Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  The six jurors and two alternates watched without expression.

  Hebert set the three figures up, side by side, as he repeated his mantra: “They came to her. They came to her.” He told the jurors that they were in the same position his client had been in that night, facing three attackers, four to five feet away. The difference was that in real life it was dark and the three girls were in rapid motion, coming at Rachel Wade. Hebert submitted that all three attackers saw Rachel’s knife. If Jilica and Janet saw the knife, Sarah must have, too.

  “There is no doubt that this is a tragic situation. Do not let a second tragedy occur here today,” he said. They should apply the facts to the law, and see that justice was carried out. “Rachel Wade had a right to defend herself. Nothing we say or do can ever bring Sarah back, but you, you can take the evidence and the facts and see to it that justice is carried out. She had the right to be there and to defend herself, and we ask that you find her not guilty, as the evidence and the law requires. Thank you for your attention.”

  Jay Hebert solemnly removed the cardboard silhouettes.

  Rachel Wade wept.

  “Thank you, Mr. Hebert,” Judge Bulone said. “Rebuttal?”

  Lisset Hanewicz stood and told the jury that she would be addressing some of the things the defense had just said in their closing argument. “The theme was ‘they came to her.’ Because someone decides to confront someone else—verbal confrontation, let’s say it would have been a fistfight, a catfight—that does not mean that you can bring a knife to the fight.”

  Hanewicz noted that Hebert had a lot to say about the testimony of Ashley Lovelady and Joshua Camacho, interesting because they weren’t even there when Sarah Ludemann was stabbed to death. When the defense attorney said that if Ashley Lovelady hadn’t said anything, we wouldn’t be here, he was playing a game with the jury. He was trying to shift blame off his client. When Hebert called Joshua “a cheater,” it was just a diversion. The prosecutor scoffed at the notion that the defense attorney spoke about Sarah’s vehicle as if it was a deadly weapon. The fact was, Sarah did not run over anybody with her van. She hit the brakes and stopped.

  Regarding Jilica’s 911 call, she might have said that she didn’t see the stabbing, but she saw Rachel with the knife before and after the stabbing; so understanding that Rachel had done the stabbing wasn’t much of a leap. Contrast that to Rachel’s testimony. Rachel said she didn’t even remember the stabbing. If that was true, how did she even know if she acted in self-defense? A three-on-one encounter, and in Rachel’s mind it was a beat down.

  “She called it her safe house, two guys and a knife. How was that three on one?” Hanewicz said. “Deadly force would only have been justified if Rachel was in fear of imminent death. Imminent death. Or great bodily harm. Reasonably believed. That was the standard.”

  Hanewicz introduced a new topic. She quoted the defendant: “‘I didn’t mean to murder her.’” Rachel had said that on various occasions, and now the prosecutor repeated the sentence two more times.

  Rachel’s intent to kill was not required with a second-degree murder charge. She doesn’t have to intend to murder her. All Rachel had to do was demonstrate a depraved mind, without regard for human life. Did she do it with ill will, or hatred, or spite, or with evil intent? Hanewicz said it was pretty clear she did.

  Why hadn’t the prosecution called Javier Laboy? Hebert had made an issue of it. The reason was Javier’s own lies had destroyed his credibility. The jury “couldn’t believe a word” he said. That was why.

  Rachel had appeared to drift off into her own world as Hanewicz spoke. But she snapped out of it when Hanewicz questioned Javier’s credibility and glared at the prosecutor.

  Hanewicz sounded incredulous as she noted how the defense had deemphasized Rachel and Javier’s relationship. A witness to the murder was now engaged, after the murder, to the defendant. That was more than relevant. Hebert had made a fuss over the discrepancy in which direction the cars were facing when Ashley told Sarah where Rachel was. That was irrelevant.

  She had the jury wearing its common-sense cap, so she dispensed some issues she wanted considered:

  After Rachel twice plunged the knife into Sarah, why did she walk away like she didn’t care? What did Rachel say, according to Jilica and Janet’s testimony? “I’m done.” No one had to pull her away. She walked away on her own, acting as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  “And why? Because she’d accomplished her objective,” Hanewicz said.

  Jilica and Janet were not the only two to comment on Rachel’s demeanor. The police had done so as well. Sergeant Trehy couldn’t believe Rachel’s lack of emotion. Rachel wasn’t in shock. She wasn’t numb. She was satisfied with what she’d done. It showed malice.

  Another fact: Rachel lied. She told the detective the whole story, but she left out the knife. One of Hanewicz’s first questions of Rachel had been: did she lie to the detective? She said no. Hanewicz was astonished. Another lie. Under oath!

  How was Rachel holding the knife? Rachel gave three versions of that story. At first she said she was holding the knife at her side. Later she said that she was holding the knife in front of her. On a third occasion, she said she was holding the knife so that the blade was away from Sarah. If you counted the story in which she didn’t mention the knife at all, she’d given four different versions of events.

  Once, Rachel said she was just hitting her and somehow she stabbed her. In another version, she said she didn’t remember the stabbing. Then there was the version that had emerged for the first time the day before, that she was in fear of a gun—a gun that might have been brought to the fight by Sarah because Joshua had a gun and she knew about it. Bringing the gun into it—clearly Hebert’s idea—was the last desperate attempt to convince everyone that she was acting in self-defense.

  Hanewicz addressed the stabbing itself. That was some puncture wound. The worst some cops had ever seen. It showed anger. Rage. Rachel stabbed toward Sarah’s chest. It wasn’t one stab. It was two. Rachel said that Sarah was punching her and she was flailing her arms. That scenario didn’t jibe with the facts, however. Sarah wasn’t slashed. She was stabbed.

  The defense had asked what would have happened if Rachel had not brought a knife to the fight. Now the prosecution invited the jury to do the same thing. Maybe if there had been no knife, there wouldn’t have been a fight at all. Maybe, without the knife, it was just a verbal argument. More “talking smack.” Maybe there would have been a fight, which would have ended—as did the great majority of fights—without either side receiving a serious injury. Each might have landed a couple of blows, and then friends would have gotten in there to break it up.

  “We know one thing for sure,” Hanewicz said. “If Rachel had not brought a knife that night, Sarah would be alive, and we would not be here. Thank you.”

  Judge Bulone said, “Thank you, Ms. Hanewicz.” He told the jurors that in a few moments, a bailiff would escort them to the jury room and they would begin deliberation. First thing, they were to elect a foreperson to lead the deliberation as a chairperson leads a meeting. Six jurors would decide the verdict. He specifically told them who the alternates were. He thanked the alternates and assured them that their time had not been wasted. The service they’d performed for the justice system was every bit as important as that of the jurors who got to deliberate. They were insurance against a mistrial, and mistrials cost taxpayers big-time bucks.

  If the jurors had any questions during deliberation, they were to write them down and give them to the bailiff. If possible, the court would answer them. All they had to do was knock on the jury room door. There would be a bailiff posted outside that door at all times. The same was true when they reached a verdict. If deliberations took time—and it was okay if they did—and the jurors had to be sent home for the night, it was important for them to remember that they were only to deliberate while in the jury room.

  “Any questions?” Judge Bulone asked. No
hands were raised.

  The jurors filed out of the courtroom.

  Moments later, Rachel Wade was escorted out by a guard.

  The trial had been unusual more for what it didn’t include than what it included. The jurors had been given almost no information about the victim. The state had not bothered to introduce biographical info regarding Sarah Ludemann to demonstrate the young life full of promise that had been lost, and the only photos the jury saw of the victim were those taken during the autopsy.

  Chapter 13

  VERDICT

  The jury was less than a half hour into deliberation, and Jay Hebert was doing interviews with the media, explaining that the most difficult thing about this case, as far as he was concerned, was the age of his client. Rachel, he said, was “flat-out scared.” He’d given her a hug there at the end and he had felt her trembling. Still, he believed that she retained hope and was pleased and satisfied with the defense she’d received. Rachel was “devastated” by Sarah’s death and there was nothing she wanted more than to be able to turn back time so she could walk away from all of this, and Sarah would still be alive.

  If Rachel was acquitted, she was going to go someplace and make a fresh start of her life. Although, he noted, the courtroom was filled with her friends and family, so she had a lot to stay for as well. “There are a lot of people who care about that little girl,” Hebert said. She’d had more than thirty supporters in the courtroom for each day of the trial.

  Asked if he was worried the jury might turn on him because his self-defense scenario cast guilt upon the victim, Hebert fell back upon his “this is a terrible tragedy” theme. No good guys, no bad guys. Just kids being kids, and now one of them was dead. It was simply his job to humbly get Rachel’s story out so the jury could make a fair decision.

  During deliberation no one moved too far from the courtroom. Though the courtroom was empty and locked, youthful spectators remained in the wings for fear they would miss the verdict. According to courtroom reporter Beth Karas, a correspondent for the In Session TV program, the hallway outside the courtroom “sounded like a high-school cafeteria.”

  After a little longer than two and a half hours of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict. The courtroom was unlocked and the public gallery promptly filled. Rachel’s friends and family were on one side; Sarah’s supporters on the other.

  Judge Joseph Bulone said, “Has the jury reached a verdict?”

  The bailiff replied, “They have, Your Honor.”

  The judge addressed the packed room, noting that spectators varied from the curiosity seekers to the emotionally involved. He urged everyone to maintain their composure. “I have not witnessed any inappropriate behavior at all by any of the spectators in this courtroom. And we need to keep it that way,” he said. “Okay, let’s go ahead and bring the jury in.”

  The panel solemnly filed in.

  Judge Bulone asked the jury’s foreperson, who was male, to confirm that a verdict had been reached. Then the jury instructed him to hand the jury form to the bailiff, who, in turn, handed the sheet of paper to the clerk.

  The judge said: “If the defense will please rise—and will Madame Clerk please publish the verdict.”

  Rachel Wade and her lawyers, one on either side, rose to their feet. Jay Hebert stood close but did not lift an arm around his client to offer support.

  Madame Clerk read the case number and said, “State of Florida versus Rachel Wade, murder in the second degree, we the jury find the defendant guilty of second-degree murder as charged, so say we all on this date July 23, 2010.”

  The judge’s warnings about audible reactions to the verdict had accomplished nothing—at least not on the defense side. Many of Rachel’s friends immediately burst into tears, but Rachel herself crumbled slowly. Perhaps she thought she’d misheard at first. She bowed her head and sobbed. Hebert still did not put his arm around her, but he did pat her on the back a couple of times. She eventually sat down and put her hand over her mouth.

  Rachel’s mother buried her face in her husband’s chest, and he held her as she convulsed with grief. Rachel had been a problem for them as a teenager, the reason she had gotten her own apartment at such a young age, but none of that pain compared with this.

  There were no tears on Sarah Ludemann’s side, but the celebration was muted.

  “Your job is not through,” Judge Bulone told the jury. They had a choice: be escorted immediately to the parking lot and drive home, or return to the courtroom and talk to anyone they liked.

  The media was going to be in this room as well. If they wanted to speak to them, they could. They didn’t have to. They had the right to be silent or talk. Their choice. Each would receive a Certificate of Appreciation. Judge Bulone urged them all to have a good weekend.

  “Try to stay dry. I think it’s raining pretty hard right now,” Judge Bulone said.

  Rivulets of tears rolled down Rachel Wade’s cheeks, faster than she could wipe them away. Still, she wasn’t crying as hard as her mother, who continued to shudder, face buried in Barry’s chest.

  The judge scheduled the sentencing for 1:30 P.M. on September 3. That concluded the day’s courtroom activities. Only then did Jay Hebert put an arm around his client’s shoulders and whisper something in her ear.

  The moment of comfort was short-lived. An officer escorted Rachel Wade from the courtroom. She remained in the custody of the Pinellas County Jail, which was right behind the courthouse.

  Although the minimum sentence for second-degree murder in Florida was twenty and a half years, Judge Bulone could lessen that stretch if he found three mitigating factors in place: Rachel felt remorse, this was an isolated incident, and she had no criminal history.

  The court already knew Rachel’s previous most serious offense was shoplifting. The first two, however, were judgment calls.

  Chapter 14

  AFTERMATH

  Within minutes of the verdict, Jay Hebert was in front of microphones again: “I am somewhat shocked. Especially as quick as this verdict was. I didn’t think it would be a second-degree murder charge. I respect it, but that wasn’t what I expected.”

  Although the prosecution had asked Sarah’s parents not to make a statement to the press until after the sentencing, Charlie and Gay Ludemann did speak briefly.

  “It’s a tragedy for both sides,” Charlie said. “That’s all I have to say.”

  Gay added, “My husband said it. Justice has been served.”

  Rachel Wade’s friends remained after others had left. The press was not allowed to photograph them, and they were escorted out of the courthouse through a separate exit.

  Sarah’s friends found small solace in the fact that Sarah herself provided the evidence that led to her killer’s conviction: the voice mails of a nasty Rachel Wade making threats.

  Rachel’s defense was based on the premise that she was afraid of Sarah Ludemann, but that was hard to believe after listening to the aggressive and bullying tone she used on those voice mails.

  How different the case might have been if those voice mails had been erased.

  Rachel’s case might also have been boosted, at least a little, if portions of written police reports stemming from earlier incidents had been allowed into evidence, but they constituted hearsay, Judge Bulone ruled. Read those police reports in front of the jury and there was a much better chance of a compromise verdict, manslaughter. They might have established that Sarah was harassing Rachel.

  But the mitigating nature of those documents was limited. Sarah never mentioned weapons. The worst incident, the one involving a Taco Bell parking lot, included Sarah’s friend attacking the car of Rachel’s roommate with Silly String. One could easily imagine Lisset Hanewicz making fun of a girl who brought a knife to a fight because she was afraid of Silly String.

  Another factor had to be that if one police report was allowed into evidence, they all would have to come in. Hebert didn’t want the jury hearing that his client had “threatened to sl
it [Erin Slothower’s] throat,” or that both Slothower and Ludemann were afraid of Wade.

  The prosecution, on the other hand, would not want the jury to hear that Joshua Camacho told police that “Ludemann was just trying to antagonize Wade into a fight.”

  Although it was true that insults and threats were hurled in both directions, the pattern seemed to be that Wade’s threats were always more violent, intense, and vicious.

  On the Monday after the verdict, Jay Hebert said everyone in his camp was still in shock. He’d seen Rachel that morning and “all of this” was just starting to sink in. Rachel Wade was under psychiatric observation over the weekend, but not because of any specific thing she did or said, but because of an abundance of caution by the sheriff’s office and the jail.

  Hebert said, “They felt it was in her best interests to be monitored. She has since been returned to her own cell. I think she is doing remarkably well under the circumstances.”

  He criticized the composition of the jury. They were a mixed group: a couple of teachers, a couple in the marina business. His complaint was not so much with the jury as with the jury pool from which they were plucked. No young people—those who would be most apt to understand this case’s language and nuances, most apt to understand what his client was going through. Methods of youthful communication, high-tech stuff, were a key point in the case. A youthful jury might have better understood how young people “talk smack.”

  Hebert said he “mock trialed” the case with both older and younger jurors, and the reactions to Rachel Wade’s voice mails were very different. “We talk like this,” the younger mock jurors had said. Hebert thought the underrepresentation of young adults in Pinellas County jury pools should be corrected.