific North-west still dragged on. Deputy U.S. Marshal Dick Kringle was glad to have enough paperwork to keep him inside and out of the field for a few days.

  Just past ten o’clock on this gray morning, the phone on his desk rang sharply. A deputy marshal was on the line from Los Angeles.

  “Dick, we think Dougherty’s in L.A.,” the deputy marshal informed Kringle.

  Joseph William Dougherty, forty-five, a hardened violent criminal, had once served time at McNeil Island, where he had become tight with Buck Walker and Terry Conner. Dougherty was now believed to be robbing banks in California.

  “We staked out Dougherty’s mail drop and found correspondence from Buck Walker at Marion,” the L.A. deputy marshal went on. “Guess these guys are real tight.”

  “Yeah,” Kringle snorted, “they’re all members of the McNeil boys’ club.”

  “The reason I’m calling is that I hear Walker is about to be paroled. What do you think of us following him to get to Dougherty? Would it work?”

  “Whaddaya mean, paroled? Walker is waiting to be tried for murder and he’s not about to be paroled. You must have heard wrong.”

  “Dick, Walker does have a parole date. I called Marion and they told me they’ll be springing him on March 7th. Two weeks from now.”

  Kringle was suddenly alarmed. “There’s a foul-up somewhere,” he growled. Unbelievable as it might sound, he knew that such a nightmare was all too possible and he’d have to act fast.

  Kringle had not thought much about Buck Walker in the past couple of years—there’d been no need to. Walker was safely tucked away at Marion Federal Penitentiary in Illinois, serving a series of sentences. Marion, the present-day equivalent of Alcatraz, is known among cons as “the End of the Line.” It has the highest security level of any federal prison in the country. Only the “worst of the worst” federal offenders are sent to Marion, the most secure prison in the nation. Those inmates who have recently been convicted of violent offenses are locked up in single cells for twenty-three hours a day for the first four years of their sentence, and are even shackled to go to the shower.

  Kringle had finally met his longtime prey a few months after Walker’s arrest in Yuma. Walker had first been sent to Hawaii for arraignment on the murder charge, but was eventually brought to Seattle in handcuffs, leg irons, and waist chains to face the McNeil escape charge.*

  Immediately after the call from the deputy in L.A., Kringle telephoned Marion and verified that Walker did indeed have a March 7 parole date. Kringle told an assistant warden about the murder indictment in Hawaii.

  “There’s nothing in his file about any murder indictment or detainer,” the prison official replied.

  It took Kringle several other calls to begin to put the pieces together. After Walker’s Seattle conviction on the escape charge, he was sent to Lompoc Federal Correctional Institution near Santa Barbara, California. It didn’t take long for someone in the prison system to decide that because of his escape Walker belonged at Marion, and he was transferred there in July 1982. Walker’s prison record at Lompoc was kept in the prison’s administrative offices, where inmates work in clerical jobs. When the file reached Marion, all reference to the murder charge had been purged from the file. Kringle had heard of such things happening before; all it took was a bribe, promise, or threat from one inmate to another, and Walker was capable of all three.

  Kringle “called the world,” as he later explained, to tell anyone and everyone that Buck Walker should not be paroled. Within forty-eight hours, Walker’s parole date was canceled. He had come within fourteen days of being set free.

  SOMEWHERE IN VIRGINIA

  OCTOBER 5, 1984

  NOEL ALLEN Ingman, a relocated witness under the Federal Witness Protection Program, sat across from Honolulu FBI Agent J. Harold “Hal” Marshall, the Palmyra case agent since Calvin Shishido retired from the bureau in 1982.

  “Let me get this straight,” said Marshall, whose thinning hair, broadening girth, pale complexion, and rounded shoulders made him look more like a bus driver than a G-man. “The first time you met Buck Walker was at McNeil Island?” His southern drawl was almost soothing.

  “Right,” said Al Ingman. “I’d already served three years in maximum security and had been transferred to the camp adjacent to the prison. I was working at the powerhouse when Buck was assigned there.”

  “When was that?”

  “Late ’77 or early ’78.”

  “Who else was assigned to the powerhouse?”

  “Terry Conner and J.W. Williams.”

  Ingman, a former schoolteacher who had graduated from the University of Alaska, looked older than his fifty-three years. It wasn’t so much his graying hair or bottle-thick glasses as his deathly pallid, gaunt looks. A longtime heroin user, he had turned members of his own family into junkies.

  Talking to the authorities had become another kind of habit for him. Under the Witness Protection Program since 1982, Ingman had already given testimony that helped convict a number of his former accomplices, including Terry Conner and Ruth Thomas. On the stand, he had admitted to complicity in Conner’s drug-smuggling operation and described its inner workings. Conner helped finance the deals by committing bank heists, Walker transported the illicit drugs from Mexico into the United States, and Ingman himself acted as distributor for the ring.

  In prison lingo, Ingman had turned snitch. In return, his whereabouts were kept a closely guarded secret, not even appearing on official reports or in-house documents. He was a marked man. The federal government had taken responsibility for keeping him alive.

  Marshall had sought out Ingman because Ingman had passed the word that he had potentially damaging information about Buck Walker.

  “What were your duties at the powerhouse?” Marshall asked, ready to take notes.

  “The boilers were computer-operated, so we just sat in front of the computer and watched some dials. We took turns working eight-hour shifts. It was pretty laid-back. We smoked lots of dope.”

  “Marijuana?”

  “Yeah, and Thai sticks. With the right connections, you could get about anything you wanted. We’d sit around all night, getting high and telling stories.”

  “True stories?”

  “I didn’t have the feeling that anyone was making stuff up. We all had been involved in a lot of—well, adventures over the years. Talking about them”—Ingman shrugged—“helped pass the time.”

  “What did Walker say about the Palmyra case?”

  “Lots of things,” Ingman said. “He told us how he dived into the water after his girlfriend was arrested in the harbor in Honolulu and how he swam under the pilings. After he was arrested, he said he managed to get a gun into jail, but that the gun was found before he could use it to escape.”

  “You’re not telling me much, Ingman.” Marshall, despite his easygoing manner and avuncular looks, could be tough and direct when necessary. He could stare like a basilisk.

  Ingman got the point. “I remember Buck telling some story,” he went on, “about being on Palmyra Island. There was this other boat with a couple on it. I guess they had gotten into some kind of hassle with them. Anyway, he made the couple walk the pl
ank.”

  “Come again?”

  “Yeah, you know, like they do in pirate movies. There was some comment about raw meat being thrown into the water by Walker to attract sharks.”

  “Did he make them go overboard?” Marshall asked.

  Ingman took his time lighting a cigarette.

  “The man went out on the plank, but I don’t know if he jumped in with the sharks.”

  “Did Walker say whether his girlfriend, Jennifer Jenkins, was present during the murders?”

  Ingman paused for a moment. “I don’t remember,” he finally said. “But I did ask him once whether he trusted her.”

  Marshall looked up from his notepad. “And?”

  “He described Jennifer as a ‘stand-up broad.’ He said she would never talk.”

  HUNTSVILLE, TEXAS

  OCTOBER 9, 1984

  MARSHALL FOUND J.W. Williams in a Texas state prison. A four-time convicted bank robber who had twice escaped from federal prison, Williams had recently been convicted of raping a woman and leaving her for dead on a Gulf Coast beach. He was serving a minimum forty-year term for aggravated rape and attempted murder.

  According to Al Ingman, Williams had been there the night Walker gave his version of the Palmyra murders, and was later involved in the Yuma-based drug-smuggling operation run by Conner and Walker.

  Williams, a big man of about forty, had short-cropped brown hair and brooding dark eyes. Marshall guessed him to be of below-average intelligence.

  Serving a long sentence and with other charges still facing him, Williams reportedly wanted to work out a deal. But Marshall insisted he wouldn’t make any offer without knowing what Williams could tell him.

  “You worked at the McNeil powerhouse in 1977?” Marshall began.

  “Yeah.”

  “Who else was there?”