During the time that the original courthouse had stood, Mays Landing and the area around it had been farm country. In the earliest of those days, the bell at the top of the courthouse tower had been the one way to summon the farmers from their fields and the farmwives from their houses, to call them to the center of town for an announcement of extraordinary importance.
The bell might have been used to signal the start of a war, or one’s end, but no one was quite sure of that. The one purpose it did have that was still clearly remembered was to announce to the townspeople of Mays Landing and its environs that a jury in the courthouse had reached a decision in a case where a guilty verdict could mean death.
Had not State Senator John Russo of Toms River brought about the reinstitution of the death penalty in New Jersey four years before, it is entirely possible that the bell atop the Mays Landing courthouse might never have rung again.
But now, at 11:15 on the crystal-blue morning of Wednesday, March 5, for the first time within the memory of most living residents, the sound of the bell was heard across the town and down the back roads that led into the pines. It was a slow, deep, gonglike sound, and it repeated itself again and again as a sheriff’s deputy stood at the foot of the stairwell and pulled on the long, heavy rope.
And the courtroom filled, and the judge took his seat, and the prisoners were brought forth from their cells to face the verdict.
Judge Greenberg read first from that portion of the verdict form that applied to Ricky Dew.
“Not guilty,” he said.
Dew smiled, just slightly, then shook the hand of Nathan Baird.
“You’re free to leave now, if you desire,” Judge Greenberg told Dew.
And Dew stood, nodded his thanks to the judge, then walked across to the prosecutor’s table and firmly shook Kevin Kelly’s hand.
“Take care, Kev,” he said, smiling more broadly now.
“Good luck, Ricky,” Kelly said, returning the handshake.
This was done in the manner of two professional athletes congratulating one another after a hard but cleanly fought contest. May the better man win. That sort of thing.
Then Dew stepped through the low, swinging gate that had symbolically separated him from freedom throughout the trial, and walked into the arms of his tearful wife, Brenda.
Next, Judge Greenberg read from that part of the verdict form that applied to Robert Marshall.
“Guilty,” he said.
Rob’s chest heaved once, but otherwise he showed no emotion. In the front row, directly behind him, Roby and Chris began to sob. John buried his head in Paul Kennedy’s shoulder. Kennedy was holding a Bible in his hand.
So it’s over, Chris thought. No technicalities. I always said nothing could be worse than not knowing. I was wrong. This is worse. Why, Dad, why? How could you have?
And then he thought of the last time he’d ever spoken to his mother: when they’d called him from the table at Harrah’s to try to talk him into coming home for the weekend.
You knew, Dad. You knew then, when you got on the phone and said, “Hi, Chris, how are you doing? How’s it going so far? Is the work hard?” You knew that when you hung up you were going to take my mother up that dark road and into that dark place and be sure that she didn’t come out alive. And you sounded so normal, Dad, you sounded so much like yourself.
Roby’s thoughts were less coherent. He just kept asking himself, Why couldn’t they have said, “Not guilty”? That way we’d have him back. That way we’d have a life again. That way it could all have been a mistake. That way he could have been telling the truth. That way I would not have been such a fool for keeping faith.
Ricky Dew stepped out into the morning sunshine and held a press conference on the front steps of the courthouse. He said he had no idea why Ferlin L’Heureux had named him as the shooter, “except he knew me well enough, I guess, to know that on any given day I might not know where I was at. I could’ve been on the lake, fishin’.”
He also said he had no idea whether L’Heureux himself had been the shooter. “Everybody knows as much about this as I do. Just what they read about it in the papers and heard about it on the TV. That’s all I knew about it from the start and that’s all I know about it now.”
Then somebody asked him how he liked New Jersey.
“I don’t know,” he said, grinning. “I ain’t seen enough of it to know.”
Then he and Brenda and Brenda’s sister walked across the street and climbed into his silver Dodge van and he slid behind the wheel and gave a last, cheerful wave to reporters and drove off.
Inside the courthouse, Rob Marshall’s sons and a few supporters were gathered behind the closed doors of a witness room, shielded from public view. Some were crying. The boys were red-eyed.
“Now, there’s a Scripture,” Paul Kennedy was saying, as he turned to a page he’d marked in his Bible.
“I don’t want to hear your damned proverbs!” Chris shouted. Then he turned to Tessie McBride. “And don’t give me any of your sappy little sayings, either. Sometimes I think the whole bunch of you have the mentality of a Hallmark greeting card.”
He burst out of the witness room and into a hallway, where, immediately, he saw a dozen reporters and photographers and TV cameramen running toward a rear exit.
“Your father just collapsed!” one of them shouted, running past.
Chris sprinted for the rear door and got to the outside parking lot just in time to see an ambulance pulling away with his father inside it.
He stood there, shouting after it, “Dad…Dad…Dad…” until it turned a corner and disappeared from view.
It did not become apparent until later in the day, but, when he’d reached the Garden State Parkway in his shiny silver van, Ricky Dew had not headed for Louisiana. Instead, he’d driven north up the parkway all the way to Toms River, a town he’d heard a lot about and wanted to see.
His route took him past the Oyster Creek picnic area. Because no one was following him, and because it was just he and Brenda and Brenda’s sister in the van, no one can know whether he slowed down, or maybe even stopped—to take a first look, or maybe a last look—at the place where Maria Marshall had died.
But he did continue on to Toms River and, following Brenda’s directions, drove to 884 Crest Ridge Drive, the former home of Rob and Maria Marshall.
“Just pickin’ up some of my wife’s luggage,” he explained to a cluster of startled reporters gathered at the curb.
But Ricky stayed on a while, he didn’t leave right away. Somewhere inside the house he found a bright red Philadelphia Phillies baseball cap, a souvenir Maria had brought home once from a game. She hadn’t been an avid baseball fan, but she was an enthusiast in whatever she did, and so, if she went to a game she’d buy a cap and wear it while she cheered for the home team.
Ricky Dew was wearing it now. It didn’t really fit too well, but he’d stuck it on his head anyway—just funnin’—as he stood on the Marshalls’ front lawn and had another little chat with the press.
It was a very pleasant afternoon in Toms River, a good day to be outdoors, and Ricky Dew seemed in no hurry to leave. He hadn’t been outdoors much for fourteen months and he seemed to be enjoying it. The air was mellow and the sun warm enough to make it seem that an early spring would soon arrive.
Eventually, Tessie McBride and the rest of the Marshall contingent pulled up, and they all milled around on the front lawn for a while—John seemed tearful and Roby seemed stunned, wandering vaguely about, as if he’d been heavily sedated. Ricky, still wearing Maria’s Phillies cap, continued to chat with the reporters and the television people.
But Ricky wanted to be on the road before dark, and the others had to go inside to start taking down the Welcome Home, Dad decorations that John had stayed up late the night before putting up, so soon it was goodbye time, with lots of handshakes and embraces all around. Brenda made sure she hugged both Roby and John and reminded them to always stay “law-al” to their dad. R
icky gave each boy a firm handshake and a smile.
Then, with a final wave to the television cameras, he took off the Phillies cap and climbed into his van and was gone.
Chris was not present for Ricky and Brenda’s farewell. He, alone among the members of the Marshall family, had stayed behind in Mays Landing to see if his father would be well enough to face the sentencing due to come that afternoon.
Rob had been examined at a nearby emergency room following his fainting spell and nothing was found to be wrong. He was back in the Mays Landing courtroom by 1:30 P.M. and the sentencing phase of the proceedings commenced.
Under New Jersey law, sentencing in a capital punishment case is actually a whole separate trial, before the same jury that delivered the verdict. Each side can even call witnesses. There are only two possible outcomes: a life sentence with eligibility for parole after thirty years, or death by lethal injection.
In this instance, neither side called anyone. Carl Seely—a shellshocked Carl Seely, bereft of the chipperness and suavity with which he’d glided through six weeks of trial—spoke briefly about why Rob should receive the life sentence with parole eligibility after thirty years. He cited two factors: Rob had no prior criminal record and he’d long been active in civic affairs.
When Kevin Kelly spoke, it was if he were an altar boy again. He displayed none of the righteous anger he’d shown during cross-examination or closing argument. He was, in fact, as drained and as unanimated as Seely.
He said simply, “Maria Marshall had no prior criminal history, either. Maria Marshall was civic-minded, too. But Rob Marshall did not give her the option of thirty years. And I really cannot think of any crime more heinous in our society than handing money over to someone to kill your own wife.”
The jury went back to deliberate, this time solely on the question of what punishment Rob should receive. This time, it took them ninety minutes. When they returned with their written decision, it was handed to the judge, as the verdict had been, by the young forewoman who worked as a dealer at Harrah’s. Rather an attractive young woman, really—maybe even Rob Marshall’s type. She’d even worn a Miami Vice T-shirt to court.
After glancing at the verdict form, Judge Greenberg asked Rob to stand. Then, as he had earlier, the judge spoke in a calm, colorless voice.
“Robert O. Marshall,” he said, “I sentence you to death as required by law…”
There was more. “…delivered to the custody of the commissioner of corrections…kept in solitary confinement…until such date and time…ordered to execute the sentence in the manner provided by law…”
But the word “death” was the last one Chris Marshall remembered hearing.
He sat still and alone—beyond tears, at least for the moment—as a phalanx of armed deputies stepped forward, obscuring his father from view.
And he remained there, staring silently, as the brown-shirted officers, guns bulging from their hips, locked arms around Rob and led him out a rear door to the van that would take him to Trenton.
By that night he’d be on death row. And it occurred to Chris then (knowing that death row inmates were permitted no contact visits whatsoever) that no matter how much he might ever want to—not that he was at all sure he ever would—he’d never again be able to hug or to touch his father.
His father was gone, just as surely as his mother. And he was alone now, surrounded by strangers, with the rest of his life left to live.
Wondering if, through some frightful cosmic miscalculation, it was not he and his brothers, rather than their father, who had been relegated to the place in hell.
Epilogue
“This whole case is about money.
He didn’t do it for love.”
—Ferlin L’Heureux
Andrew Myers was tried that June. The prosecutor’s office had offered him a deal in which he’d be permitted to go free after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, but he turned it down, apparently hoping that after being tried and acquitted he’d be able to file a large lawsuit against Ocean County for false arrest.
Instead, in a verdict that many even in the prosecutor’s office found shocking and disturbing, he was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. He will not become eligible for parole until after thirty years of the sentence have been served.
Ferlin L’Heureux entered the Federal Witness Protection Program shortly after the Marshall trial but stayed in it for only a few weeks. He said it was overly restrictive and cramped his entrepreneurial style. After testifying in the Myers trial, he was sentenced by Judge Greenberg to five years in prison, but served less than three months before being released on parole, in accordance with his plea agreement. Following his release, he returned to Shreveport and a life of private enterprise.
In formally accepting the L’Heureux plea bargain as valid, Judge Greenberg read from the bench a carefully worded statement that said, in part:
“The acquittal of defendant [Dew] does not lead to the conclusion that the plea agreement should be rejected on the ground that [L’Heureux] did not testify truthfully, as required by the agreement. It must be kept in mind that a finding of not guilty is not the equivalent of a finding of innocence by the jury. The verdict of not guilty as to [Dew] may instead merely reflect the jury’s decision that the state’s case against him was not proven beyond a reasonable doubt, in view of the fact that [L’Heureux’s] testimony as to [Dew’s] involvement in the murder was virtually uncorroborated…
“In order to reject the agreement for failure of [L’Heureux] to have testified truthfully, there should be clear and convincing evidence of the falsity of his testimony. The testimony of [Dew] and his alibi witnesses does not rise to this level.”
It didn’t matter to Ricky Dew, though. He returned to Louisiana and he and Brenda filed a $50-million lawsuit against the county prosecutor, investigators Gladstone and O’Brien, and the Ocean County Board of Freeholders. Dew claimed his civil rights had been violated by malicious prosecution and wrongful arrest. He sought $25 million for the personal and emotional injury he suffered as a result, and Brenda sought $25 million to compensate her for the suffering she endured in having been deprived of his company for fourteen months. (In May of 1988, following a two-week trial in Red River Parish, Louisiana, a jury rejected his claims, holding the Ocean County detectives blameless.)
Dew also wrote a letter to John Marshall, telling the youngest of Rob’s three sons that he was welcome at any time for a visit, or even to live.
And, occasionally, late at night, Dew would pick up his telephone and call Kevin Kelly. He’d say, “Just checkin’, Kev. Just want to see how you’re doin’.” Then he’d laugh a little and hang up.
Kelly left the prosecutor’s office, as planned, and began to devote his full time to private practice.
Early in 1987, the county prosecutor was appointed to a Superior Court judgeship.
Felice Rosenberg remained reunited with her husband, David, and the couple continued to reside at the beach, where, in summer, they could occasionally be seen strolling at water’s edge in matching bikini bottoms. (In Felice’s case, there was also a top.)
Her father, Fred Frankel, had died of a heart attack in October of 1984, only weeks after learning of her involvement with Rob Marshall.
Maria’s father, Dr. Vincent Puszynski, suffered a heart attack himself during Rob’s trial, which he did not attend. He was stricken after reading in the Philadelphia Inquirer that Rob had testified that Dr. Puszynski was convinced of Rob’s innocence and was supporting him fully.
By late April 1986, Dr. Puszynski had recovered sufficiently to send a letter to Sal Coccaro, in which he said:
“Ever since the trial ended, I’ve been trying to get the boys together and learn their true feelings and beliefs regarding their father, although I know that John will not even admit a possibility of guilt. No wonder, living in the midst of the pro-Marshall clan. As long as that snake is alive, he�
�ll keep his fangs in those kids…I’ll do my utmost to dissuade Roby and Chris from giving in to him. They’ve been hurt enough.”
Not long afterward, however, Dr. Puszynski suffered a second and fatal heart attack. Maria’s mother, having slipped deep into senility, was placed in a nursing home.
Settling in for the years-long appeals process that was certain to forestall execution at the least, Rob Marshall remained on death row in Trenton.
“Rob’s problem,” said one old and well-connected friend in Toms River, “I should say, one of his problems, was that he could not distinguish. He mistook an erection for a vocation. He got grand opera and soap opera mixed up. He saw himself and Felice as star-crossed lovers, daring to challenge the social order. What the rest of us saw was this forty-five-year-old asshole shacking up in cheap motels with Little Miss Hotpants from down the street.
“See, all around Rob, in the eighties, everybody was scoring everything: sex, dope, big-money deals. At least, he thought so. While poor Rob, he was just selling insurance and stuck with an iceberg for a wife. You know, one of those ‘you can look but you’d better not touch’ ladies. It finally got to him.
“He was weak with numbers, he didn’t know how to turn a piece of real estate—and around here these are major character flaws—but the one thing he had was a pecker. When Felice seemed to like it he got delusions of grandeur.
“Buy her jewelry, buy her silver, sprinkle rose petals all over the sheets, but then you got to go public—what good is she if you can’t show her off? It was as if she wasn’t just a broad—David’s wife—it was like she was the hottest piece of real estate in town. And Rob had her. He owned her. He’d seen what he wanted and he took it. And he figured he’d never have to listen to that ‘Ken and Barbie’ snickering behind his back again.
“Trouble was, he got hooked on the casinos at the same time. Nobody knows, nobody will ever know, just how much he pissed away down there, but it was enough to put him in very bad trouble, and I don’t mean just socially.
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