"So let me get this straight," Karp asked on cross-examination. "You talked to a number of men who had been arrested and incarcerated by other men who were wearing uniforms and/or were in a position of authority?"
"Yes. One hundred and ten to be exact."
"So essentially, convicted felons told you that cops and prosecutors make them nervous? Seems to make perfect sense to me." The jurors and the audience laughed.
"Objection," Louis said. "He's mischaracterizing what the witness said."
"Sustained."
"No further questions for this witness, your honor."
Louis had, of course, saved his "big gun" for last. Enrique Villalobos slunk into the courtroom wearing an orange jail jumpsuit. He took the stand and leered at the women in the jury through his red-rimmed and yellow-jaundiced eyes, his lips pulled back from his brown-stained rodent teeth in what was intended to be a smile but looked like a grimace.
Under Louis's questioning, Villalobos recounted how he was standing beneath the pier that morning when he saw a young woman jogging toward him. "I hid in the shadows until she was close, then I jumped out and hit her. She was out of it pretty good and just lied there sort of moaning," he said, licking his thin purple lips, which sent a shudder of revulsion through every woman in the courtroom. "But I jumped on her and punched her in the face and stuff like that."
"What did you do then, Mr. Villalobos?"
"I decided that I was going to fuck her," he said, smirking. "I took off her shorts and then I did her dirty."
"What do you mean 'did her dirty,' Mr. Villalobos?" Louis asked.
"I fucked her in the ass," he replied, winking at one of the female jurors who quickly looked down at her notepad.
"And when you were finished raping Mrs. Tyler?"
"I hit her again a couple times to kill her so she couldn't identify me."
"Then why after all this time have you come forward now, Mr. Villalobos?"
Villalobos did his best to assume a look of shame but it came off more as constipation. "Well, it was like this," he said. "I have lived a life of sin. I raped women and even some children. But one night in prison, I had a dream that my soul was in danger and that innocent men were in prison because of my sin. The only way I could be saved was to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and to confess.
"So I talked it over with the prison chaplain and he encouraged me to talk to the prison superintendent and he told me to write to the Brooklyn District Attorney. And, well, you know the story from there."
"Were you offered any deals for this? Did you get something for this information?"
"Only a clear conscience," he said. "I'm what they call a lifer. The only way I come out of prison will be in a pine box."
"Thank you, Mr. Villalobos," Louis said, mopping his face. He turned to Karp. "Your witness."
Villalobos waited like a man facing a firing squad as Karp approached and said, "Mr. Villalobos, you testified that you hit Ms. Tyler repeatedly…hard enough to crack her skull in three places. Can you tell the jury what you used to hit her?"
Villalobos looked at Karp suspiciously. He'd been warned to be careful when answering, but this wasn't one of the questions he'd gone over with Louis. He looked over at the fat lawyer for guidance, but Karp stepped into his line of sight.
"Yes," Villalobos said and tried to smile. "It was a piece of driftwood I found under the pier."
"I see," Karp said. "And did you bite Ms. Tyler on the breast before or after you hit her with this piece of driftwood?"
"After," Enrique said, then looked at the women in the jury, "after I fucked her."
"Thank you, Mr. Villalobos," Karp said. "I have no further questions at this time for this witness-"
The remainder of his statement was interrupted by a murmur of astonishment from the audience. Even Louis looked surprised. But Sykes turned his back toward the jury and smirked, first at his colleagues who struggled to keep their faces noncommittal, and then at Liz Tyler. When he caught her eye, he smiled and made a kissing motion with his mouth.
"-however, I ask the court to hold Mr. Villalobos over so that I can recall him during the defense portion of the trial," Karp said.
Villalobos stopped smiling and looked over at Louis, who looked worried but offered no guidance as he rose to his feet. "Your honor, that is the plaintiffs' case."
31
Tuesday, January 25
The next morning, Karp was surprised to see Liz Tyler standing outside the courtroom without her police escort.
"I told them it wasn't necessary," she said when he asked. "I said it was fine if they just got me past the crowds at the screening area. They have better things to do than shepherd me around like I was in kindergarten. I don't know, maybe I'm starting to feel stronger."
"Have you given any thought to what you'll do when this is over?"
Tyler looked surprised, as if the question had never occurred to her. "I don't really think that far ahead, Mr. Karp. I know I must seem so weak to you. I know other women have survived what I went through and gone on with their lives, whatever that means. But if my life ended tomorrow, I wouldn't be sad. I'm tired of being afraid all of the time, Mr. Karp."
"Butch," he said.
Tyler smiled. "Butch… I think that's why I couldn't deal with resuming my life with my husband and child. I was afraid-not of what might happen to me, but that something might happen to them and I'd be powerless to do anything about it. Just like I was powerless that morning when Jayshon Sykes and the others raped me."
"You remember?" Karp asked.
Tyler hesitated. "I won't take the stand, if that's what you mean," she said. "I couldn't…and it probably wouldn't help you anyway. I'm sure Mr. Louis would soon have me confused. And to be honest, I still have a hard time differentiating what is nightmare and what was reality. But I remember Sykes was the one who first grabbed me and dragged me under the pier by my hair. And I remember…" She started to cry. "…I remember him on top of me but he couldn't…he couldn't finish, so he hit me again. The others…I remember faces and being raped, but it was as if I were crawling into a shell…they could have my body but they couldn't have me."
The last statement came out as a sob. Hesitantly, Karp put his arm around her, felt her tense and then relax against his chest. After a minute, she pulled back. "I'm sorry, but I think I needed that," she said and gave him her tiny smile. "I've never been able to find my way back out of that shell, Mr… Butch. It's like I'm living in a body that doesn't belong to me anymore."
As he began to present the defense case that morning, Karp briefly touched the damp spot on his jacket where Tyler's tears had soaked in. "Your honor, the defense calls Jack Swanburg to the stand."
Karp looked toward the back of the courtroom where a short, rotund man wearing bright green suspenders to hold up his pants entered. Swanburg looked a little like Santa Claus with his flowing white hair and beard, merry blue eyes, and a round belly that Karp suspected did, indeed, shake like a bowl full of jelly. However, Karp knew that the man's mild appearance belied his reputation as one of the country's foremost forensic scientists, a freelancer from Colorado who made his living examining forensic evidence for both prosecutors and defense lawyers.
On the witness stand, Karp quickly established that the man was a doctor of pathology with expertise in a variety of forensic disciplines, "including blood-splatter analysis, bite-mark identification, forensic photography, ballistics, and dactylography…better known as fingerprint analysis."
"Is there anything you're not an expert in?" Karp asked with a smile.
"Well, you'd have to ask my wife, Connie," Swanburg replied with a chuckle. "I'm not too handy around the house."
"Doctor, can you tell the jury how many cases you've testified in?"
"Nearly three thousand."
"For the prosecution or defense?"
"Both. I like to think that I testify on behalf of the truth," Swanburg said. "There have been times when my testimony has wor
ked against my employer. They all know going in that I will report my findings as a man of science-without prejudice."
"Dr. Swanburg, have you studied the evidence in this case?"
"I have looked at everything-the reports and photographs, as well as the physical evidence-that I was given," Swanburg said carefully.
"Fair enough, Dr. Swanburg," Karp said, approaching the witness stand and handing Swanburg "a photograph marked as People's Exhibit 24 J from the criminal trial of the plaintiffs. Can you tell the jury what it depicts?"
"Yes, I can," Swanburg said. "It's a photograph of a bite mark on the left breast of a woman. And according to the tag on the back that woman was…Mrs. Liz Tyler."
"And what can you tell us about what it shows?"
"Well," Swanburg said, speaking to the jury, "in some ways, a clear bite mark such as the one in the photograph can be used like a fingerprint to identify who it belonged to, especially if there are particularly significant characteristics."
"Thank you, Dr. Swanburg," Karp said, retrieving the photograph and handing it to the jury to look at. "Now, did you get a chance to match the bite mark in that photograph with the dental records of Mr. Enrique Villalobos?"
"Yes," Swanburg said. "I examined the X-rays taken in the prison dental office during a routine checkup."
Louis almost knocked over his chair standing up. "Objection. Whatever tomfoolery is going on regarding this bite mark, these records were obtained without a proper search warrant or notification to counsel."
Karp silently thanked Harry Kipman. "To the contrary, your honor," he said. "We obtained the records with a subpoena duces tecum and notified counsel, all as part of our pretrial motions. However, Mr. Louis made no objection at that time. I guess he must have missed it."
"I'll allow it," Klinger said, though it was clear she wasn't happy.
Karp handed Swanburg a set of X-rays. "Are these the dental records you examined?"
Swanburg nodded. "Yes. You'll notice that Mr. Villalobos has protruding incisors-somewhat rodentlike."
The courtroom erupted with laughter as Louis again jumped to his feet. "I object to that characterization-obviously planted by the defense."
Before Klinger could respond, Swanburg apologized. "I'm sorry, your honor, I did not mean to disparage Mr. Villalobos. I was just trying to characterize…describe the sort of bite pattern his teeth would leave. I withdraw the comment." He smiled so innocently that even the judge smiled back.
"Very well, Dr. Swanburg…but do try to limit your comments to less…uh, disparaging descriptions…and stick to the science."
"Good advice, your honor, I should know better," Swanburg said and turned to beam at the jurors. "So let me rephrase that… Mr. Villalobos's incisors protrude, which would give an elongated bite pattern."
"Could he have created the bite mark on Ms. Tyler's breast?" Karp asked.
"Objection," Louis said. "Calls for conclusion."
Karp rolled his eyes. "Your honor, Dr. Swanburg has been admitted as an expert witness in this field. Of course, he's going to reach a conclusion."
"The witness may answer the question."
"Yes, certainly. No, Mr. Villalobos could not have created that particular bite mark."
"Thank you, Mr. Swanburg," Karp said. "Let's move on." He walked over to the podium where he flipped a couple of switches, darkening the courtroom and starting a slide projector that pointed to a screen off to the jury's side. A photograph appeared showing the side of a woman's head. The face was swollen and discolored, a large white patch over her eye. "Can you identify this photograph for the jury, please."
"Yes," Swanburg said. "It is a photograph taken of Mrs. Tyler's head, I believe the day after the assault."
Karp used an electronic pointer to indicate a long, straight purple mark on the side of Tyler's skull just above her ear. "Can you identify this mark?"
"Yes, it is a severe contusion-a bruise, in layman's terms," Swanburg replied. "It is approximately five inches long and a half-inch wide. It is the result of a blow with a blunt object that also fractured the victim's skull, somewhat like tapping an egg with a butter knife to crack it open."
Karp pressed the projector button and another photograph appeared on the screen. "And this?"
"It is a blowup-greatly enhanced and sharpened with the aid of the equipment at my lab in Colorado."
"What can you tell us about this photograph that we perhaps could not see in the first version?" Karp asked.
"Well, the most significant thing is the pattern of ridges along the main contusion," Swanburg said. "Notice their regularity."
"And what does that tell us?"
"It tells us that to a high probability, the object used to administer the blow was man-made," Swanburg said.
Suddenly realizing the implications, Louis, who'd all but ignored Swanburg's reports in the pretrial hearings, objected as he wiped furiously at his face with his handkerchief. "Your honor, what is this high probability? Sounds like guesswork to me."
The judge turned to Swanburg. "Care to answer?"
"Well, yes," Swanburg said, sounding somewhat miffed that Louis had referred to his efforts as guesswork. "Very little in this world, even the world of science, is 100 percent sure. I'd say this is about 98 percent."
"I'll allow it," Klinger said with a sigh and a disgusted look at Louis.
"Could this contusion have been caused by, say, a piece of driftwood?" Karp asked.
The judge looked at Louis as if she expected him to object. But he just waved her on.
Swanburg shook his head. "No…very unlikely. The contusion is too straight, the pattern of ridges too regular to have been created by Mother Nature."
Karp picked up the bag with the piece of rebar he'd shown Villalobos and handed it to the witness. "Dr. Swanburg, are you familiar with the object contained in this bag?"
Swanburg looked carefully at the bag and the evidence slip on the back. "Yes, I am. It is a piece of half-inch steel rebar, approximately thirteen and a half inches long."
"How are you familiar with it?" Karp asked.
"Well, I have one just like it."
"Oh? And why is that?
"Because I was asked to see if I could duplicate the injury to Mrs. Tyler, using an exact copy of the piece of rebar in the People's exhibit."
"How did you go about that?"
"My associates and I used our copy of the rebar to strike the sides of pigs."
"Pigs, Dr. Swanburg?" Karp said as though surprised. "Why pigs?"
"Well, we use pigs quite a bit in forensic testing," Swanburg said. "It might be a bit embarrassing to some of us, but pigs are nearly identical to humans in the chemical makeup of their bodies, as well as certain physical characteristics. For instance, their skin is nearly hairless and reacts to injury much like ours."
"Now, Dr. Swanburg, I'm noting that some of our jurors are looking a bit squeamish," Karp said. "Did you hurt these pigs?"
Swanburg looked worried. "Well, in the sense that delivering a blow hard enough to cause a contusion, which means the breaking of blood vessels and injuring the skin-I guess you could say we hurt the pigs. However, the pigs were anesthetized during the procedure, and then given painkillers until the bruising went away. We take good care of our little piggies. They spend most of their time wandering the grounds and eating."
Karp smiled. "So then, doctor, what was the result of your experiment?"
"Please turn to the next slide. Ah yes, there…this is a photograph of a contusion caused by striking a pig with our piece of steel rebar. Note the long, straight bruise with the evenly spaced ridges."
"Dr. Swanburg, in your expert opinion, could an object such as the People's Exhibit have created the contusion we saw on the side of Ms. Tyler's head?"
Louis roared as he jumped to his feet. "I object. Why was I not told of this experiment? I demand that this so-called evidence be thrown out and the defense counsel censured for attempting to sneak false evidence into this trial."
Karp smiled. Here was the reason for not asking for any adjournments. Louis was lazy and now he was going to pay for it. "Your honor, I believe if plaintiffs' counsel will refer to his notebooks, Defense Exhibits 30-45, he will see that he received this evidence nearly two weeks ago. Again, he made no objection in any one of a half-dozen pretrial hearings after that date."
Stunned, Louis turned to his notebooks. "Give me a moment, your honor." Turning to the specified pages, he mopped at his face, then smiled broadly. "Oh, yes," he said. "Now I remember. We didn't consider this important at the time, nor do we now. Please continue, doctor."
After the lunch recess, Swanburg returned to the stand. Karp looked back at the row of benches behind his table. Repass, Russell, and Torrisi were in their seats but Tyler was missing. Good, he thought. He'd told her she might want to miss the afternoon's testimony, and she'd taken his advice.
The reason was soon clear as he put up on the screen a frontal photograph of Tyler's nude body taken after the attack. Swanburg pointed out the bruising on her arms and legs.
The next photograph was a close-up of the bruising on Tyler's legs. "Can you give us an opinion, doctor, on what caused these marks?"
"Yes, you can see the pattern left by hands as they held her down. She must have struggled quite hard."
Karp put another photograph on the screen. A close-up of Tyler's chest-with the bite mark clearly evident-as well as her upper arms. "What can you tell us about these bruises?"
"Again, you can see the marks of hands on her arms as though she was being restrained."
"Thank you, Dr. Swanburg, I have no further questions."
Klinger invited Louis to cross-examine the witness. He stood and smiled at the jury, then shook his head as if they'd all been witnesses to some sort of card trick.
"Good afternoon, Dr. Swanburg. I won't keep you or these good people long, but let's review by starting with the bite mark. Is it possible that more than one person in this world might have teeth like that?"
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