Cruel Doubt

by Joe McGinniss

  Then they got back in the car and headed home. But they were only as far as Greenville when they decided to stop for gas.

  “It was a place that also had a drive-through car wash, and when I got out to go pay for the gas and get something to eat, I noticed the car was very dirty. It had mud all over it. And James came into the place, and I said, ‘Let’s get the car washed.’

  “Neither one of us said much, if anything, after that. I kept thinking about what James had said when he got back in the car. I didn’t know what to do, so I just listened to whatever James said to do and drove the car back to Raleigh. I glanced behind me and listened for any police sirens, but I didn’t hear anything. And the closer we got to Raleigh, the more it seemed like everything was behind us. Maybe I could just put the car away and forget it ever happened.”

  Henderson said the sun was already coming up by the time they reached Raleigh. Again, from their point of view, not an advantageous situation. A college campus on a Monday morning, with summer session still in full swing, was a busy place. A lot of people up, taking showers, getting ready for class. A lot of people who might have noticed a white Mustang pulling into a campus parking lot.

  “James told me he was going straight to his room and for me to go up to Chris’s suite and put the keys in the bathroom closet. I did, and then went back to my apartment. I couldn’t get in the front door because it had been locked, so I knocked on the window and Kenyatta let me in. I came inside, I lay down, and I told her I had spent the night in the steam tunnels.”

  “Why was it that you told her you’d been in the steam tunnels?”

  “Well, I didn’t want her to know where I had been all night. And to spend the night in the steam tunnels seemed like a plausible excuse.

  Maybe not everywhere, but apparently at NC State.

  “Kenyatta left to go shopping, and I lay there for a while, and eventually I got to sleep. Later that afternoon, when Kenyatta was at the apartment, James came in. And he told us that he’d heard that Chris’s parents had been assaulted the night before. He said Chris’s father had been killed and his mother was in the hospital in serious condition. And he suggested that I stop by his room later to talk about D and D.”

  “Dungeons and Dragons?”

  “Yes, sir. And I went over to his room and I asked him if he had heard anything else. He said, ‘Don’t worry. As far as I know, the police don’t suspect anything.’ He said he thought he’d made it look like a burglary. I asked him to keep me posted if anything happened, or if he found out anything. Then I went back home and went to work.”

  Henderson said he’d never again spoken to Chris Pritchard. And as time passed, he saw less of James Upchurch. But also, as time passed, he said he began to feel troubled.

  “It wasn’t so bad when I was busy, when I was working or doing something. But whenever I had quiet time by myself, I could remember what he had said that night and what I had done. And I couldn’t tell anybody about it. I couldn’t talk to anybody about it. And that went on for months.”

  Then, toward the end of April, he ran into Upchurch on the street, and Upchurch said he needed a place to live for a couple of weeks. So Upchurch moved in with him. And then one day John Taylor and John Crone came looking for Upchurch. That was bothersome, but what was worse—much worse—was that day in early June when Taylor had returned, carrying Upchurch’s green knapsack.

  “He admitted to me,” Henderson said, “that he had forgotten the bag. Then he said he would be leaving very soon. He said the police were closing in and he was heading out of town. He told me that I didn’t have anything to worry about. His exact words were, ‘Look, you just drove the car. If worst comes to worst and Chris confesses, it’s your word against his, and no one’s going to believe Chris over you, so don’t worry about it. But I am getting out of town.’ ”

  “Did Bonnie Von Stein have any participation in the planning or the murder of her husband, Lieth Von Stein?” Norton asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Did Angela Pritchard have any participation in the planning or the murder of Lieth Von Stein?”

  “No, sir. It was just James Upchurch, Christopher Pritchard, and myself.”

  And that was his story, however rich in improbability and inconsistency it may have been, and however much it contradicted so many aspects of the story Chris had told.

  He’d returned the keys to a bathroom closet? Chris had said on innumerable occasions that they’d been found beneath the cushion of a chair.

  They’d not left campus until midnight and had not returned until after the sun was already up? Chris had said he’d wanted the murders done by two A.M., when both Lieth and Bonnie would be most deeply asleep. He’d also wanted his distinctive white Mustang safely back on campus before dawn.

  They’d stopped for gas—and to wash the car—in Greenville? Chris had said earlier that he’d not only filled the tank on Sunday night, just before giving Upchurch his keys, but had told Moog that although the gas gauge was broken, it was possible to make it down and back without having to refuel. Just in case, however, he’d given Moog twenty dollars for gas. Presumably a driver with Henderson’s IQ and gaming ability would have thought to stop for gasoline, if he thought any might be needed, before a crime was committed, not after.

  Beyond these details, there was the extraordinary discrepancy regarding the duration of Henderson’s involvement. Had it spanned weeks, or only the final twenty-four hours?

  Given this embarrassment of riches from which to choose on cross-examination, Frank Johnston, in a manner that Bonnie described in her notes as “offensive and harsh,” probed hardest at Henderson’s story about moving the car.

  “You say you drove down that road a couple of hundred yards?”

  “No more than that.”

  “And you parked there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you have your lights on or off?”

  “They were off, sir.”

  “Isn’t it true that there is a cornfield located immediately to the south of where you were parked, between Airport Road and the Smallwood subdivision?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “And isn’t it true that corn was growing there at the time?”

  “I think so.”

  “And you say you pulled down this road hoping to see James, or that he would see you?”

  “I pulled down the road hoping to see James. I was hoping James would see me when I drove back and forth.”

  “Well, you only drove back and forth once.”

  “If he was on the road, that would have been enough.” Henderson seemed a little less forlorn and pathetic now; a little more surly.

  “And you are telling us that you expected him to walk down this highway, with all his goodies, about a quarter of a mile back to the Airport Road, rather than walking through a field that would provide camouflage for him?”

  “I expected to park the car where I was told to park the car and wait where I was told.”

  “But you didn’t do that?”

  “No. I got scared and I left.”

  In Bonnie’s mind, that still did not answer the question of how Upchurch, fleeing her house after a murder—and by a longer and more exposed route than he needed to take—had managed to see a car parked in an unexpected location, maybe two hundred yards down a road that was little more than a driveway through a field of corn that in North Carolina, in late July, was already almost six feet high. And even if he had seen it, why would he have assumed it was Chris Pritchard’s car, with Neal Henderson behind the wheel, instead of, for example, the police?

  She was also bothered by two of his other answers. Henderson admitted that when he’d first spoken to Lewis Young, he’d described Chris’s car as black. Not only was it white, but he’d even paused on his way home to get it washed. So ho
w could he have thought it was black?

  And in his original statement to John Taylor and John Crone, as he described the trip back to Raleigh, he’d said he and Upchurch had not talked much—instead, they had listened to the radio. But weeks earlier, the radio had been stolen from Chris’s car.

  As he neared the end of his cross-examination, Frank Johnston seemed to become more openly sarcastic with each question.

  “Isn’t it true, Mr. Henderson, that you were termed by many as a ‘genius’?”

  “Some might say that,” Henderson answered. “Some might not. It depends who you ask.”

  “And isn’t it true that you had, from the time this incident occurred, eleven months before you ever came forward and made any statement to any officers?”

  “Eleven months sounds about right.”

  “And isn’t it true that there have been an additional six or seven months since you first came forward?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And during all this period, you have certainly had ample opportunity to think about your situation and what would be in your best interest, have you not?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “In recognition of your plea, is it not true that the State reduced charges against you and has agreed not to prosecute other charges?”

  “That was the plea bargain, yes, sir.”

  “And isn’t it true that by your plea, you are not facing the death penalty?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And isn’t it true that it was explained to you that the sentence you would receive would be based upon His Honor’s discretion?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And depending on how you did in court and what you said, that might have a significant impact on what type of sentence you might receive, isn’t that true?”

  “I was told it would be entirely up to Judge Watts.”

  “Weren’t you told, Mr. Henderson, that if you got on that stand and verified the facts that the State wanted you to verify, that it may help you in your sentencing?”

  “No, sir. I was told to give truthful testimony. And that’s all I am doing.”

  Now it was Johnston’s turn to carry forward the appalling crime-scene photograph of Lieth Von Stein.

  “I ask you to look at this again. Isn’t it true that the last time you saw Mr. Von Stein you saw him in that condition, or put him in that condition on July twenty-fifth, 1988?”

  “No, sir. That is not true. I did not do that and I could not do that.”

  “And isn’t it true that on none of these occasions you’ve testified to, James Upchurch was even with you?”

  “No, sir. That is not true. He was with me and he did do what I said he did.”

  36

  Bonnie went home for the weekend. She met with Billy Royal on Saturday. “This time,” she said, “he talked to me.”

  Now that he was free to speak openly to her, Dr. Royal wanted to try to explain how her son had turned out the way he did, and what might have driven him to the desperate point he’d reached by July 1988.

  Bonnie wanted to know, yet she didn’t. She needed to know, but not too much. The defenses that had enabled her to survive not only the previous eighteen months, but the grim years that had followed Steve Pritchard’s departure, were not about to crumble all at once.

  Besides, she still did not have the rapport with Dr. Royal that she enjoyed with Jean Spaulding. Indeed, Bonnie’s notes of the meeting suggest a certain defensiveness. “Once, during our conversation,” she wrote, “I called Chris ‘Christopher.’ Dr. Royal seemed to want to make a big deal out of that. There is no hidden reason for this. Usually, when saying the possessive form, it is easier to say ‘Christopher’s’ than ‘Chris’s.’ ”

  She also wrote, “I asked Dr. Royal what his assessment of Chris is. He beat around the bush with a lot of ‘ahems’ and double-talk. I asked him to tell me what he would say if asked a direct question about the reasons for Christopher’s involvement & his seeming detachment. He went through another long, meaningless dialogue about how each of us possesses the ability to do most anything under given circumstances.

  “Finally, he reached the core of the question. He feels Chris was deeply affected by his abandonment by his father at a very young and impressionable age. Since that time, he has had a fear of losing me. He has constantly sought assurance from me and has always feared rejection.

  “Lieth came into his life and filled the father-figure void. He and Lieth did have a few problems, but certainly not more & maybe less than most fathers & sons. Chris has always felt like he needed a lot of friends.

  “Dr. Royal also said Chris has had several fantasies concerning becoming a great writer, providing a home for me & Angela (having us dependent on him). Another fantasy is that he is married and we all live together in a giant home. Me, Lieth, Chris, his wife, Angela. His need for family seems to be overpowering at times. Almost to the point of desperation.

  “In 1987, when Lieth’s father died and we began spending so much time in W-S on the weekends, Chris felt a loss. The loss of Lieth’s mother only made Chris feel more insecure. He saw Lieth’s parents leave him. He also knew there was what seemed to be a large amount of money involved. His move to NC State was a further separation from the family. Being removed from the close relationship & dependence on me, he began to feel not so good about himself. His grades were slipping.

  “Chris became more involved in the game D&D. This allowed him to remove himself from his real feelings and situations. He could set himself aside and become the character he was playing. Then came the increased use of alcohol, then the drugs. This combination became a deadly force: Chris’s loss of confidence & self-esteem, D&D, alcohol & drugs.

  “Chris also idolized ‘Moog’ to a degree. He often talked about how smart he was & how he could keep all the characters in his head. ‘Moog’ was the Dungeon Master. Dr. Royal feels when Chris mentioned patricide to ‘Moog’ that ‘Moog’ jumped on the idea & didn’t lose sight of it. Although there were several occasions when the plans were talked about, they were never in a ‘real life’ aspect or setting. Chris was detached, like it was ‘all a big game.’

  “Another observation Dr. Royal had was that he felt Chris was trying to prove by killing his entire family that he could show he was not dependent on anyone. He could survive without any of us.”

  Absent from the notes was any expression of feeling about what Chris had done. This was her son. He’d tried to have her murdered and had taken from her forever the man she’d loved. Yet she herself could survive only by reducing Dr. Royal’s insights to a form of data she could process.

  * * *

  Billy Royal later made several other observations. Among these were that Bonnie’s anger at Steve Pritchard for leaving her had communicated itself to both Chris and Angela; that the need for Bonnie to work such long hours, and sometimes to be gone for as much as a week at a time for training programs, made Chris extraordinarily insecure. Night after night, he and Angela would be the last two children to be picked up at the Salem Baptist day-care center. Chris, in particular, developed a chronic fear that his mother was never coming back.

  Billy Royal also said, regarding Dungeons & Dragons, that the game put Chris in a place where he was in control, instead of dependent, and in a universe where he could “do” things that deviated dramatically from the value system he’d been brought up to believe in.

  “He decided to take his fate into his own hands,” Dr. Royal said, “and just get rid of everybody he was close to before they had a chance to abandon him.”

  But on that Saturday in January, as Bonnie’s meeting was drawing to a close, Chris arrived for his regular appointment. This would be one of his final sessions with Billy Royal. In little more than a week, he would be sentenced and locked up for many years in a place where neither Billy Royal
nor anyone like him would be able to help Chris get better.

  Chris walked in, Bonnie looked at him, then suddenly started to cry. Almost immediately, so did Chris.

  It was as if she could now see him, maybe for the first time, as the hurt, frightened, and angry little boy he’d always been.

  37

  James Upchurch’s lawyers chose not to have him testify in his defense.

  This may have been simply because they feared the jury would neither like him nor believe him. Though he’d gotten his hair cut and wore neat and subdued clothing each day, Moog, even on trial for his life, could not rid himself of the smirk that had attracted the attention of every investigator who’d ever spoken to him.

  Lewis Young called it “a weird smile” and saw it accompanied by “that crazy stare.” Frank Johnston termed it more euphemistically “a facial mannerism that was not positive for his position.” In either case, a silently smirking murder defendant was bad enough. One who seemed to be grinning at the jury while denying his guilt from the stand would be worse.

  Wayland Sermons later said there was another reason for the decision not to have Moog testify. “We felt that even though he would have had some good points, they would have been overshadowed by the open-door rule on cross-examination in North Carolina. That rule says that if a defendant, or any witness, takes the stand and swears to tell the truth, the prosecutor can ask any question—it doesn’t have to have been raised on direct examination—relevant to either the facts of the case or the credibility of the witness.