The Secrets on Chicory Lane

by Raymond Benson

  Shamrock looked at Crane and said, “Your witness.”

  Eddie’s lawyer stood and said, “I have no questions at this time, but the defense will be calling Mr. Jones to the stand at a later time.”

  Wade Jones walked out of the courtroom without looking at Eddie.

  Next, Shamrock brought out the hard, physical evidence of the crime. Through his witnesses’ testimonies, he had already set up Eddie as a devil worshiper who performed scandalous and immoral acts in his home, despite the will of his neighbors to take his “sins” elsewhere. The nitty-gritty facts of the crime were as horrific as expected, and the police officers, medical examiners, and forensics experts laid it all out in excruciating detail. Crime scene photos were shown to the jury—not to the spectators—and many of them turned their heads away in revulsion. At one point, the judge ordered a recess when one juror thought she might throw up. I didn’t want to see the pictures. I’m pretty resilient, but that would have been too upsetting. Just the description of what went down that night was enough to put images in my head that would never go away.

  Although no one can say for certain what the exact sequence of events was, investigators pieced together a scenario that made sense to them and acted as a frame for all the pieces of the puzzle. The lead detective in the case, Lieutenant Seabolt, provided most of the testimony and his opinion of what happened.

  On Christmas Eve, Eddie, Dora, Wade Jones, and Catherine Carter were together in Eddie’s house. The place was decorated in Eddie’s devilish artwork and lit entirely with black candles. It was evident that food and drink had been consumed. Evidence of sexual activity was present in the living room—pillows, sheets, and blankets strewn around the floor and furniture contained traces of bodily fluids. Seabolt figured that the party was a night of debauchery for the participants. The two couples had eaten and drunk and had sex.

  The most damaging evidence was found in the kitchen. Traces of the drug flunitrazepam, otherwise known as Rohypnol or “roofies”—the “date-rape drug”—was found in a bowl. Investigators found an empty bottle of the prescription drug, which is illegal to possess in the United States. The pills had come from Mexico. Eddie had apparently crushed all the pills into a powder and spiked a glass of orange juice. An abundance of the drug was found in Dora’s body.

  After Jones and Carter left, Eddie and Dora moved from the house to the bomb shelter. There, death metal music played on the stereo system. It was unknown what took place prior to the killing. Seabolt suggested that the couple participated in a black mass, a ritual for their Satanic cult. Seeing that the date was Christmas Eve, it was to be a symbolic act of irreverence and blasphemy.

  Crane objected, saying that Seabolt’s statement was prejudicial and merely speculation. The judge, surprisingly, overruled it. The fact that the fallout shelter was painted black and contained a huge inverted pentagram on one wall and other iconography of the Satanist movement originally founded by Anton LaVey went a long way toward supporting Seabolt’s contention. Still, there was no proof that a “Satanic ritual” had taken place. I doubted that the jury would consider that.

  If Dora had ingested the Rohypnol in the house, it would not have taken very long for her to pass out. Seabolt suggested that the couple had immediately moved to the fallout shelter after she had had her juice. Whether there had been a ritual or not, it was fairly clear what happened next. Dora fell unconscious. Autopsy reports were inconclusive on the matter, but the medical examiner testified that she had “most likely” been strangled to death before Eddie took the blades to her.

  He used large butcher knives—very sharp, very strong. Bathrobes, presumably worn by the couple to traverse from the house to the shelter, lay on the floor in a lake of blood. Seabolt suggested that Eddie had removed the robe from the dead victim and then proceeded with the evisceration. Bloody tracks and trails led from the bomb shelter door across the lawn to the side of the house, through the gate, and into the front lawn. Eddie had carried or dragged Dora’s body and the aborted fetus and then used an easel to prop them up, assembling the parts into a Madonna-and-child tableau.

  Once the deed was done, Eddie apparently went back to the bomb shelter, sat cross-legged on the floor, and waited for the police to arrive. Seabolt testified that Eddie never resisted arrest and didn’t say a word.

  When the prosecution rested, I was so shaken and disturbed that I had to go back to my father’s apartment with a bottle of tequila. I had a whole weekend to drown my shock and horror before the defense began its case on Monday.

  23

  The Best Western hotel clock reads 4:22 in the morning. I actually attempt to stop the documentary film that is playing in my brain and at least pretend to get some sleep, but it’s useless. After getting out of bed, going to the bathroom, and staring at the bags under my eyes in the mirror, I curse aloud. I really don’t want to face Eddie at the prison without a night’s sleep, but now it’s unavoidable. I’ll just have to arm myself with a shitload of coffee beforehand. I will certainly crash afterward. I just hope it’s not on the drive back to George Bush International for my flight to Limite, where I’ll attend the park dedication. But I will catch an hour on the plane, I imagine, and surely sleep well tomorrow night. It might have been a better idea to spend another night in Livingston, but I pictured wanting to get out of town as quickly as possible after seeing Eddie. I’ll be all right. It won’t be the first time I’ve pulled an all-nighter, though it’s not a lot of fun at my age.

  Nevertheless, I crawl back in bed and let the images, recordings, and memories float across the screening room in my mind. The end of the movie is almost at hand, so I figure I might as well finish it.

  Mr. Crane launched his defense after the weekend, and I dutifully sat in the courtroom to observe. The demand for seats hadn’t diminished; in fact, it seemed as if even more journalists and curiosity seekers had crowded the halls in an attempt to get inside. They’d come from all over the country. More than one news outlet reported my presence at the trial. There were a couple more interview requests, but I declined all of them.

  Throughout the trial, Eddie never looked at me again. He wouldn’t turn his head to see who might be in the room. He sat at the table, practically comatose, staring straight ahead. Rarely would he lean over and whisper anything to his lawyer; usually, it was Crane who, every now and then, imparted something into Eddie’s ear. Eddie would nod or not respond at all. I wondered if he’d been given a sedative; he seemed to be drugged. At any rate, he appeared very calm throughout the proceedings.

  Mr. Crane’s first witness was Wade Jones, making a repeat appearance.

  After preliminary refresher questions to remind the jury of the man’s relationship to Eddie, Crane quickly got to the point. “Mr. Jones, is it true you attended the monthly ‘services’ at my client’s home, is that correct?”

  “Yes, sir. They were in The Temple.”

  “You are referring to the bomb shelter in the backyard?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Please tell the jury about those services. What was the content? What went on there?”

  Jones provided a detailed description of Eddie’s beliefs regarding atheism and Satanism. The Temple was, of course, inspired by Anton LaVey, and Eddie structured his black masses along the same lines as those of the Church of Satan in San Francisco. The mention of LaVey reminded me of the man’s death in 1997, which I had read about in the news, recalling to my mind Eddie’s fascination with the Satanist and his tenets. Jones went on to describe every blasphemous step of the black mass, which was indeed a wicked parody of a Catholic mass. The jury was beyond shocked.

  “Did you really worship the devil in these services, Mr. Jones?”

  “Not really,” the witness answered. “The devil—Satan—is a symbol. We don’t believe he’s a real entity or deity. For Satanists, the devil merely means liberation.”

  “Liberation from what?”

  “The confines of Christian society. We believe that
man should embrace his carnal and animalistic instincts. It’s natural. It’s human. We believe religion was foisted upon us to keep us in line.”

  “So there were no animal sacrifices, no blood rites, no conjuring up demons from the underworld?”

  Jones laughed. “No. That’s just what everyone thinks Satanism is. They’re wrong.”

  Shamrock objected, saying the witness wasn’t qualified to define what “everyone thinks.” The judge sustained.

  Crane went on. “Very well. Mr. Jones, you testified the other day that you worked for my client. Would you please repeat what you told the jury?

  “I was the IT guy, I guess you could say. I made sure all the technical stuff behind running the business worked. I maintained the website and handled our presence on social networking media.”

  “Social networking media?”

  Back in 2006, social media was a brand-new term. We had MySpace, Twitter had just launched, and Facebook existed only for students—although in a month it would open to the public. Jones gave a thumbnail description of what is now common knowledge for nearly everyone on the planet.

  Crane handed Jones some sheets of paper. “Do you recognize these?”

  The witness nodded. “These are copies of emails that were going around.”

  “Could you please identify the first email?”

  “Yeah, it’s from me to Dora.”

  “What is the date of the email?”

  “December 18, 2005.”

  “That’s about a week prior to the date of the murder, is that correct?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Could you please read the email?”

  “Sure. Uh, ‘Dear Dora. Eddie seems to be getting worse with the anxiety. Today he became unusually belligerent. Is he off his medication? Sorry I have to ask. Signed, Wade.’”

  “Fine,” Crane said. “So you knew my client was on medication for an anxiety disorder and depression?”

  “Yes, sir. The whole inner circle knew.”

  “When you say, ‘inner circle,’ what do you mean?”

  “The core group of The Temple. Eddie, Dora, Catherine, me …” He named a couple of other people as well.

  Crane thanked Jones, took the paper, and submitted it to the court as evidence. “Now, Mr. Jones, please do the same for the second email in your hands.”

  “Uh, it’s dated December 19. It’s from Dora to me. ‘Wade—Eddie and I decided that the drugs the doctors give us are evil. If he doesn’t want to take the medicine, it’s his right not to. I support his decision. However, I agree with you that he is becoming more unstable. He keeps saying my baby is going to be evil. I will try to reason with him.’”

  Crane submitted that missive as evidence and went on. I was starting to get what he was doing—establish that Eddie was mentally off balance at the time of the crime.

  “Mr. Jones, when you and Ms. Carter went to my client’s home on Christmas Eve last year, were you planning to worship the devil?”

  “No, sir.”

  “It was just a party?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Crane paused to consult his notes. “Now, Mr. Jones. What was the defendant like, in general?”

  Jones shrugged. “Most of the time he was fine. Very smart. Very charismatic. He was fun to be around.”

  “Were there other times when he was ‘off his meds,’ as you put it?”

  “Yeah. There was a period a couple of years ago, about a month long, I think it was in the summer of 2004. He went a little nuts and was in that babbling state. Nervous as he—heck. I could see it was torture for him. Eddie did keep his sense of humor, though. He’d say that demons were tormenting him for his past sins.”

  “He thought that was funny?”

  Jones raised his eyebrows. “Yeah.”

  “Did he say what these past sins were?”

  “No. Just that he’d done horrible things. He was in Vietnam, you know. I really don’t know a lot about Eddie’s past.”

  “So, it’s your opinion that the defendant was disturbed by events that took place when he was in the armed services?”

  Shamrock objected, saying that the witness was no expert in psychiatry and also had no knowledge of Eddie’s actions in Vietnam. The judge sustained.

  Crane studied his notes for a moment and then asked, “Mr. Jones, back to Christmas Eve last year, how was the defendant during the party?”

  “He was all right. At least he acted like he was. There was a moment when the two of us were in the kitchen while the two ladies were in the other room. I noticed his hand shaking when he poured some wine. I asked him if he was all right. He said, ‘I’m never all right.’ But after that he seemed fine.”

  “Thank you. No more questions.”

  Shamrock then got up for cross-examination. “Mr. Jones, when you and Ms. Carter went to the party on Christmas Eve, did you notice if the defendant had set up the house in preparation for a party that night?”

  “Uh, yeah. He had put up his artwork, and placed candles all over the house. I’m sure Dora helped him.”

  “What was the food, refreshments, and that sort of thing?”

  “There were a couple of new bottles of tequila and vodka he’d bought. He always kept wine in the house. Food, let’s see, we had turkey and stuffing, broccoli, and squash. We brought the vegetables. Eddie cooked the turkey.”

  “So he had the presence of mind to decorate and prepare a meal for the festivities that night?”

  “I guess so.”

  “No further questions.”

  Uh oh. That plainly obliterated Crane’s contention that Eddie wasn’t of sound mind.

  The defense’s battery of medical experts took the stand next. In opposition to the prosecution’s doctors, three generic psychiatrists spent an entire day testifying. The first psychiatrist spoke about anxiety disorder and depression, claiming that Eddie was definitely suffering from both. Another doctor testified about how Zoloft and clonazepam work and what would happen to a patient if medications were to suddenly cease. Symptoms of withdrawal could cause emotional instability, and he might be a danger to himself or others.

  The third psychiatrist talked about phobias. It was his opinion that Eddie suffered from something called pedophobia and tokophobia. The former referred to an irrational fear of children, especially infants. Someone with pedophobia would become agitated and anxious when around babies, although the phobia is not limited to that age group. The latter referred to a fear of pregnancy and childbirth. People with tokophobia were usually women, but men have also been known to be repulsed by the reproductive process.

  “And you believe Mr. Newcott suffers from these phobias?” Crane asked the doctor.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “What causes phobias like these?”

  “It’s usually due to something that occurred during an individual’s childhood.” The psychiatrist went on to spout a bunch of medical and psychological terms and theories that I’m sure went right over the jury’s heads. I’m not sure I understood it all. But the idea of pedophobia struck me as significant.

  “So you believe that my client’s act of cutting his own child out of the body of the baby’s mother is a result of pedophobia?”

  “I do.”

  There wasn’t much Shamrock could do in his cross-examinations to shake the doctors’ testimonies. It was up to the jury to decide which physicians to believe—the prosecution’s or the defense’s.

  It had taken two whole days to present Eddie’s defense, and I was afraid it was inadequate. Of course, Eddie didn’t take the stand. But what else could Crane have done? He trotted in the doctors and let them have their say. He established there was no devil worshipping component to the crime. It was clear that Eddie had indeed committed it, but what person in his right mind would do what he had done? Was Eddie “crazy” or not? It seemed pretty obvious to me.

  Then, just when I thought the defense was about to rest, Crane called his last witness—none other than former polic
e detective Jim Baxter.

  24

  “State your name for the record.”

  “James Baxter.”

  “You go by ‘Jim’?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Please tell the court what your profession is.”

  “I’m retired. But I was a law enforcement officer in Limite for forty-two years.”

  “And what rank did you hold when you retired?”

  “I was a captain. Prior to that I was a lieutenant, and before that I was a homicide detective. I started out in 1952 as an officer.”

  Crane paused to let that sink in. “Very impressive, Mr. Baxter. Please tell the jury, do you know the defendant, Edward Newcott?”

  “I do.”

  “When did you first meet him?”

  “It was July of 1966. He was eleven years old.”

  “And you have kept in touch with him since then?”

  “Not in quite a while, but I kept tabs on him through the 1980s. After I retired, we never spoke.”

  “Could you please tell the court how you came to meet him?”

  I prepared myself for some painful memories. To be frank, I wasn’t sure I could handle it. It was something I’d managed to block out of my life for years, with the help of the therapy I had gone through in the eighties. But of course, no amount of therapy could cause it to totally go away. Now, here was a reminder of that horrible summer unfolding in front of me. What was going to be the point of Baxter’s testimony? Why was Crane bringing this up?

  “There was a case of a child abduction,” Baxter said. “We questioned Mr. Newcott at the time. He was a neighbor of the victim.”

  “This was here in Limite?”

  “That’s correct. It was the Truman Baby Abduction, as it was called in the newspaper at the time.”

  “It was an infamous case in the history of the city, is that correct?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “Please give us the details.”

  At this point, Shamrock stood and objected. “Your Honor, what is the purpose of this? This has no relevance to today’s case.”