Echoes in the Darkness

by Joseph Wambaugh

  “There’s nothing in Black’s Law Dictionary about the Muslims. In prison the Black Muslims and the Muslim faith have grown tremendously. You have a great deal of trouble in the criminal justice system finding out about corrections, especially halfway houses, furloughs, leaves of absence. Most lawyers do not know very much about corrections.”

  “It’s in that category, corrections …”

  “The Penthouse. Let me answer how I got to the Penthouse. I found over the past five or six years a number of crimes involving battered wives and child abuse.

  “If you look at those issues, you’ll find that they have Yoko and John Lennon in there. John Lennon beat up Yoko. I was considering her as an example of a battered wife because John Lennon is known throughout the world.

  “Also John Lennon in the article kicked his child, Sean. Yoko thought he was going to kill him. This was a child abuse item.”

  “Did your having possession of those two Penthouse magazines have anything to do with Charles Montione?”

  “Nothing whatever.”

  He looked as banal as Adolf Eichmann. He’d just been convicted of murdering a woman and two children, and he was now describing to the jury how he was writing dictionary definitions of child abuse, as emotional as a grapefruit.

  Then he went on to describe how he’d helped Charles Montione and Raymond Martray, who’d betrayed him with their false testimony. And just so he didn’t disappoint anyone by failing to offer a sexual innuendo, he gave the jury a news flash: one of the witnesses against him was homosexual, even though Dr. Jay had always tried to “talk him out of it.”

  Bill Costopoulos asked, “Mister Smith, since your arrest for the death of Susan Reinert and the disappearance of her children what have your living conditions been?”

  “I’ve been kept in the hole ever since.”

  “Explain to the jury what that means.”

  “I’m not allowed any communication or calls. I’m not allowed to visit with my relatives except one time every two weeks when they’re behind a screen. I get no religious activity whatever. It’s the only place in the United States where you’re not permitted to have any church services.”

  “Did you want to testify before this jury during this trial?”

  “Yes. It was my feeling to testify because I felt the jury was entitled to hear my side. You said if I didn’t testify it couldn’t work against me. I mentioned to you I didn’t think they could bring up the previous conviciton. That shows you how much of a jailhouse lawyer I am.”

  “Mister Smith, if this jury would spare your life, are you aware that you will spend the rest of your natural life in the prison system of this commonwealth?”

  “I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.”

  “If this jury would spare you your life, what would you do within the prison system until your natural death?”

  “I don’t see any major changes. I would go on as I am, trying to help people when I could, trying to work as closely as possible with my family so they can get over the disgrace. Finish the criminal justice dictionary and work in the church.

  “I guess I would complete the Agent Orange lawsuits against Dow Chemical. Probably I’d start teaching again. I volunteered to teach English and reading. I’m not permitted to teach subjects where they have a hired position although that’s what I could really do best.”

  “Mister Smith, are you asking this jury to spare your life?”

  “Absolutely. Of course.”

  After Bill Costopoulos sat down, Rick Guida’s first question was “Where are the bodies of Karen and Michael Reinert?”

  “I do not know,” said Jay Smith.

  “You do not know?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Where did you kill Susan Reinert?”

  “I did not kill Susan Reinert or her children. I had nothing to do with Susan Reinert.”

  “In other words, what you’re telling this jury is that they made a terrible mistake, isn’t that right?”

  “All my life I’ve lived in the American system. I think they’ve made their decision honestly on the basis of what they were given. We accept their judgment. They say I’m guilty; I’m guilty. You asked me if I think I really did it? I didn’t do it. I respect their judgment.”

  “I didn’t ask you if you think you did it. Did you do it or didn’t you?”

  “I said I did not.”

  “It’s not a thinking process. You know you didn’t do it and these people made a horrible mistake, but it’s just the American system. Is that right?”

  Costopoulos stood and said, “I object! He’s arguing!”

  “Yes,” Judge Lipsitt said. “I don’t think you should argue with him. You just ask him the questions and don’t argue the point.”

  “Let me ask you this,” Guida continued. “Are you telling us that you are not upset even though you’ve been unjustly convicted of three counts of murder in the first degree?”

  “Yeah, I’m upset,” Jay Smith said. “But I’m not the kind who falls apart. I’ve had enough military training. I can take whatever happens to me.”

  “Where were you during the weekend of June twenty-second, 1979, between ten o’clock at night and noontime on June twenty-fourth, 1979?”

  “Your Honor, I’m going to object!” Bill Costopoulos said.

  “I agree,” said the judge. “You can’t go back into the case.”

  “He’s accepted the verdict!” said Costopoulos.

  Guida was relentless. In all these years it was his first and last shot at the prince of darkness. He said, “Your Honor, may I explore who he was with during that time period?”

  “I think I’ve sustained the objection. You have a jury verdict.”

  The prosecutor turned to Penthouse magazine.

  “Mister Smith, on direct examination you indicated that you wanted issues of Penthouse so that you could write a legal dictionary, is that correct?”

  “I am writing a legal dictionary, yes.”

  “What specific word did you define in your dictionary using the Yoko Ono article?”

  “ ‘Battered wives.’ I’m not saying that I completed the total entry. ‘Child abuse’ and ‘battered wives’ are the two terms I was going after.”

  “How long an entry in your dictionary did you plan for ‘battered wives’?”

  “I would say twenty-five words.”

  “In order to get twenty-five words for the dictionary to define the term ‘battered wives,’ you ordered two copies of Penthouse, is that right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “The prison library has a lot of books, doesn’t it?”

  “The prison library has very few books, Mister Guida. I had purchased my own books. I had over one hundred and fifty books in my cell including a full encyclopedia set.”

  “You, of course, have a Ph.D. in education?”

  “I’m a doctor of education.”

  “As part of that you did extensive research both in your master’s and your doctoral theses, did you not?”

  “Correct.”

  “Are you saying that given your educational background, your knowledge of libraries and books, and the places to find information, that the best place for you to get a definition of ‘battered wives’ was in the issues of Penthouse magazine?”

  “On those two celebrities. Yes.”

  “In other words your dictionary was going to include a list of famous cases, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Were you also going to include the Ted Bundy case?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How about the Jeffrey MacDonald case from Fatal Vision?”

  “I had those books in my cell.”

  “As a matter of fact, you had a lot of books on Ted Bundy.”

  “I had three. I consider him to be the first major serial murderer.”

  “Also, Fatal Vision. Correct me if I’m wrong. That’s the man who killed his wife and two children?”

/>   “Yes.”

  “A woman and two children?”

  “No. It was his wife and two children.”

  “She’s still a woman, isn’t she?”

  “Of course, she’s a woman.”

  It was starting to look as though Guida never wanted this case to end-until he sensed that the jury had had enough. He ended abruptly.

  Bill Costopoulos said, “Mister Smith, is there anything else that you wish to tell this jury, your peers, before they pass judgment on life or death?”

  “The only thing I wanted to mention was that comb,” Jay Smith said. “I spent twenty-eight years in the army reserves. Twenty-eight years. I spent every Wednesday night for twenty years doing reserve work. I’m the one who originated the idea for the comb.

  “We had trouble getting into schools to talk about recruiting because it was very antimilitary back in the sixties. There was a television program called 77 Sunset Strip. On that program there was a fellow who was a detective. He used to comb his hair. They had a song called ‘Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb.’ That’s where I got the idea to hand out combs with the 79th USARCOM decal inscribed on it. That comb now works against me.

  “I did not kill Susan Reinert. I never had anything to do with Susan Reinert. Nothing whatever. Nothing. Never saw her off school property at any time. Never saw her children.”

  “Nevertheless,” said Costopoulos, “you accept the judgment of your jury?”

  “Of course. They’re honest people. They made an honest decision. You accept it. That’s the way it goes.”

  “No further questions,” said Costopoulos.

  “Nothing further,” said Guida.

  Jay Smith just gave a little shrug.

  “Let’s hear arguments,” said the judge.

  Bill Costopoulos had said during the trial that he didn’t even like to think of this eventuality, arguing for a mans life. He said the mere thought filled him with dread.

  Only now was it possible to see just how much Bill Costopoulos dreaded this moment. He arose, faced the jury, and said, “May it please the court, Mister Guida, and Jay. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I, like Mister Smith, believe that this is the greatest system in the world. I’m not questioning the verdict that you twelve honest people have reached.

  “Jay Smith has always maintained to me, as he has to this jury, that he did not murder Susan Reinert. He did not murder those children. I don’t know, but I think you can appreciate the frightening position I’m in …”

  It was a stunning moment in the trial. When Bill Costopoulos said the word “frightening” his voice cracked and broke. He was frightened. The tears started to roll down his cheeks and he continued his final argument while swallowing them back.

  He said, “The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania has found capital punishment to be legal. Thus, in your deliberation on the question of punishment, you are to presume, if you sentence Jay Smith to death, that he will be executed.

  “You are to presume, if you sentence Jay Smith to life imprisonment, that he will spend the rest of his life in prison. You will make no other presumptions.

  “The life he will lead in prison is no life at all. For all practical purposes, he began his life term on June twenty-fifth, 1979. Since his arrest for murder in 1985, the man has lived in a hole. He lives by himself. He’s got minimal contact. They transport him in handcuffs and shackles.

  “He has elected between the two options of death and that kind of life, to die in our prison system. I’m asking you to let him do that. Thank you.”

  It was an effective plea by a passionate lawyer. There were even a couple of reporters brushing at their eyes.

  The prosecutor, as always, talked longer than the defense lawyer. He began by saying, “When we picked this jury a month ago, I told you that this day might come, and it’s here.

  “When I sat at lunch I think I probably felt exactly the way you’re feeling right now. I’m not standing here to tell you I like the death penalty, or that I want people to die. I don’t think that any one of you feel that way either. The question is not how we feel, but what the law requires. If we liked the death penalty, if we felt that we really wanted people to die, we wouldn’t be at these chairs, we’d be at Mister Smith’s.”

  After a long argument in which he described the aggravating circumstance in this terrible murder, he said, “You’ve made a determination. You’ve made a commitment to obey the law. It is now your obligation to do what the general assembly says is proper and what the community says is proper. Sympathy, bias, prejudice should not be part of your decision. For the children, I thank you.”

  In actual deliberation time, the jury used only five hours for the guilt verdict, but needed six for the penalty verdict. It was probably a tribute to Bill Costopoulos in his plea for Jay Smith’s life.

  After seeing Jay Smith in action, no one could doubt his lawyers decision not to let him testify. Even if there hadn’t been the convictions in the Sears thefts which he would surely deny as he’d denied everything in his life except parking tickets, the man could not have taken the stand.

  While his lawyer was being smothered by fear and dread of his awful responsibility, Jay Smith had just shrugged. That’s the way it goes.

  No matter how you’d try to package Jay Smith, no matter how placid and scholarly he tried to be, he still danced to his own tune. He’d do his own lonely jig, barely noticing the twelve people who were considering a sentence of death.

  At least he’d revealed the music to which he danced on those lonely crags with his little goat feet: “Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb.”

  Rick Guida had celebrated his thirty-ninth birthday in the last days of the trial. Jack Holtz’s thirty-ninth was coming up in May. These two bachelors were now facing their potential mid-life crises without the work that had consumed them.

  Jack Holtz hoped he could return to Troop H and resume investigations. He wondered how he’d be received after so long away.

  Rick Guida said he might quit the law and go to Denver and be a bartender.

  Lou DeSantis was going home to Philadelphia and just get back to living in a house instead of a hotel.

  When the talk inevitably turned to the long deliberation, Jack Holtz said, “I don’t particularly need the death verdict. If he gets it, I’ll give up a day at the Penn State football game to witness the execution, but I don’t need it. I like the idea of him living every day with the knowledge that Martray dimed him.”

  Rick Guida said, “I don’t want Jay Smith. God wants him.”

  God had a long wait. The jury didn’t return to the courtroom until 8:15 P.M. that night. The judge greeted the jurors after all were assembled and the clerk stepped forward. The jurors were not looking at Jay C. Smith.

  “Have you reached a verdict of life or death?” he asked.

  The woman in charge said, “We have reached a verdict of death.”

  The verdict was recorded at 8:18 P.M. and the clerk said, “Ladies and gentlemen, will you stand, please. Hearken to your verdict, as the court has it recorded. You say that Jay C. Smith should receive death. So say you all.”

  The standing jurors said, “We do.”

  While the defendant stood, as remote and impassive as ever, Costopoulos said, “The defense requests a poll of the jury, Your Honor.”

  Each juror was required to utter the verdict in the murders of Susan Reinert and Karen Reinert and Michael Reinert.

  The first said, “Death” three times.

  The next said “Death” three times.

  It was eerie hearing it uttered thirty-six times that night.

  “Death.”

  “Death.”

  “Death.”

  Jack Holtz never took his eyes off Jay Smith. He saw the defendants chin tremble just once.

  Jack Holtz later said, “I loved it. I wanted to hear it thirty-six more times.”

  “Death.”

  “Death.”

  “Death.”

  29
/>   Ghosts and Brothers

  For her years with William Bradfield, Sue Myers had his thousands of books, most unopened, and that was all she had. By 1986 she at least was enjoying the company of a gentleman friend, and was still teaching at Upper Merion Senior High School.

  Christopher Pappas was working at a construction job in 1986 and might never pursue the profession to which he’d been led by his former mentor. He said he feared he might forever be thought of as a fool.

  Vincent Valaitis who also still taught at Upper Merion said that before Bill Bradfield he never thought of missing mass on Sunday, but from his experience he learned that the world is a far more evil place than he’d ever dreamed. That knowledge weakened his faith. He told of a moment in recent years when he’d been reading a book and a memento fell out. It was a card from Michael Reinert thanking him for buying him a cub scout uniform. He wept.

  Ken Reinert and Susan’s brother, Pat Gallagher, still had not settled with the insurance company by 1986. It appeared that they would eventually get money, but only a fraction of her policies. Ken Reinert still was not able to talk about his ex-wife or their children.

  All of the former friends of William Bradfield felt deep humiliation, but none admitted conscious guilt. Indeed, there were a great many people besides Sue Myers, Chris Pappas, Vince Valaitis and Shelly, who had heard awful tales of Jay Smith and his plot to murder Susan Reinert. None of those persons has been known to express guilt for not calling the police or notifying Susan Reinert of possible danger.

  All of these people are put in a difficult position when a question is asked: “What would you have done if, according to Bill Bradfield, Jay Smith had been making those same terrible threats against Susan Reinert and the children?”

  To say they would then have acted would of course be an admission that the life of Susan Reinert had been assigned a paltry value, by virtue of Bill Bradfields assessment of her. No one could answer the question.

  All of them-William Bradfields friends and colleagues, his former students, his lovers, the families of his confidants, or their lawyers-all of them who had been told that there was a man named Jay Smith planning to murder Susan Reinert-all of them can ask themselves one question: “Did I believe Bill Bradfield that she was in danger?”