Dance of Death

by Dale Hudson

  “Well, one time I paged her and got a callback, but it wasn’t her. I recognized John’s voice, but I didn’t say anything. I could tell he was always a nutcase. I guess he figured out it was me, because he said ‘hello’ three times and then just went to cussing.”

  “Did you say anything to him?”

  “No, I wasn’t gonna listen to his bullshit over a married woman. I’ll just go and find somebody else.”

  “How long did you actually see Renee?”

  Robert thought a second, then responded, “About seven months.” A lot longer than Frazier did.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  Robert told Beatty the last time he saw Renee was over at her house, probably about a month ago. “I tried to push her off. You know, like ‘I don’t want to see you no more,’ but she wouldn’t get the picture. I even called Brent at Charlotte Mack Truck and just asked him straight-up, ‘Do you know how many people your wife’s sleeping with while you’re at work?’ And he said, ‘I don’t have a clue.’ I told him if he only knew.”

  “Then what happened?” Beatty asked.

  “I didn’t see her for two days and I thought it was over and done with. Then the next day, she pulls in my damn driveway. I couldn’t believe it. I’m like ‘Are you out of your fucking mind?’ She tells me that she was leaving Brent, but, see, she had that Dodge truck she was paying like four hundred thirty a month in payments and a horrendous phone bill. So, I thought the way it was going to work out was she’d find out life wasn’t too sweet on the other side of the fence and go back home to Brent. And when she did, this must have pissed this dude named John off. But now, it’s looking like she stood right over him and watched him pull the trigger.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Release bond hearings for Kimberly Renee Poole and John Boyd Frazier were held until September 11, 1998, in the Horry County Courthouse. In a bizarre incident, the two murder suspects were transported from the jail to the courthouse in the same vehicle.

  “Are you going to testify against me?” John hurriedly asked when the vehicle stopped and the officers stepped outside. Renee shook her head no. She had nothing more to tell the police or the prosecution about him.

  Once inside the courtroom, circuit court judge John Breeden was to decide whether they could post a bond to be released until their trials and set the amount of money that must be put up to guarantee the defendants would appear in court. Breeden also was to consider if either Poole or Frazier was likely to run or be a danger to the community. But during the hearing, requests for both defendants to be released on bond were withdrawn by their attorneys.

  Bill and Agnes Poole were in court. They were glad bond had been withdrawn and celebrated the small victory of justice for their son. It was also their thirty-eighth wedding anniversary, and afterward, they drove to the spot on the beach where Brent had been shot and placed three roses—one for each of their children—on a fence, near where he had died.

  “There are so many hundreds of times I’ve sat and visualized Brent laying there and wonder how long did he suffer?” Agnes said softly to her husband.

  Chief public defender Orrie West, Renee’s attorney, said she did not want to comment on the proceedings. She had taken over the case from Randy Mullins. West had once worked with solicitor Wilson briefly when he was in the Legal Aid office, then followed his footsteps into the public defender’s office. She was a South Carolina native who had graduated from law school and Northwestern University, and had retained her passion for those who needed her help.

  Wilson couldn’t say enough good things about West. “She’s quiet and soft-spoken a little, but she knows how to get at the essence of a question and frame it to get the correct response. And she does it in a nonflamboyant way that can be really treacherous for a witness. She’s so quiet and matter-of-fact that they don’t realize they are giving away the kitchen, and they are giving it away and the sink, and everything, too.”

  West had represented clients in the past who had been charged with murder. She was a fighter and always put an enormous amount of energy into her cases. She knew she was going to have to poke holes in the state’s case and create enough reasonable doubt by proving there was a lack of evidence to convict.

  In order to fortify Wilson’s theory of conspiracy, he had to go after the source itself—Renee Poole. There were no famed forensic experts to testify in this case, nor was there a smoking gun that had led the police to the killer. Wilson would have to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together and show them how easily the evidence fit against Poole and Frazier.

  Wilson also had a lot of respect for Morgan Martin, Frazier’s attorney, who had said he didn’t think the timing was right to ask for Frazier’s bond. “I thought I had reviewed all the evidence,” Martin told the press after the proceedings, “but I learned later that I needed to check additional evidence and documents to maximize the opportunity for granting of bail.”

  Wilson and Martin had squared off against each other many times in their careers. Both had great respect for each other and maintained a close friendship. Wilson was not surprised by Martin’s actions. “Morgan pretends to be a country lawyer, but don’t let him fool you. Behind the drawl and the smile, a lot of wheels are turning.”

  Martin had always credited his success as a top-notch defense attorney to luck, good trial partners and knowing when to try a case and when to make a plea bargain. This included bond hearings as well.

  A month later, Frazier’s attorneys had him back in front of a judge, again to request bond. This time, Judge James Williams set Frazier’s bail at $200,000 and ordered him not to leave South Carolina or contact Brent Poole’s family once he was released.

  The thought of Frazier walking out of jail to freedom upset Brent and Renee’s families. Agnes Poole said she was not only disappointed, but was terrified. “We are afraid. My grandchildren are afraid of him. They said if John Frazier gets out . . . they are afraid he would come back and murder them.”

  Agnes said having had to stand in the courtroom four feet away from the man who had been charged with murdering her son unnerved her and her husband.

  “This was not just a murder,” Bill Poole had told the judge. “It was a well-planned execution and well-orchestrated. Our family is fearful of him coming back. We do not think we could live knowing he was in the community.”

  Frazier was released from jail on Wednesday, October 21, 1998, and moved into a family-owned condo in North Myrtle Beach. Morgan Martin, his attorney, had helped him secure employment with his brother-in-law, who owned a large construction company in Horry County. Before John vacated the J. Reuben Long Detention Center, the guards thought he would be amused to know what his ex-lover Renee had been up to all this time. They showed him a stack of love letters Renee had written another prison inmate she‘d met. The letters revealed the two lovebirds had concocted a feral scheme they thought would help her escape the death penalty. The guy would masturbate into a rubber glove, smuggle it underneath the door to Renee, where she, with a little help from her friends, would attempt to impregnate herself in the shower. The speculation was the state would be more sympathetic toward an expectant mother.

  News the next day of Frazier’s release added to an already upsetting day for Agnes. She told Sun News reporter Lauren Leach that her family was fearful of Frazier’s next move. They had planned to keep their eyes open and not go out at night in case Frazier decided to return to North Carolina, despite the judge’s order.

  Agnes also related to the reporter how she had picked up three rolls of pictures she had developed, not realizing that one roll had been taken several years ago and contained photos of Brent when he was seven or eight. The sight of the pictures was bittersweet.

  “I was thrilled,” she said. “I found the pictures. I sat here and cried. But I believe finding the pictures of my son on the same day Frazier was released is more like a sign than a coincidence.”

  Pictures of Brent were a precious commodit
y indeed. Dee Mishler drove over to Marie Summey’s house to ask for some more photographs of her brother. When Marie told her she did not have the photographs ready, Dee grew angry and began shoving and clawing at her.

  “I hope your daughter rots in jail,” Dee screamed, arms flailing.

  “Don’t you ever come back to my house again,” Marie yelled back.

  “You do the same,” Dee answered.

  Marie filed assault charges against Dee in the magistrate’s court and showed them the scratch marks on her face and neck. Dee said she planned on filing her own charges. It was truly a black day for both families.

  Renee was beginning to believe she would remain in jail forever, until finally it was announced her bond hearing would take place on Tuesday, December 1. Just to make certain Renee was not being treated unfairly by the prosecution, Jack and Marie Summey mortgaged their home and hired Myrtle Beach attorney William Isaac Diggs.

  Diggs had a solid reputation around Horry County as someone who was tough and would not be bullied by the police or prosecution. He was confident Renee would be granted bail.

  “Renee is willing to cooperate,” Diggs told the Sun News. “She wants the killer to go to jail, but the problem is, they won’t work with her at all unless she is willing to plead guilty to murder. And why should she plead guilty to something she didn’t do?” Diggs stated he wanted a trial in January or February. “In this case, I don’t believe they have the evidence, and I don’t believe they will ever prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  During Frazier’s bond hearing in October, Wilson had heard Morgan Martin say Frazier was adamant in the fact he was not guilty. That meant Frazier would be less inclined to plead guilty, but the prosecution had more evidence against Poole anyway. Since she had already confessed to participating with Frazier in a plot to kill her husband, he believed her attorneys would be receptive to a plea bargain. In exchange for Renee’s testimony against John Frazier, the state offered a reduced sentence.

  “A non capital murder conviction in South Carolina carries a sentence of thirty years to life,” Wilson reminded Renee and her attorneys. “And that means life. You are in there until you’re dead.”

  Renee rejected the state’s offer, stating she was not about to confess to something she did not do. The police half-expected Renee would have accepted the plea bargain and a reduced sentence, try to pin it all on John and make him the fall guy. It would have been so easy for her to concoct a new story, claiming that it was all John’s idea and that he had planned it without her knowledge. It wouldn’t be out of character for her.

  But that didn’t happen. Bill Diggs warned Renee’s parents they were in for a fight. The decision not to seek the death penalty against Renee was conditioned upon her full cooperation in terms of testifying against Frazier and pleading guilty to a substantial prison sentence of fifteen to twenty years.

  “It appears that the Poole family is extremely bitter towards Renee,” Diggs wrote to the Summeys. “So much so that they would rather Frazier go free than to see the state enter into a negotiated agreement with Renee wherein she is spared a lengthy prison sentence. Indeed, the Poole family would rather see the opposite: a deal extended to Frazier in exchange for his testimony against Renee. If Renee wants to plead not guilty, the state will seek the death penalty against her.”

  Even though the police and prosecution thought Renee would turn, she surprisingly continued to protect John. They may have had their own special reasons for killing Brent—John to have Renee, and Renee to have Katie, the insurance money, and everything else that Brent had—but she was stubbornly playing hardball by indicating she had no interest in cutting a deal against John. Renee and John were showing more loyalty and more stand-up toughness than originally suspected.

  During Renee’s bond hearing, Ralph Wilson announced he was seeking the death penalty against Renee. Renee grew teary-eyed as she sat in court and watched Wilson hand her attorney a copy of the death penalty notice.

  “Her part was to lure him down to a certain location, knowing beforehand he was going to be killed,” Wilson announced to circuit judge John Breeden. After listening to Wilson’s argument, he denied bond, despite Diggs’s request that it be set at $100,000.

  Diggs told reporters outside the courtroom that the solicitor invoked the death penalty against Renee to pressure her into a deal. Wilson said he intended to seek the death penalty all along. The only problem was, Wilson would not be there when it came up. In November, Wilson had been locked in a dogfight with North Myrtle Beach lawyer Greg Hembree for his third term as prosecutor, and he lost his bid for reelection.

  “I had hoped to leave the call to my successor,” Wilson added. “He takes office January thirteenth. But Diggs had forced my hand by asking a judge to consider releasing Poole on bond. Bond can’t be considered in a death penalty case, so either I had to act or let her out of jail. But I didn’t do it just to keep her in jail.”

  Diggs said that Wilson was just bluffing because he had no real evidence and the tapes that police made of Renee’s interrogation showed that police bullied and threatened her into agreeing with their propositions rather than confessing.

  “It is inappropriate for me or Diggs to discuss the evidence in this case in a public forum prior to trial,” Wilson responded, “but what I will say is that I have heard most of the tapes, too. And I am convinced there is substantial evidence on which to base a conviction and a death penalty.

  “The evidence against Poole is much stronger than what I believe the evidence against Frazier is at this time,” he said. “But that does not mean we will not serve the death penalty on him at some time, either.”

  Outside the courtroom, Bill Poole said he was disappointed Frazier was released on bond and thought his case qualified for the death penalty, along with Renee’s. It had been almost twenty-five weeks since their son had been shot. December 1 was also Katie’s third birthday.

  “What makes it so difficult is the role she played,” Bill said to the press. “She deserves the punishment for the crime she committed, even if that means death.”

  While they talked, Jack Summey walked across the courtyard with Marie and toward the Pooles. “I hope you’re happy!” he shouted at them. “You got what you asked for? Is this Katie’s birthday present?”

  Bill did not respond. Jack was quickly ushered away by officials. As he and Marie were walking away, a reporter stuck a camera in her face and she swung her pocketbook and knocked it away. “Get that goddamned camera out of my face and you get the hell out of my face,” she said angrily.

  Wearing an aqua dress with a floral print, Renee was led out of the courtroom and to a waiting patrol car, handcuffed with chains around her waist. Once alone, and inside the partitioned backseat, she looked down at her lap and bit her lower lip as TV cameras surrounded the car.

  A week later, Renee told Lauren Leach of the Sun News in an exclusive interview, she had expected the death penalty. “I expected the worst,” she said in an interview room at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center in Conway, where she was accompanied by attorney Diggs and C. E. Martin, a private investigator Diggs had hired for the case.

  Poole still insisted she was innocent. Although she admitted having affairs during their marriage, she told Leach she loved Brent, did not kill him and did not plot to have him killed. She said she would rather risk receiving the death sentence by going to trial than plead guilty.

  In a lengthy, front-page feature complete with photo spreads of Renee, Leach wrote that Renee planned on testifying at her trial. “I’m not scared to die as long as my daughter knows her mommy is innocent. I don’t want to die for something I did not do.”

  Renee had said one of the few highlights in her life was talking with Katie on the phone. She was fully aware that Brent’s parents had gained temporary custody of Katie and was brokenhearted she couldn’t be with Katie on her third birthday. She had sent Katie a birthday card, a letter and drawings she had drawn of a clown, a unicorn a
nd a cake.

  “I cried,” Renee said.

  But more than anything, Poole hoped she would be at home with her daughter on Katie’s next birthday. She told Leach that if she was found not guilty, she planned to return home, go to school and study computers. “I’m not going to have negativity run me out of the town I was brought up in,” she said.

  Even if Diggs had filed a motion for a speedy trial before a judge, it would have been impossible to pull together a trial in January or February, most likely early summer. At last, Renee’s and Brent Poole’s families agreed on something in that they both thought it was not fair that Frazier was free while Renee was still in jail. Her parents said that Renee should have been released on bond, too, while Brent’s family wanted them both in jail until their trials started.

  In November, the estate of William Brent Poole filed a civil suit against Kimberly Renee Poole and John Boyd Frazier for the wrongful death of Brent Poole. But it never moved forward and was eventually dropped.

  As the holidays approached, Renee reminisced about her favorite Christmas.

  “It was in 1997, when Katie was two. She was fascinated with the lights and decorations, and got excited about ripping into her presents. I bought Brent several model Mack Trucks from Danbury Mint and Franklin Mint. I ended up spending twenty-five hundred altogether on him. Just the look on his face was enough to make me happy. That was our first Christmas in our new house and our first tree. We went tree shopping and found a six-foot tree that was fat. Brent wanted colored lights, so I let him have his way with that and let him handle decorating the porch and bushes while I decorated the tree. I’d been busy buying Disney collectibles ornaments and a Winnie the Pooh tree topper. I didn’t receive any gifts from Brent that year, but it didn’t matter to me. Just seeing his and Katie’s excitement was my gift.”

  But now, in the worst Christmas of all, she’d lost Brent, missed Katie and was away from her whole family. She was lonely and in a jailhouse, surrounded by people she didn’t know and she didn’t care to know. The jail was filthy and cold; stinky and unsanitary. She had been there long enough to see some people come and go, and it unnerved her to think that these people had freedom but chose to keep coming back to jail. She had no choice but to stay in her private hell hole, but she just wanted to go home. Brent was gone and it hurt. But it also hurt her that Katie was without both of them. Katie was a part of him, and if she could just be with her, it would make things a little easier.