Broken Doll

by Burl Barer

  He then turned the jury’s attention back to DNA. “DNA is used for a lot of things. In this case,” he explained, “you are looking for the source of evidentiary items; you are looking for or trying to find out where saliva or spit comes from, or blood comes from, or semen comes from. You are testing it against known samples. What do we find? The DNA testing can accurately disclose patterns, reflect DNA difference among humans. The testing that is used to free the innocent and identify the guilty. In this case, it points straight as an arrow toward Richard Clark.

  “As for that shirt that Richard had Carol wash—there is no deer blood on that shirt. That’s Roxanne’s blood on that shirt; it’s human blood; it’s hers. Deer blood, my left eye! DNA typing shows the DNA from the bloodstain is consistent with Roxanne’s DNA despite the attempts to destroy the evidence, I submit to you. The diaper, training bra, hair clips, bracelet, anal and vaginal samples from Roxanne’s body, are sent to Greg Frank. Blood is detected on the hair clip, the diaper, and the training bra.”

  The primary issue Doersch repeatedly stressed was premeditation. “When you take this case and tear it down, pare it down to what the issues really are; the issue in this case is premeditation. So, let’s talk about premeditation.”

  He referred jurors to instruction number eleven containing the word’s definition. “Premeditation must involve more than a moment in time, it requires some time, long or short, in which the design to kill is deliberately formed. I submit to you that he knew he was going to kill her when he took her out of there.

  “He knows when he takes her out of that house that he’s got to take some steps to assure that she doesn’t identify him,” reiterated Doersch. “And I submit that he knows when he takes her out of that house, that he is going to kill her. So when he takes her, he is starting, he knows he is going to conceal it. He is covering even then. Not very well, as it turns out. Maybe the amount he had to drink has something to do with that. Maybe he’s just not very smart. The evidence would point to both of those things, and in his actions during the rest of the week. When he kills her, he does that to conceal the foul things that he has done. Why does he kill her? I’m sure the defense can construct some scenario where this somehow becomes accidental wherein the heat of the moment. Don’t you believe it.

  “When he buries her in the dark on East Grand, concealment again. When he visits his aunt Carol, whenever he does that, to change, to shower, to shave, to have his blood-soaked shirt laundered, isn’t that why he gives that to her? Aunt Carol, who, of course, is not mentioned to either the FBI agent or the detectives.”

  Then, taking a different tact, the prosecutor said, “But suppose I’m wrong, suppose he didn’t know he was going to kill her when he took her out of there?” Doersch then approached the definition of premeditation within the context of the fatal stabbing.

  “He has got to make a choice in there somewhere to keep on stabbing her, and that’s just what he does. And that is premeditation. Whether that is some sort of conscious decision, verbally assembled in his head—‘I have stabbed her and she must die, and so I must stab her some more’—or whether it’s just some ‘I’ve got to keep going, I’ve got to finish this.’ Whatever the analysis is, it involves the taking of a human life and we have more than just a moment in time, we have premeditation.

  “Look at her hands,” pleaded Doersch. “Not only will blood tell, Roxanne’s blood, but Roxanne’s wounds speak to you. And what they will tell you is they took time to kill her, time in which a mind could be changed, and a time in which a choice was made to keep going. This is not a case where, in the heat of events, strong hands break her neck or crush her neck bone, and she dies. This is not Of Mice and Men, where Lenny squeezes just a little too hard without intent and someone dies. This is premeditation.”

  After the prosecutor engraved his perspective of premeditation on the jury’s collective conscience, he turned to the concept of “aggravating factors.”

  “Those three aggravating factors are here for your consideration. You may find none. You may find one, two, or all three. I think we know, and I submit to you that you do know, that the reason Roxanne was killed was to conceal the commission of this crime. And that doesn’t mean forever, that means for whatever time, in this case, a week, or to conceal the identity of any person committing the crime, to wit, Richard Clark.

  “He killed her because she can talk, and that’s what he does. Premeditation for this reason, for this motive, in this case.

  “I want to briefly cover the elements, not because I think these things aren’t important,” said Doersch, “but because they are largely self-evident. Let’s start with this, rape in the first degree. Regardless of whether penetration is achieved in the vaginal area or the anus or both, we have rape in the first degree.

  “It is clearly forcible,” he said, and a few jurors perceptibly winced. “The pants show that—the disruption of the hymen. Recall the doctor going back and checking, checked the sample, it was ruptured, it wasn’t just absent. The damage to her inside, you heard that in length. I am not going to show that to you again. You can look at it, take it in the jury room and look at it. You heard what kidnap in the first degree [is]. Instruction fourteen, the defendant abducts Roxanne Doll with the intent to inflict bodily injury on her, with the intent to rape her. He sure did.

  “He took her out,” the prosecutor stated flatly. “She is a seven-year-old. She is a small child. He has to know what will happen, no matter what he does, if he rapes her. And that’s if you ignore the fact that he took her out of there to kill her eventually. You know that, from the evidence, the intent to inflict bodily injury on her. What’s that mean? Physical pain or injury, illness or impairment of physical condition.”

  Doersch dealt with abduction, clearly defining the word in the context of this horrid crime. “Abducting means restraining a person by secreting or holding that person in a place where that person is not likely to be found, in a van, or some other place, on a hillside in Everett.

  “And now,” he continued, “murder in the first degree. On or about the thirty-first day of March 1995, or the first day of April 1995, the defendant stabbed Roxanne Doll. How do we know that? She has been stabbed to death. His blood is on her shirt. He lies by omission; he lies by affirmation to the cops, to the FBI. The intent to cause the death is premeditated. I think we talked about that enough. How could it be anything but, unless a fantastic scenario was created?”

  Chapter 16

  Richard Clark’s defense team was not about to create a fantastic scenario; they were about to push a boulder up a hill. In essence, the defense was fighting two battles at once. While defending the law, and the presumption of innocence that is so imperative to American justice, the defense had to also argue that even if their client did commit these acts, they were not premeditated.

  Clark’s primary defense was alibi. Through cross-examination of the state’s witnesses, Clark sought to establish that (a) Doll-Iffrig saw Roxanne in bed after midnight on April 1, and (b) Clark was seen at so many different locations between 9:30 P.M. on March 31 and 1:00 A.M. on April 1 that he did not have time to commit the crime. The alternative theory was that the evidence presented by the prosecution was insufficient to establish premeditation.

  “Let me say a few things before I get started,” said defense attorney William Jaquette. He read his well-crafted closing argument instead of speaking from notes. “I apologize for not being more extemporaneous in this argument when it appears that I’m reading this. The reason is because I want to be precise in what I say, and I want to come to the point.

  “I want to present to you the most thoughtful closing argument that I can. A trial such as this should be a search for truth, an attempt to secure justice under the law. We are advocates for Mr. Clark,” he said, “and have attempted to vigorously represent him and present all the evidence and the facts to you that we believe are helpful in this case. The court has told that you are the judges of the facts.

&n
bsp; “No one can tell you, individually or collectively, what to think or how to vote in this case,” he reminded the jury, “because it is your conscience and impartial application of the law that will secure justice in a case such as this. Emotions run high, even two years after Roxanne’s death. Remember, the law does not favor either a guilty or not guilty verdict.”

  Gail Doll’s original statement to police that Roxanne was in bed when she returned from the theater should, Jaquette insisted, be taken as an unalterable fact because she was sober, and it makes sense that she would check on her children’s safety in a smoke-filled house.

  Richard Clark could not have kidnapped Roxanne Doll, insisted Jaquette, because Gail returned home at 12:05 and Richard was still at his aunt Carol’s house until 12:45—a testimony that remained unchallenged.

  None of the alibi witnesses, argued Jaquette, had a motive to help Richard Clark. All of them were deeply affected by the kidnapping, and none of them were strong advocates for Clark once he was charged with the crime, including his own family.

  The defense then countered the prosecution’s assertion that Clark’s frantic movements that night were indicative of him searching for an alibi. The best way to establish an alibi, Jaquette told the jury, is to go to one place and stay there so you have witnesses. That is how one establishes an alibi, and preferably with people who are sober. Traveling from place to place in purposed search of alibi simply didn’t make sense.

  The most important aspect of Clark’s alibi, according to Jaquette, was the information obtained by police investigators on the whereabouts of Richard Clark on the night of March 31st. None of the witnesses changed their version of events from their first statements made two years previous. The witnesses who made statements about the whereabouts of Richard Clark on that night did not know what facts would be helpful to him, or what facts would incriminate him. “They told the truth,” said Jaquette. If what they said was true, he told the jury, Richard Clark could not have committed the crime.

  The prosecution argued that Carol Clark was lying about the time Richard was home between 12:05 and 12:45, but Jaquette noted that all the other evidence of Richard’s whereabouts that night was consistent with her testimony. More importantly, the defense pointed out, if she were lying about the time, why would she later call police and turn over some of the most damaging evidence in the case, the bloody shirt?

  “She was not helping Richard when she turned over the shirt,” said Jaquette, “and she did not lie for him when she told police where he was that night.”

  The erudite defense attorney then showed the jury a large illustration demonstrating what he termed the “consistency of the witnesses’ time line statements.” On the left side of the chart was the time; the middle showed location with the time it would take to move from location to location, and the far right indicated the witness who testified to this timeline. Jaquette, in painstaking detail, did his utmost to demonstrate that the times were not only accurate, but precluded that Richard Clark could not have committed the crime.

  “I want to break the time period that night into two different parts,” said Jaquette. “First, before midnight, and second, after midnight.”

  Defense attorney Jaquette proceeded to demonstrate that, according to his interpretation of events, Clark could not have committed the crime after midnight. “Richard is placed at his aunt Carol’s at twelve-oh-five, and Gail Doll arrived home about twelve-oh-five. If Gail Doll arrived at home at midnight and saw two heads in the bed, Richard Clark could not have abducted Roxanne Doll, because we know where he was after midnight until six-thirty in the morning.”

  This same timeline, argued Jaquette, demonstrated the improbability of Richard Clark abducting Roxanne Doll prior to 12:05. There was, according to the defense, no time or opportunity for their client to abduct, rape, murder, and discard the body of Roxanne Doll.

  Time was also significant in the defense’s argument against premeditation. “The law requires some time,” stated Jaquette, “long or short, in which a design to kill is deliberately formed.”

  The general thrust of the prosecution’s argument was that Roxanne Doll was kidnapped for the purpose of rape and the abductor knew she would reveal the crime, and therefore she was killed. This indicated deliberation from the very outset to take her life—that the murder was conceived as part of the plan from the outset. The defense, however, argued that premeditation needs to be of sufficient length that there is doubt that it was of a nature that justifies a finding of first degree murder.

  “The known facts of the death of Roxanne Doll,” said Jaquette, “do not prove that her death was premeditated.”

  While the prosecution would argue that the time it took to inflict the wounds constituted sufficient premeditation to constitute first degree murder, the defense insisted that “intent to kill is not the same as premeditation.”

  The intent to kill, acted upon without premeditation, is the definition of second-degree murder. Even if the jury determined that Clark was responsible for the three crimes of kidnapping, rape, and murder, they could find him guilty of second-degree murder. Should they reach that conclusion, Richard Clark would not face the death penalty.

  “You can not infer from the facts proven to you that the killing was premeditated,” insisted the attorney. “The prosecution may, of course, claim that Mr. Clark should not benefit from having committed a crime, which he can conceal, or for which his whereabouts were unknown. That does not eliminate the prosecution’s burden of proving all the necessary elements of the crime.”

  Contemplating the defense’s argument years later, investigative crime journalist Jeff Reynolds found the presentation oddly compelling. “William Jaquette insisted that Clark didn’t do it, and simultaneously argued that Clark didn’t do it with premeditation. I must admire him for covering every possible angle to give his client the best defense, but the subtext was ‘Let’s not confuse the fact that my client is probably guilty as hell with the sanctity of the law.’”

  Jurors were reminded that Clark was intoxicated on both alcohol and methamphetamines, and that he consumed as much as Jimmy Miller, possibly more. He drank heavily prior to picking up Miller, and Jimmy Miller blacked out at four or five in the aftemoon. Tim Iffrig, Jaquette pointed out, was also intoxicated.

  Hence, Jaquette reasoned, many “facts” of the case remained unclear. Not knowing when or where, or under what exact circumstances Roxanne Doll met her end, Jaquette told the jury, made premeditation impossible to prove.

  “I apologize for all the time I have taken and let me make a few remarks before I close,” he said. “Richard Clark was not trying to get Elza Clark to lie for him about deer blood. We have uncontradicted evidence that there was deer blood in Toni Clark’s house. We have uncontradicted evidence that there was deer blood in Richard Clark’s van. We don’t have any proof that it was spilled, but it certainly was there. So when Richard Clark told Elza to tell the police, ‘If there is any blood found in my van, it was from the deer,’ what he was telling was the truth. And what happened was Elza Clark was so concerned about being arrested for poaching, he could not bring himself to back up Richard’s story, which was true.

  “Richard Clark never asked Vicki Smith to lie for him,” asserted the defense. “He asked her if she told the police that she was with him that night and she almost indignantly replied no. And the prosecution suggests, well, with someone for a long period of time. Well, what Richard was really asking her, when she had seen the police, that she had seen Richard that night.”

  Tim Iffrig found these explanations astonishingly farfetched. “Did he really think the jury was gonna buy that? I mean, c’mon. The guy was doing his job, but man—that was really stretching it.”

  The jury wasn’t buying it. In the words of one wag, they were not even renting it or taking it for a test drive. Jaquette did everything within his oratory powers to raise reasonable doubt in jurors’ minds. Three quick weeks after it began, the trial phase was over.<
br />
  “Counsel,” said Judge Thorpe, “we have been advised that the jury has reached a verdict. Are there any preliminary matters before we bring in the jury?”

  “No, sir,” replied both Ron Doersch and Errol Scott.

  “Very well. While we are doing that, I want to compliment counsel on the good job they did in trying this case. I’ve had a lot of comments about how quickly the trial went. And on reflection, I attribute that to the degree of work, preparation, anticipation, and talent of the attorneys who are involved in it. And you are all to be commended for trying the case very well and very efficiently.”

  Judge Thorpe then turned toward the defendant. “And Mr. Clark, I can assure you that you had the best legal talent that I’ve seen defending you.”

  Whether or not Richard Mathew Clark appreciated Jaquette and Scott’s efforts on his behalf remains unknown; the verdict, however, was widely publicized.

  Once the jury was seated, Judge Thorpe addressed the foreperson. “Sir, has the jury reached a verdict?”

  Richard Mathew Clark was convicted of aggravated first degree murder for the stabbing and strangulation death of seven-year-old Roxanne Doll. The aggravating circumstances were that the murder was committed: (1) in the course of or furtherance of Kidnapping in the First Degree and Rape in the First Degree, and (2) to conceal the identity of the person committing the crime.

  There was no delay between the jury’s verdict and the beginning of the penalty phase. It was now a life or death battle.