by A. W. Gray
Physically retrieving the wine bottle and the capsule container from the trunk of Lynn Pease’s car wasn’t going to be a problem. While Nancy’s mother, father, sister, and sister-in-law kept Richard occupied with meaningless conversation in the waiting room, Bill Dillard Jr. and Lynn Pease secretly left the hospital.
Bill Jr. was sober and alert, as he had been for over a year at the time, and more so than the rest of the Dillard clan, he had reason to prove himself. For one thing, he had the recovering addict’s feeling of remorse over his past conduct, and for another, his distrust of Richard was nearly as strong as his concern for his sister. If Big Daddy was to be the voice of reason in the relentless pursuit of Richard Lyon over the following year, Bill Jr. was to be its driving force. It was his chance to make some amends, and he wasn’t about to let the opportunity get away from him.
Lynn and Bill Jr. went to the repair shop, where her old heap lay in dry dock with a haywire alternator, retrieved the key from the attendant on duty, and found the Zoomobile parked at the rear of the shop on bald, dusty tires. Bill Jr. inserted the key in the trunk and turned. Rusty hinges creaked as the lid rose crankily upward. There the wine and pills were, behind some cardboard boxes of God-knows-what; Lynn is an incurable hoarder and the trunk of her car contains things that would drive Fibber McGee bananas. Slowly, carefully, using latex gloves so as not to disturb any prints, Bill Jr. and Lynn carried the wine and pills back to Presbyterian Hospital. In order to be certain that they wouldn’t bump into Richard by accident, the two used the downstairs emergency room entry to carry the items inside.
Kim Grayson, a pert redheaded RN with an elfin spray of freckles across the bridge of her nose, was on duty in the intensive care unit when Lynn and Bill Jr. arrived, and Kim well knew what was going on. Carefully avoiding the waiting room where Richard still sat near his wife’s family, Kim stole downstairs. She took the wine and capsules from Lynn and Bill Jr., then toted them back up to ICU. With Misty Don Thornton, another registered nurse, as a witness, Kim carefully labeled the items “Room 103—Do Not Touch,” and placed them in a storage cabinet in ICU. There the wine and capsules were to remain until after Nancy died, when the police would take them in for testing. Kim Grayson, Misty Don Thornton, and Lynn Pease were to give chain of custody testimony in regard to the wine and capsules at Richard Lyon’s trial, with Bill Jr. available for backup in case anything should happen to Lynn.
Also while Nancy Lyon was at Presbyterian, two old school chums of hers brought various portions of food from the Lyon duplex, but these items were only those that Richard had selected and pointed out. The police lab later ran the foodstuffs, wine, and gelatin caps through a series of tests. None of the carefully preserved items revealed the barest trace of arsenic.
In hearing the story of any criminal investigation composed of intricate legal maneuvering, the after-the-fact listener inevitably finds portions of the tale hard to swallow. Just as suspects make clumsy attempts at cover-ups—the results of which are often the suspects’ undoing—the gymnastics performed by police and prosecutors in firming up their cases are sometimes less than Olympic quality.
Much later, at Richard Lyon’s trial, Dr. Ali Bagheri was to testify as to what he had done once Big Daddy had clued Bagheri in on the Dillard family’s suspicions. While very possibly accurate as a Swiss timepiece, Dr. Bagheri’s recollections tend to give the imagination somewhat of a hernia. If one gives the doctor the benefit of the doubt and assumes that his testimony is right on target, then one must also wonder if Bagheri, under the pressure of the investigation going on in the unit where he worked, completely took leave of his senses. The most logical explanation of the doctor’s testimony is that he received legal advice from the same source as the Dillard family—more than likely from the police or district attorney’s office, though neither had officially entered the case as yet. Like the Dillard family’s handling of the evidence against Richard, Dr. Bagheri’s activities were choreographed as if he spent the entire day thinking of ways to make his future testimony admissible.
Anyone who’s watched one of a thousand TV courtroom dramas knows that when a lawyer leaps to his feet, nostrils flared, and shouts, “Objection. Hearsay,” this generally means that the other side is pulling a fast one. Even the greenest neophyte understands that courtroom witnesses are supposed to testify only what they know, and may not tell what they’ve heard someone say. Simple rule, what? Now, anyone who believes that the hearsay rule is simple will please line up to purchase some Kennedy motorcade maps, autographed by Mr. Lee Harvey Oswald himself fifteen minutes before he made his fatal walk into the muzzle of Jack Ruby’s gun.
Basically the rule goes something like this: if A tells B that C buried Jimmy Hoffa underneath Trump Tower, B can’t testify against C in court unless A is also present so that C (who by this time will be in a world of hurt) can have his lawyer cross-examine the originator of the statement. The inadmissibility of hearsay testimony is a basic defendants’ right. In the Lyon case, Nancy would be A, and no one who’d heard her stories about Richard’s suspicious behavior in the months preceding Nancy’s death could tell these stories in the courtroom because Nancy, of course, wouldn’t be there for Richard’s lawyer to cross-examine.
Since hearsay evidence is a real hurdle for the prosecution in a murder case (the victim is never present in the courtroom, of course, so the statements of the victim are hearsay), policemen and district attorneys have spent decades developing methods for evading the rule. Quite a few of these methods have won the approval of the appellate courts; therefore in today’s murder prosecutions, in addition to the hearsay rule we now have a list of exceptions whereby hearsay statements of the victim are made admissible. In the modern courtroom, hearsay ain’t hearsay until the judge says it is.
So the best way to make Dr. Bagheri’s testimony effective at Richard’s trial was to coordinate his movements so that (1) what he had to say fell under one of the exceptions to the hearsay rule, and (2) there would be no one to refute the doctor’s story. The first problem wasn’t a problem at all; two exceptions to the hearsay rule are deathbed statements of the victim (so that when the policeman rushes in to find the store clerk dying of a gunshot wound, and the clerk—heard only by the policeman, of course—identifies his killer, then the policeman can point the finger in court) and medical testimony of those treating the victim in the final hours (Doctor: What’s wrong with you, Willie? Willie: [gasping for breath] Old Joe, he done blowed me away with a shotgun). Dr. Bagheri’s testimony, if properly coached, could fall into either category.
But making certain that no one could refute the doctor’s testimony required having Bagheri talk to Nancy when no one else was present. All during her hospital stay, people were constantly at Nancy’s bedside. Though she could receive outside visitors only once an hour, Richard had free access to his wife, and except for the time he spent in the waiting room talking to family and friends, Richard hovered over Nancy at all hours.
The above lengthy discourse aside, there is no evidence whatsoever that Dr. Bagheri’s story on the witness stand was stretched in the slightest, nor is there any evidence that the good doctor received any coaching in reconstructing the events as they happened. It’s just that, assuming that he is telling it as it is—and also keeping in mind that he had no legal training—his actions were … well, quite convenient for the prosecution in the case to be entitled The State of Texas v. Richard Allan Abood Lyon. What follows is Dr. Ali Bagheri’s story exactly as related in the courtroom.
It was late morning when Big Daddy stopped the doctor in the corridor to relay the family’s suspicion that Nancy was the victim of foul play. There was almost a hundred percent chance that Richard had poisoned Nancy, Big Daddy said, and the stories that Nancy had told her divorce attorney, sister, and sister-in-law were critical to finding out exactly what had made Nancy sick. The situation was urgent, and while she was still in a coherent state, someone needed to h
ear her story from her own lips. Something Nancy knew could be the key to saving her.
Armed with the knowledge that his patient probably wasn’t suffering from toxic shock syndrome at all, but had likely fallen prey to intentional poisoning, for the next ten hours Dr. Bagheri proceeded to do exactly nothing in regard to Nancy Lyon. He didn’t run to his supervisor with the news, and he didn’t call the police. He didn’t hail the nurses aside, indicate Richard Lyon from afar, and whisper, “Watch that guy. He may be a wife poisoner.” So unconcerned was Dr. Bagheri, in fact, that he continued on his normal rounds for the balance of his shift, making certain that all other patients in ICU except for Nancy received the various medications and treatments that their attending physicians had ordered. At the two o’clock shift change, Dr. Bagheri went home, bathed, had his dinner, and got a few hours’ rest before returning to duty at eight. The graveyard shift was more than an hour along before Bagheri decided that it was time to pay Nancy a visit.
When Richard’s attorneys questioned Bagheri at trial, the doctor’s explanation for the time lapse between his conversation with Big Daddy and his visit with Nancy was that he was waiting for an opportunity to see the patient when Richard wasn’t around. That may be so, but there were numerous times during the day and evening when Richard left his wife’s bedside. Bagheri himself complained that Richard was bugging the staff constantly about Nancy’s condition (at one point, when Richard asked what the hospital was doing for Nancy, Bagheri replied, “We’re running tests.” When Richard pursued the issue, saying, “Such as what?” Bagheri turned and walked away without a word), and it’s quite doubtful that Richard could effectively “bug” the staff without leaving Nancy alone.
There are a couple of explanations for the doctor’s testimony other than that, on hearing that Nancy may have been poisoned, he went blithely on his way, and in analyzing the case that the state later brought against Richard, both alternatives bear some thought. The first possibility—that Bagheri was in reality waiting for instructions from the police and district attorney as to the proper method of questioning Nancy—is rather harmless in the scheme of justice. Since the authorities had no probable cause—no evidence of foul play—to investigate at that point, that the police might issue behind-the-scenes instructions is both understandable and proper. This is particularly true if Richard had indeed murdered his wife.
The second explanation for Bagheri’s testimony—that the entire scenario was constructed after the fact so that Nancy’s stories could be told in court through the doctor’s lips, and that Bagheri’s meeting with Nancy in fact never occurred—is, of course, something that those dependent on the justice system for right don’t even like to contemplate. That Dr. Bagheri, the only witness available to the prosecution whose testimony about Nancy’s stories would be admissible, had an eleventh-hour conversation with the victim must be simply the luck of the draw. Dr. Bagheri is, after all, a man of medicine, with no bone to pick on either side, and has no motive to fabricate anything.
Or does he? That’s something we’ll get to later on.
Nonetheless, to continue with Bagheri’s story, after he’d returned to duty on the late shift, he entered the darkened room where Nancy Lyon lay on death’s doorstep. Since Nancy had entered the hospital she’d undergone a transformation that wasn’t pretty. A slim, attractive woman only a day earlier, Nancy was now puffily swollen. (The bloating effect was partially due to the poisoning, but another sad part of the story of Nancy’s death is contained in hospital records. Because the patient couldn’t keep any liquids down, one of the staff had inserted a catheter directly into her body for fluid transmission, and a doctor’s remark on Nancy’s bedside record takes note that the catheter was dangerously close to her heart. The catheter did in fact eventually puncture the vena cava—the large vessel leading to the heart—and cause internal bleeding, and Nancy’s swollen condition was for the most part due to the blood leakage inside her body.) She couldn’t speak above a whisper. Dr. Bagheri bent over Nancy’s bed and gently asked if she could tell him anything that might lead her to believe that she was the victim of poisoning.
According to Bagheri, Nancy told him in a faint, halting voice about the wine and pills left on her doorstep, and she told him another story as well. She said that the previous September, Richard had taken her to see the movie Pretty Woman, and during the show he’d left the darkened theater and brought her a Coke. The drink was so bitter that Nancy took a mouthful and then spat it out, at which time Richard became enraged and told her to drink the soft drink regardless of how it tasted. Nancy told Dr. Bagheri that she’d noticed a white powder floating on the liquid’s surface, and that she refused to drink any more of the Coke in spite of Richard’s anger. Also, according to Dr. Bagheri’s testimony, Nancy said that she was violently sick all night after the movie. The Coke-in-the-movie story, in addition to the tale about the wine and the capsules, were both stories that Nancy had told her attorney, sister, and sister-in-law.
Having heard Nancy’s tale, Bagheri then left the patient. According to him, as he reached the door, Nancy called out, “Oh, please, Doctor. Please don’t let me die.” Those were the last words that anyone was to hear from Nancy Dillard Lyon.
Despite Nancy’s tearful revelation, according to Bagheri he continued on his rounds. He didn’t prescribe any poison treatment, and he didn’t request a hurry-up on the testing of the blood sample drawn from Nancy in the emergency room. The toxology screen results, in fact, didn’t arrive from the out-of-state lab until January 15, one day after Nancy died.
There is another facet to Dr. Bagheri’s testimony that gives one pause, this having to do with the records according to Nancy’s duty nurse. By the nurse’s written record, she entered Nancy’s room around 4:00 p.m., several hours before Dr. Bagheri’s visit, and found the patient thrashing about on the bed. Nancy had pulled the breathing tube from her throat and had cast her oxygen mask aside, and at the time the nurse found her, Nancy constantly kicked her feet off the side of the bed and begged, nearly incoherently, to go home.
The nurse made the decision that, for Nancy’s own protection, the patient needed restraint. With an orderly to assist her, the nurse then shackled Nancy’s hands and feet and tied a strap around her middle to keep her in the bed. Finally the nurse put Nancy’s breathing tube back in place and replaced the oxygen mask over Nancy’s mouth and nose.
A short time after the doctor’s visit, also according to hospital records, Nancy’s vital organs began to fail. Around nine-thirty in the evening, the night doctor on duty ordered Nancy placed on life support. She was to remain on such life support until January 14 when, with consent from the family and the advice of the attending physicians, the staff mercifully pulled the plug. When the staff placed her on the life-support machine, hospital records note that they removed her oxygen mask and breathing tube. Other than the conversation to which Dr. Bagheri later testified, there is no written record of Nancy speaking a word after the nurse placed her in restraints. Therefore, once again assuming that Nancy did tell the doctor the Richard-damning stories in the darkness of her room, the entire conversation took place while she had a breathing tube down her throat, and while her mouth and nose were covered by an oxygen mask.
Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that Nancy told the stories to her lawyer, her sister, and her sister-in-law, and that the stories alone were plenty of reason to suspect Richard of murdering his wife. Whether or not the doctor’s testimony was accurate is a matter for the conscience of the justice system.
5
It isn’t clear just when a hospital gathering of concerned friends and relatives becomes a death watch, but there is a time when the mood changes. Waiting-room voices diminish in volume and all attempts at humor cease. Conversation slows. Men jam their hands into pants pockets and stare dully at the floor. Women show vacant smiles.
All members of the Dillard clan have a trait in common. They don’t show outwar
d emotion. Big Daddy is Big Daddy regardless of the circumstances, polite to a fault, majestically businesslike. His smiles are quick to appear and even quicker to fade. The rest of the family follow his example; even Bill Jr. accepts good fortune and faces adversity with the same demeanor. It hasn’t always been so with him, but now that he has the upper hand over drugs and alcohol, he grows more like his father every day.
So the mood change among the group gathered in the waiting room at Presbyterian Hospital was a bit harder to recognize than in most such gatherings, but the shift in attitude was there nonetheless. On the morning of January 11, when word spread that Nancy was now on life support, gloom set in. The family continued to visit Nancy once an hour, two at a time, but whereas they’d previously offered her words of encouragement and even played tapes of her children singing and talking to their mother, bedside callers now stood mutely by while the tireless machine breathed in and out, in and out, pumping air into helpless lungs.
The woman who lay silently in a coma as her life ebbed away was not the same vivacious Nancy her friends and family remembered. The puffy face hidden behind the breathing mask was barely recognizable; for the three days that Nancy was on life support she never woke up, never spoke a word. Just a few miles to the north, two lonely little girls wondered when their mother was coming home. Children Allison and Anna’s age have no real understanding of death. They would ask about their mother for many months to come; likely for the rest of their lives, they will never understand why their mother left them.
During the early parts of the vigil, the Dillard family’s attitude toward Richard Lyon had changed from concern (when they’d first learned that Nancy was sick) to coldly aloof (when their suspicion of Richard had grown) to outwardly accepting (as the gathering of evidence behind Richard’s back went into full swing). Now that it was apparent that Nancy was going to die, the Dillards became stoic toward Nancy’s husband. It was as if they wanted to devote their attention only to Nancy during her final hours, leaving whatever they had in store for Richard until she was gone.