If You Only Knew

by M. William Phelps

  Most important: she knew what Billie Jean had done and not done.

  “Are you lying about what happened that night with Don?” the polygraphist asked Vonlee as the test began.

  “No.”

  “Did you plan with Billie to kill Don when he was drunk?”

  “No.”

  “Are you lying that Billie is the one that smothered him with that pillow?”

  “No.”

  “Did you personally smother Don with that pillow?”

  “No.”

  “Are you lying that you left when Billie smothered him?”

  “No.”

  And that was it—five pointed questions and the test was over.

  What would the results say about Vonlee after polygraph examiner Christopher Lanfear studied the graph and drew a conclusion as to the truthfulness of the answers? For Vonlee, the results would make or break her chances of striking a plea bargain.

  CHAPTER 55

  ONE COULD SAY THAT Vonlee’s attorney, Richard Lustig, negotiated a sweet plea bargain on her behalf. Under that agreement, prosecutors arranged to reduce a first-degree murder charge—life in prison if convicted—to manslaughter if she passed the polygraph and testified against Billie Jean. As it turned out, when polygraphist Christopher Lanfear finished his review and report of the polygraph test he had given Vonlee, the only conclusion he could come to was “based on the analysis of the polygraph,” Vonlee Nicole Titlow “is being truthful to the pertinent test questions.”

  Vonlee had passed the polygraph with flying colors. According to law enforcement and the PO, she was telling the truth about her role (or lack of role, actually) in the death of Donald Rogers. But what’s more, Vonlee was saying that she had witnessed Billie Jean, her aunt, place a pillow over her husband’s face and murder him.

  It was no secret to anyone involved in either case that the PO wanted Billie Jean. This was clear in the way in which she was questioned before her arrest and how the prosecution was handled afterward. Part of Vonlee’s plea deal included an agreement that she not challenge on appeal the prosecution’s recommended sentencing range of that seven to fifteen years (even though sentencing guideline recommendations for manslaughter for a similar case were lower).

  On Monday, October 29, 2001, after Billie Jean’s trial date was pushed back a month to November 29, 2001, Vonlee sat in court at 9:37 A.M. to make it official. This proceeding, so routine and seemingly uneventful, would become one of the single most important elements within the entire legal portion of Vonlee’s case as time moved forward.

  APA John Skrzynski began the proceeding, stating for the record that Vonlee “is charged with one count of first-degree premeditated murder, and at this time, the People and the defendant have entered into a plea bargain and sentencing agreement.”

  That agreement and plea bargain, Skrzynski added, included that “the People, at this time, would move to add count II, manslaughter, and [the] defendant would agree to plead guilty to that count under these conditions.” The rules for this deal were fundamentally simple: Vonlee “would agree to testify and would actually testify against the codefendant . . . Billie Rogers, during the course of her trial in accordance with a statement. . . .” That part was easy enough. Vonlee would have to sit and tell her story the way in which she’d been telling it from the moment she sat in Danny’s truck and admitted to committing a crime in the first place. The second part of the deal, the APA went on to say, had Vonlee agreeing to a “sentence [of] a minimum of seven years to a maximum of fifteen years. And finally, that the defendant would agree and waive any kind of right to appeal on either the plea or the sentence.”

  The state asked for Vonlee’s sentencing to be put off until “after her testimony in the trial of Billie Rogers.” And perhaps most important to what would happen later, “the People would reserve the right, in the event the conditions that I set forth are not met by defendant . . . to withdraw the offer of manslaughter and would resume the prosecution of this case on a count of first-degree murder and proceed to trial at that time.”

  As deals go, this was your standard quid pro quo. Vonlee would give them the goods on Billie Jean, as promised, and she would catch a break.

  It all seemed reasonable to Vonlee, considering that she felt responsible in some respects for taking part in Don’s death, even if she wasn’t the driving force and did not commit the actual crime.

  As the short proceeding continued, Vonlee was asked a series of questions by her attorney, most of which placed her under a direct light of guilt. This was significant. Because once she admitted to her role in the crime on the stand, there was no turning back. It would be part of the record forever.

  “Okay. You and I have gone over all of the evidence together over a long period of time, correct?” Lustig asked Vonlee.

  “Correct,” Vonlee answered.

  “And you and I have discussed . . . that there are certain facts that could get you convicted of first-degree murder. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  Lustig then explained how those “facts” included “two” particular items: “Number one, that you . . . received one hundred thousand dollars after the death of your uncle, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “And also, that during the course of the so-called homicide, you did feed alcohol into his system and you heard the medical examiners testify as to the effect that might have had. You understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  Vonlee had just admitted under oath, in a court of law, that she had participated in the crime with her aunt.

  “Okay. Now, although you didn’t participate in what appears to be a smothering, you understand a jury could find you guilty of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, or nothing at all. You understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “When you plead guilty like this, you give it all up.”

  “I understand,” Vonlee said, nodding her head in agreement.

  Lustig said the only remaining issue was for the judge to accept her plea and Vonlee to testify against Billie Jean. After that, the judge “will give you a seven- to fifteen-year sentence, and there will be no appeal or anything like that. Do you understand?”

  Vonlee said she clearly comprehended what was being asked of her and what she was agreeing to in a court of law.

  “And now, finally, there’s . . . regardless of the fact that I haven’t been paid for a trial,” Lustig explained, “I will proceed to trial without anything further. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s not my intent here to abandon you at this particular time.”

  “Yes.”

  The judge questioned Vonlee about the same issues, making a point that in agreeing to this deal Vonlee was giving up all of her rights to remain silent. Then the judge wanted to know from Vonlee “what occurred that makes you think that you’re guilty of manslaughter on August 12, 2000. What did you do that makes you think you’re guilty?”

  Vonlee explained that she had performed “an act in a reckless and dangerous manner, which put the victim in a position of great bodily harm and/or death.”

  Richard Lustig piped in and asked: “And what did you do? What was the act that you performed?”

  “What I did, personally, was, I did pour a shot of vodka in his mouth and I did accept money afterward not to say anything about what had happened.”

  “Okay,” the judge asked, “who was with you at the time?”

  Vonlee stuttered a bit. Took a deep breath. Leaned into the microphone: “My aunt,” she said. “Billie Rogers.”

  The judge hit his gavel and declared that “the court is satisfied there is sufficient factual basis for the plea. I find that its understanding, accurate and voluntary, and I do accept the plea. The matter will be set for sentencing on December 24, 2001. . . .”

  As quickly as it had started, twenty minutes later, it was over. Vonlee Nicole Titlow had taken her plea deal and was now
prepared to go head-to-head against her aunt in a court of law.

  CHAPTER 56

  NOTHING IN VONLEE’S LIFE was ever as it seemed. Things were constantly changing; some of the people involved were forever thinking of ways to alter the course of events—when the hard truth is, at least by some standards, much of life is predetermined by the choices we make.

  In late November, just three days before Billie Jean was set to face trial, Vonlee was sitting, talking to a deputy corrections officer (CO) about her case, when that shameless dagger of fate slashed through what was her reality up until that moment.

  “Innocent,” Vonlee said of her part in the crime. “I might have embellished some things,” she added, referring to what she had told Danny Chahine. She then explained that seven to fifteen years seemed like forever for someone who played hardly any role in an actual murder.

  “I have a name for you,” the CO told Vonlee. He gave Vonlee the name of his own lawyer. The CO explained that the guy might be able to hook Vonlee up with another lawyer, if she wanted one. He might even get her a better deal. The guy the deputy had in mind, he said, was top tucker. The best. The deputy added, “He’s really good. I could ask someone to come in and talk to you, if you want.”

  Vonlee met with this new lawyer, Frederick Toca, a day later. Toca claimed later that Vonlee came across as an innocent woman with “very little time” left to withdraw her plea, for her codefendant was set for trial in a few days. “I passed a polygraph,” Vonlee told Toca. “I am innocent!” Toca said she explained this to him “very, very strenuously . . . [and] indicated to me that [she] wasn’t even in the room when the murder occurred.”

  According to Vonlee, Toca told her he could, in fact, find a better deal and that the proposed sentencing span—seven to fifteen—was not even within the guidelines of sentencing for the crime in which she had pleaded to, or the crime the PO believed she had actually participated in (manslaughter).

  “When she first engaged me,” Toca claimed later in court, “it was not to withdraw her plea. It was to see if the prosecutor would consider lowering the sentence . . . because . . . it was far outside of what her guideline range was.”

  For Toca, as he looked at Vonlee’s case, he believed she had a strong argument for less time. Or, rather, that was what he told her.

  “There was no disbelief in my mind,” Toca said, “that the deal as she was being offered was not a good deal for a ‘manslaughter’ plea in a case where she was going to testify against a codefendant, in a case where she had passed a polygraph.”

  Vonlee told Toca she had no money. At the time she met Toca, Vonlee considered herself to be in a “vulnerable legal position and confused state of mind,” she later explained in a civil case. She didn’t know what was best for her legally and had “very little” understanding of “legal expertise.”

  That was okay, Toca suggested. All he wanted was a few things she could provide without having to come up with any cash.

  “The agreement was in exchange for [all of my] jewelry valued at thirty thousand dollars,” Vonlee said later, which was “agreed by both parties that the jewelry was worth this amount.” Toca also asked her for, according to Vonlee, “the right to sell [my] story about how this crime was committed.” In turn, Vonlee added, “[I] did give the jewelry over to [Toca and sign] away [my] literary rights to the facts. . . .”

  Vonlee did all of this, she said, even though she never realized, at the time, Toca was breaking the “Rules of Professional Conduct,” which, as a member of the Michigan Bar Association, he had sworn to uphold.

  Without even calling to ask Lustig for Vonlee’s file—after Vonlee had dumped Lustig as her lawyer—Toca approached the prosecutor’s office with a new deal he had worked up. He felt Vonlee should not receive any more than three years for her part in the crime.

  The bargaining chip here was the idea that without Vonlee the PO had no case against Billie Jean and would effectively have to drop those charges or risk losing at trial. They had a good, firm grip on the PO and were now squeezing the APA to try and get years slashed from the lower end of an already-in-place, already-sanctioned-by-a-judge plea bargain that Vonlee had signed off on herself and agreed to in open court.

  In the eleventh hour like this, the proposition of the deal came across as ruthless and unethical.

  The prosecutor’s office said no way. Not a freakin’ chance.

  Vonlee threatened not to testify at her aunt’s trial, thus breaking her agreement.

  The prosecutor’s office decided to withdraw the previous plea bargain Vonlee and Richard Lustig had negotiated—which it had the right to do before Billie Jean’s trial had started because Vonlee was now “refusing to testify under the terms of the original deal.”

  A judge would have to, however, make the final decision.

  CHAPTER 57

  BILLIE JEAN’S TRIAL BEGAN on schedule, November 29, 2001, a Thursday, the entire session eaten up by jury selection. This day was a moment many thought would never come to pass. Billie Jean, frail and beaten down by the cancer, was clearly sick. But there she sat, in the hallway of the courthouse, ready and waiting for her day in court.

  Billie Jean had reason to smile this morning, despite the circumstances of the threat of her remaining days on the planet being spent behind bars. At 9:23 A.M., on November 29, in the Sixth Judicial Circuit Court of Oakland County, before the Honorable Wendy Potts, who would oversee jury selection in Billie Jean’s case, an unprecedented proceeding took place inside the courtroom.

  APA John Skrzynski was there to represent the People, and Vonlee Titlow’s new lawyer, Frederick Toca, stood on behalf of Vonlee, who looked as though she had been on whirlwind high the last few weeks. “Confident” didn’t even begin to describe how Vonlee came across this morning. She was ready and willing, under the direction of Toca, to withdraw her previous plea and force the hand of the prosecutor’s office, or so she believed.

  Thus, after Vonlee said she was “convinced” that this man was going to get her off with minimal time served, the new team of Titlow and Toca was present inside Potts’s courtroom. The duo was prepared to explain officially to the judge what Vonlee was doing, so Billie Jean’s trial could commence without disruption. Vonlee would not be testifying against her aunt, which, everyone knew, was going to make a conviction on the state’s part nearly impossible.

  Skrzynski explained to the judge after Toca introduced himself that it was the state’s understanding that Vonlee was going to withdraw her “previously tendered . . . conditional plea.” Further, the APA added, “The defendant indicated through her attorney that she will not testify, except if her sentence can be two to fifteen, which is a violation of the agreement which we entered.”

  Not that he was seething, or visibly bitter, but Skrzynski was aggravated and impatient, considering he believed Vonlee was getting away with a lot more than she had done. Many on the side of law enforcement were convinced Vonlee had participated in the actual murder and had been far more responsible than she was letting on.

  The APA asked the court to withdraw the deal it had offered. On top of that, APA Skrzynski stated, “We wish to proceed to trial [with Vonlee] immediately.”

  That’s it. If Vonlee was going to take this to the next level, the prosecutor’s office was ready for battle. The one case the PO had been certain of was Vonlee’s. They had plenty of evidence against Vonlee to merit a conviction.

  Vonlee sat looking on, seemingly stunned to hear those words, yet self-assured that her new attorney was advising her to do the right thing. It’s striking how ignorant both Vonlee and Toca came across here: This was a slam dunk for the PO. Vonlee had admitted to her role in the crime—she had done so on the stand, on videotape, in court—and, additionally, the PO had that recording made by her boyfriend. By her own testimony during the hearing to accept the plea, Vonlee was a witness against herself.

  Toca explained to the judge that he thought seven to fifteen was “outside of Ms. Vonlee Tit
low’s guidelines,” without going into any more detail about what he meant, adding, “When I had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Skrzynski, he indicated that he would review that with his office. I spoke to him after that. He indicated they would not accept that. Based upon that, Your Honor, we are withdrawing.”

  The APA spoke up, rather candidly and with affirmation, saying, “No, no. The offer that was made on the phone by this man was three to fifteen or she would take the Fifth.”

  The judge called a bench conference. She was a bit taken aback by all of this, describing to the lawyers after they approached the bench how she didn’t really know what the guidelines were in this situation.

  Toca kept insisting the guidelines stipulated two to five years.

  Skrzynski listened to Judge Potts and Toca go back and forth as Toca tried explaining that the guidelines were based on Vonlee having “no priors,” and any charges she did have were “misdemeanors.”

  Potts looked at Skrzynski. She wanted to know what he thought. Did he have a response?

  “Well,” the witty assistant prosecutor said, “this is only her first murder.”

  Skrzynski continued to argue over Toca’s bantering about the two to five by stating rather simply that, in the end, it didn’t matter what the guidelines were, any lawyer knew that. What mattered was the deal to which Vonlee had agreed. And that was a minimum of seven years. Period. It was an agreement, in fact, that Vonlee Titlow, Skrzynski said, knew firsthand was “above” those so-called guidelines. “And she agreed that she would not only do that, but she would waive her appellate remedies . . . superseding the guidelines.”

  It seemed as though Toca did not study Vonlee’s case at all.

  Toca and the APA talked back and forth, the judge refereeing, each arguing about guidelines and what the probation department would determine the best guidelines should be, but the conversation turned tedious as Skrzynski pointed out that it was all for naught, seeing how Vonlee had agreed her deal was above the guidelines, whatever they were. That was all that mattered.