Jacob stared into her eyes. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m so sorry. You must know that I couldn’t control myself.”
“You’re pathetic. Everything about you, everything you said, everything you did...they were all self-serving lies.”
“Look at me, Jacob,” she said, getting more agitated. “I never lied to you, Jacob, I could never lie to you.”
“Your whole life is a lie right from the first day we met.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Resident of the Year, that award you claimed. That was a lie.”
“I won that award. Ask grandpa. He saw it.”
“I did, Zoe. You lied.”
“He’s old. He just doesn’t remember.”
“Just like Columbia University doesn’t remember either?”
“I thought...I was so sure...what’s wrong with me?”
Jacob looked away in disgust.
“What’s the matter with you, Jacob? Why won’t you look at me?”
Lola was right, he thought. She hates it when you don’t look at her.
Jacob turned to face her. “You’re the monster who murdered my patients...my friends... decent people of more valuable to the world than you’ll ever be. You snuffed out their lives like they were nothing. You feel nothing except the humiliation of being caught. I don’t think you’re capable of remorse.”
Jacob stood.
“Please, Jacob. Don’t leave. I need your help.”
“My help?”
“You only think you know me. You have no idea what I’ve been through, how I suffered. If anyone...just one of them did what they should, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Jacob looked again at the ceiling. “Who are you talking about?”
“My mother, my father, even Bernie. Then came the parade of counselors, psychiatrists, psychologists and advisors of every stripe. They failed me. Please, Jacob, don’t you fail me, too.”
She’s unbelievable. Lola was right. It’s easy to see the futility of treating her.
“How can you be so bright and at the same time be devoid of insight into your own behavior, Zoe? You never take responsibility for any of your actions. It’s always someone’s fault.”
“I do take responsibility. I’m not trying to get off scot-free. I need treatment...I know I must pay for my actions, but spending the rest of my life in jail...that’s too much.”
“This won’t do any good, Zoe, but try for a moment to put yourself in the place of those you killed.”
Zoe placed her arms across her chest.
“These people weren’t strangers. They wanted to live, had every right to live. You stole everything from them and their families.”
“Don’t forget P.J. and Joshua Friedman...I helped them...I ended their misery.”
“Out of the kindness of your heart? You’re so transparent it’s laughable. Be sure, Zoe, that I’ll do everything I can to insure that you go away for the rest of your life.”
“You can’t do that,” she said, straining against her handcuff.
Jacob stood to leave. “Watch me.”
Zoe tried to stand but the steel cuffs held her in place. Her face blanched then crimsoned. “You’re a vile, disgusting old man, Jacob. Your look...even your smell...makes me sick. I hate your paternalism and sanctimonious self-righteous attitude. More than anything, I hate your patronizing superiority. I have only one regret, that I failed to end your sorry life.”
Jacob smiled. “Thank you, Zoe. You proved that even an old dog can learn his lesson. I plan to visit you in court and especially I’ll make sure I’m there for your sentencing.”
As he knocked on the steel door to leave, Zoe stood. “Don’t underestimate me, Jacob. Others have and lived to regret it.”
Jacob shook his head, and then departed.
Chapter Seventy-Five
The Wiley W. Manuel Superior Court for the County of Alameda sat near the 880 Freeway on Washington Street in Oakland.
Media vans surrounded the multilevel white courthouse with their microwave dishes raised for transmission.
Members of the public and the press filled all the seats in Judge Horace Kemper’s court as Alan Hayes and his team entered. Zoe sat at the defense table, wearing a muted rose Prada suit with a form fitting skirt just above the knee and an ivory satin-silk blouse. She’d arranged her chestnut hair in a French roll.
She looks great, Alan thought.
After jury selection, Alan and Kevin Martin battled before the judge in the absence of the jury on the critical issue: Zoe’s psychiatric defense.
Following eight days of testimony with multiple expert witnesses, the judge allowed Zoe’s psychiatric defense with the comment, “It’s your funeral, counselor.”
The trial lasted six weeks with detailed presentation of forensics of the killings and the attempted murder, expert psychiatric witnesses galore, and Jacob and Lola’s eyewitness testimony of her attempt to kill him with intravenous insulin.
Alan stood before the witness stand. “You knew Zoe well, Doctor?”
“I thought I did,” said Jacob.
“Did you find her final attack on you surprising?”
“Not completely. Obviously we were suspicious enough to set a trap for her, but right up until the end, I hoped we were wrong.”
“Why is that?”
“After reaching my late eighties, I thought I’d seen enough to recognize a severe psychiatric problem when I saw one.”
“Objection,” said Kevin Martin. “Dr. Weizman is not a psychiatrist.”
“Let me rephrase,” said Alan. “Have you cared for psychiatric patients over your many years of practice?”
“Yes, and since my wife is a practicing psychotherapist and I consulted on her cases, I’ve had much more exposure to psychiatric patients than the average family practitioner.”
“Objection overruled,” said the judge.
“Continue, Doctor,” said Alan.
“Zoe was smart, beautiful, socially skillful...patients loved her. She came from a great family. Her grandfather was my partner in practice many years ago in New York. While I understand that psychiatric problems don’t recognize class or intellectual differences, I just couldn’t believe that Zoe was this ill.”
“Your Honor. Please,” said Kevin.
“Overruled. If Dr. Weizman oversteps his qualifications, I’ll put a stop to it.”
“Thank you, your Honor,” said Alan.
“Over time, you saw problems with her behavior?”
“Yes, but they were the ordinary problems one might see in working out relationships in any group. Issues of authority, responsibility, and professional concerns about practicing medicine.”
“You were concerned about her skills as a physician?”
“Not at all. Zoe was well trained at one of the country’s best programs in Family Practice. She had superior intelligence and knowledge.”
“So what was the problem?”
“You’ve heard it from all the psychiatrists. Zoe is a narcissist, and working or living with one isn’t easy. I don’t think I can add anything more than you’ve heard already.”
“In all the time you worked with Dr. Spelling, you didn’t recognize a level of hatred she must have had for you that drove her to kill your patients and eventually compel her to try to kill you?”
Jacob shifted in his chair. “What I saw were the actions of a narcissist trying to assert herself at my expense. I thought of it as a stage in her maturing process. It wasn’t necessary to question my judgment or subvert me in front of professional colleagues and nurses...that hurt. I expected that over time, we’d come to a working relationship that suited us both, and in any case, I wasn’t going to live forever. None of that gave me a hint that she was capable of doing what she did.”
“How do you feel about Zoe Spelling now?”
“At first I was shocked and then outraged at her despicable acts. She’s responsible for multiple dea
ths and attempted murders, including mine. None of it makes any sense except in the context of mental illness, and right now all I can feel is a sense of sadness and the waste of valuable lives, Zoe’s included.”
“Your witness.”
Kevin Walters approached. “Good morning, Dr. Weizman.”
“Good morning.”
“Zoe Spelling killed four of your patients and tried to kill two others, including you?”
“Yes.”
“Is she responsible for these acts?”
“That’s for the jury to decide.”
“I’m asking if you, Dr. Weizman, hold Zoe Spelling responsible for her actions?”
“I object to that question, your Honor,” said Alan. “Dr. Weizman is a victim of the defendant’s actions, and as such, he cannot answer that question objectively.”
“Dr. Weizman is not on the stand to give objective testimony, the jury understands that, but as a victim, they are entitled to his opinion.”
“My wife and I survived the death camps where the Nazi’s slaughtered millions of innocents. Those who participated in these heinous acts sought to escape personal responsibility too...how could this be possible?
“The first step was to dehumanize the victims; Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, and the mentally ill...it’s easier to kill those recognized as a lower form of life, like the killing of an insect. Even so, what allowed seemingly normal people to commit these acts. Some were psychopathic and could kill under any circumstances and without empathy. Some bought the state propaganda and acted, they believed, as patriots, to protect the state from evil, and some simply had no choice...kill or be killed.”
“We’re getting a bit off track here,” said Alan.
“Can you answer Mr. Martin’s question, Doctor?” asked the judge.
“Like prison camp murderers, I believe Zoe Spelling, as sick as she was, had a choice. She had lucid periods where she recognized that what she was doing was wrong, and she should have sought help. After we discovered that Zoe committed these murders, I felt an element of personal failure, and yes, sadness too. Now, I find her lacking in remorse and doing everything possible to avoid punishment. To answer your question, Mr. Walter, I hold Zoe Spelling personally responsible for these deaths and all the misery she created.”
Chapter Seventy-Six
Alan Hayes faced the jury for his closing argument. They’d been attentive and he hoped a little sympathetic to Marty Abrams and his explanation of Zoe’s mental disorder. Marty scrupulously refused to use narcissism to excuse her actions.
Alan faced the jury. “This is a tragic case in so many ways. Zoe Spelling senselessly took the lives of the innocent and made attempts on others.” He paused, looking across the jury’s faces.
Zoe sat at the defense table, head down.
“Then why am I standing before you?
“Mr. Martin, the DA, will tell you that these acts are a simple reflection of evil and that such loathsome acts require the harshest punishment. He will also tell you that Zoe Spelling is a physician who swore an oath to ‘do no harm’, but abused the trust placed in her by her patients, her colleagues, and even Brier Hospital itself. We agree.
“Mr. Martin will go on to say that Zoe Spelling doesn’t deserve a degree of understanding. We disagree.
“When I finish, the DA may have little to say about that,” Alan said, turning and smiling at Kevin Martin, “though I doubt it.”
The jury smiled.
“I’d be the last one to tell you that all criminals, by their acts, are mentally ill. I’ve worked in criminal justice too long and this system, just like in the rest of the world, has proven unequivocally that evil does exist. Just open your morning paper or turn on the TV.
“The defense has one additional burden in trying to understand Zoe Spelling’s actions; her mental disorder, narcissism, is unlikely to evoke sympathy. The schizophrenic holding his sign and babbling in the park about repentance and doomsday, the child seething with uncontrolled rage, and those whose lives are frozen by intractable depression, evoke both fear and compassion.
“Not so with the narcissist whose behavior stands in sharp opposition to our most cherished religious and cultural values such as love, forgiveness, the ten commandments, and especially the Golden Rule.
“Narcissism is named after the Greek God Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection and died pining for the love he could never have. You’ve heard the phrase, ‘a legend in her own mind’? That surely defines the narcissist who thinks the world revolves around her. Healthy narcissism exists in nearly everyone. It gives us a sense of our own value and leads us to be productive and creative.
“Zoe Spelling manifests characteristics of what we psychiatrists call malignant narcissism. You ladies and gentlemen of the jury understand these by now but let me reiterate because I have a point to make. Zoe Spellings is angry, resentful, envious, dishonest, and thinks she’s entitled to special treatment. She exalts herself at the cost to others who she uses then discards. She suffers from persecutory delusions and above all fears exposure and humiliation.”
“I’ve heard enough of this,” screamed Zoe.
“Please control your client, Mr. Hayes.”
“Yes, your Honor,” he said as he returned to the table. Alan Hayes held Zoe’s arm, whispering in her ear.
“It won’t happen again,” said Alan to the judge, but turned to the jury and continued, “Imagine someone in court saying those things about you, especially your defense attorney.
“Let me continue. Who would choose to be this way?”
Alan glanced at his yellow pad for effect, then smiled. “I ask for your indulgence for a moment for a little psych talk. Our best experts in the human mind have speculated that narcissists were born to parents unable to connect to them emotionally and thus they learned not to let another person become essential to them. Typically, they’re treated like royalty or little gods and as a result they make the terrible choice not to love. They become complete unto themselves, not needing anything or anyone.”
Alan returned his pad to the defense table. Zoe’s head remained down.
He returned to the jury. “We sit today as witnesses to tragedy, multiple tragedies. We ask not for your forgiveness, but your understanding.
“As I prepared for my closing today, I found a quote from Jesus Christ...and no, for the skeptics we’re not trying to bring Jesus on our side at the last moment. You judge the appropriateness of Jesus’s saying: ‘For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.’
“Thank you, ladies and gentlemen for your attention.”
Kevin Martin rose from the prosecution table and moved into his spot before the jury. Even in his pin-striped Armani suit, his informal folksiness came through.
“Alan Hayes is a great attorney, don’t you think?”
Not expecting an answer, he continued, “Defending Dr. Zoe Spelling for murder and attempted murder is beyond his considerable skills. In the sanctity of a hospital, bound by everything we hold sacred to help and protect patients, this physician acted against the oath of her profession and the fundamental laws and values of our society.”
Kevin Martin reviewed each case emphasizing the cruelty of the means employed by Zoe Spelling and the tragic loss of life.
“Here’s what’s uncontested: Zoe Spelling knows why she’s here and has participated fully in her own defense. She knew right from wrong, but even under the increased scrutiny at Brier Hospital she continued her monstrous acts. What’s left for the defense?
“First they trotted out the diminished capacity defense; her narcissism made her do it. That’s the Dan White Twinkie defense and won’t fly in this state where we believe in personal responsibility. Then they suggested that Dr. Spelling didn’t have the mens rea. That’s the lawyer’s fancy term that suggests the absence of a guilty mind or the lack of intent to commit the crime.
“Let’s look at that critically: Five separate events le
ft four dead and one pushed to the brink of death and left with permanent disability.
“A guilty mind? She planned each murder in detail using her familiar face to move through the hospital, a predator in white. She picked exactly the right times to commit her heinous acts then disappeared into the night.
“You’ve heard much psychiatric testimony, but in the end, the determination of insanity is, under the law, a layman’s decision, your decision.”
Kevin walked back to his table, picked up a book and returned before the jury. “This is Sam Vaknin’s book, Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Re-Visited. Let me quote a few characteristics that the defense attorney omitted: Narcissists’ deeds are frequently overlooked; they only seek therapy when caught; they are often fully aware, cunning, premeditated and sometimes even enjoy every bit of it.”
“Finally. I’m sure you’re glad to hear that word,” he paused, smiling, “hold Zoe Spelling responsible for these murderous acts. The one statement that appears in every description of the narcissist is that they always think they can get away with it.”
Kevin paused to meet each juror’s eyes. “Let me say it again...Zoe, in her narcissistic fantasy, thinks she’ll get away with it. Prove Zoe Spelling wrong, and find her guilty on all counts. Thank you.”
Chapter Seventy-Seven
No Cure for Murder Page 31