Mr. Big

by Colleen Lewis

  Together they did what they could for Nelson while he was in prison. Nelson’s mother worked diligently to make sure he would be well represented in his trial. Derek Hogan, with the Legal Aid Commission, was chosen to represent him.

  Nelson was constantly on the phone, and they were very busy times. Although there were occasions when Jennifer could barely keep up the goings-on, she was glad for the distraction.

  In addition, spending more time in Gander meant she got to spend more time at the graveyard. Now that the girls had their headstone in place, Jennifer was busy making sure her daughters were remembered properly.

  But no matter how busy she was, there were still times when she could only lie on their graves and cry. There were many times she only wished she could just dig them up and take them home.

  Nelson was phoning every chance he got, which kept everyone busy. Each day there was a new story. Everyone was out to get him, or at least that’s what he thought. Silently Jennifer wondered if he wasn’t getting more and more agitated each time she talked to him.

  But his mother wasn’t about to give up, and finally she couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to go see Nelson at the prison.

  So they packed up and headed for St. John’s.

  Jennifer had never been inside a prison before, and she thought it was the spookiest place she had ever seen. After they had entered a small room, they proceeded through a long tunnel, where they sat at a long table with the other visitors.

  Before long, the guard brought Nelson out.

  At first Jennifer thought he looked different somehow, but she soon realized he was the same old Nelson. Only now he needed her, and his mother, more than ever.

  “You guys have got to get me out of here soon,” he pleaded.

  “It will only be a few weeks and the trial will begin,” Jennifer reassured him. “If you’re innocent, it won’t be long and you will be out.”

  After their visit, his mother was more determined than ever to prove that Nelson was innocent.

  Jennifer was there when his mother phoned the local television reporter. She wanted to tell Nelson’s side of the story.

  “The RCMP barbarized Nelson,” she told him. “They followed him, they did everything in the world for three and a half years to try and get something on that man to prove that he drowned his two little girls. They came up empty because he’s innocent.

  “They turned on him and they set him up,” she said. “They knew how poor he was at the time, they knew his circumstances. They knew he had a gambling problem. They knew right how to get to the core of Nelson, so they set him up and set him up good.”

  Jennifer and Nelson’s mother were rarely apart these days as they prepared for the trial. Jennifer followed her and helped wherever she could. She was constantly making sure Nelson had what he needed in prison, and then there was also the question of securing a lawyer.

  Of course, Nelson qualified for legal aid. However, an appointed lawyer wasn’t going to be satisfactory for Nelson. Nelson would receive support to keep fighting until he got the lawyer of his choice.

  97

  As Jennifer sat in the courtroom, she again felt like the world around her had become a bad dream. Nelson’s mother sat beside her, full of fury. This would be the trial that would prove her son’s innocence, and she was there to make sure of it. It was also expected that his wife be there to support him.

  Jennifer looked around the courtroom and saw some faces she knew, and others whom she didn’t recognize. Suddenly, a door opened and two guards brought Nelson into the courtroom. There were chains around his feet, and a group of reporters rushed to the front of the courtroom. Through her tears, Jennifer heard the clicks of the cameras and saw the lights fixed on her husband.

  If he wasn’t a criminal, he sure looked like one to her at this moment.

  He kept his head down as the cameras stayed focused on him.

  First on the stand that day was a police officer who had been at Little Harbour that day in 2002.

  As they went over the finest details of the scene at the lake, Jennifer realized that for the next few weeks she would have to relive everything that had happened.

  Up next was a doctor who had examined Karen and Krista that morning. Most of the details were technical, and difficult to understand, but Jennifer was in agony as she listened to them talk about her girls.

  98

  It was Monday morning, the first day of week two of the trial. Jennifer got up and boiled the kettle. She didn’t feel like getting dressed, and she was in no mood for driving back to Gander for another morning at the courtroom. But she knew Nelson’s mother was counting on her. She was having trouble understanding much of what she had been listening to all week. It seemed the lawyer went on for hours about the most insignificant details.

  Then there was his mother, who was constantly talking about Nelson. How hard a time he was going through, how unfairly he had been treated.

  Even though Jennifer had her doubts, she still felt it was her obligation to be there. Especially if her husband had been framed by those undercover RCMP.

  Suddenly, there was a knock at the door, startling her. Who could it be so early in the morning?

  “Can you come up to the house before you take off to Gander this morning?”

  It was her landlord.

  Jennifer went about the business of getting ready, making sure she had everything she had promised Nelson. There was a new shaver and some cream in the bag, though she could barely afford it these days. But she felt it was her job, as his wife, to do whatever she could to help.

  She walked out of the apartment into the icy February morning. To the west she could see a storm moving in, but that wouldn’t stop her from being in court.

  Her landlords were waiting for her as soon as she knocked on their door. They’d been good to her, and she was curious why they wanted her this morning.

  Harold held out an envelope.

  “I want you to take this, and don’t open it until you get to Gander,” he said. “I take it you’ll be going out to the court this morning. It must be hard on you. We’ve been watching the news all week.”

  “Yeah, it’s all a bit confusing and tiring,” she told him.

  “Well, you take care of yourself and drive safely this morning,” said Harold.

  “Looks like we’re going to have some weather.”

  Jennifer had no intention of waiting until she got to Gander to open the envelope. As soon as she finished gassing up the car, she pulled over to a side of the parking lot.

  Inside the envelope was a $50 bill. Jennifer began to cry. She needed the help, but she didn’t realize how obvious it was that she was suffering financially.

  But there was something about that gift that made her feel stronger. Ready to endure the proceedings today. She knew there was a strong possibility that Mervin, Nelson’s brother, would be there. At least there would be a friendly face in the courtroom.

  Jennifer drove to Nelson’s mother’s and waited in the driveway. After a couple of minutes, Nelson’s mother came out dressed in her beige leather jacket with a matching scarf. She looked sharp.

  “Have a look at this,” Jennifer shrieked, pulling the $50 bill from her pocket. “My landlord gave me this.”

  But Jennifer didn’t think Nelson’s mother shared in her excitement at all. Instead, she suggested Jennifer use the money to help Nelson out. However, this was one time Jennifer had no intention of passing the money over. She needed the money badly.

  They made their way through the cold into the courthouse, and of course the cameras were there waiting. But Jennifer was gradually getting used to the cameras, though she still didn’t like them.

  Throughout the morning they continued to watch tapes of Nelson at the police station just hours after the girls had died. For three
hours he was interviewed, and for the three hours he denied having hurt his children. Krista fell in the water and he left Karen with her. When he got back to Little Harbour, they were both in the lake. That was his story, and the police couldn’t make him change it no matter how hard they tried.

  Finally, Mervin walked up to the stand. Jennifer was instantly reminded of how much he cared for her and the girls.

  The Crown attorney, Mark Linehan, made his way through a bunch of general questions, and Mervin explained that he was the middle child. Nelson was the oldest, and Stephen the youngest.

  He asked him to point Nelson out in the courtroom.

  Jennifer listened as he asked Mervin about how much contact he’d had with Jennifer and Nelson in the months prior to their deaths. He also asked about the day the girls died.

  “Mr. Hart, what do you remember about the day of August 4, 2002?” asked Mr. Linehan.

  “I was getting ready to go to Gander, to the derby and to see the kids,” Mervin Hart told the court. “I was hoping to take them out to the demolition derby . . . and I got a call from Nels. He was trying to get a hold of Mom. Mom was in St. John’s for that weekend. He was trying to get a number to her. He was upset, and he had to get a hold of her. Krista was out in Little Harbour. She was after falling into the water, and he was trying to get a hold of Mom.”

  Jennifer fought back the tears as she listened to her brother-in-law go over the details of having to identify Karen.

  Then came the cross-examination by Derek Hogan, Nelson’s lawyer.

  “As Nelson’s brother, you knew that Nelson couldn’t swim. Correct?” said Mr. Hogan.

  “Yes,” Mervin replied.

  “Can you remember ever seeing him in the water?” asked Mr. Hogan.

  “Never.”

  “Was he afraid of the water?” asked Nelson’s lawyer.

  “So far as I knew he was,” replied Mervin.

  “Did you have any concerns that the children might be physically abused by Jennifer and Nelson?”

  “No.”

  Jennifer felt relieved when the lawyers said they were finished questioning Mervin. She knew the pressure he faced from his family.

  Next it was Jennifer’s family who would take the stand. Her brother-in-law Winston finished taking his oath and sat in the box. Mr. Linehan wanted to know about a visit they’d had back in the spring before the girls’ deaths. Nelson had to go to St. John’s, and that night there was a conversation the Crown was particularly interested in.

  “What came up that night during this conversation?” Mr. Linehan asked.

  “We were talking about some stuff, and I think we were talking about the kids. I said if somebody was ever to take my kids it would be a hard thing. Nelson said, yes, if somebody ever took mine, you know, I’d probably do away with them.”

  “His comment, again, to the best of your recollection, was what?” Mr. Linehan asked.

  Winston shifted in his seat. “I would make away with them before I let someone take them.”

  99

  Jennifer could already hear Nelson’s mother when she woke up at six thirty in the morning. She was on the phone, and she was mad.

  This week had already been exhausting enough. Yesterday she had listened to the doctors who worked on Karen and Krista, as well as the medical examiners.

  Today she felt like just getting up and walking to the graveyard to be with her girls. But instead, today would be her turn to take the stand.

  She thought the shower would make her feel better, but she would have no such luck this morning. Jennifer had never felt so heavy, or so burdened.

  At breakfast, Jennifer was subject to pleas to continue to defend Nelson and to do her best on the stand, but Jennifer knew this would be difficult. Jennifer didn’t have the energy to listen.

  There were things she didn’t remember, and things she didn’t understand.

  She got dressed and headed to the courthouse. The reporters were there, and there were a few extra members of the public. Jennifer figured a lot of people were interested in what she would have to say.

  She made her way to the front of the courtroom and sat in the witness box. Other than the lawyers, Nelson was the closest person to her. They were face to face.

  “Mrs. Hart, are you currently married?” asked the Crown.

  “Yes, to Nelson Hart,” she replied. “We’ve been married now seven years.”

  Jennifer knew her voice was shaky, especially when the court kept reminding her to speak up so everyone in the jury could hear. A clerk came forward and adjusted her microphone.

  “Did you have any children?” he asked.

  “Yes, two girls, twin girls. Karen and Krista,” she told the court.

  “Tell us everything you can remember about the day your daughters died.”

  “There’s not much I can remember,” she said. “It’s been almost five years now. I got up for breakfast, bathed them, and I got them all dressed because there was a derby that day. Nelson was ready, and they wanted to go to the swings. New swings, they were saying. Nelson said how long are you going to be, and I said about forty-five minutes to an hour. So Nelson took the girls.”

  “How long was he gone?” asked Mr. Linehan.

  “I’d say about half an hour or forty-five minutes, he was gone. He came into the house all in a panic. He was saying, ‘Krista’s in the water.’ I asked him where Karen was, and I guess in the fright he said, ‘Karen’s down in the car.’ But when I got down there, Karen wasn’t in the car. I asked him where’s Karen, and he said he left her down there.”

  Jennifer continued on with her testimony, describing the moment she saw Krista in the water. She even managed to show them on a map where the body was. But with each question, it was getting more and more difficult to keep from bursting into tears.

  When the questions began about being with Krista at the Janeway, she couldn’t hold back anymore.

  “I’m going to have to take a break,” she said.

  After the break, the questioning turned to Nelson and his seizures. The court wanted to know whether Nelson had taken his seizure medication on the day the girls drowned. She said he had because she had given it to him.

  Then there were questions about her brother-in-law Mervin and the day she and the social worker called him to see if they could stay there. They had been in the car with the girls and nowhere to live. Jennifer remembered it well.

  “I needed a room over the girls’ heads. I couldn’t have them on the street,” she said.

  “How did Nelson feel about going to Mervin’s?”

  “He didn’t want me and the girls to go,” she replied.

  Then came the endless probe into the details of Mr. Big. The court wanted to know everything about her involvement, and she tried her best to remember the details.

  “Pat and Carol were going to be married,” Jennifer explained. “And where me and Nelson only got married here in the court, we were going to have a double wedding. Nelson was going to get rings for me with diamonds and stuff.”

  “Let’s get back to August 4,” the Crown asked. “Did he say how Krista ended up in the water?”

  “He said he had a seizure. He said that when I got down to Little Harbour. He said he had one of the small ones. Petit mal, not grand mal.”

  Mr. Linehan approached her with a document. It was the statement she had given to the police on the day the girls’ died.

  “In your statement, did you mention anything about a seizure?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “But in a later statement you mentioned he had a seizure, or that something else happened,” said Mr. Linehan.

  “I heard it somewhere along the line that he said that he had a seizure,” she responded.

  When questioned, Jennifer could
n’t answer where she had first heard Nelson had had a seizure.

  “Was it that same day, a day later, or a month later?”

  “I wouldn’t be able to tell you,” she said.

  “Can you give us any idea of when you heard of the seizure for the first time?” he pressed on.

  “Well, after I came back from PEI is when I found out he came to the police and told them he had a seizure. That was after the girls’ deaths. I came back in December.”

  “So he told you that he didn’t tell them about the seizure because he’d lose his driver’s licence?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Jennifer was relieved when one of the jurors was called outside the courtroom. She was happy to get a break from the questioning. There were things she couldn’t remember, and she had never felt so confused.

  But as soon as the break was over, it was time for the cross-examination by Nelson’s lawyer, Derek Hogan.

  He went back to December of 2002. Jennifer and Nelson were both being interviewed by the police. Mr. Hogan brought forward Nelson’s statement from the interview. “Remember that day you was in doing your hair, and I stood up by the side, you turned in to the wall. I wanted to tell you I got sick. You know, out there. And I said if I tells her she will probably go hysterical.”

  This was the first time he had told Jennifer about the seizure.

  “I can recall somewhere along the line that he told me he got sick,” said Jennifer.

  Jennifer struggled to answer the question until, finally, Mr. Hogan excused her from the stand.

  She went back to her seat next to Nelson’s mother. She was glad to have it over with, but she couldn’t figure out how any of those questions had anything to do with whether or not her husband had killed her two daughters. She hoped she hadn’t said anything that was going to make Nelson’s mother mad. She was exhausted and in no mood for an argument.

  “Yes, My Lord, the next witness for the Crown is Pearl Hart.”

  “Do you have any children?” asked Mr. Linehan.

  “I’ve got three sons: Nelson Hart, Mervin Hart, and Stephen Hart. Nelson is the oldest, Stephen the youngest.”