“Kim spoke with her mother. She started to shake. She turned white. Her whole body was trembling. And she got off the phone, and tears were in her eyes. And I said, ‘What happened?’ And she said, ‘I have to bring [Rebecca] home.’”
Keefe objected.
It was all hearsay.
From there, Kane moved into how the verbal battles between the families erupted into an all-out court battle for custody of Rebecca, who was now eleven, and perhaps struggling to understand what had happened.
After that, Dee talked about the night Joseph Jebran brought Rebecca back to the Clintons and they noticed her swollen vagina and had to bring her to the hospital because they thought she had been molested. Keefe, time and again, objected. It seemed as though Dee was having a hard time explaining things without quoting others.
“I respectfully ask the court,” Keefe said, fuming mad, “to tell her she can’t keep quoting other people!”
“Please limit your testimony to what you saw…,” the judge urged.
“Your Honor,” Dee said, “can I ask you a question? How do I get from [one place to another] without telling [you what] I was asked…? I just want to do this right.”
“Sure. And the only way to do it is to avoid saying what other people say….”
“How do I say that, though?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. The best way you can?”
“Well, I’m trying.”
Dee had no bombshells to drop. She was there to describe how her son had met Kim, the relationship they had with the Carpenters and how ugly the custody battle had gotten as Kim and Buzz’s relationship blossomed. The custody battle, Peter McShane and Kevin Kane knew, was the heart of their case. They had to show cause and effect. Yet there was still the lingering concern about how Beth Ann fit into the entire scope of the custody fight. Thus far, her name hadn’t even come up.
So Kane had Dee describe that first day she met Beth Ann. It was a night when Beth Ann and her brother, Richard, came over to her house to talk about Kim, Dee said.
“And could you please tell us what Beth said during that conversation?”
The court had excused the jury previously and discussed how they were going to handle the conversation Dee had had with Beth Ann and Richard. It was agreed Dee would simply tell the jury what Beth Ann and Richard had said to her and no more. Was it hearsay? Sure. But if Keefe wanted to dispute it, he would get his chance on cross-examination.
“Beth said that Kim was an unfit mother,” Dee told the jury in her direct tone. “She didn’t care about her daughter…. She sleeps with anybody, and that she’s a whore. And she asked if my husband and myself could do all in our power to stop the relationship.”
“Stop the relationship between whom?” Kane asked.
“Buzz and Kim.”
“And did she tell you why…?”
“Because Kim was a whore!”
The large pool of reporters, family members, well-wishers and trial gazers sat in awe as Dee put on record for the first time Beth Ann’s anger and hatred toward Buzz and Kim’s relationship.
Keefe continued objecting, stating that Dee’s testimony had no bearing on his client’s guilt or innocence. So what, Beth Ann didn’t want her sister to date what she and her mother had described as a jobless exotic male dancer? What did any of it have to do with the case against his client?
Kane said Dee’s information was not only “relevant,” but several other witnesses would substantiate it.
By the time Kane was finished with Dee, she had painted an ugly portrait of rage, bitterness, jealousy and hatred toward her son by Beth Ann and her family. There was no doubt that the Carpenter family wouldn’t lose any sleep over the fact that Buzz had been murdered.
It was obvious Dee held on to a bias—but one of the most important pieces of information Dee had put on record was how Buzz had made it a point to tell the Carpenters that he was planning on moving his family to Arizona to get away from what he saw as dysfunction. This, Kevin Kane would tell the jury later, was what pushed Beth Ann over the edge—the thought that she would never see Rebecca again.
But now it was Hugh Keefe’s turn. There was still a few hours left in the day, and Keefe wanted to clear some things up.
As a defense attorney, Keefe was loud and aggressive, even forceful and threatening at times, but he was also composed and articulate. Many felt Keefe stepped over the line once in a while. And perhaps he did. Yet, when it came down to it, he had a job to do. His client was facing a life sentence for something with which she said she’d had nothing to do. Keefe was prepared to do anything he could to prove her right.
As he opened up his questioning, first saying “good morning,” it was clear that just because Dee had lost a son, it didn’t mean she wasn’t fair game.
“Mrs. Clinton, beginning in July of ’93, you say your son, Buzz, indicated an interest in moving to Arizona. Is that correct?”
“Correct.”
“And did he have a job down there?”
“He had a…He had assurance from my husband’s friend.”
“Mrs. Clinton, let me ask the question again and see if you can answer it, okay? Did your son have a job down there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did he have a lease down there for an apartment or a condo…?”
“I don’t know.”
For about ten minutes, Keefe tried poking holes in Buzz’s planned move to Arizona. He wanted Dee to admit that maybe the move wasn’t set in stone, that perhaps it was just something Buzz had mentioned, like a lot of other things. But Dee held tough. She knew Buzz was serious when he said he was moving.
During the next hour, Keefe shot questions at Dee one after the other in rapid-fire repetition about most everything she had previously testified to, trying to trip her up on dates, times, places, names and anything else he could muster.
At times, Dee and Keefe went at it toe-to-toe. For example, regarding a conversation Dee had had with Beth Ann almost nine-and-a-half years ago, Keefe wanted to know if Dee thought she had a good memory.
“On certain occasions.”
“But you didn’t make any notes as to what Beth Ann Carpenter was telling you about nine and a half years ago, did you?”
“I don’t have to write down,” Dee said calmly, “where I was on September eleventh, sir, either, and I know exactly where I was on that date!”
The thrust of Keefe’s questioning remained focused on Kim and the relationship she had with her parents and sister before Buzz entered the picture. Keefe was trying to let the jury know—and he did a good job of it—that Kim wasn’t necessarily June Cleaver, and that her parents had every right to want a good home for their grandchild.
Near the end of the day, Keefe brought up Kim’s first husband. He wanted to know if Dee had any knowledge of that relationship.
“I don’t know what I knew about her relationship with her first husband….”
“Do you know whether she got divorced from that first husband?”
“I’m assuming she got divorced….”
“Don’t assume anything,” Keefe shouted. “Just answer my question, please.”
Remaining composed, which Dee said later only added to Keefe’s frustration, she said, “No, have I seen the certificate, a document?” she thought maybe an exhibit had passed through her hands explaining the divorce.
“Did she tell you she was divorced?” Keefe asked.
“Yes.”
“She did?”
“But that’s hearsay,” Dee said with a smile.
“That’s good,” Keefe said. “That’s what I kept saying.”
“I know,” Dee said amid laughs from the gallery, “that’s how I learned it.”
By the end of the day, Keefe finished his cross-examination and Kane his redirect examination. During the early part of the next morning, Keefe concluded his re-cross-examination and Kane a second redirect.
Dee Clinton, if nothing else, had given the jury a blow
-by-blow description of the custody battle from her point of view. The jury now had an understanding of why these families hated each other so much and, possibly, why Beth Ann wanted Buzz dead.
February 8 was a Friday. Because of a holiday the following Tuesday, and the court’s being closed on Mondays, it would be the last day of testimony until February 13.
Kane needed to give the jury something to think about before the break. He had set up the motive by bringing in Dee—a motive he would build upon with each witness—but he and Peter McShane needed to give the jury something more. Something tangible.
Facts.
After Dee stepped down, Linda Kidder, an attorney who had represented Kim and Buzz for a time back in 1993, took the stand to back up some of what Dee had already talked about regarding the child custody fight.
But after Kidder’s brief testimony, it was time for the jury to hear exactly how Buzz was murdered—from someone who was there.
Chris Despres was dressed in a plain dark blue suit and matching tie when he entered the superior court building on the morning of February 8, 2002. As he walked through the metal detectors and headed down the hall, he said nothing. Reporters asked him questions, and spectators stared and whispered, but Chris was as stand-offish as he had ever been. It was grueling for the twenty-three-year-old. Regardless of how he felt about dear old dad, the thought of participating in the proceedings weighed heavily on him. He knew anything he said today would be used against his dad at some point later on.
According to a family friend who spent the previous night with Chris, he hadn’t slept well. He had nightmares. And at one point, he even vomited.
After being sworn in, Chris explained that he now lived in Windsor, Connecticut, with his girlfriend and her son. Despite the hell Chris had gone through for the past eight years, as Kane burned through the normal introductory questions every witness was subjected to, Chris showed how composed and direct he was. He spoke loudly, clearly and tersely. Kane didn’t once have to ask him to repeat himself. His answers were short and to the point. He gave only the information he knew and no more.
When it came time for Kane to bring Buzz into the picture, Chris wasted no time telling the jury how he’d first heard Buzz’s name.
“Do you recognize the name Anson Clinton?” Kane asked.
“Yes.”
“And how is it that you recognize that name?”
“My dad shot him.”
The gallery gasped. Dee and Buck Clinton, Suzanne and Billy, shifted in their seats, but they kept their composure. They were looking at and listening to one of the people who had last seen Buzz alive. Indeed, years had gone by, but the pain was as intense as if it happened the day before.
During the next hour, Chris explained how he and his dad had stalked Buzz. Kane had been questioning witnesses for decades. He knew how to get things out of people. Whenever he asked Chris about a certain event, he followed up with questions that made Chris recall as many details as he could remember. Details, Kane knew, went hand in hand with truth. If someone could remember without reservation the color of a car, the make and model of a car, the color of someone’s hair, a person’s eye color, the weather, there was a good chance he knew what he was talking about. On the other hand, if someone was trying to dance around the truth, he might likely, conveniently, just say he didn’t recall.
When jurors got a chance to weigh Chris’s testimony against his father’s statements and the statements of Cathy White and Haiman Clein, they would clearly see how Chris’s testimony dovetailed almost perfectly with that of people he didn’t really know.
Kane then moved into the main reason why Chris was on the stand. He asked Chris to explain how he and his dad had met Buzz at the hotel on March 10, 1994, and how they drove in separate vehicles toward East Lyme on I-95, but when they got to Exit 72, Mark panicked and began flashing his lights at Buzz to pull over.
“As your father was flashing the lights,” Kane asked, “did you or he say anything?”
“Yes.”
“Did you say anything first?”
“Yes. I asked him what he was doing.”
“And what did your father tell you?”
“He said he was going to kill him.”
Chapter 46
Before Chris Despres could explain to the jury what he knew about the conspiracy between Joe Fremut, his dad and Haiman Clein, the state first had to present evidence to the fact that there was a conspiracy. A witness couldn’t testify to something that hadn’t yet been brought out in court. So Chris had to step down from the stand in lieu of witnesses who could substantiate the state’s contention that a conspiracy had, indeed, taken place. He would return, Kane and McShane promised, at a later date.
Between February 13 and 15, Teresa Jenkins, Jan Dahl (an early childhood intervention specialist with the state department of mental retardation), Carolyn Brotherton and John Gaul testified about the ongoing custody battle and bad blood between Buzz and the Carpenter family, thus adding more weight to what had become the focal point of the trial. So much so was the trial turning into a history of Rebecca’s early life and the custody battle that had ensued around her, many were wondering how far Judge Devlin was going to let Kane and McShane take it. Devlin was an “extremely fair” judge, a colleague later said, “very thorough.” If he felt an issue was slipping away from him in court, he’d attack it immediately. Keefe had filed a motion to suppress the state from putting forth any more statements of hostility toward Buzz made by the Carpenters, explaining without the jury present that it was “very difficult [for his client to defend herself] if witness after witness testifies about this animosity.” Keefe further stated that “by osmosis” the state wanted the statements to “trickle down to Beth.” Keefe was tired of it. It was time, he insisted, to get back on track with what the state actually had on his client. Forget about this custody battle business. What about the conspiracy? Where was the evidence to support it?
Kane argued that the statements were motive for murder and the jury should be allowed to hear them.
Judge Devlin said he would make a decision at a later time regarding Keefe’s argument. As for right now, it was time to continue with witness testimony.
As Jenkins, Dahl and Brotherton testified over the course of the next two days, they continued to hammer home the point that the custody battle was fueled by the notion that the Carpenters didn’t want their grandchild to be around Buzz for fear he was hurting her. As for Kim, several witnesses had already testified that, according to the Carpenters, she was an unfit mother. They had basically raised Rebecca from day one themselves.
But by the time John Gaul finished testifying on February 15, he put on record that the Carpenters had become so obsessed with gaining full custody of Rebecca they were prepared to do just about anything to achieve that goal. Gaul told the jury he didn’t know he was Rebecca’s father until after Kim had met Buzz, and Beth Ann and Kim then showed up at his house one day to tell him. A few weeks later, the Carpenters, Gaul recalled, began laying out their case to him, inviting him and his then-girlfriend, Tricia Baker, to their house every weekend to spend time with Rebecca. When it came time to fight legally, Gaul said, the Carpenters promised to help him financially, and they soon gave him the money to retain a lawyer. Dick Carpenter had even given him a job. Yet, when Gaul later indicated that he wasn’t interested in pursuing a custody fight legally, the Carpenters ended their relationship with him and Tricia.
Joe Fremut was never considered to be one of the state’s potential star witnesses. That distinction, hands down, went to Haiman Clein, who was still waiting in the wings. Joe Fremut had been evasive in the past, and he was clearly someone who, Kane and McShane speculated, could react on the stand any number of ways, none of which would help their case. For that reason, Kane and McShane floated the notion that they probably weren’t going to call Fremut to testify. He had been out on bond for a while now, waiting for his own trial to begin, and there was no telling what he might
say once he was sworn in.
Since the beginning of the trial, however, rumors had swirled around the courtroom like gnats that Fremut, who was supposed to turn forty-one on May 9, had been ill—extremely ill. Someone who had worked out at a nearby YMCA gym where Fremut was a frequent guest said he hadn’t seen him in quite a while, and there was a good possibility he was in the hospital.
It was no secret Fremut had dated a drug-addicted prostitute, Cathy White. Had he gotten AIDS? some wondered. Hepatitis? Was he using drugs himself?
No one seemed to know.
By the second week of February, however, the status of Joe Fremut was clear. Word had come down that he had died back on February 13. It wasn’t AIDS, or hepatitis, or an overdose of drugs that got him. It was cancer. Fremut had been diagnosed with bladder cancer about four months earlier, and it spread remarkably quickly and killed him.
Although Fremut’s death had an impact on Kane and McShane, it wasn’t that much of a setback to their case; it was merely one more odd occurrence to add to a long list that had accumulated throughout the course of a long investigation.
For Dee Clinton, on the other hand, it was Buzz at work. From the grave, Buzz was wielding his sword, Dee later hypothesized, getting back at those who had played any part in his murder.
The one witness who could best explain how obsessive and preoccupied with Rebecca Beth Ann had become during 1992 and 1993 took the stand next. Tricia Gaul, John Gaul’s wife, had met Beth Ann shortly after John had found out he was Rebecca’s father. Eight years after the fact, Tricia Gaul was still holding on to the pain and hurt Beth Ann had caused her when she severed their friendship after John indicated he wasn’t going to fight for custody.
Tricia was one of those perfect witnesses. She and John had had their share of trouble in their marriage, and Tricia wasn’t afraid to admit that a lot of it had to do with what had happened concerning her, John, Rebecca and the Carpenters. Tricia had shown Rebecca nothing but love. If the jury was in need of latching onto a particular witness and drawing sympathy from that person, Tricia Gaul was the answer—and Kane and McShane knew it.
Lethal Guardian Page 36