Dovey Undaunted

by Tonya Bolden

  But Ray refused to tell Dovey his girlfriend’s last name. With only a first name and skimpy description of Vivian, Dovey had her private investigator, Purcell Moore, turn the “city of Washington inside out” in search of this woman.

  Moore succeeded. When Dovey telephoned Vivian—“hard, and tough, and angry”—she confirmed Ray’s story but refused to testify in court, fearful that her husband would kill her if he found out about the affair.

  Dovey was desperate for Vivian to testify because she didn’t dare put Ray on the stand to retract his lie about fishing and tell the truth about what he was really doing on the day of the murder—not with Hantman as the prosecutor. Dovey feared that Ray, under a “barrage” of Hantman’s questions during cross-examination, would “collapse, probably into tears.”

  So Dovey pressed Vivian to testify. After Dovey warned that if found guilty Ray could get the electric chair, Vivian agreed to provide an affidavit about her time with Ray on the morning of the murder. But that was no help. The court wouldn’t accept Vivian’s statement unless she testified in court to its veracity.

  Vivian wouldn’t budge. Like others in his life, Vivian abandoned Ray.

  His wife, Helena, never visited him in the DC Jail, never attended the trial, not even on day one when Ray sat at the defense table between Dovey and co-counsel George Knox in a brand-new blue suit his mother had gotten for him. Ray was “shaking and reaching out to touch my hand every few minutes,” remembered Dovey, “sensing, as I did, the press of the enormous crowd behind us.”

  That crowd included Ray’s mother with about a dozen members of her church, newspaper and TV journalists, and what looked to Dovey “like a veritable sea of men in grey suits, along with two or three fashionably dressed white women.” Dovey took those women to be friends of the victim.

  Cicely Angleton, wife of CIA official James Angleton, was one of the victim’s friends who attended the trial every day. She was “unnerved by the racial tension in the room,” wrote Nina Burleigh.

  Future high-profile defense attorney Robert S. Bennett also attended the trial every day, for he was Judge Corcoran’s law clerk. “I sat next to the jury box, as if I was the thirteenth juror.” Bennett recalled that throughout the trial Dovey had a “motherly warmth and her low-key, casual style concealed a very bright and aggressive advocate.” In contrast, Hantman was “cold and arrogant at times and overreaching.” What’s more, Hantman did something Judge Corcoran told the then twenty-five-year-old Bennett to never ever do in a courtroom: chew gum. “It was disrespectful to the court and the jury.” Hantman chewed gum “throughout the trial,” said Bennett. “I am sure the jury noticed.”

  AFTER BRADLEE LEFT THE stand, Hantman called Georgetown pharmacist Harry Alexander Dalinsky, a friend of Ben Bradlee’s who had also been friends with the victim.

  Hantman:Did there come a time when you saw Mary Pinchot Meyer in death?

  Dalinsky:Yes.

  Hantman:When and where did this happen, sir?

  Dovey:Excuse me, counsel. May we come to the bench, if Your Honor please?

  Sidebar.

  Dovey:I think it would be prejudicial to have this man testify about going to the Morgue and seeing the bullet wounds of this poor woman. We already have the identification made by the brother-in-law.

  Overruled.

  In the end, Hantman didn’t elicit any testimony about bullet wounds. All the jury learned was that Dalinsky had been at the DC Morgue with Ben Bradlee to identify the victim’s body. As Dovey had no questions for him, the witness soon left the stand.

  Hantman then called Randolph M. Worrell, a former technician at the DC Morgue.

  Dovey had no questions for him. In preparation for the victim’s autopsy, Worrell had removed her clothing. Hantman used Worrell to get before the jury the victim’s sweaters, shirt, and other clothing, items Worrell said certainly looked like the clothing he had removed from the body.

  Hantman:Did you also at the same time, sir, remove from the body of Mary Pinchot Meyer a sample of her blood?

  Worrell:Yes, I did.

  When Hantman held up a test tube of blood, the judge called for a sidebar. Once before the bench, Hantman explained that he wanted to show that the blood in the test tube matched the blood found on the tree.

  Hantman also said that the blood would support his theory that there had been a struggle, that Mary had been dragged, that her gloves had gotten bloody when she put her hands to her head after the first shot. As Hantman talked on about struggle and blood, his voice was loud enough for the jury to hear. Corcoran warned him to keep his voice down.

  The judge had more questions for Hantman.

  Corcoran:And the purpose of showing the struggle is to show premeditation?

  Hantman:Yes, Your Honor.

  Corcoran:What do the articles of clothing add?

  Hantman:The articles of clothing merely show the gunshot wound—they not only show the gunshot wound but the proximity with which the shots were fired.

  Dovey wasn’t concerned about the clothing but she was very bothered by the blood.

  Dovey:If Your Honor please, he took me by surprise when he took this vial of blood out. I submit this is prejudicial.

  Judge Corcoran didn’t respond to Dovey. For the next few minutes there was more back and forth between Hantman and him.

  But Dovey wasn’t done.

  Dovey:About the blood that you have been shaking in front of the jury—

  Hantman:I haven’t been shaking it in front of the jury. I just took it out to have it marked for identification, if Your Honor please.

  Corcoran:All right. You held it up in front of the jury.

  The judge warned Hantman against inflaming the jury. Dovey said that it was too late for that, that Hantman had already prejudiced the jury against Ray and he wouldn’t get a fair trial. She motioned for a mistrial.

  Corcoran:The motion is denied. Let’s get on with the trial.

  The test tube of blood was entered into evidence: the government’s Exhibit 7. After Worrell confirmed that he’d delivered the vial of blood to the FBI, he was excused. Once again Dovey had no questions.

  HANTMAN’S FOURTH WITNESS WAS deputy coroner Dr. Linwood L. Rayford, who had performed the autopsy on Mary Pinchot Meyer.

  Dr. Rayford’s testimony couldn’t have been easy listening for the squeamish. He testified about Mary being “bloody about the head,” and about finding on her body “superficial lacerations to the forehead, abrasions to the forehead, to the left knee and the left ankle,” and “two circular wounds, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, both surrounded by darkened halos.” In graphic detail, Rayford also testified about the path the bullets took in the victim’s body.

  Hantman brought forth two bullet slugs and the doctor identified them as the ones he had removed from Mary’s body.

  Dovey:We object to the admission of these two objects and request to be heard thereupon.

  Another sidebar.

  At the bench Dovey argued that no connection had been established between the bullets and her client. Admitting them into evidence would be “highly prejudicial.”

  Corcoran:I think the United States Attorney has a right to establish death and cause of death. These bullets have, obviously, been testified to as the cause of death. Whether they can be connected up later on is another point.

  The bullets were entered into evidence and the jury learned from Dr. Rayford that those two “darkened halos” (dark circles around the wounds) were “suggestive of powder burns.” The gun was fired at close range.

  Through the rest of Hantman’s direct examination of the deputy coroner, jurors, the press, Martha Crump, Ray, and others in Criminal Courtroom 4 heard more gory details. Hantman had just shown Dr. Rayford a pair of bloodstained tan gloves when Judge Corcoran interrupted. “Mr. Hantman, will you be much longer with this witness?”

  It was about half past noon.

  Learning that Hantman would be a bit longer, the judge ordered a recess until
1:45 p.m.

  When court was back in session, counselors were soon back at the bench. Hantman described a line of questioning he wanted to pursue with Dr. Rayford about how the blood got on the victim’s gloves and on the tree. Dovey renewed her protest against Hantman’s line of questioning as “highly prejudicial,” as bordering on “sensationalism.” What’s more, Hantman had a cart containing the blood-stained clothes and other exhibits right in front of the jury box. George Knox requested it be removed from the courtroom. Hantman insisted he would need it for upcoming witnesses.

  Corcoran:Put it at the side of the jury box.

  When Hantman resumed his direct examination of Dr. Rayford, the jury learned more details about Mary’s wounds.

  And this time, Dovey had questions for the witness.

  In her cross-examination Dovey raised doubt as to how much of a fight the victim had been able to put up. She got the doctor to admit that the bruises could have come from falling as opposed to being dragged. On the matter of Mary being shot at close range, Dovey asked if it was likely that the shooter would have had “powder marks on his or her hands.”

  Rayford:Likely, yes.

  Dovey would later make very good use of Dr. Rayford’s response to her question about gunshot residue.

  HANTMAN WASN’T DONE FOR the day. He had yet another witness, Joseph A. Ronsisvalle.

  And Hantman got his wish to affix the topographical map to the courtroom wall. He also had copies in miniature for the judge, defense counsel, and jury.

  The map, showing exits for the area of the towpath where the murder occured, was an official National Park Service map, and Ronsisvalle, a National Park Service employee, was there to firm up Hantman’s theory that the killer couldn’t have gotten out of the area because the police had sealed off all exits within four minutes of the “lookout”—that is, the be-on-the-lookout-for message radioed to police.

  “With military precision, Hantman showed minute by minute the arrival time of police at each exit,” remembered Robert Bennett.

  Dovey didn’t need a copy of the map. “I’d walked each of those exits dozens of times, with George and Jerry: the steps leading up to Water Street at Key Bridge, the steps at Chain Bridge, an underpass at Foundry Branch, another underpass at Fletcher’s Boathouse.”

  In her cross-examination of Ronsisvalle, Dovey made him and that map irrelevant.

  Dovey:On this map, are there not places where a person walking on foot could leave the area of the towpath without using any of the fixed exits?

  Ronsisvalle:Yes.

  “Fixed exits” were official exits as opposed to well-worn paths and short cuts not on the map.

  Through Dovey’s cross, jurors and spectators also learned that the witness wasn’t personally all that familiar with the heavily wooded area. He had, in fact, never set foot on the towpath.

  After Ronsisvalle left the witness stand, Hantman called his star witness, Henry Wiggins.

  For Hantman, as Peter Janney put it, “Wiggins—a black man pointing the finger at another black man—seemed to be the ideal witness.”

  20

  TO SIMPLICITY

  WHEN HENRY WIGGINS TESTIFIED about what he had heard and seen nine months earlier, he said that he had a clear view of the man standing over the victim’s body, that the man even looked up toward where he was standing, that he looked directly at the man, then ducked down behind the wall, bobbing up in a matter of seconds.

  That’s when he saw the man turn around and shove something into a jacket pocket. “It was dark, I believe, some kind of hand object.” Then, said Wiggins, the man took off for the railroad tracks down below the towpath.

  Wiggins also testified that the man he saw from a distance of about 120 feet had on a brimmed cap, a light-colored jacket, dark pants, dark shoes.

  Hantman elicited testimony from Wiggins that let the jury know that for three years this witness had been a specialist in the Military Police Corps.

  Hantman:As part of your training, were you given any specialized training in the careful observation of people?

  Dovey:I object, if it please the Court.

  Corcoran:What is the ground of your objection?

  Dovey:The ground of my objection, if it please the Court, is he is now, I take it, trying to establish and make this witness a specialist in seeing and sighting objects and I submit that the military training and this line of questioning is all to make credible the testimony of this witness and I don’t think he can do it in this manner through this witness.

  Dovey was overruled and Hantman continued his line of questioning. In doing so, he handed Dovey ammunition she would later use.

  Hantman asked Wiggins to describe the man.

  Wiggins:Well, I didn’t get a very good look at his face but I did get a glance at it.

  And?

  The man was Black, medium build, weighed 180 to 185 pounds.

  Hantman:Were you able to determine how tall he was?

  Wiggins:Well, I couldn’t make an exact estimate to that.

  Hantman referred to the plaid cap and the light-colored jacket found near the crime scene along with the navy corduroy pants Ray had on when arrested.

  It was going on 3:30 p.m.

  Corcoran:May I ask you, Mr. Hantman, are you going to be long with this witness?

  Hantman:Yes, Your Honor.

  Court recessed.

  THAT EVENING, AS ON every evening of the trial, Dovey kept company with herself on the screened-in back porch of her home across the Anacostia River, in the neighborhood bearing the river’s name.

  “Enshrouded in trees,” the porch was “my sanctuary, my thinking place.” Every case she had tried had been “mapped out on this porch, where complex matters invariably reduced themselves to simplicity.”

  WITH WIGGINS BACK ON the stand the next day, Hantman picked up where he left off. He asked the witness if he could identify the cap, jacket, and pants, along with the black wingtip shoes Ray had on when arrested.

  Dovey objected. She pointed out, for example, that “there are zillions of pairs” of men’s black shoes.

  She lost, and in the end Wiggins testified that he first saw the shoes and the other clothing “when they was being worn by the defendant when he was standing over the victim at the scene.”

  Soon came one of the trial’s most dramatic moments.

  Hantman:Now, sir, can you look around the courtroom and identify for us the individual you say you saw standing over the body of Mary Meyer on the afternoon of October 12th, 1964?

  Wiggins:Yes, sir.

  It must have been a terrifying moment for Ray and one of great satisfaction for those in the courtroom who believed him guilty from day one.

  For Hantman it wasn’t enough for Wiggins to point out the person. He wanted him to leave the witness stand, go over to the defense table, and put a hand on the person’s shoulder.

  Dovey objected. Wiggins could very well make the identification from where he sat.

  Hantman:I submit the witness has a perfect right to come down and properly identify the individual, if he knows.

  Corcoran asked Wiggins if he could identify the man from the witness stand.

  Wiggins:He is at the edge of that table there, sitting at the table there.

  By then he was pointing.

  The judge then told Hantman to stand behind the defendant to ensure a proper identification. But instead of doing exactly that, Hantman hammed it up.

  First he stood behind George Knox.

  Hantman:Here?

  Wiggins:No, sir, at the far end.

  Hantman stood behind Dovey’s other co-counsel Alan Roberson.

  Hantman:Here?

  Wiggins:No, sir, the next person over.

  Hantman then stood behind Ray.

  Hantman:Here?

  Wiggins:Yes, sir.

  Hantman:May the record show, if Your Honor please, I am now standing directly behind the defendant Raymond Crump Jr.

  Ray was probably shaking, maybe even
reaching once again for Dovey’s hand as tall, imposing Hantman with those bristling eyebrows stood behind him.

  Corcoran:The record will so show. Proceed.

  THROUGH THE REST OF Hantman’s direct examination, jurors learned what Wiggins did after his duck and bob, from racing to his tow truck to returning to the scene with cops and identifying Ray from a distance of 15 to 30 feet and not wearing a cap or jacket.

  In her cross-examination, Dovey challenged Wiggins’s powers of observation, especially on the description he’d provided so that the police could issue that lookout.

  Hadn’t he testified that the man weighed about 185 pounds?

  Hadn’t he testified that he only got a glimpse of the man’s face during that first sighting?

  Did Wiggins recall telling anyone that the man was 5 feet 8 inches tall?

  Wiggins:Well, I believe I told one of the policemen which came down in the cruiser with me.

  Dovey:Would that be, then, an accurate estimate of what you saw, the man you saw weighed 185 and [was] five feet eight?

  Wiggins:That wouldn’t be an accurate estimate, no, ma’am.

  Dovey:Well, now, are you telling us now you gave them information which was not accurate?

  She was facing the jury.

  Given the way Wiggins’s next words tumbled, stumbled from his lips, he was clearly rattled.

  Wiggins:Well, this information which I gave them at that time which I was looking across the canal down on the subject there, would not be very accurate but as close as I can give—I give it them as close as I could remember.

  Dovey:And you gave them, though, what you thought you saw from across the canal?

  Wiggins:I tried to do my best.

  Dovey:All right. A hundred and eighty-five pounds; five foot eight.

  Wiggins:That’s right.

  THE WASHINGTON POST WOULD headline its coverage of that day’s trial with “Witness Identifies Crump as Man He Saw With Murder Victim’s Body.”

  The Evening Star would have “Witness Says Defendant Stood Over Mrs. Meyer’s Body.” But this article pointed out what Dovey never said in her cross-examination but what she very much wanted the jury to pick up on: “Wiggins admitted,” reported the Evening Star, “that he described Crump, who is noticeably short and slender, as being about 5 feet 8 inches and weighing 185 pounds.”