And what about writing that she wanted to have his child?
“Cameron told me that over and over,” Colleen said.
Flipping through her notes, McGuire confronted the points Papendick had raised the day before, hoping her methodical approach could counteract the witches’ brew of questions Papendick had splashed across her case. Cameron Hooker watched as she went over information as minor as that Colleen gave him the tips she made at King’s Lodge, and as major as the several felony counts against him.
All the while, the jurors studiously took notes.
Defense Attorney Papendick began his re-cross-examination with a request to put some of his own markings on the time chart the prosecutor and Colleen had created so many months before. McGuire objected, since she hoped to use it in her closing argument, and a ten-minute discussion ensued about whether and how Papendick might be able to unobtrusively mark up this prop for use in his argument as well. They discussed little numbers, green as opposed to red or perhaps black, and considered larger or smaller markers. The judge, a natural comedian, couldn’t help but see the humor in this, and while he joked about judicial function, the jury laughed at the spectacle of these dignified attorneys getting caught up in such trivialities.
With the details finally ironed out, Papendick had Colleen ink in the times she was out of the box, going to bars, jogging, or gardening. He quibbled with her about seasons, and she scowled but eventually the little numbers were in place.
This done, Papendick moved on to his last volley: phone records from Pacific Bell. There were a surprising number of calls placed from Colleen’s father’s residence to the Hookers’, and these he listed one at a time, being careful to include the time and duration of each call. Many were more than twenty minutes long.
Papendick read these into the record, underscoring them in the minds of the jurors, interrogating Colleen on each. He asked to whom she spoke on each occasion. For most, Colleen could only weakly reply, “Probably Jan.”
His point made, Papendick excused the witness and sat down.
CHAPTER 31
With the trial into its third week and the sensational “sex slave” testimony over, the interest of the press slackened and the line-up of witnesses for the prosecution moved to those on the periphery, who had viewed the Hooker household from the outside. McGuire would call a total of nineteen witnesses—a few important neighbors and relatives, a doctor, and the expert witness, Dr. Hatcher—putting the strongest testimony at the beginning and end.
After Janice and Colleen’s long stretches on the stand, the parade of subsequent witnesses went quickly. Neighbors and family members testified they’d known Colleen as “Kay,” the live-in babysitter. They repeatedly stated they’d met her in 1979, 1980, or 1981, indirectly confirming she’d been in the box the rest of the time, but adding little substantive evidence.
Under cross-examination by Papendick, no one could claim to have seen any bruises or injuries on “Kay,” nor to have witnessed any violent incidents. Only a few witnesses offered something fresh, a new angle, a possible insight.
On the heels of Colleen’s testimony came a witness who didn’t even have to speak to jolt the courtroom. The bailiff called Bonnie Sue Martin.
She entered looking so much like her sister it was as if Colleen had reappeared at a younger age—except for one stunning feature: her hair. Bonnie’s gorgeous long hair fell well past her waist, full and luxuriant as a red-headed Godiva’s.
The court had seen Colleen’s thinning head of dishwater wisps. Now, as Bonnie swept across the room, she seemed the living, breathing example of how God intended Colleen to look: energetic and robust, with thick, rich hair tumbling down her back in shiny waves. Whatever words Bonnie might utter, nothing said more than the simple fact of her appearance.
She took the stand, and McGuire opened with a few questions about the three letters she had received from Colleen in 1979, then turned to the 1980 phone call from Colleen. Bonnie gave a moving narrative, her voice cracking as she described the brief, unexpected call from a sister so long missing that she couldn’t even recognize her voice. “Her voice was very shaky,” Bonnie said, “like she was being pressured.”
Bonnie then described Colleen’s short visit to Riverside in 1981. Glancing at the defendant, she said he was introduced as Mike.
McGuire asked how Colleen had acted around Cameron Hooker.
There were no hugs or words of endearment, she explained. And Colleen had oddly neglected even to mention “her fiancé” until just minutes before she left. “I didn’t think they were boyfriend and girlfriend,” she added.
Bonnie was shocked by the dramatic change in her sister’s appearance. “I always called her Pudgy,” she said tearfully, “but she was not the ‘Pudgy’ that I knew.”
Struggling to regain her composure, she said that was the last time she saw Colleen until August, 1984.
Papendick spent very little time with this witness, probably believing it best to get her off the stand quickly. He showed her the photograph of Colleen hugging Cameron at her father’s house in 1981, but Bonnie claimed she couldn’t recall the picture being taken.
He also took this opportunity to try to work in some information about Colleen’s past, but McGuire promptly objected, leaving the jury only with the knowledge that Colleen had been married at a young age, and that for some reason the prosecutor didn’t want this discussed.
The testimonies of Mr. and Mrs. Coppa, the Hookers’ next door neighbors, precipitated some controversial behavior on the part of Judge Knight.
McGuire’s questioning of the matronly, retiring Mrs. Coppa uncovered little that wasn’t by now familiar to the jurors—that “Kay” babysat the Hookers’ daughters, worked “really hard” in their garden, and apparently left for an extended period and then returned.
Papendick’s questions revealed little more, but then he asked, “Did Kay appear to be a regular member of the Hooker household?” to which Mrs. Coppa stammered the response: “Uh, well, yeah, I guess you could say that.”
Judge Knight apparently felt this left an important question unanswered, so once the attorneys had wrapped up their questions he turned to Mrs. Coppa and asked: “Did it appear to you that she was like a servant?”
Seeming relieved at having been asked this, Mrs. Coppa replied, “I remember saying to a friend quite a while ago that she was like a slave.”
Her words fell across the hushed courtroom like shattering glass.
This incident did nothing for Papendick’s opinion of the judge. And following the testimony of Mr. Coppa, his smoldering displeasure with Judge Knight would spark into behind-the-scenes hostility.
Under questioning by McGuire, Mr. Coppa recalled most vividly that “Kay always seemed to be working in the garden.”
“Did she work hard?” McGuire asked.
“She did it a lot harder than I would do it,” he said, grinning. Then he added, “I was trying to figure out how to get my wife to work that hard.”
As laughter wafted through the court, Judge Knight turned to Coppa and quipped: “I’ll send you the transcript.”
The spectators didn’t hear this above their own chuckling. It was hard to say whether the jury heard the judge’s comment, but Papendick did, and he was furious.
At the next break he came up to McGuire fuming: “Did you hear that crack the judge made? I’m going to start keeping book on this guy!”
This was bad news. Papendick was going to try to make an issue of the judge’s conduct.
McGuire had never come up against this before. Personally, she found Judge Knight efficient and astute and saw nothing improper in his rulings or his comportment in court. It was true he had a streak of the humorist in him, but they all made jokes back in the judge’s chambers—it was a good way to ease tension—and Papendick laughed and wisecracked with the best of them. But if he took issue with Knight’s conduct, there was a danger the judge could be disqualified, and McGuire had worked too long and hard on this case to ha
ve it declared a mistrial or reversed on appeal.
McGuire had resisted calling the Hookers’ daughters, but since they were the only other people living in the mobile home at the time of Colleen’s captivity, their perceptions were too important to skip.
The bailiff called Cathy Hooker.
Putting children on the stand requires special care. If testifying in court intimidates some adults, it can terrify a small child, so questions must be asked simply and gently, with no sarcasm or hostility. Kids must be handled with “kid gloves.”
McGuire had learned from child molestation cases that having a trusted adult accompany the child on the stand lessens the anxiety, so Cathy was brought into the courtroom by her uncle, Janice’s brother. Dressed in white tights and a pink skirt, with a long braid down her back, she looked absolutely angelic.
Cameron Hooker watched his daughter take the stand, a smile frozen on his face.
Cathy said she was nine years old and told the court who her parents were. Since her mother was testifying against her father, the defendant, she could hardly have been in a more ticklish position, but she seemed unaware of this and answered with schoolgirl ingenuousness.
McGuire handed her a picture. “Who is that person?”
“Kay.”
Cathy identified the blue terrycloth nightgown that “Kay” used to wear. She confirmed that Colleen had worked around the house, had one day left on the bus to go home, and had stayed away for some time. But Cathy sometimes seemed confused. When the prosecutor asked how long “Kay” had been gone, Cathy answered, “Three or four months.”
McGuire skipped back to the period when “Kay” first babysat: “Is there a bathroom close to your bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Could you go in and out of that bathroom?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it was locked.”
“Are there a couple of sheds close to the trailer?”
“Yes.”
“Could you get in and out of both of those sheds?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because one was locked.”
Here, Cameron Hooker’s smile faltered. He looked away.
“Were you supposed to go into your parents’ bedroom?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“Cathy, did you know about a box under the waterbed?”
Cathy’s cheerfulness diminished. She looked nervous and sad. “No,” she said.
“Did you know about a hole dug underneath one of the sheds?”
Also nervously: “No.”
Having asked the hardest questions, the prosecutor shortly wrapped up her examination.
Rolland Papendick approached the witness in an equally gentle manner. “Was ‘Kay’ nice to you?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you love ‘Kay’?”
“Yes.”
Papendick set about illustrating Colleen’s freedoms by eliciting testimony that “Kay” took Cathy and her sister for walks three or four times a month and for bicycle rides “most of the time.” Diffusing some of the earlier testimony about Colleen’s feverish labor, Cathy said that her mother, her father, and even she had worked in the garden.
Cathy was shortly excused. The bailiff next called the younger daughter, Dawn Hooker, and Cameron again had his smile in place.
All dimples, bangs, and nervous smiles, Dawn was brought in by the same uncle, who sat with her on the witness stand. When asked if she solemnly swore to tell the truth, the seven-year-old responded: “Yeah.”
Dawn remembered less about “Kay” than her older sister, but the most important part of her testimony concerned the “hole.” Colleen had testified that while she was kept there in 1983, Dawn and her cousin, Denise, had come into the shed and looked down the opening.
“What happened when you were back there by the hole? Did someone come out and yell at you?” McGuire asked.
“No,” Dawn replied, then quickly sucked in her breath, realizing she’d made a mistake.
“Did someone come out, do you remember?” McGuire persisted.
“Yeah.”
“Who?”
“Mom.”
“Did she get mad at you?”
“Yeah.”
“For what?”
“Going back there.”
Dawn remembered that she’d seen a light in the hole, but she hadn’t seen Colleen, and in fact believed that “Kay” wasn’t staying with the Hooker family at that time.
During his brief cross-examination, Papendick again highlighted the girls’ affection for “Kay,” in support of his claim that Jan was jealous over this bond.
By the time Papendick had finished his short round of questions, with Dawn again making simple mistakes and then sucking in her breath at the realization, the courtroom was completely charmed by her. Even the poker-faced jurors smiled.
The daughters had blown through the court like sudden fresh air, but McGuire’s mind was always turning: She wondered whether their innocent appeal might backfire, eliciting compassion and sympathy for their father.
Another witness called by the prosecution clearly managed to make points for the defense.
Under questioning by McGuire, Doris Miron verified that “Kay” had come to work for her as a maid at King’s Lodge in May of 1984, and identified several cancelled paychecks “Kay” had received. She also described how “Kay” had so few clothes that Miron felt moved to give her some, “because I just felt like she needed extra clothes to wear, like the other maids.”
Papendick made the most of his cross-examination. He portrayed Colleen as a content and industrious worker, too well-adjusted to have been a terrorized and brainwashed slave.
First, he established that Colleen was such a good worker that she’d been promoted to a job at the reception desk, where she waited on customers.
“Was there a phone at the desk?”
“Yes, there was.”
“There is a restaurant right next to your King’s Lodge, isn’t there?”
“Yes, there is.”
“Is that a favorite hangout for the California Highway Patrol?”
“Yes.”
“See a lot of Highway Patrol vehicles in the parking lot?”
“Yes.”
“And you can see those right from the desk, can’t you?”
“Yes, you can.”
“Did you ever notice any bruises on Colleen, or ‘Kay’?”
“No.”
“Did she have any problem with her speech?”
“No.”
“Any difficulty performing the tasks you assigned her?”
“No.”
“When she referred to the trailer, she referred to it as her place?”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever say that there was a discussion about adding on a room for her?”
“Yes. One evening before she left she was saying they were going to add on another room for her because she was sleeping on the floor in the trailer.”
“Do you know if she ever went to anybody’s house after work?”
“She said once that Mr. and Mrs. Hooker were in Redding and that she didn’t want to go home right away, so she went over to one of the maid’s home.”
“Would you describe Colleen as the best worker you ever had?”
“Yes. She was very good.”
Like most of the witnesses, Miron scarcely mentioned Cameron Hooker, but rather testified about Colleen and Jan. It sometimes seemed that Colleen Stan was the one on trial here and that the case hinged less on the actions of the accused than on the veracity of the victim. If one accepted Colleen’s story, subsequent testimonies added foundation, but if her testimony was unconvincing, nothing the other witnesses said did much to dispel that skepticism. And some, like Miron, inadvertently made Colleen’s version of the truth seem almost incomprehensible.
McGuire added t
o the visual impact of Hooker’s handmade bondage equipment, which was strewn about the courtroom, by offering another visual aid: a videotape of a police search of the Hookers’ property. Officer Shamblin narrated this video of the Hookers’ deceivingly mundane single-wide trailer, backyard, and sheds. Though amateurishly made, the video gave the jurors an opportunity to see scenes of the crime—including the surprisingly deep dungeon—that distance prohibited visiting firsthand.
McGuire also asked Shamblin to testify about the seizure of sketches, slides, and various pornographic publications. While he identified these, Hooker fidgeted with a pen, shifted in his seat, and tensed his temples. It apparently unsettled him to have his private life dissected and paraded before the jury, and nothing seemed to upset him so much as people riffling through his artwork.
Papendick wasn’t going to let this sleazy collection move into evidence without a fight. With the jury excused, he disputed its relevance, maintaining there was little probative value in establishing that Hooker liked to view adult films, read bondage publications, or draw, especially since he’d already stipulated to a sexual preference for bondage.
McGuire contended that this collection contributed to Hooker’s plan for abducting and enslaving Colleen Stan. Out of the stacks of pornographic magazines seized, McGuire said, only those with stories showing a “how-to” for capturing and keeping a sex slave had been selected as evidence.
After hearing their arguments, Judge Knight admitted some of the evidence, excluded some, and withheld judgment on the rest until McGuire and Papendick could present the relevant parts more specifically.
It was a draw for now, but the pornography issue wasn’t dead.
CHAPTER 32
McGuire had saved the medical doctor and the psychologist for last. Twin punches—the outside examined, the inside explained.
The state called Dr. Michael J. Vovakes, a Red Bluff physician. After establishing the doctor’s extensive background in treating child abuse and sexual assault victims, McGuire turned his attention to his December 4, 1984 examination of Colleen Stan.
Dr. Vovakes noted first that Colleen’s hair was thinner than one would expect for an adult female, though he didn’t speculate on what would have caused this.
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