As Diane and Lucille left us to the noise and chaos of the detectives’ bay, bellies full and comforted, I thought about how unusual the experience we'd just had was, and how typical of the Diane Jenkins we had come to know. In the midst of her own grief, she had taken the time to think of us.
In early January, detectives, prosecutors, and evidence techs met at the medical examiner's office for more discussion of the information about the gunshot wound gleaned from the reconstruction and testing of Amy's skull. Lab tests had confirmed chemical traces indicating that it was, indeed, a gunshot wound and identifying the entrance and exit wounds. The medical examiner explained the direction of the bullet suggested by the positioning and angles of the wounds, as well as other broken bones and a chipped tooth, which suggested that Amy had been struck with some object. The rest of the information available that day was grimly disappointing. There was none of Gorman's DNA on any of the dozens of items tested.7
Gathered around the table in the medical examiner's conference room, we await more news from the lab and medical examiner. Words I'll never forget. No DNA! I can hear the air hiss out of Danny's lungs. Scott drops his head. Tommy shifts in his seat. I know Tommy expects more and is very good at hiding his emotions. Matt's head is red again, so stoic that if it weren't for that color, you'd never know he felt a thing. But we're all reeling.
How can there be no fuckin’ DNA? We've worked so hard. We've been so careful. I think of the Stearnman logging twenty-five hours on Gorman's car. All the work Kevin McDonald did. All those exhibits carefully collected and sent to the lab. Those miserable hours in the cold at the grave site, sifting, sifting, sifting. Plucking out the tiny hairs. Goddammit!
Peggy Greenwald's voice goes on, explaining the toxicity results. Amy's blood alcohol levels high. The presence of GHB (gamma hydroxybuteric acid). What we'd been wondering about. Did she maybe drink too much under all that stress? Rubright getting harder to handle. Making passes? Did Gorman put something in a drink? We believe maybe he did. It would explain her uncharacteristic behavior. And then another kiss of death—my God that term fits here, doesn't it? That none of the results are meaningful because of decomp. Because alcohol and GHB can be products of decomp.
Scottie looks at his clenched hands and I know what he's thinking. What we thought every day Amy was missing—that vital evidence was being lost. If only we could have found her sooner.
It's not like we didn't try. But there is still hope in the testing and review of evidence collected. DNA is only one part. Unfortunately, because of TV, CSI, the news, movies, and misinformation, it tends to be the part that the public focuses on.
With Gorman in the Cumberland County jail, held on probation violations, attention turned to the question of how and when he would be charged with the murder of Amy Elizabeth St. Laurent. On January 2, 2002, Gorman admitted to technical violations of his probation and was sentenced to ninety days in jail. Before those ninety days were up, the detectives wanted to be sure Gorman was under indictment for murder.
In Maine, all homicides are prosecuted by the attorney general's office. As the focus shifted from investigation to prosecution, Deputy Attorney General William Stokes and Assistant Attorney General Fernand LaRochelle, who had been advising the detectives on the legal aspects of the investigation all along, began to play a central role. Young and Harakles had already been consulting on questions concerning the legality of proposed searches and the necessity for, and language of, the various warrants they had obtained. Now the investigators and the prosecutors began preparing for an indictment.
In 2002, Stokes had been with the attorney general's office since 1977 and had tried about seventy-five murder cases. The dark-haired, engaging Stokes is lively and dynamic. He talks with his hands and his whole body in staccato bursts, leaning into conversation with the eagerness of a born storyteller. He delivers his words in a Massachusetts accent tempered by his many years in Maine. Detectives describe him as a passionate litigator, extremely effective in argument, forceful and persuasive with judges, and appealing to juries. He thrives on a good fight and isn't afraid to take risks.
Fernand LaRochelle, by contrast, is a much quieter man. He got out of the University of Maine Law School wanting to practice public interest law, interned at the attorney general's office, and found a career. He has prosecuted at least 150 murder trials in his thirty-year career. Middle age finds him graying and lean, with a face both distinguished and intelligent. He is low key, soft spoken yet authoritative. He is careful and precise, generous with praise for other lawyers’ and police officers’ hard work, and has a deep understanding of the pain and conflicts of the families involved in any murder case, both the victim's and the perpetrator's. After more than a quarter century on the job, he has a profound respect and appreciation for having had the opportunity to do valuable legal work that serves the people's interest.
Detectives who have worked with LaRochelle say that while Stokes is the more outwardly passionate, there is nothing lacking in Fern's passion. As one detective put it, “When Fern comes out and the gloves come off and he addresses the jury … you really see his talent. Once he's decided to fight … he will fight, and it's a beautiful thing.”
Although they have both been trying homicide cases for many years, neither Stokes nor LaRochelle has ever lost sight of the particular responsibility their job carries. As the ones responsible for securing homicide convictions, they go into each trial feeling the heavy weight that comes with the necessity of procuring justice for the victim and closure for the families, as well as representing the interests of the people of Maine. So much, they say, rests on them. They also have a deep appreciation for the detectives’ investment and interest in their cases. They understand the essential value of good detective work to a successful prosecution and how difficult it is for detectives to relinquish control of their cases to the legal process.
Now they began the preparations to take the case against Jeffrey Russell Gorman to a grand jury for a murder indictment. At the grand jury stage, the prosecutors generally haven't interviewed witnesses themselves but rely on information from the police and police reports. In many cases, only the investigating officer or officers will go before the grand jury, outlining the basics of their investigation. Other times, prosecutors put much more of their case before the grand jury because they want to see how a jury of citizens at the actual trial might hear and judge the story. In the case of Amy St. Laurent, the decision was made to make a fairly complete presentation of the evidence to the grand jury.
The grand jury process is a secret process; other than the citizen members of the grand jury itself, no one is present except the presenting witness, the prosecuting attorney, and, in Maine, if authorized by the judge, a court reporter. No members of the public are present, nor is the suspect or his attorney. The grand jury, which is a very old legal institution, is called the “conscience of the community,” and it is this community that listens to the state's evidence and decides whether or not a person should be brought to trial. By law, for an indictment, a grand jury must consist of twelve to twenty-three persons. What the grand jury returns is known as a bill of indictment, what we call an indictment and what the lawyers call a “true bill.”
There were several reasons why the prosecutors wanted to present a more detailed case to the grand jury. For example, because the matter of timing on the night Amy St. Laurent disappeared was critical, they called all the other residents of the apartment where Gorman was staying to testify in order to give the grand jury a clear picture of who was where, at what time, and what they saw and didn't see.
The primary reason they wanted to take the case to the grand jury rather than getting an arrest warrant, however, was that they wanted to get Tammy Westbrook's testimony on the record. At that point, they had no direct information from the mother herself regarding Gorman's admission that he had killed Amy. They had heard the details of Gorman's confession from Westbrook's friend Mary Young. Tammy Westbrook had
also shared the story with an Episcopal priest in Delray Beach, Father Fred Basil. Mary Young and Father Basil were both honorable and credible witnesses; however, legally, their testimony was hearsay.
Gorman's confession was useful as factual testimony— as an actual, firsthand admission that could be used to convict him—only if it came directly from the source to whom he had told it, his mother. Therefore, they needed to get the mother on record with what her son had said.
They knew, from prior attempts to appeal to Westbrook's conscience, that she wouldn't talk about her son's confession. Twice, Tommy Joyce and Matt Stewart had talked with her at her home. On December 27, when they returned her computer, they had felt they were close to a breakthrough. Joyce spoke about how laying it out was one of the things people use to get themselves through tough times, like prayer.
WESTBROOK: I can't imagine him doing something like that.
STEWART: He did and you know he did.
WESTBROOK: No.
JOYCE: Because he's told you.
STEWART: Tammy, you know the truth.
WESTBROOK: You have to leave now.
JOYCE: You can get this out and you'll feel better.
WESTBROOK: No. I want you to go.
STEWART: Amy's mom no longer has her daughter because of what Russ chose to do.
WESTBROOK: Savannah's right there. Please respect that.
STEWART: Do the right thing, Tammy.
WESTBROOK: No. She can hear.
STEWART: The truth needs to come from you. It does. And you know that. I know you know it in your heart ‘cause you're a good person. I see it in your eyes.
JOYCE: You're a mother, and you care very much for your son, but you do know what is right, the ultimate right thing to do.
In the end, Westbrook hid behind her two little girls, telling the detectives to leave as they were upsetting “her babies,” so they left.
Scott Harakles had also had a conversation with Westbrook in which he almost connected. He was talking to her about doing the right thing, and she was pleading with him, “but this is my son.” By the time detectives sat down with Fern LaRochelle to discuss strategy before the grand jury, they knew what Tammy Westbrook's position was going to be: Make your case any way you can, but leave me out of this.
Mary Young had told them that bearing the knowledge of her son's confession was a terrible burden for Westbrook. She wasn't eating or sleeping. She was deeply tormented by the conflict between shielding her son from prosecution when he should be punished for committing a terrible crime and not wanting to be involved in the process that would result in his arrest.
It is not unusual, in the legal process, for a year or more to elapse between an indictment and the time the case comes to trial. The detectives and the prosecutors knew that time has a way of allowing people to deal with guilty and troubled minds. Given enough distance from the event, a person with guilty knowledge can rationalize it or find a way to cope so that the knowledge is no longer so troubling and intrusive. They also knew that memory can fade. The attorneys reasoned that it was critically important to get Tammy Westbrook to tell the story of her son's telephone call and confession while it was fresh and immediate and she was still feeling the full impact of its horror, in a forum where it could be recorded and preserved and she would be under oath.
It was possible that Westbrook might come into the trial and tell the truth, but the grand jury process was the moment when they felt they had their best shot at getting her to do so. Also, if she was ever going to say anything officially, it would probably be before the grand jury, a closed and secret proceeding, rather than a public trial, and she was far more likely to talk before her son was formally charged with Amy St. Laurent's murder.
Gorman's confession, with its details about hitting Amy and shooting her in the head and sometime later going back and burying the body, was by far the best evidence they had. Although the prosecutors could place Gorman with a gun, they did not have the gun. Despite months of searching, the police hadn't found the missing clothes or shoes. Despite the more than twenty-five hours that Portland evidence technicians had spent on Gorman's car, and the meticulous work at the crime scene, the state crime lab hadn't come up with any DNA or other forensic evidence tying Gorman to the crime. Therefore, it was essential to get the details of the confession recorded as soon as possible so that the attorneys could use that information for further investigation and preserve it for trial.
Despite Tammy Westbrook's troubled conscience, they did not expect that getting her cooperation would be easy. It was possible that she would appear in response to her grand jury subpoena and either refuse to testify or tell an entirely different story from the one police had heard from Mary Young. Strategically, they had to decide how best to create a situation where she could be induced to tell the truth.
Part of that strategy was to send investigators to Delray Beach, Florida, to conduct personal interviews with Mary Young and Father Basil. This was another time-sensitive trip. With the grand jury session scheduled for early February, there was no time to drive. Scott Harakles didn't want to fly, and since the investigators already knew what they were going to get, this was a piece of the investigation that could be done by any competent detective. In mid-January, Danny Young and MSP detective Rick LeClair went to Delray Beach, Florida, where, with the assistance of Delray Beach detective Mike Miller, they recorded interviews with Mary Young and Father Basil.
When they visited Father Basil at his church, he questioned whether or not, as a priest, he could speak with them about what Tammy Westbrook had said. Assured by the detectives that since they had been conversations, not a priest-penitent situation, and that since he had mentioned the conversations to Mary Young, he had “published” the information and could claim no religious privilege, he agreed to come to the police station and give a statement.
In his statement, Father Basil told them that he was pastor of the Anglican church in Delray Beach. He told the detectives that he had had two conversations with Tammy Westbrook. Both times, she had called him at home. In the first call, she had sounded very upset and had told him her son's story about Jason and Kush killing Amy and threatening to harm Gorman's family unless he helped them dispose of the body and told them of a good place to put it.
Sometime shortly after, maybe a week or week and a half later, Westbrook called him again one evening between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m. and talked for about forty-five minutes. She asked, “Can I tell you something?” and then related her son's phone call in which he said he was walking with Amy and there was an altercation and he shot her.
Young and LeClair subsequently interviewed Mary Young, recording the information she had already provided by phone. By that point, Young said, he felt as though he already knew Mary Young well and that she was a friend. In a case where so many witnesses seemed indifferent or unconcerned, he appreciated dealing with a good-hearted woman who had a conscience. He understood that she was deeply sympathetic to Tammy Westbrook's dilemma but felt that the demands of justice, given what Gorman had done, far outweighed the demands of friendship. She was also concerned that if Gorman were released, another woman's child could be at risk.
Mary Young didn't just give the detectives her statement; she also allowed them to put a recording device on her telephone in case Tammy Westbrook called with further information. She offered to wear a wire in conversing with Tammy Westbrook's daughter, Britney, in case Britney had any useful information. She was very helpful in locating other witnesses for them, in explaining the situation to Gorman's ex-girlfriend Kathleen Ferguson, and in helping the detectives to get Ferguson's information.
Kathleen Ferguson confirmed what she had already told Danny Young. Gorman had told her, in a phone call, that Jason Cook and Kush Sharma had killed Amy St. Laurent. That they had hidden her body in the basement of the Brighton Avenue apartment for three days and had then taken it away and buried it. That it had been buried where it was found because Cook and Sharma had forced
Gorman to suggest a good hiding place by threatening his mother and girlfriend. Ferguson also told the detectives that, in addition to Gorman's violent behavior, her relationship with him had foundered because he had such negative views of women and that these might have been fueled, in part, by his terrible relationship with his mother.
Young and LeClair returned to Portland with videotapes of their interviews. Acting with a cautious eye toward things that could trip them up at trial, they searched the basement of the Brighton Avenue apartment for signs that Amy's body had been stored there as Gorman had claimed, as well as searching Cook's truck for evidence that it had been used to transport her body.
On February 4, 2002, Scott Harakles served a grand jury subpoena on Tammy Westbrook. He told her that Mary Young and Father Basil would also be called to the grand jury, and that she knew why they were being called. In response to her protests, he told her that while she might hope otherwise, her conversation with Father Basil was not privileged. He reminded her that a grand jury proceeding was a very serious matter and that when she came to testify, she could not tell anything other than the truth.
As Westbrook protested, Harakles told her bluntly that lying to a grand jury would be perjury and she could be subject to criminal charges. After they had discussed the consequences of perjury, which included the possibility of arrest and incarceration, Westbrook told him that she did not believe her son had committed the crime.
“He did it,” Harakles told her flatly. “He told you he did it.”
As they had anticipated, she answered that she would not appear in response to the subpoena. If she failed to appear, Harakles told her, they would have to arrest her.
Along with preparation for their own case, the attorneys were preparing for the defense's right to cross-examine Westbrook at trial. At all stages of a case, the investigation stage, the grand jury stage, and the trial prep stage, police and prosecutors are always thinking ahead toward what will happen at trial, and how to do an investigation and present a case that will stand up to defense scrutiny. In the case against Russ Gorman, that meant getting the mother's testimony now so that the prosecutors could fit it into a factual matrix that would be hard to discredit at trial, even if the defense could show she was a volatile and vindictive mother who had a toxic relationship with her son.
Finding Amy Page 22