“That knife was everyone’s favorite knife,” Susan said of one steak knife, smiling as she explained how all three of her sons liked that one best. “It was always disappearing…. And that [a different knife] was the knife he [Felix] had in the cottage that he attacked me with,” Susan said of the one with the black handle. “Afterwards, I picked it up, brought it back into the kitchen, washed it, dried it, and put it away.”
Once Susan had finished with the detailed history of the Polk family cutlery, she moved on to an entirely new and until now, unmentioned subject. Susan attempted to raise allegations that her husband had engaged in inappropriate contact with his daughter from his first marriage. She provided no evidence and there is no evidence whatsoever to support these allegations. Nevertheless, it was Susan’s intention to introduce these allegations only by her own testimony. For much of her first four days on the stand, Sequeira had allowed Susan’s testimony to go into the record with few objections, but the period of relative calm in the courtroom came to an end with this latest development.
“I move for a mistrial based on being called a liar!” she demanded during a sidebar with the judge.
Susan flew into a rage after Sequeira objected to this line of testimony. Susan claimed that Jennifer had alluded to the abuse in letters she sent her father. But she could not produce the writings because someone had supposedly stolen her “Jennifer files.”
“I was impressed that we have gone for four days very smoothly,” Judge Brady said. “But this display in front of the jury with such a sensitive matter, especially when I’m learning for the first time that those letters just don’t exist anymore.”
“That’s not true!” Susan interrupted.
“Stop interrupting me,” Brady instructed. “I’m not done.”
“It is an outrageous abuse of your power to keep me silent on his abuse!” Susan shouted at Brady.
“Nobody’s going to keep you silent,” Sequeira mumbled aloud.
Unable to quell Susan’s rants, Brady adjourned for the day.
Before being led away that afternoon, Susan learned that Eli’s trial had resulted in a conviction on three of the six counts he was facing in connection with the March 2006 fight with his girlfriend. Valerie Harris was the one to deliver the news that a judge had just sentenced Eli to nine months in jail on the charges.
The next day, Susan’s cross-examination by the prosecutor began. That Thursday, Susan quickly charged Sequeira with using “doctored” photos of the crime scene and Contra Costa detectives with “staging” the scene to look like murder. She contended that pictures of her husband’s “defense wounds” appeared to have been magnified to make them appear more dramatic than they really were.
“They [detectives] were primarily focused on ensuring it did not look like self-defense,” Susan insisted when shown photos of the white numbered place markers encircling Felix’s bloodied body to indicate shoeprints found by police.
“Well, it looks as if someone, maybe a female deputy, because they’re really small shoes that fit in your shoe size range, maybe walked around the body and then walked to the bathroom,” Sequeira said in a raised voice. “Is that how it happened?”
“I think you guys goofed,” Susan implied. “I mean, to put two shoe prints, right-side shoes, side-by-side, like, what, I jumped up and did a whirligig?”
Later on, Sequeira stood before an easel, listing the names of all of the people that Susan had accused of lying about an aspect of her case. There was Gabriel, along with several members of the police department under the column labeled “Liars.” During the questioning, Susan pointed out that Felix had also lied and insisted the prosecutor renumber to put Felix’s name at the top of the list. Sequeira obliged, and changed the order to read: “1. Victim, 2. Gabe, 3. Sgt. Hanson.” Appearing at once ridiculous and true to Susan’s form, the display succeeded in demonstrating her confused paranoia. In Susan’s eyes, it was everyone against her—not because she was wrong but because she was persecuted. With this single gesture, Sequeira managed to show the entire court the skewed lens through which Susan viewed the world, while giving the members of the jury a concise look at the “enemies” that Susan claimed to have in the case.
As the cross-examination continued, Susan responded to questions about her motive for destroying potential evidence in the case. Sequeira asked why she laundered and repaired her blue jeans, got rid of the pepper spray, and washed the knife that Felix allegedly wielded that night, stripping it of potential fingerprints to prove her claim he had provoked the attack.
“Did you use that knife the next night?” Sequeira asked Susan. “Did you warn Gabe, ‘Hey, don’t use that knife?’”
“I don’t recall.”
“Is it possible that Gabe used the knife to eat his dinner? The same knife that was used to kill his father?”
Susan recoiled at the implication, claiming she had no idea if the knife was ever used again.
“In emergencies I get very fastidious. That’s just who I am. I cleaned it and put it away,” Polk said. “If you think that makes me a murderer? I mean, c’mon. But it makes a good story, so I guess you like that part.”
“It’s about the truth, Mrs. Polk.”
Expressing frustration with the District Attorney’s implication that she “snapped” inside the guest cottage that October night, Susan insisted that “snapping” was not in her nature, but it was in Felix’s. Susan also pointed out that she had successfully argued against a court order requiring that she submit to a psychological evaluation before going to trial.
“I’m not going to play crazy,” she told jurors. “I’m not going to say I snapped when I didn’t. And I’m not going to pretend this D.A. isn’t out to frame me for murder and this judge’s rulings are not biased, when I believe they are.”
“You’ve used the words ‘shocked’ and ‘appalled’ many times, Mrs. Polk,” Sequeira told Susan during recross-examination. “But do you recall saying in an interview on Court TV that you talked about it in a joking voice—the different actresses that might play you in a movie?”
The prosecutor was referring to an April 2006 interview that aired on Catherine Crier Live, conducted by my senior producer and coauthor, Cole Thompson. During the conversation, Susan said for the first time that she might be losing her case in court. In a moment of levity, she also joked about the possibility of a movie being made about her life, leading her to speculate that Winona Ryder should play the younger Susan, while Susan Sarandon should play her older self.
Though at the time the humor seemed harmless, Sequeira was seeking to use that televised interview to portray her as someone who pokes fun at a murder victim.
“Is it a crime to be able to find some humor in my situation?” Susan asked the prosecutor, charging that the Court TV producer “sand-bagged” her with the question. Breaking into a girlish giggle, she admitted that she still believes that Hannibal Lector is “too nice” a character to portray Felix.
“This is funny to you?” Sequeira huffed.
“I thought so,” Susan chuckled. But her demeanor quickly changed when she realized that jurors were not laughing along with her. Turning on the tears, she reminded panelists of her serious nature as a child, her difficult years as a wife, and her mother’s mantra.
“Have a sense of humor!” Susan said her mother always told her.
“I could look at my life as a tragedy. Or I could see it as a triumph,” she said as the tears flowed and she gasped for breath. “And I made a conscious choice that no matter what happened in my life, I wasn’t going to be a victim.”
Before resting her case on Thursday, June 8, Susan would call a colorful assortment of witnesses to testify. Among them was Laura Castro-Shelly, a fifth-degree Shaolin black belt who used the “fight or flight” response to explain the relatively few bruises Susan sustained during the fight with her husband.
“I believe it’s animalistic,” Castro-Shelly responded when asked how a woman of Polk’s size and
stature could survive such a brutal attack by someone so much larger than she. “You become a lioness in the wilderness. You will protect yourself. You will protect your babies…. You will fight back knowing this could be your last breath.”
Susan also sought to direct the court’s attention to the role that psychics can play in crime investigation, calling Roger Clark, a retired Los Angeles sheriff’s lieutenant and self-described psychic detective and expert in crime scene analysis to testify on her behalf. The former police lieutenant took the stand to bolster Dr. Cooper’s assertion that Felix died from a heart attack and not the massive injuries he sustained in the guest cottage. Similarly, Susan called psychic detective Annette Martin to testify; however, Judge Brady limited her testimony to a discussion of how her intuitive abilities are used by members of law enforcement—adding little to Susan’s defense. Susan touted Martin’s abilities, claiming she had a 100 percent success rate on the hundred cases she assisted on. “She testified because she cares about me,” Susan later said.
Next to take the stand was family therapist and domestic violence expert Linda Barnard who supported Susan’s claim that she was a victim of “physical, emotional, and verbal abuse” during her relationship with Felix. The expert admitted she had not conducted a psychological evaluation of Susan in jail, but instead, had based her conclusions on four meetings with the defendant at the West County Correctional Facility and a review of the case documents, including recorded interviews, medical records, and naval records on Felix Polk. In response to questions, Dr. Barnard asserted that Susan suffers from post–traumatic stress syndrome as a result of the ongoing abuse she endured during her relationship with Felix.
“Can you describe for the jury what a delusional disorder is?” Sequeira asked Barnard during the subsequent cross-examination.
Referring to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), she described someone who might be out of touch with reality, hold false beliefs, and experience hallucinations.
Clutching his own copy of the diagnostic manual, the prosecutor read aloud from a section on “persecutory type delusional disorder.”
“This subtype applies when the central theme of the delusion involves the person’s belief that he or she is being conspired against, cheated on, spied on, followed, poisoned or drugged, maliciously maligned, harassed. Small slights may be exaggerated,” the prosecutor read on. “The focus of the delusion is often some injustice that must be remedied by legal action.”
After a dramatic pause, Sequeira read the final line of the passage aloud: “Individuals with persecutory delusions are often resentful and angry and may resort to violence against those they believe are hurting them.”
“Is this an accurate portrayal of the disorder?” he asked.
Dr. Barnard nodded in agreement.
Sequeira didn’t ask if the description applied to Susan’s conduct; the jury would make the obvious connection on its own.
On the morning of Tuesday, June 13, Susan presented her closing arguments to the jury, ignoring the remarks prepared for her by Valerie Harris and some of her supporters. For months, Harris and several others, including former Miner Road homeowner Roger Deakins, had been holding roundtables at the Polk house to plot defense strategies. Deakins had come to court during several days of testimony to show his support for Susan. But once again, Susan would do things her way.
Before she began, Susan unsuccessfully protested Judge Brady’s imposition of a three-hour time limit on the closing remarks. She also tried to convince Brady to charge the jury on just two possible outcomes—either first-degree murder or an acquittal based on self-defense. But Brady ruled to let the jury consider the “lesser included” offenses of murder in the second degree and involuntary manslaughter.
Meanwhile, Helen Bolling waited in the gallery, lost in a game of numbers. “Numbers are fascinating,” she told Cole Thompson, who secured a seat next to her in the rear of the courtroom. Bolling attracted sneers from the trial watchers, so called gavel groupies, when she continued to crinkle the plastic wrapper of a lemon candy she was fighting to open, seemingly oblivious to the amount of noise she was making. Helen looked up in time to see her daughter searching the gallery for a familiar face.
Susan’s frantic expression melted into a smile when she finally spotted Helen. Susan looked worn, as though she had aged several years since the trial began on March 7. Still reed-thin and wobbly, she stood before Brady in the same dark floral blouse and brown dress she had worn to court the day before. Her tousled salt-and-pepper hair was now mostly gray and her skin was pale and drawn.
It was 9:05 AM when the proceedings got underway. As the prosecution can both open and close the final arguments, jurors heard first from ADA Sequeira that morning. Susan would step before the court that afternoon to deliver her final remarks—after informing Judge Brady she didn’t want her photo taken after the reading of the verdict.
Jurors sat stone-faced as a weepy Susan walked to the podium just after the lunch break. Despite repeated admonishments from the judge, she had objected no less than sixteen times during the prosecutor’s closing remarks that morning.
“Imagine for a second there’s a man on top of you,” Susan began. “What would you do? I kicked him in the groin.”
Susan listed seven reasons why she could not have killed Felix: her arms are not long enough, she’s not big enough to throw Felix to the floor, she had injuries herself, the distribution of the stab wounds, the nature of the head trauma, the physical improbability and a lack of intent to kill.
Compounding her physical inability to murder Felix was the fact that, according to her, a proper investigation never took place. “Anything they found that didn’t fit with murder, they erased.” She contended that police never subpoenaed Felix’s naval records. “I wrote the navy for them and they sent them within two weeks.” In addition, she argued that they didn’t want to locate Felix’s computer “because theoretically it could have shown that Felix was trying to kill me.”
“I made up my husband’s history of violence?” she posed. “Come on.
“According to the D.A., I’m delusional. According to my husband, I was delusional, but I was in charge of our stock portfolio…. This trial has become a witch hunt,” she insisted, anxiously watching the clock in the rear of the courtroom to stay within her time limit. “Am I on trial for saying I predicted the 9/11 terror attacks or am I on trial for murder?”
Susan insisted that even if jurors believed she “is as guilty as a bedbug” they should vote to acquit her because she killed her husband in self-defense.
“Please use your common sense and do not be swayed by the misrepresentations of the district attorney,” she concluded.
And with that, Susan Polk rested her case.
She looked glum as she shuffled back to her seat at the defense table, where a framed photo of a young Eli Polk was propped in front of her. Valerie Harris was seated next to her at the table in a chair traditionally reserved for lawyers. Throughout the proceedings, local attorneys tending to matters in the courthouse had voiced surprise over the court’s decision to allow Harris to sit in that seat. Judge Brady even softened and gave Susan an additional ten minutes to finish her closing remarks that day. But there had been almost nothing traditional about the way Susan’s case had played out over the thirteen weeks. It was on this note that the prosecutor began his last argument to the jury.
“There’s two sets of rules,” Sequeira said during his rebuttal remarks. “There’s one set for Susan Polk and one set for the rest. She lives by her own rules and always has.” He noted that Susan had originally claimed that the sexual relationship with Felix began when she was sixteen. On the stand, she now realized that she was actually fourteen at the time. “The problem is, it’s just like everything else in this case. Sixteen wasn’t good enough. Then fifteen wasn’t good enough. Now it’s fourteen.
“And now she’s being raped and drugged.
“It doesn’t m
atter, if it was twenty, it’s still wrong.” Sequeira maintained. “But it’s never good enough.”
Walking to the overhead projector, the prosecutor replaced Susan’s childhood photo with a photo of the crime scene. He told jurors, “Susan was not a captive. She was free to leave whenever she wanted. Felix even made arrangements for travel out of the country.”
Reading from Susan’s statements to police during her interview at headquarters that first night, Sequeira strode around the courtroom and replayed her repeated claims of innocence. He also discussed her suicide attempt at Yosemite National Park, her revelations about her marriage at her fortieth birthday party and her theory about Felix’s death.
As he spoke, Susan could not quell the urge to jump up and object to his remarks, but the judge threatened her with sanctions if her protests continued. Once she settled back in her seat, Sequeira laid out his theory of how the murder unfolded. “She did it by surprise,” he said, charging that Susan had the knife with her when she went to speak with Felix in the guesthouse that night. The prosecutor noted that defense pathologist John Cooper had contended the knife used in the assault would not be the weapon of choice to commit a murder. It was too small.
“Oh really?” Sequeira said, raising his arm in the air with dramatic flourish. Standing beneath the judge’s bench, he rapped three times on the ledge of the desk, pretending he was gripping a large knife as Felix answered the door. “‘Can I come in?’” he said, mimicking Susan. “And she’s standing there with a kitchen knife this long?”
Laughter engulfed the courtroom.
Despite the previous warnings from Judge Brady, Susan continued to object, calling for a mistrial no less than five times during the forty-six-minute rebuttal presentation. Nevertheless, Sequeira was not deterred, and when referring to Susan’s accusation that police had “staged” the crime scene, he asked “How did they do it? Couldn’t they have done a better job?
“Felix had blood on his knees. Why would he have blood on his knees if he fell backward? The car, she moved it. Why? The knife, where did it come from? Did it come from his underwear? Susan took the knife from the house. This is evidence of premeditation. The Maglite, if she did not use it as a weapon, then why did she need to wash it off?
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