Perfect Victim

by Christine McGuire

  Judge Knight asked, “You do equate it to a certain degree?”

  “There are similarities, sure.”

  “There is one other thing I do not understand,” Judge Knight said. “In regard to this business of Riverside, is it your testimony that a captor, who imposes coercive persuasion and threats on a victim, could never, ever let that victim go home and expect to retrieve her twenty-four hours later?”

  “I don’t think that’s inconceivable,” the doctor said, “depending on the reasonableness of what has been told to the person, the basis for their believing or not believing certain things—”

  “Well, Doctor, what may appear to be reasonable to a person would depend a lot on what they are told, isn’t that true?”

  “Yes. But if this person in the hypothetical had twenty years of experience in this society and schools and so on, versus a much lesser number of years with the captor (presumably absent the conditions I mentioned of mental illness or something), those things would stand them in good stead in terms of having some awareness that there are agencies, police and so forth, that represent the law and are here to protect me and, if I ever get a chance to tell somebody or get to a phone, I will make use of it.”

  “So every rational victim would immediately call the police regardless of the threats that were made?”

  “Oh, I think, if they want to get away, sure.”

  “How rational would you expect a person to be after a period of torture?”

  “I have seen many subjected to much more severe torture than these,” Lunde declared. “Skin and bones, scarred from head to toes, and who were still resisting and still jumped at the first chance to get away when it arose.”

  “Were their families threatened?”

  “No.”

  Judge Knight suddenly switched gears, asking a question that went right to the heart of the matter: “What is altruistic love?”

  “Altruistic love is love given with no expectation of return,” Lunde replied.

  “Basically,” the judge mused, “it puts the person’s life beneath that of the person loved, is that true?”

  “Sure.”

  “For instance,” Knight went on, “the parent who sacrifices his life to save a child is an example of altruistic love?”

  “Sure.”

  “Wouldn’t it be an example of altruistic love if someone decided not to risk the lives of their family and sacrifice themselves?”

  “I am saying it could be. I am saying, in the situation presented to me, I don’t think . . .” Dr. Lunde sputtered another long-winded answer that added very little. It didn’t matter. The judge had made his point.

  The Stanford psychiatrist was excused, and the defense rested.

  CHAPTER 35

  Before closing arguments, the prosecution has the opportunity to call rebuttal witnesses; McGuire called only one. The jury had heard her name during Cameron Hooker’s cross-examination. The state called Elaine Corning.

  Heads turned as a tall, willowy blonde entered the courtroom, and reporters buzzed with curiosity as the surprise witness settled into the witness stand.

  McGuire asked a few preliminary questions, establishing that Corning knew Cameron when she was sixteen. Then she asked: “Did Cameron ever relate a fantasy to you?”

  “It didn’t come up as a fantasy,” Corning replied. It was just a friendly conversation, and somehow he’d come around to telling her “either that he had, or that he wished he had a dungeon under his parents’ place.”

  “Did he tell you the purpose of this dungeon?”

  “To keep women there.”

  This was the court’s first glimpse of Cameron’s past. Everyone expected more, but now Papendick cut McGuire’s questions short with an objection. Both counsels approached the bench for a quick consultation with the judge, and then McGuire abruptly turned her witness over for cross-examination. After a few quick questions by Papendick, Corning was excused.

  That was that—a rather anticlimactic conclusion to the surprise witness’s testimony. Corning exited the courtroom, leaving everyone wondering what else she might have revealed about Hooker’s youth if the defense attorney hadn’t objected.

  Before closing arguments, the jury was excused while a few final motions were heard. All the false imprisonment charges, counts twelve, thirteen, and fourteen, had already been dropped on technicalities. Papendick now moved to dismiss counts fifteen and sixteen, both charges of abducting to live in an illicit relationship, contending that the law, written in 1905, was unconstitutionally vague. Judge Knight agreed that in 1985 it seemed impossible to define an “illicit relationship,” and these two counts were dropped as well. Eleven felony counts remained, and five of these had to be amended.1

  The jury was brought back in, and the press and spectators perked up: It was time for closing arguments, the grand finale, when both attorneys attempt to sway the jurors by stressing their best evidence and waxing eloquent about the iron boundaries of the law while playing upon sentiments.

  The prosecution’s closing argument is first, the defense’s second, and then the prosecution gets a parting shot, a rebuttal. With this in mind, McGuire’s strategy was to give a brief and simple summary the first time around, saving her best for last.

  After a few words of thanks to the jury, she said that her mother, who had sat on a jury, told her the instructions were the most confusing part. So, though the judge would be giving them instructions later, McGuire reviewed a few points to help make them clear. For instance, she discussed the meaning of “reasonable doubt,” saying there was a natural human reluctance to sit in judgment, yet cautioning them not to mistake a feeling of queasiness for reasonable doubt.

  She mentioned that direct and circumstantial evidence were to be given equal weight, and here she gave her favorite example. She had a fifteen-month-old daughter, she told them. Now, if she’d just frosted a chocolate cake, left it for a moment to answer the door, then returned to find a chunk of the cake gone and icing on her daughter’s mouth and fingers, that was circumstantial evidence. She hadn’t actually seen her daughter eat the cake, but it was clear what had happened.

  Several jurors smiled.

  McGuire then emphasized that the jury must weigh the testimony and credibility of each witness and summarized the important points of several testimonies, spending a good deal of time on the two expert witnesses. She also highlighted some of the physical evidence, which the jury would later have an opportunity to review for themselves.

  Finally, after detailing the legal elements of all the crimes, she held up a verdict form, explaining that one would accompany each of the eleven counts,2 and quickly concluded her remarks. Thanking the jury for their time, she sat down, giving the floor over to the defense.

  Papendick also thanked the jury for their attentiveness, then began his summation with the comment: “This is the best part of the case for the attorney because it signifies the end. The attorney is done. Your job is just beginning.”

  The defense attorney said the key issues were: whether there was forcible, continuous detention; whether Colleen consented to the alleged acts; and whether Cameron had a reasonable belief of consent. (This was the first time the jury heard that Hooker’s perception of consent was at all an issue.)

  Resistance, Papendick pointed out, was a subissue of consent. He explained that the legal definition of rape had changed, so that before 1981 the victim was required to resist, and her resistance had to be overcome by force or threat of great and immediate bodily harm.

  Throughout the trial, Rolland Papendick’s courtroom manner had been straightforward, sometimes agitated, rarely dramatic, but during his closing argument, he was friendly, confident, now subtle, now bold. He raised fresh legal questions, demonstrating his skills as an advocate.

  In an affable tone, he said: “Lawyers like to give examples. The prosecutor gave an example of chocolate cake; I like to give an example of lasagna. It contains certain ingredients, but if you take ten chefs, t
he recipe turns out a number of different ways. It’s the same with testimony. All the witnesses add their own spices.”

  These spices the attorney equated with “questionable exaggerations,” and then went on to cite several.

  Colleen had testified that she was kept in a box every day from March of 1981 to May of 1984, for example. She also said that during that time, she read the Bible. How could she read the Bible in the box? There was no light, it was dark: she couldn’t.

  This was a point where things were being exaggerated.

  The jury had also been told that Colleen had been hung and whipped more than ninety times—whipped even to unconsciousness—yet there was no physical proof, no scars on her back. Colleen’s testimony, Papendick contended, was misleading.

  In jury selection, he reminded them, they’d said they wouldn’t hold Cameron Hooker’s sexual preference for bondage against him. Bondage was not a crime, yet several pieces of bondage equipment had been entered as evidence against his client. Even the prosecution’s own expert, Dr. Hatcher, had explained that for couples involved in dominant and submissive roles, bondage creates a degree of tension and excitement, and a number of magazines cater to those with bondage as a sexual preference.

  “If that’s not enough evidence that bondage is alive and well,” Papendick declared, flourishing several photographs, “we have Janice Hooker!”

  The essence of the case, Papendick said, was what three people did behind closed doors. Their relationship was private. The box was a complete secret. The bondage was a complete secret. It was probably the “best kept secret in Red Bluff,” he said.

  “The prosecutor has attempted to present a horror story that would cause you to act without thinking,” Papendick continued. “The defense asks you to think before you act.” He asked the jurors to put aside their prejudices and apply their common sense. It was simply common sense, he contended, that some people would put up with seemingly horrible conditions to keep a relationship, and “Janice Hooker is exhibit number one!”

  Colleen knew the relationship with Cameron involved bondage, yet she stayed, Papendick posited, because she found things she wanted. What? No drugs, a family relationship, a spiritual reawakening, and children she loved.

  “I think it’s clear that Colleen Stan was in love with Cameron Hooker,” he said. As proof, he quoted from his trump card, the Christmas letter: “. . . I don’t know the right words to describe how much I love you, but I seem to be falling deeper and deeper in love with you with each passing day. I find love hard for me to express with words. But you bring the passion out in me and it’s a way of expressing my love for you. . . .”

  Papendick again advised the jury that they would have to decide whether it was reasonable for Cameron to believe that Colleen loved him.

  Dr. Hatcher had given sixteen sophisticated techniques which were employed against Korean POWs. It had been established that Cameron could scarcely read. How could he have read and understood sufficiently to plan out sixteen techniques employed by the North Koreans?

  The police and the district attorney had spent hours combing through Hooker’s magazines, trying to find those having any connection with slavery and bondage. Dr. Hatcher reviewed them, they were sent to Colleen Stan, “and then,” Papendick said, with a lilt of incredulity, “she testified that she found sections in those magazines that were exactly what Cameron had done to her!”

  The prosecutor had described a horrendous story of torture, isolation, and sexual abuse, yet none of the witnesses had testified to Colleen having bruises, a speech problem, or anything unusual about her appearance.

  Bonnie had testified that her sister was dirty and unkempt, yet by everyone’s agreement, Colleen could bathe during this period. More inconsistency! More exaggeration!

  Papendick compared these exaggerations to “a snowball coming down a hill,” getting bigger and bigger all the time.

  It all came down to credibility, he said. In determining a witness’s credibility, the jurors had to consider demeanor, attitude, consistent and inconsistent statements, and memory. He challenged: “How many times did Colleen tell you, ‘I can’t recall’?”

  And the phone calls. She knew Jan had gone to stay with her parents, yet she called on August 13, at 12:11 A.M., and talked for seventy-six minutes. Again, with that tone of disbelief, Papendick said: “She wants you to believe she talked to Janice!”

  Holding up the picture taken of Colleen and Cameron in 1981, Papendick charged that Colleen had denied talking about the picture, denied sending it, yet it was taken by her parents. How else would Cameron have gotten it, unless she’d mailed it to him?

  Regarding the snapshot in his hand, Papendick remarked: “Look at the smiles!”

  He reminded the jury of the worst moments of Colleen’s testimony. She had written of love in her letters, writing that it was “a climate of the heart.” “But more than what this expression of love meant to Cameron,” Papendick said, “think about this in terms of Colleen’s credibility when she said: ‘I may have written it to Jan.’”

  The defense attorney raised an interesting point: During the entire time Colleen was with Cameron and Jan, there wasn’t one slip up, not a single occasion when she accidentally called Cameron “Master” or Janice “Ma’am” in front of others. With raised eyebrows, he said: “I submit that’s rather amazing.”

  Interestingly, Jan had corroborated the kidnap and initial isolation on Oak Street, yet she couldn’t corroborate any of the sex charges except for the eighth count, which she said didn’t appear to be forced. Rather, she reported that Colleen had asked: “Is it okay?”

  Further, Jan had testified that she started seeing affection between Cameron and Colleen in 1982, hugging four or five times a week in 1983, and nearly every day—sometimes in front of the children—in 1984. Papendick added that it was “real interesting that at that time, Colleen was supposed to be in the box.”

  “I can’t tell you what happened,” Papendick declared, “except that Janice wanted Colleen out—and she succeeded.”

  Papendick mocked the prosecution’s contention that fear of the Company kept Colleen from leaving. Dr. Lunde, the defense psychiatrist, had explained that coercive persuasion requires captivity. “Keep in mind, we’re dealing with an adult,” Papendick said, “not a child or a retarded person. You saw her testify; she’s at least of normal intelligence.”

  Her greatest fear, the prosecution claimed, was for her family, yet the single person she’d met who was with the Company, Cameron, she took to meet her family. She told the jury she’d been hoping and looking for a way out, but why hadn’t she written a note? She hadn’t used the phone, she hadn’t even whispered to them.

  In 1984, after Colleen had left Red Bluff, she was threatening to return. And, the defense attorney reminded them, Jan had testified that she was afraid “it would start all over again.”

  If Colleen wanted to stay, have Cameron’s baby, and force Jan out, why would she come into court and tell this tale? Papendick posited at least three reasons:

  One: personal embarrassment and humiliation. She was, no question, a victim of kidnapping. Jan decided to go to the police, and at that point Colleen became a victim. Would she say, “Yes, he did kidnap me, chain me, et cetera, but I fell in love with him?” Or would she say, “I had no choice, I was a slave?” It would be less embarrassing to say the latter.

  Two: love and jealousy. Colleen loved Cameron, but he didn’t kick Janice out, he didn’t go to bat for her; she was a woman spurned.

  Three: financial gain. Colleen had already filed a lawsuit against Cameron Hooker. And although she’d denied on the stand that she wanted to sell the rights to her story, her truthfulness was open to question.

  (Now coming to the end of his remarks, Papendick noted there were only ten sex charges over a seven-year period, and made an aside to the jury: “The press has been calling this the ‘sex slave’ case. Why were there long periods with no sex? It’s the sexless slave case.�
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  Sex charges require force, menace, duress, or threats of great bodily injury, he pointed out. And in order to find the defendant guilty of kidnapping, the jury needed to find there had been continuous, forcible detention. “Even if you find that,” he cautioned, “you cannot conclude from this alone that she did not consent to the sexual acts.” It was incumbent upon the jury to determine not only whether she did or did not consent but also whether the defendant, in good faith, had believed she had consented.

  There was no question, Papendick concluded, that Cameron Hooker believed Colleen loved him.

  He beseeched the jury: “Look at the facts. Read these letters. And think about what the contents meant to Cameron Hooker.”

  As Papendick returned to the defense table, Cameron looked up at him and smiled.

  McGuire, who had some stunning moments during the trial, seemed tired as she began her summation in a thin, cheerless voice.

  Responding to Papendick’s comments about Colleen’s credibility, she pointed out that Colleen had to remember facts that happened over a number of years and that she had no motive to lie. Rather, in bringing Hooker to trial, Colleen subjected herself to an emotionally wrenching process.

  The defense attorney claimed that Colleen had been a member of the family, that Hooker had provided her with security, a drug-free environment, and spiritual reawakening. “If Colleen were a member of the family, why did the defendant go to such great lengths to disguise her identity?”

  Further, outside of the defendant’s testimony, there hadn’t been the least indication that Colleen was a drug user or addict. McGuire confided to the jury that defense attorneys, when they have no defense, often throw in a red herring: “That’s all that’s being done here.”

  The prosecutor then asked: Why didn’t the defense attorney ask Dr. Vovakes about Colleen’s physical condition? Why? Because Dr. Vovakes would have given answers the defense didn’t like. Instead, Papendick had asked Dr. Lunde, a man who had never even seen Colleen, to speculate on her health.