More than phone records had been unearthed by Gary Kelley, the private investigator Papendick had retained to assist with this case. But, unknown to the jury (and to Papendick’s intense frustration), most of this had to do with Colleen’s past and was therefore ruled inadmissible, so Kelley spent only a short time on the stand.
Defense Attorney Papendick elicited some of the strongest testimony from Cameron’s immediate family: his mother, father, and brother.
First, Papendick called Cameron’s mother, Lorena Hooker, a nervous, quiet woman, who tentatively took the stand. She answered the defense attorney’s questions with a distinct country twang and the kind of concern only a mother can convey.
Papendick established that Cameron’s parents lived only six or seven miles from his mobile home, then zeroed in on Mrs. Hooker’s knowledge of “Kay.” “How often did you see her from the time you met her to March of 1981?”
“I saw her a lot of times,” she said, “at their trailer, and she was out at our place quite often.” Cameron and Jan came to their place about every other week, and “Kay” came with them about half the time.
On one occasion, she’d come to their home by herself. The well had gone out, and she’d asked a neighbor to take her and the kids to fetch Cameron, who was helping his dad thresh wheat.
“Did it ever appear to you that “Kay” was a servant?”
“No,” she replied. In fact, when “Kay” came to dinner she didn’t even help with the dishes.
Saving this most damaging bit for last, Papendick asked if Mrs. Hooker remembered a particular conversation with Janice shortly after Cameron’s arrest.
She did. Jan and her father had come over to their trailer and, Mrs. Hooker asserted, “Jan said she knew for a fact that ‘Kay’ wasn’t raped.”
Here it was: the other side. If anyone still needed a reason to distrust Janice Hooker, Papendick had supplied it.
Ending on that note, he turned the witness over to the prosecutor.
After McGuire’s pointed cross-examination of Cameron, her treatment of his mother was almost startlingly gentle. In a soft voice she asked, “Mrs. Hooker, you love your son very much, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do.”
The question was disarming, and at the same time established her undeniable bias. Then McGuire asked a list of questions: Did you ever meet ‘Kay’ while Cameron lived on Oak Street? Did you know she was kept in the basement? In a box? In a hole?
To all of these, Mrs. Hooker could only answer no.
Cameron’s father, Harold Hooker, walked to the witness stand with a slow gait, turned, and took the oath looking like a farmer right out of the famous painting “American Gothic”—tall and gaunt, with a weathered face.
He’d known Colleen as “Kay,” he said, and thought she was a “pretty pleasant kinda girl.”
“Was she afraid of you?” Papendick asked.
“I didn’t think so.”
The defense attorney asked if Mr. Hooker recalled a time after Cameron’s arrest when Jan came over with her dad and made a comment about the rape charges against Cameron.
“She said it was a bunch of hogwash. He didn’t rape her,” Mr. Hooker said bluntly. When Jan had learned there were thirteen rape counts against Cameron, he went on, “She said, ‘They cain’t do that,’ that he didn’t rape her.”
During her cross-examination, McGuire steered wide of this whole business about Jan. She wasn’t as gentle with Mr. Hooker as she’d been with his wife, but she kept it brief.
“Do you understand that your son admitted to kidnapping Colleen in 1977?”
“That’s the way I heard it.”
“And that she was kept in a box on Oak Street?”
“I don’t know all that he’s admitted to.”
“Were you ever down in the basement at Oak Street?”
“One time.”
“Did Cameron show you the box?”
“No.”
“Did he build a waterbed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you know he kept Colleen in a box?”
“Just hearsay.”
“Did you ever see ‘Kay’ show affection to your son?”
“No.”
(After Mr. Hooker testified, McGuire privately commented to Papendick that it would have been a kindness to inform him what Cameron had testified to. Papendick said he had, but Mr. Hooker apparently didn’t want to hear it.)
When the defense called Dexter Hooker everyone expected a younger version of his brother. But though he was also tall and gangly, Dexter was better looking, with a Sam Shepard-ish quality to him.
Dexter claimed that he’d visited Cameron’s trailer “almost every weekend” in 1978 and saw Colleen “every time I was there.” After his divorce in 1980, Dexter spent about thirty or forty hours a week at the trailer, making him the only person outside the immediate family to spend a great deal of time around Colleen. Often, he was there with “Kay” and the kids while Jan and Cameron were at work.
“How did she appear to you?” Papendick asked.
“Normal.”
“Depressed?”
“No, she was always smiling, always easy-going.”
Like most of the witnesses, Dexter confirmed that Colleen was “real good” with the kids, but unlike the rest, he had a critical piece of corroboration for his brother’s story: For a while, he said, the girls referred to Colleen as “Mommy.”
This wasn’t what McGuire had expected. During her cross-examination, she did her best to demonstrate that, as close to the situation as Dexter claimed to be, he knew little of what was actually going on.
“‘Kay’ never told you her last name?”
“No.”
“And she never told you she was kidnapped?”
“No.”
“Did Cameron ever show you the basement at Oak Street?”
“No.”
“Did he ever show you the rack?”
“No.”
“Did he ever show you the box beneath the waterbed?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know Colleen was kept under there?”
“No.”
“Did Cameron ever show you the hole underneath the shed?”
“No.”
McGuire also tried to elicit testimony about Colleen’s slavelike behavior, but got mixed results.
“You saw Colleen working in the garden?”
“Yes.”
“She worked hard, didn’t she?”
“Pretty good, yes.”
“And she worked real hard around the house, didn’t she?”
“Oh, about normal.”
“You saw her cooking, preparing lunch, washing dishes—pretty much like a household servant?”
“Yes.”
“Was ‘Kay’ reserved around you?”
“What do you mean?” Dexter countered. “She was quite friendly. She seemed to talk all the time.”
The only way McGuire could contest his most damaging comment was to ask: “When you spoke to Officer Shamblin, you didn’t tell him the girls called Colleen ‘Mommy,’ did you?”
He admitted he had not.
* * *
Papendick had presented another view of the private lives of the enigmatic threesome who had lived together so quietly for so long and were now on such public display. Layer after layer had been peeled away, but the whole picture had yet to emerge. Now Papendick called his expert witness to put it all into context.
Like McGuire, Papendick had saved his big punch for last. In this “battle of experts,” Dr. Donald T. Lunde’s testimony would be the final bout.
Papendick asked Dr. Lunde, a plain, slightly pudgy, soft-spoken man, to tell the court of his credentials. This took some time.1
As a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Stanford University Medical School, Dr. Lunde taught psychiatry at the medical school and engaged in clinical work. He also had a private practice in psychiatry. Having done most of his training at Stanf
ord as well, Dr. Lunde was thoroughly a Stanford man.
His specialization was forensic psychiatry—“the interface between law and psychiatry”—and he’d authored about forty articles and about eight books on this subject. He’d received various honors and awards, including one from the California District Attorneys’ Association for outstanding service. Some of the cases he’d been involved in relating specifically to captivity included the Jonestown case (United States v. Larry Leighton), the Patty Hearst case, and the U.S.S. Pueblo case, regarding a captain captured by North Koreans in the late 1960s.
Lunde testified that, since being retained by Mr. Papendick,2 he had prepared for his evaluation of this case in much the way Dr. Hatcher had, except that Hatcher had interviewed Colleen and Janice, while he had interviewed Cameron Hooker.
Having established his expert’s credentials, Papendick asked the same question he’d asked Dr. Hatcher: “What’s the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?”
Dr. Lunde gave a lengthy answer, concluding: “Psychologists do not have the same kind of background. They are not qualified to diagnose physical ailments or physical effects of psychological distress. They are not able to, or allowed to, prescribe medications and so forth. And basically, psychiatry is a medical specialty. Psychology is more of an academic, nonmedical field.”
Next, the defense attorney inadvertently sparked a courtroom squabble by asking the seemingly benign question: “Could you please define the term coercion?”
“Coercion exists in a situation where any reasonable person would be in imminent fear of being killed or of suffering serious bodily injury,” Dr. Lunde began. “To put it in even plainer language, coercion is a psychological phenomenon that is present when someone has threatened someone else directly with death.”
Dr. Lunde went into detail about what he meant about a “reasonable person,” then added, “Furthermore, the threat has to be to the person themselves. It cannot be a threat to somebody else. This was an issue in the Patty Hearst case. She claimed, among other things, that the SLA, the Symbionese Liberation Army, was threatening to harm her parents and members of her family. And in that case, as in all of these in the field of forensic psychiatry, the law simply does not allow for threats to other people.”
Judge Knight’s hackles went up. “Just a minute,” he said, turning to Papendick. “The doctor is testifying, counsel, as to the law. What he is testifying to is not accurate.”
Papendick reframed the question, trying to limit Dr. Lunde to the definition of coercion within the field of psychiatry, but again the doctor ventured off into a legal interpretation.
McGuire curtly objected that Lunde’s answer was prejudicial to the jury, and moved that his answer be stricken.
Judge Knight granted the motion, ordering the jury to disregard Lunde’s definition of coercion.
(While the judge may have been piqued that this witness was presuming to define the law, McGuire was alarmed at hearing, as she had feared, that dreaded comparison between Colleen Stan and Patricia Hearst. And Lunde, who had been retained by Hearst’s lawyers to conduct some examinations, though not to testify in court, seemed all too eager to make those comparisons.)
Papendick now directed Dr. Lunde toward the term coercive persuasion, which Dr. Hatcher had said had no accepted definition within the field of psychology. Papendick asked Lunde to define the term as accepted within the field of psychiatry.
“‘Coercive persuasion’ refers to a condition where a person does things they would not otherwise do which are, in fact, possibly contrary to their own belief systems, because of a situation of total captivity and control over their environment and, to a great extent, control over their behavior on a twenty-four-hour-a-day basis.” This would have been sufficient, but, again, Dr. Lunde hazarded a legal definition of coercion.
Again, McGuire objected.
By now Judge Knight was clearly unhappy with this witness. “Mr. Papendick,” Knight said hotly, “he is a medical expert by his own definition. The court neither desires nor needs his definition of legal terms unless they are appropriate and correct. It’s up to the court to instruct the jury as to what the law is, not up to this witness.”
Again, the jury was instructed to disregard Lunde’s comments on legal definitions.
Papendick led his expert witness back to “coercive persuasion,” and the doctor explained: “The kinds of things that accompany coercive persuasion are: physical captivity—being held against one’s will for the period in question—that’s the first and foremost requirement for this condition; then there are a variety of other conditions that have to do with control over the person’s environment and an attempt to indoctrinate them—deprive them of sleep, of food, control their bodily movements, when they can move, other bodily functions such as bladder and bowel functions, and so forth.”
(Dr. Lunde spoke to the jury, which usually adds to a witness’s impact, but he also had the disturbing habit of frequently licking his lips, a nervous tick.)
Now Papendick outlined a hypothetical situation, based on Hooker’s testimony, designed to match Colleen Stan’s first year of captivity. He asked Dr. Lunde if, based on these hypothetical facts and his own training and experience, the victim would have been subjected to coercive persuasion.
McGuire shot out: “Objection, Your Honor. Lacks foundation; and the hypothetical is not in line with the facts as they have been elicited.”
Judge Knight conceded that the hypothetical was incomplete, but overruled the objection—this time.
Dr. Lunde gave the opinion that, indeed, the victim would have been under the influence of coercive persuasion.
Papendick proceeded, setting forth the next set of hypothetical facts. This time, however, he meant to outline the next three years of captivity.
When he concluded McGuire promptly objected: “Misleads the factual basis.”
“Sustained.”
Papendick took a moment, added another batch of details, and again put the hypothetical to his expert.
Again, from McGuire: “Objection, Your Honor.”
Again, McGuire’s objection was sustained.
This was embarrassing for Papendick. He asked to speak to the judge outside the presence of the jury.
With the jury excluded, McGuire and Papendick argued over his hypothetical. She claimed it was incomplete; he claimed a hypothetical did not need to include all facts.
The judge listened and finally concluded: “It’s not incumbent upon him to frame the hypothetical question in accordance with the prosecution’s testimony, but he has to frame it at least in conformity with his own testimony. And while it does not have to have every single detail, it must have every material or important detail. There is no sense in getting an answer to a hypothetical that is incomplete, and certainly a hypothetical that lacks substantial information is incomplete.”
“I assume we are talking about the Company,” Papendick said.
“That’s one of the things,” the judge agreed.
The jury was called back, and with this rebuke in mind, Papendick resumed his hypothetical, adding several details about the Company from the defense point of view: “After a period of time, the person is told they have been bought out of the slavery contract and the person is going home within a three-month period of time. Further, assume that the husband and female spend time together cutting posts. That, after the three-month period, the female tells the husband she desires to stay.”
McGuire promptly objected that the hypothetical was incomplete.
The judge agreed. Turning to the jury, almost as an apology for the stop-and-go proceedings, he explained: “When you ask an expert witness something from a hypothetical question, you have to present sufficient facts that are encompassed by the evidence for the witness to be able to give an intelligent opinion. Therefore, the hypothetical question is not an easy thing to draw.”
Papendick was encouraged to try again. He added several more details to his hypothetic
al, asked Dr. Lunde if he could render an opinion, and again McGuire objected that the facts were incomplete.
Judge Knight sustained the objection.
“Your Honor,” Papendick protested, “the facts that I have presented are the identical facts the prosecution presented for their expert on direct examination.”
“No, they are not,” Judge Knight asserted, “not to my recollection. I find them lacking as to rather material points.”
Now Papendick had reached the point of exasperation. Thoroughly frustrated by this line of questioning, he abandoned the hypothetical completely, much to the relief of the courtroom, and turned to other issues.
“Doctor,” he asked Dr. Lunde, “in your opinion, can you have coercive persuasion without captivity?”
“No, you can’t,” Dr. Lunde stated. “Continuous physical captivity is a requirement.”
“And in your field of psychology and psychiatry, how is physical captivity defined?”
“It’s defined as either being locked up in a prison or a cage or whatever kind of device in which somebody has no reasonable chance of escaping; and/or being held continuously under armed guard. That is, somebody with a lethal weapon, usually a gun.”
“What is the significance of the Patty Hearst case in your evaluation of this case?” Papendick asked.
“The significance,” Lunde began, “is that there are a lot of similarities in that she was also a white female in her early twenties at the time she was kidnapped; that she was subjected to confinement at first—threats, sexual abuse, deprivation of various sorts—and was, at least for approximately five weeks, subjected to the conditions we have talked about as under the rubric of coercive persuasion. On the other hand, after approximately five weeks of captivity she was free to leave and—”
McGuire interrupted Dr. Lunde with an objection: “The Patty Hearst case has nothing to do with this case.”
After some bickering between the counsels, Judge Knight sustained the objection, saying, “The Patty Hearst case is dealing with the question of whether Patty Hearst was responsible for her actions. We are not dealing with that question here.”
Again having had his line of questioning frustrated, the defense counsel turned to Dr. Lunde’s area of expertise: the physical effects of captivity. The court learned that suspending someone by the wrists more than about twenty minutes can cut off the circulation. “Beyond that period,” Dr. Lunde said, “there can be physical damage to the limbs and also damage to the cardiovascular system.”
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