Disturbed Ground

by NORTON, CARLA

  It was jarring, in the midst of a multiple-murder trial, to have the jury suddenly burst out laughing. Even the court clerk wished they would "straighten up." But the dilemma was, who could chastise them without inviting hostility? The attorneys certainly weren't going to risk offending the very people who sat in judgment. And the judge was reluctant to scold a group that, in performing its civic duty, would have to endure several months of testimony.

  One could only wonder what the defendant thought of this merry bunch.

  At the end of one long day of testimony, the attorneys were tired. Rather than have O'Mara call a witness to the stand to present yet another display, the defense stipulated that, yes, this was an accurate map of Sacramento, so O'Mara could present it to the jurors himself. He grabbed a pointer and, looking consummately professorial, indicated the yellow arrows showing 1426 F Street, Detox, and assorted other spots they'd heard about.

  O'Mara wrapped up quickly, then Judge Virga adjourned for the day and stepped down from the bench.

  Did the jurors file out meekly? Did they save their questions until the end of trial, when they could examine all the evidence at their leisure? No. In a raucous outburst, they started shouting questions at O'Mara: "Where's Tiny's Bar?" one demanded. "K Street Mall, K Street Mall," others chanted, standing.

  Didn't they realize this was an incredible breach of decorum?

  Apparently not. Out of blind curiosity, they forced the court back on record. The judge turned and resumed the bench. And the prosecutor, seeming flustered, took up the pointer and followed their commands, pointing out Tiny's Bar here, and—regaining his composure—the K Street Mall in this area. Satisfied, the jury was now prepared to release the reins of power, and court was again adjourned.

  Nothing would tax the jury's collective attention span (and the strength of their stomachs) as much as the "tox and docs"—the toxicological and medical testimonies. Like it or not, they were about to become more intimate with nine strangers' medical conditions than with their own.

  It began with autopsies. As tall, blond Dr. Robert Anthony took the stand in a conservative suit, it was hard to picture him in his greens, snapping off his surgical gloves, exiting the morgue with a Worry, Be Sad button on his lapel. Some black humor snuck into his testimony, but for the most part, he and fellow forensic pathologist Dr. Gary Stuart stuck to their morbid scripts.

  Over a period of weeks, these two doctors were repeatedly called to the stand to share every odious detail of the autopsies, every Y-incision, every mushy organ, and some jurors couldn't help but blanch. For hours, images of decomposed, putrefied, skeletonized remains sailed about the room.

  By far the most macabre autopsy was that of the lady who had no head, Betty Palmer. Dr. Anthony testified that Palmer's head had been removed above the third vertebra. "Both hands were removed at the wrists," he continued, "and both legs, from the level of the knees, were absent." Kneecaps were missing, too.

  Several jurors visibly recoiled.

  Under questioning, Dr. Anthony explained that the cutting had been done inexpertly at the "joint spaces," leaving "tool marks" on the bones. Judging from the sharp, smooth cuts and the flat faces on the bones at the ends of the arms, he surmised that the tool was "not an ordinary kitchen knife" but, more likely, "a saw, ax, cleaver, some heavy device. A machete. Something large and heavy."

  A few jurors shook their heads. Others muttered, stealing glances at the accused.

  O'Mara asked the witness if he could determine whether the cutting was done during life or after death. He could not. But Dr. Anthony also testified that no blood had been found on Betty Palmer's clothes or wrappings. Not a drop. And if the cutting had been done near the time of death, one would expect these to be saturated.

  When questioned about the cause of death, the pathologist admitted, "Since we're dealing with less than a complete individual, I can't really rule out anything."

  If Puente had mutilated Betty Palmer in hopes of hiding her identity, there was heavy irony in how she'd been identified. Palmer had broken her hip back in 1984, and the doctor had used a prosthetic device in repairing it. A photograph of her skeletonized hip plainly showed a metal plate with an imprinted number: the ultimate ID.

  Eventually, the heaps of details began to fall into patterns. With each autopsy came an inventory of how the body had been meticulously wrapped. O'Mara showed the jury grisly photos of the bodies as the layers were cut away, and the very images seemed to put out a stench. (At lunch, some jurors had trouble putting the images out of their minds.)

  Typically, there were layers of plastic, then bed sheets and quilts. A few had absorbent, diaper-like Chux pads wrapped up with them. The strange bundles showed unmistakable similarities in the plastic held with duct tape, and particularly in the knots. Again and again, the jurors saw that the sheets had been distinctively knotted near the head or neck. A signature, even back to the 1985 wrappings of Everson Gillmouth.

  Most of the time, Dorothea Puente sat immobile. But during Dr. Stuart's testimony she suffered a cold. While she listened, her pretty hands neatly folded tissues into smaller and smaller squares.

  With the defense intent on proving death by natural causes and the prosecution intent on proving murder, lifestyles and medical histories were on trial. Doctor after doctor took the stand to recite the many ailments plaguing the alleged victims. Most had received haphazard medical treatment, chancing upon this clinic or that emergency room, leaving behind only sketchy records. Only James Gallop had been treated by anyone so specialized as a neurosurgeon.

  Pompous, defensive, kind, or clinical, the doctors described patients who were mostly drinkers who abused and neglected themselves. Additionally, most had alarming maladies, fueling the battle over medical interpretations.

  Bert Montoya had diabetes, and his blood-sugar count had tested abnormally high (464) on July 20, 1988, shortly before his death. The prosecution showed that his blood-sugar count had subsequently subsided (dropping to 50). But the defense elicited testimony that suggested a fatal diabetic coma.

  To say that Ben Fink's alcoholism had undermined his health was understatement. It had taken him two years to recover from multiple leg fractures he suffered when he staggered out in front of an on-rushing car. His smoking and drinking didn't help his condition any, and the complications he suffered sounded as bad as his injuries. Further, the jurors heard that Fink had once been admitted to a hospital with a death-defying blood-alcohol level of 0.456. (In California, one is legally drunk at 0.08.) In Dr. Anthony's words, Fink "lived to drink."

  Seventy-eight-year-old Leona Carpenter, who suffered a host of chronic ailments, was in and out of the hospital so much that it seemed amazing she hadn't dropped dead months before moving into Puente's boardinghouse. Most interesting, however, was the fact that she'd been treated for a Dalmane overdose after just a couple of days at Dorothea's. Was it self-administered? Or had Dorothea only nearly killed her that first time, succeeding later?

  Vera Faye Martin, another alcoholic, had suffered the vagaries of the street, including being assaulted and raped, suffering a broken jaw and other injuries. Like Fink, this little, hundred-pound woman checked into emergency rooms with dangerously high blood-alcohol levels (0.34 and 0.82). Records also revealed that she had heart problems, including an 85 percent occlusion of one artery, which the defense highlighted as evidence that Martin had suffered a fatal heart attack.

  Dorothy Miller's alcoholism had caused cirrhosis of the liver, and her smoking habit had contributed to cardiopulmonary disease. Additionally, she suffered from seizures and long-term mental problems, but no one seemed to know much about her.

  Betty Palmer was certainly peculiar. Besides having heart problems, she complained about pain in her hip and pelvis area. She apparently had a real affection for pain pills, and a strange affection for doctors. She frequently demanded pelvic exams, and boasted about fictitious affairs with various physicians. One speculated from the witness stand that she suffered f
rom "eroto-mania."

  But of all these aging, ailing folks, James Gallop was the one with the most extraordinary illnesses. He suffered from a brain tumor, causing a "proptosis" or protrusion of his right eye. In January 1987 he underwent a craniotomy. The good news was that the tumor was benign; the bad news was that it was inoperable. Even radiation treatments had no effect on the nasty "schwannoma," and it would continue to grow, pressing against cranial nerves that controlled sight in his right eye and feeling in the right side of his face. But that wasn't all. Gallop had suffered a heart attack, had cardiopulmonary disease, and was about to undergo yet another operation to determine whether a growth in his intestine was cancerous.

  Gallop's hospital records presented an especially prickly problem. One doctor had jotted, "Make last days as comfortable as possible." Apparently, the doctor had believed that Gallop had brain cancer. He was mistaken, but the defense stressed that Gallop's condition was so precarious that even a trained physician believed he might expire at any time.

  And so it went. A parade of doctors marched into court to share information about the medical histories of the deceased, adding volumes of detail to the verbal tug-of-war between the attorneys. O'Mara elicited testimony that these people, if not 100 percent healthy, weren't knocking on death's door, either. Then Clymo and Vlautin hammered home each ailment, getting doctors to admit that, indeed, some of these conditions could have proved deadly.

  The jury learned that each of the seven bodies found in Puente's yard had tested positive for Dalmane, or flurazepam. Still, with the exception of Ruth Munroe—the only one promptly autopsied—there was no way to prove the cause of even one of these deaths.

  The question remained unanswered: Without a cause of death, could O'Mara prove murder?

  Weeks went by and the jurors listened, with varying degrees of attention, to dozens and dozens of impersonal specialists who consulted their notes and talked of this or that victim, whom they couldn't clearly recall.

  One day, the lean and serious Robert Fink, who looked like the Marlboro Man, came to testify about the loss of his brother, Ben. But for the most part, the courtroom was strangely vacant of kin.

  To John O'Mara, this was one of the biggest problems with this case. At least Bert Montoya had been missed. But several of these "shadow people" had passed into the darkness alone and unnoticed. Without family to grieve them, their true identities seemed indistinct, nearly anonymous. It was hard to understand. Sure, some had never married, or had no children. But Dorothy Miller's family, who'd cared enough to get a lawyer and file suit against Peggy Nickerson and others, had never even bothered to contact O'Mara about testifying.

  And Vera Faye Martin had seven children. How had this mother of so many become homeless? Was she so out of touch that she refused offers of normalcy and shelter? Was she such an irascible drunk that her own children had turned her out on the street?

  On March 24, a tall, slender woman appeared briefly on the stand, then disappeared like an apparition. Her name was Edith Elaine Ehnisz, she said, and Vera Martin was her mother. Every year, she testified, her mother would call her on her birthday, October 19. But in 1987, this didn't happen. The last time she'd seen her mother, she said, was "probably 1982."

  That was it. She knew so little about her mother's condition during the final five years of her life that O'Mara didn't question her further.

  Whatever breach had arisen between mother and daughter was none of the court's business. And the defense wanted this potentially sympathetic witness off the stand as soon as possible; they excused Martin's daughter without a single question.

  After six weeks of testimony and over sixty witnesses, Ehnisz was only the second family member to appear. A blink, and the woman's long, dark hair was vanishing out the door, leaving behind the unsettling question of how filial bonds could be so tenuous.

  Throughout weeks and months of testimony, Dorothea Puente enigmatically read documents and passed notes to her attorneys. Jurors sometimes regarded her curiously, but she revealed nothing. At a break, one perplexed juror left muttering, "She never fidgets."

  It was true. During court, the defendant was surprisingly placid. But when court was adjourned and the jury departed, Puente could stretch her legs and relax. She chatted with the bailiff about the scale models of the F Street house, pointing out this or that, complaining that they didn't truly show how many books she had, or the wedding dress she claimed she'd been sewing at the time of her arrest. Sometimes she even asked O'Mara about the pending trials of mutual "acquaintances."

  One day the court reporter, Mary Corbitt, who had come down from Sacramento to work on the trial, was stunned to hear Puente ask, "How is your mother? I used to see her down at Frank's Meats. I always shopped there because they have the best quality."

  Mary Corbitt smiled and mouthed something innocuous, but later she puzzled over this. She knew there was no way that Dorothea Puente could possibly know her mother. And it seemed very strange to her that Puente would concoct such a story.

  Eventually, she recalled that she'd once mentioned something about her mother and that particular butcher shop to the court clerk. Puente must have overheard. And then, apparently she just couldn't help herself. Her reality was fluid, rushing in like the sea to fill any gap.

  CHAPTER41

  Back from a long Easter break, stretched to three weeks by another trial Clymo was handling, the jurors came in on April 26 tanned and smiling. Peter Vlautin, who had run a 10K race the day before, seemed full of pep.

  But not everyone was embraced by the sweet buoyancy of reunion. Dorothea Puente was still recovering from some minor surgery, having had a small abscess removed. Kevin Clymo was understandably fatigued, having squeezed one trial into his "vacation" from another. And John O'Mara, who'd spent the whole time bent over a desk, was volubly regretting that he hadn't brought down an assistant months before.

  Usually, O'Mara knew a case backward and forward after handling the preliminary hearing. But now, lacking that experience, he was feeling overwhelmed. Despite random help from his investigators and whatever miracles the secretaries in Sacramento could fax down, he complained that "there just aren't enough hours in the day to get it all done." Sunk in a swamp of "to do" lists, O'Mara was biting back the sour realization that he needed full-time help, preferably another attorney. But it was office policy to work solo. Besides, now it was too late.

  As usual, O'Mara had been overly optimistic in scheduling. A local hotel brimmed with waiting witnesses, including Dorothea Puente's mysterious friend and confidant, Mervin John McCauley.

  McCauley had no idea how eagerly he was awaited. Whatever anticipations hummed around his name, he had more pressing concerns: He needed a drink. Never mind the hour, never mind the constraints, McCauley was a man with priorities. So, on the morning of April 28, while O'Mara was hoping to question him in court, McCauley was intent on consuming a pint of vodka.

  By the end of the day, McCauley was feeling not the least intimidated by the thought of testifying. In the hallway, he boozily joked, "This is the first time I've been in court when I'm not the defendant!"

  O'Mara ruefully postponed McCauley's testimony until the next day, when some last-minute supervision managed to keep McCauley from downing more than "a couple shots of vodka" before being called to the stand Tuesday morning.

  Thin and gray as a nail, he ambled into court, laying eyes on Dorothea Puente for the first time in four-and-a-half years.

  An unrepentant drunk, McCauley set the tone for his testimony when the court clerk asked him to raise his right hand; he responded, "Why?"

  A bright blue baseball cap remained atop his head for a good hour of testimony, hiding even more of a face already concealed by large glasses and a bristly gray beard. When O'Mara spoke, he turned his good ear toward him, then cantankerously replied with a graveled voice, "I couldn't tell ya," or, “I have no idea." When O'Mara asked him to ID people in photographs, he tossed them aside with hardly a glance.
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  The jury couldn't help but snicker at McCauley's gall, and this seemed to set him at ease. Gradually, he warmed to his role. The cap came off, revealing a high, lined forehead and steel-gray hair slicked back in a straight plunge to his collar. The court reporter noticed that he smelled of alcohol.

  He admitted doing some of the yard work at 1426 F Street. "Mostly, I supervised," he said, confirming the testimony of various ex-cons Puente had hired through work furlough. But, parroting the landlady, McCauley maintained that the concrete covering some of the graves was merely "to keep the weeds down." And he stubbornly denied knowledge of any digging, other than "planting, stuff like that."

  McCauley also suffered convenient memory lapses, particularly when trying to remember any of the victims other than Leona Carpenter and Bert Montoya. Of Leona's disappearance, he said, "It just seemed to be general knowledge that she had to go to a nursing home." And he said that he and Bert used to drink together at Joe's Corner Bar: "He'd put down a beer in three gulps."

  Dismissing all others with a wave of his hand, McCauley said, "People come and people go."

  By this time, McCauley was feeling quite comfortable on the stand, so comfortable that during one break, he called out to the defendant, "Dorothea, how the heck are ya?"

  Defense attorney Vlautin hurried over and whispered some sort of reprimand.

  "However, I am coherent," McCauley retorted loudly. "I'm a lucid alcoholic."

  When the jury was again seated, O'Mara continued. Working from transcripts of multiple police interviews, he got McCauley to admit to his most damning act: digging a hole in front of the house, where Betty Palmer's truncated corpse had been buried beneath a religious shrine.