by David Ellis
Cromartie did essentially the same thing with me. He went straight for my relationship with Alexa, seeing what it would do to me. He couldn’t really lose. If I was cold as ice about her, he would capture me on camera looking like a murderer. If I got weepy, my defenses might break down and the interrogation would be as easy as holding a bucket under a busted glass of water and catching the drips.
Katie O’Connor tells the courtroom that she’s going to reference the video interrogation again. The jury, having already found some very interesting moments during this interview, is wide-eyed with anticipation.
On the basis of the time frozen in the corner of the video monitor, O’Connor wants to start the video at nearly the beginning of the interrogation, just after Cromartie had taken me through the preliminaries—date, time, the presence of counsel, et cetera. The screen comes to life and the jury and spectators are watching the interrogation. Me, I’d prefer not to watch, but that might send some kind of signal to the jurors, so I watch along with them.
Cromartie holds a copy of Alexa’s driver’s license in his hand, looking at it and then showing it to me. “Wow, Alexa. Nice-looking lady,” he says.
I don’t answer.
“How long did you say you dated?”
“Several months,” I answer.
“She’s a court reporter, huh?”
I don’t answer.
“Was this a serious thing, you two?”
“We dated for several months, so, I guess so.”
“Were you engaged?”
“No.”
“Did you talk about that? Marriage?”
“No.”
“Did you love her?”
“It was a serious relationship,” I say. “People throw that word around. But it was serious.”
“Did she love you, do you think?”
I shrug, probably too casually in hindsight. I say, “I think we both thought it was serious.”
“Did she ever say she loved you, Jason?”
I pause. I’m not sure why. I shouldn’t have been the least bit surprised by the question.
“She wasn’t the type to say words like that a lot. Neither am I. Did she ever say it? I think she did, but not like a routine thing.”
That was stupid. I should have just said yes. You don’t forget when your mate breaks through that barrier and says the L word. It’s a memorable moment in any relationship. They either said it or they didn’t, and you aren’t unclear on that. If you are, then you’re an asshole, which is exactly what I look like. An asshole, or a liar.
At this point in the interrogation, I was just an asshole. But I was about to be a liar, too.
“Did you two have any, uh, y’know, bumps in the road?” Cromartie asks me.
“No more than the next couple.”
“Did you fight, Jason?”
“No more than the next couple.”
“What about in the last few days? Any fights? Problems?”
“We had our ups and downs. We’d break up and get back together. It was like that sometimes.”
“But no recent fights?”
I shake my head. “No. Nothing recent.”
Katie O’Connor stops the tape. “Lieutenant, you previously testified that you obtained Ms. Himmel’s computer and her e-mail account?”
“That’s correct.”
“Did you find any e-mails between Ms. Himmel and the defendant within the week or so preceding her murder?”
“We did.”
“I’m going to take you to the date of July twenty-seventh of this year. Did you find an e-mail on that date from Ms. Himmel to the defendant?”
“That’s correct, yes.”
“People’s Seven,” says O’Connor to the judge and Shauna. She pulls it up on a computer screen for the jury to read:
Saturday, July 27, 8:43 PM
Subj: Why??
From: “Alexa M. Himmel”
To: “Jason Kolarich”
Why won’t you return my calls? We can’t even TALK now??? I want to know what’s going on with you and why this is happening. Please call me.
“Is People’s Seven a true and accurate copy of that e-mail?”
“It is,” Krueger confirms.
“Move for admission of People’s Seven,” says O’Connor. Shauna doesn’t object. She objected to all of the e-mails before trial, taking her best Hail Mary shot, throwing out every possible argument she could make with a straight face—lack of foundation, overly prejudicial—but lost. So it doesn’t do us any good here to make a bigger deal about these e-mails than they already are.
“Running objection, Your Honor,” she says quietly, for the record.
“People’s Seven will be admitted,” says Judge Judy.
“Just to refresh everyone’s memory, Lieutenant, what was the date of Ms. Himmel’s murder?”
“July thirtieth,” he says.
“So this e-mail was sent three days before she was murdered?”
“That’s right.”
“Take you to July twenty-eighth,” says O’Connor. “Did you recover an e-mail from that day that was sent by Ms. Himmel to the defendant?”
And then we are looking at another e-mail, technically the following day but really just sent about five hours after the first one they just read:
Sunday, July 28, 1:41 AM
Subj: Hey you
From: “Alexa M. Himmel”
To: “Jason Kolarich”
Hey you, I’m trying to be patient and not push you. I always said I wouldn’t rush you or push you into anything. But you owe me more of an explanation than you gave me, don’tcha think?
This is very hard for me, Jason. I don’t deserve this. Don’t you think I deserve better than this?????????????
And another, three hours later:
Sunday, July 28, 4:28 AM
Subj: Remember?
From: “Alexa M. Himmel”
To: “Jason Kolarich”
Hi. I’m up and I’m pretty sure you are, too. I’m thinking about you and thinking about US and thinking that maybe we can just wipe the slate clean and start over. A first date? Remember the first date? When I “called” you? That’s when I knew we had the same sense of humor.
I’m sure you know this is killing me. I just want to hear your reasons. I promise, promise, PROMISE I won’t bother you again if you just explain it. But if you keep ignoring me, I don’t know what I’ll do. Please don’t do this to me.
And another, that afternoon:
Sunday, July 28, 3:59 PM
Subj: A lesson
From: “Alexa M. Himmel”
To: “Jason Kolarich”
How To Hurt Alexa Himmel 101: Ignore her. Break her heart, but that’s not enough. Also refuse to give her a good, honest explanation. Don’t tell her you’re a COWARD or why you LIED to her and led her to believe you were a GOOD AND DECENT person when you’re not. Throw her in the trash after you’ve fucked her a bunch of times and had your jollies and leave her to die. You’d probably like it if I died, wouldn’t you? Well, just say the word, Jason, and I’ll do it. I’m dead anyway.
And this one, completing a Sunday of e-mails:
Sunday, July 28, 7:12 PM
Subj: Seriously this is important
From: “Alexa M. Himmel”
To: “Jason Kolarich”
I just had some GREEK food and thought you’d think that was funny. Are you laughing? You’re probably laughing AT me not WITH me. Ha ha ha poor Alexa the fucked up girl.
Anwyay, I just thought of something that could be seriously bad for you and I want to make sure you’re protected so please call me just for that and nothing else, no more explanations or anything else but I’m not kidding.
The prosecutor takes a mom
ent, allowing the jury to drink in everything they’ve seen so far, a portrait of a troubled woman, smarting desperately from a breakup.
“Take you to the following day, Monday, July twenty-ninth of this year,” says Katie O’Connor. “The day before Ms. Himmel was murdered. Did you recover any e-mails from Ms. Himmel to the defendant on that day?”
He did, of course, an e-mail from Monday morning:
Monday, July 29, 9:13 AM
Subj: I wasn’t kidding
From: “Alexa M. Himmel”
To: “Jason Kolarich”
I know you’re awake. I know you’re reading this.
I wasn’t kidding. If you don’t get in touch with me your going to be seriously fucked.
“At this time, Your Honor, I’d like to return to the video interview,” says Katie O’Connor.
She starts off right where she stopped. Back to Detective Cromartie asking me about the state of my relationship with Alexa at the time she died:
“So just to be clear, Jason, just so there’s no misunderstandings, you and Alexa were together as of today? You guys were still a couple?”
“Yeah, of course,” I say.
“Had you been together for, say, the past week?”
“Yeah.”
“The past two weeks?”
“Yeah. We’d been together.”
“Your relationship was fine. At the time she died, your relationship was good?”
“Our relationship was fine,” I say to Cromartie. “Our relationship was good.”
Katie O’Connor stops the tape. I maintain my I’m innocent expression, staring straight ahead, trying to show no emotion. It isn’t easy. It isn’t easy to be caught in a lie in front of a roomful of people. Especially when twelve of those people are deciding your fate.
I’m a liar. No one in this room has any doubt. And why lie? Because I’m guilty, right? That’s how people think. As a prosecutor, I routinely relied on that bias. When I caught a defendant in a lie, I would harp on it in closing argument ad nauseam. But I never agreed with that presumption myself. There are many reasons that people lie. Why is telling a lie, in the heat of a criminal inquiry, limited to people who are guilty of the crime?
“Let’s go back to the e-mails, Lieutenant,” says O’Connor.
She is working in chronological order. Logically, the right decision.
But tactically, as well. She is saving the best for last.
58.
Shauna
“Lieutenant Krueger,” says Katie O’Connor, “did you recover any e-mails from Ms. Himmel to the defendant on the date of Tuesday, July thirtieth? The day of her murder?”
“I did. I recovered an e-mail with content and with an attachment.”
The prosecutor puts that e-mail on the board for the jury:
Tuesday, July 30, 9:01 AM
Subj: I REALLY wasn’t kidding
From: “Alexa M. Himmel”
To: “Jason Kolarich”
Hi, there. Hope you’re well. I’m really concerned about the attached letter getting out. Maybe we can put our heads together and figure out how to prevent it. But if you keep ignoring me then I guess there’s nothing i can do. . . . . .
< BAD.Letter.pdf >
“You said there was an attachment?”
“Yes,” says Krueger. “You can see at the bottom of the printout of the e-mail. A document entitled ‘BAD Letter,’ in portable document format, or PDF as most people know it, was attached to this e-mail.”
“Did you print out a copy of that PDF document?”
“I did.”
“People’s Fourteen,” says O’Connor. “Is People’s Fourteen a true and accurate copy of the document attached to that e-mail?”
“Yes, it is.”
The jury is now looking at the letter Alexa attached to that e-mail:
To: The Board of Attorney Discipline
Subject: Jason Kolarich, Attorney ID # 14719251
I am writing to report an attorney named Jason Kolarich, currently practicing at the law firm of Tasker and Kolarich. Jason has become addicted to a painkiller called oxycodone. It has hampered his ability to practice law, I fear to the detriment of his clients. He has lost a good deal of weight, and his behavior has become erratic. I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know if the drugs have stopped him from defending his clients properly. I don’t know if there are rules governing this, but I thought the state’s board that regulates lawyers should know about this.
More than anything, I think a client, before they hire a lawyer, should know if that lawyer is a drug addict.
I am afraid to sign this letter, but I hope you will look into it.
“Lieutenant, do you know whether this letter was ever sent to the state’s Board of Attorney Discipline?”
“I don’t know one way or the other,” says Krueger. “All I know is that, the following evening, Ms. Himmel was murdered.”
I could object, but I don’t. The jurors wouldn’t notice, anyway. Several of them, while stopping short of nodding enthusiastically or making throat-slashing gestures, indicate the impact this evidence has had on them. Eyebrows go up. Lips part. One of the guys in the front row, having craned forward throughout the showing of the e-mails, falls back in his chair, glances at his neighbor. I can imagine the bubble over his head: Well, our deliberations won’t take long, will they?
I can hardly blame them. It doesn’t get more damning than this. Alexa had become more than just an ex-girlfriend with separation anxiety. Now she was someone who was going to ruin Jason professionally if he didn’t take her back. And roughly twelve hours later, she was shot in the back with Jason’s gun, while standing in Jason’s living room.
At the podium, O’Connor takes her time, flipping through her notes, pretending to locate her next line of questioning when, in fact, she just wants that letter to sit up on the screen for as long as possible.
“Lieutenant, sending an e-mail is one thing. It’s another thing whether the intended recipient of that e-mail actually received it. Did you investigate whether the defendant had, in fact, received or opened these e-mails we’ve discussed?”
“I did. The defendant gave us permission to access his laptop. In addition, we issued subpoenas to review the e-mails sent to and by the defendant on his e-mail account.” Lieutenant Krueger takes the jury through that process. It was a thorny one, involving Judge Bialek, because an attorney’s e-mails include many confidential communications with clients.
“We were able to determine the date and time that each e-mail was opened,” Krueger explains.
It gives Katie O’Connor the chance to put each of these e-mails back up on the screen. She pops up each e-mail and asks Lieutenant Krueger if and when Jason opened that e-mail. People’s Exhibit Seven, the July 27 e-mail at 8:43 P.M., was opened at 9:35 that evening. People’s Eight and Nine, in the early hours of Sunday, July 28, were opened on Jason’s laptop within minutes of each other on Sunday morning. People’s Ten, the How-to-Hurt-Alexa-101 e-mail, was opened an hour after it was sent, just after five P.M. on Sunday, July 28. Blow by blow, Lieutenant Krueger demonstrates that Jason was routinely opening these e-mails.
“People’s Thirteen,” says O’Connor, referring to the final e-mail, the one with the attached letter. “Sent at 9:01 A.M. on Tuesday, July thirtieth. When, if ever, was that document opened on the defendant’s computer?”
“Three minutes after ten that same morning,” he says.
“And People’s Fourteen, the letter to the Board of Attorney Discipline? When, if ever, was that document opened on the defendant’s laptop?”
“Within the same sixty seconds,” he answers. “Ten-oh-three in the morning. Just over an hour after the e-mail and attachment were sent, the defendant opened it up on his laptop.”
O’Connor nods. “After that final e-mail with the attached letter, did you find any further e-mail communications between
the defendant and Ms. Himmel, Lieutenant?”
“No, I didn’t,” says Lieutenant Krueger. “It was the last e-mail Ms. Himmel ever sent.”
59.
Shauna
The judge calls a midmorning recess. Jason heads straight to the anteroom where he’s able to confer with counsel. He doesn’t even turn around to acknowledge his brother, Pete, who seems eager for my attention.
“He’s . . . he’s not in the frame of mind right now for you,” I apologize.
“That’s fine, whatever.” Pete’s tan has diminished since he’s been in town for the trial. He owns a bar in the Cayman Islands, of all things, having received a healthy windfall of money under circumstances that are unclear—and therefore suspicious—to me. Where Jason inherited his mother’s length and features, Pete is the spitting image of his father, Jack, a devilishly handsome face and a quick, easy smile, a guy who could charm a shark out of its chum. He inherited his father’s penchant for substance abuse, too, though with Pete it was cocaine, not booze, and he promises that’s way behind him now.