Finding Amy

by Joseph K. Loughlin

  Chapter Nineteen

  After a lengthy fight about the rules and procedure that would apply to Tammy Westbrook's testimony and how the trial would proceed if her memory could not be refreshed, day three commenced for the jury at 9:48 a.m. with some good old Court TV forensics. Dr. John Burger, a zoologist from the University of New Hampshire specializing in the biology of insects, took the stand to explain the significance of the insect larvae found with Amy's body. Dr. Burger testified that he had received two sets of samples from the medical examiner's office, one preserved in alcohol and the other in vermiculite.

  LAROCHELLE: And what types of insects are these, sir?

  BURGER: The two types of insects that were … present were a species of blowfly and a species of coffin fly.

  LAROCHELLE: As to the blowflies, what was the significance of finding a blowfly on a cadaver?

  BURGER: Blowflies tend to be the first insects that are attracted to an animal after it dies and these insects, blowflies in particular, are important in determining the nature of death, time of death and so forth because many studies have demonstrated for particular species the time that it takes for particular species to develop in a cadaver over time based on different temperatures, different humidity and so forth.

  LAROCHELLE: How long would it take … for a blowfly to be attracted to a cadaver and deposit, I guess, the eggs which would result in what you received in this case?

  BURGER: I would estimate that given appropriate temperatures for development and for blowfly activity, that this process could very well have occurred within 12 to 24 hours of the death.

  LAROCHELLE: Now are blowflies active at night?

  BURGER: Generally speaking, they are not active at night.

  In response to Fern LaRochelle's questions, Dr. Burger stated that generally speaking, in a case such as Amy's, where there were injuries, it would take a postmortem interval of at least twelve to twenty-four hours for a blowfly to arrive at the body and to lay eggs. He further stated that the body must be exposed for there to be blowfly activity. Blowflies, unlike the coffin flies that were also present, do not burrow into the ground and would not be found on a buried body unless it had been exposed for the requisite period of time.

  Dr. Burger was followed on the stand by Tammy Westbrook. At this point, Bill Stokes took over the questioning. Stokes's plan was to examine Westbrook before the jury so that they could assess the credibility of her claim of lost memory. He would then question her about her grand jury testimony. If her recollection could not be refreshed either by referring to the transcript or by hearing her own voice as it had been recorded during her grand jury testimony, he would offer the transcript as past recollection recorded and have it read to the jury.

  Stokes walked Westbrook through questions about her current residence, where she was living prior to that, how long she'd lived there, with whom she was living at her home in Scarborough, and if her son, Jeffrey Gorman, lived there with her. Westbrook testified that her son sometimes lived with them and sometimes somewhere else. She recalled when they had moved up from Florida. That she had a kennel license to show dogs and breed dogs.

  He asked her if she remembered hearing about the disappearance of Amy St. Laurent, which she did, and whether she had had discussions about Ms. St. Laurent with her son. Westbrook answered that she was aware he'd been questioned by the police and that his car had been searched. That she knew the police seemed to be pinning it on him. Stokes asked her if her son had told her what he had done the night Amy St. Laurent disappeared. Westbrook responded that he had told her he'd dropped Amy off at the Pavilion nightclub.

  When Stokes moved into the area of Gorman's first altered version of the events of that night, in which he admitted not taking her back to the Pavilion but said Jason and Kush had killed Amy and asked for a place to hide the body, Westbrook couldn't remember discussing it with her son. She did remember something going on in the woods behind her house on December 8. That police had blocked off the road and she had seen police cars. But in response to Stokes's questions, she could not recall receiving a phone call from her son the following day. Nor going before the grand jury.

  STOKES: Ma'am, do you believe that if you heard your voice on tape, do you think that might refresh your recollection of testifying before the grand jury?

  WESTBROOK: I don't know.

  The grand jury tape was then authenticated by Donald Mitchell, the court reporter who had been present at the grand jury hearing to record the testimony and who subsequently prepared a transcript of that testimony. Mitchell described the way that the testimony had been recorded—that he had made a shorthand version and also recorded the actual proceedings as a check on the accuracy of his transcription. Tammy Westbrook was identified as the witness who had appeared in the grand jury courtroom and given that testimony.

  Then the unexpected happened. Questioning Donald Mitchell about the transcript of the grand jury testimony, Gorman's attorney established that the reporter's certification, in which he attested that it was a true and accurate record of the proceedings, stated that it had been prepared on the sixth day of February 2002. The date of her testimony was February 8.

  It was a reasonable attempt by the defense to exclude the damning grand jury testimony from the trial, and one the prosecution had anticipated. Challenging that typo, however, led to a decision that couldn't have worked better for the prosecution. The judge determined that Westbrook's memory was not refreshed by hearing the tape. (When the tape was played for her out of hearing of the jury, Westbrook claimed she couldn't recognize her own voice.) Having decided that the grand jury testimony should come before the trial jury, and with the validity of the transcript under attack, the judge decided that the tape itself was the most reliable record of the proceedings. Therefore it, rather than the typed version of her testimony, should be used.

  Once again, the jury's chance to hear the evidence of Gorman's confession, which was the centerpiece of the state's case, was delayed. With the defense's objections to the admissibility of the tape firmly on record, the jury went to lunch while the judge and the attorneys bent over the transcript, deciding which portions of Westbrook's testimony the trial jury would be allowed to hear. Following a tensely debated line-by-line editing session, Bill Stokes left the courthouse to get the tape edited, having asked Danny Young to call ahead to the state's audio agency and tell them not to leave before he got there. Stokes was aware, as Scott Harakles drove him back to Augusta on slick winter roads, that he was carrying the only existing copy of the tape.

  While Stokes was getting the tape edited, Fern LaRochelle continued, like a goldsmith creating the perfect setting for a jewel, to craft the testimonial foundation into which Westbrook's information about Gorman's confession would nest. Testimony resumed at 2:00 p.m. with Robert Milton, manager of the Game Room, the pool hall in Westbrook where Gorman was a regular.

  Milton described an evening at Denny's, about two weeks after Amy St. Laurent had disappeared, when Gorman told him that he had been questioned several times by the police. Milton said he had responded, “If you have been questioned, what's the deal?” and Gorman said, “Well, they think I did it.” Milton asked “Well, did you?” And Gorman said, “No, I didn't.” So Milton said, “Well, don't worry, if that's the case. When they find the body, they'll be able to tell exactly what happened,” and Gorman said, “They're not going to find the body, they don't have any evidence.”

  Later in the afternoon, the state called Richard Deveau, the boyfriend of Tammy Westbrook and father of her two youngest children. Deveau told about a Tuesday night near the end of October when Gorman had shown up at Route 112 Auto Sales, where Deveau worked, at closing time wanting to clean his car. In response to Deveau's protest that it was closing time and his question of why the car had to be cleaned that night, Gorman told him that he was letting a friend borrow the car. Deveau stated Gorman spent twenty minutes cleaning the car and then left. Deveau stated that it was uncommon for Gorman t
o clean his car.

  Asked about a time when Gorman had wanted to borrow a shovel, Deveau backtracked from his earlier statements to police, became fuzzy-minded about the details, and told an incoherent story about Gorman's borrowing the shovel to put in some fence in exchange for a piece of fencing. When pressed, he claimed that the words in the recorded interview transcript were not his, that he couldn't recall his earlier statements; finally he admitted that Tammy Westbrook had been so upset that he'd talked to the police she had made him sleep on the couch.

  On cross-examination, Gorman's attorney asked for and got confirmation of the difficult relationship between Gorman and his mother. Clifford Strike also established that the witness, Richard Deveau, was no fan of Gorman.

  To clarify Deveau's testimony, LaRochelle recalled Danny Young to the stand and asked him about his interviews with Richard Deveau during the investigation into Amy St. Laurent's disappearance. Young stated that on December 5 he had interviewed Deveau at Route 112 Auto Sales. In that interview, Deveau had said that around the time Amy St. Laurent went missing, Gorman had asked to borrow a shovel. When he was re-interviewed in January 2002, by Young and Harakles, Deveau had stated that the request was a couple days before or after Amy St. Laurent's disappearance.

  The day ended with another conference in the judge's chambers. Fern LaRochelle, responding to Clifford Strike's line of questioning about Gorman's acrimonious relationship with his mother, argued that if Strike was suggesting to the jury that Gorman's mother had a motive to manufacture evidence against her son, he wanted another portion of the grand jury tape included in the testimony played for the jury: the part in which Westbrook, recalling the day after Gorman's confession, talks about sending her son money. Danny Young was sent to put the audio editing on hold while the information about the newly added material was conveyed to Bill Stokes. Then all the weary parties went home to prepare for day four.

  Day four led off with the judge informing the attorneys that the deputy had just observed Tammy Westbrook taking some kind of prescription drug. Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for. Westbrook was sworn in by the clerk, and while she was on the stand, the audio-tape of her grand jury testimony was played. Hearing the testimony in her own words, her reluctance, her pain, and the trembling anguish in her voice had a power and impact a dry transcript of the same words could never have had. You could have heard a pin drop in the courtroom as the jury listened to the voices of Fern LaRochelle and Tammy Westbrook.

  LAROCHELLE: Miss Westbrook, yesterday when we were talking I was asking you about conversations that you had with your son, Russ, about the disappearance and death of Amy St. Laurent. I understand that you're here this morning very reluctantly, is that right?

  WESTBROOK: Well, I've never dreamed, dreamed isn't the word. I never imagined being in this situation … So I'm shocked. I'm traumatized. I'm scared. So if that seems reluctant than [sic] I'm sorry. I'm dealing with this as best as possible.

  LAROCHELLE: I understand.

  WESTBROOK: With all due respect to Amy and her family and her mother, you know, this has been very hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

  LAROCHELLE: Let me direct your attention to the conversations that you had with Russ about the disappearance and death of Amy St. Laurent. Following her disappearance, you spoke with him on several occasions; is that right?

  WESTBROOK: Yes.

  LAROCHELLE: And some of those conversations had to do with the fact that he was with her the night that she disappeared?

  WESTBROOK: Yes.

  LAROCHELLE: And he described to you what happened when he was with her on that particular night?

  WESTBROOK: Yes … the day after they found her body I started having a terrible feeling that maybe he knew something more. I was on my way to the Mall around 2:30 in the afternoon on Sunday December 9th and my cell phone rang. And I was horrified. I think I had been up all night thinking about poor Amy in those woods. They found her the night before … And I kept asking him. He had told me that two other guys had left with her that night. And they didn't search the guy's truck. It was the only car they didn't impound and search. So in my mind I'm thinking, oh, my God, these two guys they did something horrible to Amy and they buried her next to my house to make it look like my son did it. But I thought, you know, something's wrong because he's changing his story. And I just had this gut feeling there was something else to it. And so I said, Russ, is there something else? Is there something you want to tell me? And he said, no. I said, Tell me, Russ. Tell me. Tell me. And he said, okay. Mom, I did it. He said, I'll tell you what happened. He says I was, I was walking, we were walking by the lake. And he says he had done 4 hits of acid that night. I guess he had been out drinking. I don't know. But he said we were walking by the lake and she said something to me. He said, I don't even remember what it was.

  He said he looked at her and he saw my face. And he said he doesn't know what happened. I don't know if he blacked out or if he just, he doesn't know. He snapped. He doesn't remember.

  But he said he pulled out a gun. And I shot her in the head. And he said, he goes I woke up the next morning and I kept, I can't believe it happened. I thought it was a nightmare. It was a real bad dream, mom.

  I'm sorry it happened. I don't know what happened. And he said, but I saw your face. And he said, you ruined my life. He said, excuse my language, he said you fucked up my life.

  And I started screaming. I said, Why? Why? I said, why? I said, I love you, Russ. I've always loved you. He was my first child. I have always loved him. And he said, I love you, too, mom.

  The last few years I love you. But you ought to be glad it wasn't you, mom. You ought to be glad you're not dead. He says, I'm sorry. But you ought to be glad it wasn't you. This is almost word for word too.

  I'll never forget it as long as I live. And he said, he use to lay in bed at night from the time I was 13 and think of ways to kill you.

  LAROCHELLE: Did he say anything to you about how he buried Amy?

  WESTBROOK: I'm sorry. I did leave that out. He told me that I, I can't even say it again. When he killed her, he told me he left her there for three days and then he went back and buried her.

  LAROCHELLE: And did he mention anything about where he got a shovel?

  WESTBROOK: Yes. He was screaming. Sobbing is more like it. Because I was in my mind, I'm thinking I was remembering his face sitting in that chair that day holding his head about half a day with the look of shock on his face. So I started, I was just realizing this was maybe true but still denying it. And telling him no, no, no. He told me that he says, I did it, mom. He told, do you remember, I asked if I could borrow the shovel?

  LAROCHELLE: And that's when it sort of came back to you. Did you remember him asking about the shovel?

  WESTBROOK: Yes. I can't remember when it was but I do remember him asking to use a shovel. And they were just sitting outside by the gate outside the house. The shovel. I don't know why he would ask but he did.

  You know, I can't even walk out in my own yard without seeing those horrible woods where she was. Or looking out my window or going outside and play with my kids.

  I hate it. People ride by and slow down and look like we're monsters. And you may think I'm a horrible person by not coming forward with this sooner. But I knew good and well my son would pay for what he did. I just didn't want to be the one.

  Tammy Westbrook looks like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. Possessed as she struggles to respond to questions while maintaining her story of not remembering. Torn between two worlds as Stokes pleads to her soul to let the truth come out. She's up there on the stand, shifting, swinging, stopping, sliding, her outward movements mimicking her inward swings. And then that moment we've waited for—Gorman's confession. Dangling like a carrot on a stick since day one, it's been offered and jerked away so many times we're exhausted from the waiting. But now it's coming. The tape.

  God, what a moment. It's going to be the actual tape. Bill Stokes slo
wly introduces and sets up the process and then, at last, we hear it. The jury. The family. Actually hear Tammy's voice on the tape. Actually hear the truth. The whole courtroom practically holding its breath as the tape is played.

  Tammy dabs at her tears. Trying not to testify has been a contest between her soul and her will. In spite of my anger and bias, I feel pity for the woman until my eyes rest on the product of her poor parenthood, alive and well at the front of the room. Anger again, then sadness, as I observe this courtroom drama and reflect on our night at Amy's grave.

  Then through the silence of the courtroom, I hear Tammy's voice on that tape, reporting, “Okay, Mom, I did it.” Her voice goes on but I stop listening, suspended in time, the tape in the background as I think, God, the jury heard that! I am aware of Diane and Julie, of Dennis and Kathy, Richard Sparrow, and the others in a courtroom so silent except for that scratchy tape.

  I stare at the textures of the warm wood in front of me, at its striations and contours, as I listen to the truth. Lilley must be going crazy. It is so good that we can finally hear the truth.

  Gorman's attorney, Strike, speaks of the drug Tammy took in the courtroom. It was Seroquel, an antipsychotic. I see where this is going. Create reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury regarding her testimony.

  On cross-examination, Strike questioned Westbrook about the prescription drugs she was taking. He then argued to the judge that it was unfair to his client to have to question such an important witness when she was affected by powerful drugs. The jury was excused, and Westbrook was asked what drugs she was taking. After she reported that she was taking Seroquel, Celexa, and Klonopin, Strike argued that she should be excused from testifying and ordered to come to court without taking her medications so he could deal with the unmedicated Tammy Westbrook. It was finally decided Westbrook would be excused, would remain in the courtroom, and would be recalled after a few other witnesses had been called. The jury reentered, and the next witness was called.