by Fred Rosen
“What kind of damage did that blow do?”
“It perforated the chest wall, the right lung, into the vena cava, the vein to the heart, and caused the blood to leak into the right side of her chest.”
“Can you determine what kind of weapon was used?”
“It was done by a sturdy, single-edge blade that was two millimeters wide.”
“Would you please describe the head wounds of Mrs. Freeman?”
“Eight blunt-force blows to the scalp. Seven to the central part, the top and frontal areas, and one to the back. The handle of a pickax was most likely the object that caused the blows.”
“What was the cause of death, doctor?”
“The cause of death were the stab wounds to the back and the cerebral injuries.”
Brenda had apparently survived for a time after she had been stabbed by Bryan. But then, someone had inflicted the final death blows with the pickax handle. Which of the boys had bent over her while she was dying and pounded her head till the life drained from her body?
Bryan and David continued to look down as Mihalikis continued his testimony. But Benny looked up, his innocent face unlined, his cheeks rosy red, like a cherub’s. A smile seemed to play at the corner of his mouth.
“Now, doctor,” Steinberg continued, “would you please describe Erik Freeman’s injuries?”
This was the one the spectators had been waiting for. Teens killing adults was one thing, but to kill a small, innocent child was another matter altogether, a matter of the utmost depravity. Every spectator in that courtroom leaned forward to hear Mihaliklis’s testimony.
“Erik Freeman had injuries to his forehead, the left part of his face, the left arm and the back of both hands. They were blunt-force injuries.”
Mihalikis gazed down at his notes.
“There were two transverse injuries low across his forehead and above the eyebrows that caused skull fractures, which then caused the brain to mushroom. There was a massive fracture to the frontal bones and the nose and facial area. There were four bruises to the temple and the left side of the face and two lacerations. That was a defensive injury, a bruise on the left forearm and the back of both hands. The metacarpals (hand bones) were fractured.”
His voice ringing out in the hushed courtroom, Steinberg asked the coroner, “How did Erik Freeman die?”
“Erik Freeman died from cerebral front-force injuries delivered by an aluminum bat.”
During his cross examination, Wally Worth asked Mihalikis how much blood Brenda Freeman lost after she was injured.
“About one-and-a-half to two liters,” Mihalikis answered. “The average person would have about five litters in their body, but Mrs. Freeman was heavy-set, so she had about eight.”
“So if she lost one-and-a-half liters, how long would it take her to die?” Worth wondered.
“In that case, it would be a matter of minutes for the victim to die.”
Which meant that someone was not satisfied to wait; they had to bludgeon her to death to finish off the job. Would Bryan have stabbed his mother, waited, seen she wasn’t dead, and then picked up another weapon to finish the job?
Officer Michael Pochran was next to the stand.
The cop testified that on February 27, 1995, he was working the three-to-eleven shift, in uniform, when he received a transmission at 5:15 P.M. to proceed to the Freeman house. He got there in two minutes. In the next part of his testimony, he summarized his arrival and discovery of the bodies.
Steinberg then played a tape of the crime scene shot by police photographers to reinforce Pochran’s testimony and show what a bloody scene of carnage it was. It was eerie, watching that tape, looking at the bodies and the blood.
After Pochran finished his testimony, Steinberg called Valerie Freeman to the stand. Wearing large, black, square-framed glasses that did nothing to soften her features, and a conservative suit that set off her blond hair, Valerie took the stand. Looking fragile and meek, she spoke in a soft voice.
Valerie testified that she was fifty-two years old, that she worked at the Lehigh Valley County Parks and Recreation Department as a clerical technician, and that she was Dennis Freeman’s sister.
“How long did you live in the Freeman home?” Steinberg asked.
“Seventeen years,” she replied.
“When did you leave?”
“November of 1994.”
“Why?”
“Because of a confrontation with David. Dennis said to leave. David had gone wild, and Dennis was afraid for the safety of the family.”
Valerie went on to describe the relationship between the cousins, and how David and Benny seemed the closest. She told how the family owned three cars: a new van, the Chevy truck Dennis drove to work, and the Sunbird that Brenda drove, and how the boys’ driving privileges had been revoked.
“When was the last time you saw Erik?” Steinberg asked.
She had seen him the Friday before the murder. When she had asked him how his brothers were treating him, little Erik had responded, “You never know when you’re going to die.”
There was an audible gasp in the courtroom. The reporters scribbled hurriedly in their notebooks.
Valerie spent the next fifteen minutes testifying about how she’d found the bodies, what her reaction was, and the altercations she’d had with her nephews, who, sitting at the defense table, would not make eye contact with her.
Next up to testify was the Freemans’ paperboy, Sam Ehrgott. Dressed in a suit and tie, looking neat and well-groomed, Sam presented quite a contrast to the skinheads at the defense table.
Sam testified about his relationship with Bryan Freeman. “We’d been friends for a while, but for three or four years, we didn’t speak much to each other.” he said. Then he related the conversation he’d had with him in school prior to the murders in which Bryan had talked about wanting his parents dead.
Sam described how he had delivered the paper to the Freeman home the day of the murders, how he was surprised not to see Dennis Freeman coming down the steps of his house at 5:45 A.M. like he did every day, and how Bryan was absent from school that day.
Finally, he told how Valerie had come over after discovering Erik’s body, how his mother called the police, and how she sent him to his sister-in-law’s after she’d made the call to protect him.
After Sam Ehrgott came Steinberg’s best witness, Jesse Capece.
Capece is the type of witness every prosecutor loves. She remembered every detail of the skinheads’ stay at the Truck World Motor Inn in Hubbard, Ohio, where she had been working the seven-to-three shift when she’d checked them in.
Capece remembered in exacting detail how they’d lied about their license plate number and what their movements had been while they’d stayed there. She wasn’t surprised when she was later questioned about them by the Pennsylvania State Police; they’d just seemed so weird!
Greg Pavledes, Capece’s counterpart at the Holiday Inn in Midland, Michigan, testified to what time the boys came into his place, how he called the cops because they suspiciously paid with change and small bills, and how their overall appearance just made him … wonder.
Steinberg was tracing the boys’ activities minute-by-minute, and that meant it was time to call Sgt. Thomas Mynsberge of the Michigan State Police. He testified to how they caught and questioned “the suspects,” and how David Freeman had confessed to the killings of his father and brother, how Bryan had killed his mother, and how Benny wasn’t responsible for any of it.
Then, Trooper Joe Vazquez was called to the stand. Under cross-examination by David’s defense attorney Brian Collins, he was forced to admit that he had told Donohue in Michigan that he felt David’s statement was truthful.
The videotapes of David’s first confession and Benny’s statement were played. Bryan’s statement was the last to be played.
At the end of the preliminary hearing, the judge ruled that the district attorney had proved his prima facie case. Bryan and David Freem
an were bound over for trial.
After the hearing, Steinberg distributed copies of David’s and Benny’s statements to the Michigan State Police. But when local television stations asked if they could get a copy of the crime scene videotape for broadcast on the evening news, Steinberg demurred. He felt it would compromise the Defendants’ opportunity to get a fair trial in Allentown.
In private and public pronouncements in the days that followed, Steinberg once again made it clear that he did not believe the statements of any of the defendants. They would all face the death penalty if they went to trail. But if they pleaded now, he would accept first-degree murder and life in prison.
Not one of the attorneys or their clients went for the deal. David and Bryan had one hope of avoiding trial as adults. Since they’d been underage when they’d committed the crimes, they could be tried as juveniles, in which case, the worst sentence they could get would be confinement in a state prison until they were 21.
Worth and Collins, representing David, and Supplee and Brunnabend, representing Bryan, decided to try it. The judge set a date for the juvenile certification hearings in the fall. In the meanwhile, all the defendants would continue to be held without bail in the Lehigh County Jail.
Brenda’s surviving sisters, Linda Solivan and Sandy Lettich, went back to the Freeman house. A big Dumpster was brought in, set up in the driveway, and they went through the house and threw out the stuff that every family accumulates over the years and keeps until the time to move. Or you get murdered by your kids and nephew.
Since the Freemans had already left the temporal plane, it was a good idea to do this now, considering the auction that was about to come. The house on Ehrets Lane was no longer a crime scene. Bodies had been removed, photographs taken, evidence gathered. Linda and Sandy and their husbands went through the house and cleaned everything up. By the time they were finished, the blood was gone.
They had had the house painted, which was important, because no one wanted to buy a house with walls splattered with blood. But blood seeps into the pores of the plaster; no matter how much it is painted over, the blood is always there. Blood became part of the very fabric of the house.
SEVENTEEN
Steinberg took nothing for granted. He was not satisfied with his case. He wanted more. Joe Vazquez was sent out to interview more witnesses with information on the murders. At the Lehigh County Juvenile Detention Home, he interviewed Jason Philip Conlan.
“About a month or so before the murder,” Conlan told Vazquez, “I met Bryan, David, and Benny at the home of a friend of ours.”
“Who was the friend?” Vazquez asked.
“Sean Crossland.”
The name wasn’t familiar to Vazquez.
“Anyway, Bryan told me that that night he was going to kill his parents. The reason was that they were treating him badly.”
“Did he say anything else?”
“Both Bryan and David said they hated their little brother, but neither of them said anything about killing him.”
“Why’d they hate Erik?”
“Because he was spoiled. That’s what they said. Anyway, during this time I was with them—”
“This was the first time you were with them?”
“Yeah. And what happened was, Bryan got drunk and tried to start a fight with me. This girl named Melanie stopped it.”
Vazquez knew that Bryan had for a while been seeing a girl named Melanie, who seemed to be his girlfriend. It was common knowledge.
“When was the last time you saw the Freemans and Birdwell?”
“I saw them at Crossland’s home on a Saturday or Sunday night before the murders. Bryan said he was going to kill his parents by blowing their heads off and that he was going to take their money and head for Alabama.”
Vazquez hadn’t heard that before.
“How about Birdwell? Did he make any threats?”
“I never heard Birdwell say anything about killing anyone.”
Vazquez knew from experience that many people come forward with information during a murder investigation. Some are legitimate; they have good information, and they want to help. Some claim to have intimate knowledge, but are in trouble with the law and hope to get a break if they open up. Conlan could be either.
As the executor of Dennis and Brenda Freeman’s estate, Sandy Lettich had decided to liquidate their worldly possessions during an auction on Sunday, May 21, 1995.
It was an auction like any other, with veteran bargain hunters arriving early and sitting down on lawn chairs set up in front of the auctioneer’s podium that had been set up in the driveway where David and Bryan had played basketball with Dennis.
Sandy Lettich had made certain that no one could get any actual souvenirs of the crimes. The beds the family had been killed in had been put into the Dumpster. The bloodied bedclothes were in the police labs and would not be released until after they had been thoroughly examined for further evidence.
Auctioneers Mark “Dutch” Kistler and Kim Kistler kept things moving during the actual auction process and cracked a couple of well-timed jokes to remove tension.
“I’m here for a very practical reason, to get a car. And if I can get it for three grand less than at a dealer, great,” said Mike Reynolds, an Allentown resident hunting for a bargain.
“I got a great van and no, I had no problem buying it,” said Gene Braden, the man who bought the Freeman family’s 1995 Ford Windstar minivan for the bargain price of $18,000. The odometer showed twenty-five miles.
A short time after noon, after a lot of the smaller items, like Brenda’s jewelry, Dennis’s tools, and Erik’s bicycle, had been sold, Mark Kistler began his pitch for the afternoon’s prize: the house itself.
The interior of, the house still smelled of fresh paint, and new carpeting had been installed throughout. The kitchen cabinets had been painted a pristine white, and new appliances and a new kitchen counter top had been installed. On the back porch, a hot tub overlooked trees and shrubs that since the murders had overgrown to the point that weeds were overtaking the backyard.
An attorney for the estate, John Greisamer, read the conditions for the sale of the five-bedroom house. It was the only time during the afternoon that the name “Freeman” was mentioned.
Kistler opened the bidding at $130,000. It was a good price for the house. It was in excellent shape, and this was a nice neighborhood, certainly not the type of place where one expected a triple murder to take place.
The crowd had grown silent, hushed, as Kistler went through his spiel. “$130,000, $130,000, do I hear $130,000?”
People looked around. No one raised his hand. No one signaled a bid. Finally, a brave couple who did not fear death or murder and knew a bargain when they saw one, shouted, “$72,000!”
People turned to look at them as the auctioneer sounded out the bid and raised the price higher. But no one was biting. They put the house bidding aside.
Kistler moved on to Dennis’s 1985 Chevy S10 pickup, the one Sam Ehrgott had seen parked in the driveway the day of the murder, the same car Bryan had moved to get the Sunbird out of the driveway. The S10 sold for $5,400.
When Kistler resumed the bidding for the house forty-five minutes later, only the one brave couple bid. With no one competing against them, there was no reason to raise their bid from $72,000.
“We reserve the right to reject your bid, and that’s what I’m gonna do,” Kistler announced to the crowd, and then to the couple. “I’m willing to negotiate with you. You know where to find me.”
Lawyer Greisamer later explained that the estate had a sale price in mind, that the proceeds from the sale of the house and its contents were needed to pay off two mortgages and outstanding taxes.
“We’re not going to let it go for nothing,” he explained. “If we don’t sell it today, we’ll sell it some other way. It’s unfortunate what happened here. But it’s still a valuable piece of real estate.”
Inside the jail in Allentown, David and Bryan Free
man had still not been convicted of anything.
Whether they were or not, one thing was certain: They could never go home again. If they did, all they would see was an empty shell.
David was concerned about the auction. He asked Worth to make sure that his prized possessions were well taken care of while he was in jail.
“What are those?” Worth asked.
“Toy soldiers,” David responded.
Tuesday May 23, 1995
Politics make strange bedfellows. The same might be said for the Constitution. When Steinberg showed the crime scene videotape at the arraignment, he had opened up Pandora’s Box.
He had declined the media’s request that he furnish them with a copy for the evening news. He thought that would be it; it wasn’t. Channel 6, a local Philadelphia station that was covering the Freemans/Birdwell case avidly, filed a brief with Judge Brenner, demanding access to all the videotapes and audiotapes, including those of the boys’ statements and the crime scene, citing
First Amendment rights.
The station claimed that the tapes are judicial records that can be released.
Steinberg, Collins, Worth, Supplee, and Brunnabend countered that the tapes are not public record and would compromise the defendants’ rights to a fair trial. All the lawyers went before Judge Brenner and pleaded their case for three hours.
Seated in the gallery was Brenda’s sister Sandy Lettich. Allowed to address the court on the matter before it, she said, “We feel it would be terrible to have something like this shown to the general public.” She felt that airing the tapes would be an invasion of the Freemans’ privacy and an insensitive exploitation of them.
Brenner promised to rule on the motion but gave no indication of exactly when that would be. Meanwhile, Nelson Birdwell Sr., the grandfather, was engaged in media action of his own.
“I’m dickering with a man from Warner Brothers studio for the rights to my story,” he told this reporter. He was also exploring the possibility of writing a book about the case. Asked how he was coping since the murders, he explained, “I’m sixty-two years old. My mind can control my body and emotions.”