Dance of Death

by Dale Hudson

  Diggs confessed he had been frustrated and in a bad mood last night when the judge ruled against him. He told the jurors that he had been mad at the prosecutors, the judge, and Detective King, but had apologized to everyone. Diggs’s summation sounded fragmented and choppy, and he wasn’t as sure of his words as Humphries had been. He strolled back and forth from his notes and fumbled awkwardly with his glasses, nervously putting them on, then taking them off again. His voice was weak and he seemed tired.

  “I was thinking, ‘this whole case is just in a mess,’ and I was trying to put my finger on why it is so, and I think that it’s so in this situation simply because of the sheer volume and amount of deception and lying that went on in this case by the prosecution in the interview, when Renee was being interviewed. . . .”

  Diggs wasn’t through with the detectives quite yet. He stepped away from his notes at the lectern and told the jurors how he thought the greatest fault was the detectives’ interview techniques and how inappropriate he believed they truly were. “And the state failed, for whatever reasons, to correct that in their case. In some respects, that’s on trial. I’m not condemning it in every case, but in this case, it’s inappropriate, I submit, because it was done to her. Based on the deceit and the deception and the lack of physical evidence in this case connecting John Frazier to the murder, Renee is innocent. She carved out an admission that was designed to save her child and because she had ineffective counsel in Mr. Leckowitz.”

  Diggs reminded the jury of his expert, Dr. Tony Albiniak, who had singled out two dozen instances where she had been coerced into a confession. “She had been pushed into a corner and had no option available to her either to extricate herself from that very unnerving situation in the middle of the night with police detectives hovering around her, this twenty-one-year-old little girl, who turned twenty-three this week, she had no method or no means of getting out of that situation other than telling them what they wanted to say or wanted her to say. And, secondly, she had no way that was presented to her; she had no option. If she wanted to save her relationship with her child, she had no option except to tell them what they wanted to hear and get out of there.”

  Having disposed of this matter, Diggs then listed—in a “let’s chase a few rabbits” fashion—those things he believed were known and unknown in the case. He addressed each of these issues and attempted to provide an explanation. The list also included Renee’s problematic demeanor.

  “She was crying. And she was physically upset. Emotionally upset, physically sick. According to the testimony prior to Detective Altman’s arrival on the scene when she was down at the police station.”

  Diggs wanted the jury to believe the police had railroaded Renee into a confession. Then he attacked head-on the lesion that had infected Renee’s defense throughout the entire case.

  “Let’s talk about Frazier and let’s be done with it, okay? Because now the issue at hand is Renee, not Frazier, and that’s another thing. Her conviction is superfluous to justice being done in this case because convicting or acquitting her, either way, Brent Poole’s murderer is still out there on the street. We know that. Why are we here? Why isn’t Frazier on trial? Have you thought about that during the course of this trial? I’ll tell you why. One reason that might come to your mind is they don’t have any evidence. I don’t think there could be a louder admission than that by the prosecution than this trial, and I think—I would submit that those blinders need to come off the prosecution and they need to solve this case.”

  Diggs devoted the rest of his final argument to refuting Renee’s “confession” and the physical evidence in the case.

  “Justice in this case would require a complete acquittal of Renee on both of these charges, okay?” Diggs summed it up for the jury. “I would submit there’s not any evidence at all. Without the use of her statement, there’s no evidence to convict her of either offense. This case and the law cries out for an acquittal. This family cannot—cannot—under any circumstances receive justice today. That’s gonna have to come when the trial is had for the murderer of their son.”

  Diggs paused briefly, then gave the jurors a most intense look.

  “. . . His Honor charged you a few minutes ago that mere presence at the crime scene—Renee was there; she was there. Over and over in her interview, she insisted, ‘I didn’t know it was gonna happen,’ but she was there when it did, and His Honor has already instructed you that’s not guilt; that’s not evidence of guilt—it doesn’t make her guilty in the eyes of the law. It doesn’t make her guilty. Even—he said something even beyond that. Even knowledge that this was gonna happen doesn’t make her guilty, you know, and that’s not sufficient to convict her.”

  Solicitor Greg Hembree didn’t mince any words with the jury in his opening statement of his closing arguments. “For the defense to suggest in its closing remarks that the conviction of Kimberly Renee Poole is superfluous, is insignificant to them, to the Poole family, it’s offensive. This was a cold-blooded, premeditated, diabolical murder of their son and their brother.”

  With lots of dramatic flair and enthusiasm, Hembree told the jury this case had a lot of evidence. Using the three Styrofoam charts like a college professor would to help keep his summation organized, he assured the jurors, “There are a lot of exhibits. You’ve heard from a lot of witnesses, but when you boil it down, the case is actually quite straightforward. The motive is clear, the means is clear, the opportunity is clear, and the steps undertaken to cover the crime is clear. I ask you to do one thing, to use your good judgment and common sense to evaluate this evidence and render a verdict that speaks the truth.”

  The evidence supported a conviction, Hembree assured the jurors, as he reminded them of the facts from the beginning to the end of this case. He scoffed at the defense’s suggestion of no motive.

  “Several weeks before May first, defendant and John Boyd Frazier make a plan. They’re gonna move in together. They’re gonna set up housekeeping. She’s gonna leave her husband for John Boyd Frazier, and she didn’t cancel the trip with her husband to Chicago; she wants to get that in, but once she’s finished with that, on Friday night, she leaves home, packs up in the dead of night, while her husband is out working the graveyard shift at Mack Trucks, trying to provide for their family. She boxes it up—bag and baggage, baby in the car—and disappears. He comes home to an empty house; no warnings; no clue, distraught.

  “Now, this rocks along for a little while, but at some point, Mrs. Poole goes to see a lawyer. She says that in her statement. She went to see a lawyer about this family situation she finds herself in and he said, ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.’ What’s the story here? We’ve got a lady without a job—we know what her previous job was—who has abandoned the marital home in the dead of night.... I expect the lawyer did tell her that was kind of a bad idea. Ladies and gentlemen, where is the custody of that child going? It’s a problem. She also figures out that maybe John Boyd Frazier isn’t all he’s cracked up to be. He’s kind of a loser. He doesn’t really have any money. He’s kind of a loser.”

  Hembree picked up a copy of the transcript and held it out in front of the jurors. He read the parts as well as any amateur actor. “Let’s see what Mrs. Poole tells us about John Frazier. We’ll just read it right out of her statement.”

  The jury listened to Renee’s own incriminating words relating to her feelings for her husband and her lover, and the insurance policy she was to receive.

  “See how the stakes are building up on the table? Custody, the house, the truck, over a hundred thousand dollars; that’s a lot of money, even for a loser. That’s a lot of money, and I think the last important piece of evidence that has to go into this motive, which sets the stage for what’s about to happen, is Mr. Bollow. He saw Renee the Saturday after she moved back in, on the sixteenth, and he said she smoked a cigarette, lit up a cigarette, and kind of leaned against the truck and she said, ‘Brent will never make me do what I don’t want to do.�
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  “So, we’ve got problems. We can’t get custody; don’t have any money, but we want to live together. What are we gonna do about it? And that is the plan. That’s when they started making plans.

  “First, they came on a couple of plans. The first plan was poison.”

  Hembree read from the transcript where Renee had said that John kept talking to her about killing her husband: “I think that was his main thing—me poisoning him. I was like, ‘No, I’m not gonna do that.’ He said something about he was gonna do one thing, then he was gonna do another thing. I said, ‘Well, do it. I don’t think you have the balls to do it.’”

  Hembree elaborated, then reminded the jury, “The poisoning plan wasn’t gonna work, so they came up with another plan, a second plan.” He read excerpts from her statement that included John’s instructions for murder:

  Get out to the beach. Be there as late as possible, two, two-thirty, three, real late in the morning so there would be no one out on the beach and that he would take care of it from there.

  Poole: I didn’t know if he was gonna shoot him or if he was gonna use a knife, because John had knives at home, too.

  Altman: But you knew he was gonna be killed? Poole: Right.

  “She volunteered this information about poison. She volunteered this information about a knife. These weren’t questions that were put to her in a manner where she had no choice. They were open-ended questions and she just starts talking.”

  Hembree held the jury spellbound with his theatrical performance:

  Poole: He never said that he was gonna do it.

  Altman: But he said . . .

  Poole: He said whoever would—whoever was gonna do it would know what to do. They would keep a close eye on us and they would take care of it. He said, “Walk north,” because it gets away from all the hotels.

  Altman: What was your plan after it happened?

  Poole: He didn’t . . . He didn’t say anything.

  Altman: You had to have rehearsed something. You knew you were gonna have to come up with a story.

  Poole: He just told me, “Remember what I said.” Altman: And what did he say?

  Poole: And stick to it.

  Altman: What did he say?

  Poole: He didn’t say anything. He said, “You just have to remember what you’ve said and you have to let me know.”

  Altman: Now, you’ve said that—remember—so he told you . . .

  Poole: No, he just said, “Remember what you say.” He said, “Be careful what you say. Just answer the questions short. Don’t go into any detail, but remember what you say because I have to know, because if my story conflicts with yours, then they are gonna know.”

  Brent Poole’s family followed every word of Hembree’s presentation. Their ashen faces and swollen red eyes testified to the many sleepless nights they had experienced since first hearing of Brent’s murder.

  “The plan, ladies and gentlemen, was laid out, not only the plan to commit the murder, but the plan to cover the murder after it was committed.” Hembree delivered his fiery argument, using an elongated pointer to tap on the floor and the exhibits for emphasis when he wanted to make a point.

  Hembree contended there were certain tasks Frazier had to do in preparation. “The plan goes into action, John Boyd Frazier first: One, got off work the eighth, nineth, and tenth. Two, got to have a car that nobody recognizes. Borrows car from his friend Kayle Schettler. Three, got to have a gun. ‘I need a weapon. I can afford to get rid of that TZ-75 because it has a tendency to misfire.’

  “Then, Renee’s got to prepare. One, got to get the hotel. Gives John the room number at Carolina Winds. Room six-oh-four. Two, got to get him alone in a secluded area. They know of a secluded place in Myrtle Beach, where it’s dark and no lights. Three, got to get a baby-sitter. Needed a baby-sitter from ten until two.

  “That was all part of the plan. Renee and John had at least one conversation during the course of the week when she was trying to call the baby-sitter. And he was over at her house on the Saturday before they left for the beach. The plan is in—-the train now is on the track. The plan is rolling, the execution of the plan.”

  Hembree waited for the jurors to digest it. His voice then turned soft and sympathetic.

  “As you recall, little Katie was sitting on her daddy’s lap. She begins crying when he gets up to leave. He’s kind of trying to console her. ‘Let me get you something to eat. Are you hungry?’ And as Carolyn Murphy described it, Renee Poole was like, ‘Get on out.’ Go. Go. She was shooing him. It was sort of push . . . shooing him: ‘Get on out. We’ve got to move. We’ve got to get moving.’ And is this somebody on vacation or is this somebody that has a deadline to meet?”

  The prosecutor continued to lay out the agenda: Dick’s Last Resort, Fast Eddie’s, the withdrawal of fifty dollars at the ATM and the Wings Beachstore to get a towel.

  “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I’m gonna submit to you that this starts one of the most diabolical aspects of this whole plan,” he stressed. “This young man, his anniversary at the beach, [he’s] excited . . . he’s enthusiastic. They’re going to get a towel, for one reason, and one reason only. . . .”

  Hembree continued to build the suspense. “They began walking north. Brent Poole was happy. They get past Eighty-second Avenue and at some point there, Kimberly Renee Poole engages Brent Poole in . . . sex. . . . ” His voice became even softer and he looked as if he were almost to the point of tears. “To give her lover time to get to the killing field. We know that, and the SLED officer testified that there was semen in his underwear on his anniversary.”

  Expressions on the juror’s faces seemed to change, as if they, too, believed that was the most despicable act they’d ever heard.

  “John Frazier. She’s held up her end of the deal. She’s got him secluded. She’s got him vulnerable. She’s got him right where she said she’d have him. North of the hotel, walk away from the lights, just like the plan, twelve o’clock, end of the baby-sitter’s shift. Late as she could possibly do it. Have him right there. She’s held up her end of the deal.”

  The jury was spellbound.

  “After listening to all the testimony,” Hembree concluded, “it is clear as to what Renee’s plan was.”

  He then turned his comments toward Renee’s lover and ridiculed him for his role in the murder.

  “John Boyd Frazier, his execution of the plan. Now, John Boyd Frazier is certainly not a professional assassin. He has demonstrated that through his handling of this murder, the way he acted. He’s hanging out at the hotel. He thinks he’s pretty clever, all black. He must have seen this on Hogan’s Heroes, or something. He’s all dressed up in black—you know, black pants, long pants, in the middle of the summer, for heaven’s sake. What’s gonna draw someone’s attention to you more than this—who is this yo-yo wearing, you know, a long-sleeved, hooded sweatshirt in the middle of the night, when it’s warm, and long black pants? It drew their attention.

  “The Hobbses, the first thing they [saw] when they came down for a midnight walk. You consider the credibility of those two witnesses, ladies and gentlemen. You consider the credibility of the Hobbses. It’s their anniversary, too. It’s kind of ironic. They come down here, they’re gonna go for a walk on the beach, and they see this guy and he looks suspicious, and Mr. Hobbs said he had that kind of funny look in his eyes.”

  Hembree defended the Hobbses’ description and identification of Frazier: “I’ll tell you folks, that photo-lineup procedure that was followed in this case is outstanding. . . . Immediately, [they said] ‘That’s the guy. No problem. . . . No question about it.’ Lo and behold, what a coincidence, they identified John Boyd Frazier.”

  Hembree paused to take a poke at the defense’s ponytail theory.

  “. . . And this whole bit, I have to clear this up. It’s not that important. This whole ponytail business, don’t get sidetracked by that. You listen to the tape. There’s no mention of a ponytail on that tape.... He never sa
id anything about a ponytail. That was something Mr. Diggs kind of asked him about.”

  Hembree told the jurors that Renee and John had planned to cover up the murder with a robbery. But the found wallet with credit cards and money still in it—pitched twenty-five feet into a yard—had to dispel that notion.

  Furthermore, why would a robber kill Brent and not Renee?

  “He shot him, execution style, two bullets to the head. Now, again, not the best professional assassin in the world. [Frazier says,] ‘We’re gonna cover this thing with a robbery. That’s the plan’ . . . Well, if you’re gonna commit a robbery and kill the witnesses, because there’s no other reason in the world if you believe it’s just a straight-out stranger robbery—and you’re gonna kill the witnesses. You’re gonna kill some, but not all? So now, you’ve got a witness not only to a robbery, but to a murder? It doesn’t make sense. It’s crazy. If you’re gonna do that, you’re gonna shoot one, and then you’re not gonna shoot the other? It’s not a robbery; it’s a murder. It’s an execution.”

  As related to Frazier’s drive home after the murder, Hembree speculated he had 5½, almost 6 hours from the time he committed the murder until the officer knocked on his door to get back. “He had not only time to get back, he had time to wash the car, wax the car, take his clothes and drive out in the country and burn them. I mean, he had all kinds of time. That’s not the problem.”

  The jurors were getting much more from Hembree than they had ever expected. He attacked the defense’s perception of Renee’s demeanor and told them Renee had waited five minutes before she acted. And that her vague story was part of the plan to protect herself and her lover. He reminded the jurors that her demeanor was calm and confident at times, looking for a check next door. It was the same type of masquerade she had worn while pretending to be “Miss Christian” with her friend Cynthia Hanson, but the statement to her next-door neighbors of, “I know he was a shit, but I still feel sorry for him” belied her true feelings.