by Ray Flynt
A few more moments passed as a disk was handed to the clerk, marked and returned to the prosecutor, reminding Brad how ponderous court proceedings can be. If he were watching a re-run of Law & Order, he mused, there’d be one more commercial break and the jury would return with a verdict. Next to him, he noticed a juror had used his pen and pad to draw a guillotine.
“Ms. Holt, I’m going to play the 9-1-1 recording and then ask if that was the phone call you made.” Cunningham nodded to Jeffrey Holbrooke, her assistant, who as nearly as Brad could determine had earned a law degree so that he could operate audio and video equipment in the courtroom. After a few seconds of fuzzy sound the audio cleared.
The 9-1-1 operator could be heard asking whether it was a police or fire emergency, followed by Francine Holt screaming, “Police.” There was an aching intensity to her voice as Brad heard her say, “My mother’s been murdered,” followed by a moan; like she knew she had to hold it together long enough to get through the call. When the operator asked if she was in any danger, she hesitated before blurting out, “No.” At one point in the call, when the operator delayed in responding, Francine pleaded, “Send help, please,” adding seconds later, “He’s killed her.”
Brad had listened to a number of 9-1-1 calls over the years, and he knew the task of the operator was to gather the facts and keep the caller focused.
One aspect of the call surprised him. When asked for her address, Francine responded, “One Feldman Circle, Haverford, PA,” and when asked for her name, she said, “Francine Feldman.” Why had she provided her maiden name? Haverford was an upscale community with more than its share of multi-millionaires, not all of whom had their own personally-named private streets. Perhaps Francine thought they’d respond more quickly to the Feldman rather than the Holt name.
When the recording ended, Cunningham approached the witness and asked, “Is that the call you made on Wednesday, March 7th of this year?”
Francine dabbed at her nose with a tissue she had pulled out of her purse, before saying, “Yes.”
“When you told the 9-1-1 operator, ‘He’s killed her,’ to whom were you referring?”
Francine Holt shifted in her seat, aimed a finger at the defense table, and said, “The defendant.”
Cunningham turned toward the bench. “No more questions, Your Honor.”
Judge Whitaker nodded to the defense attorney, “Cross examine, Mr. Asher.”
Asher leaped from his seat like a Jack-in-the-box, then ambled to the witness stand. “Ms. Holt, you don’t like your step-father, do you?”
She bristled. “He’s not my step-father; he’s my mother’s husband.”
Asher rubbed his chin. “You don’t like your mother’s husband?”
“No!” She spat the word.
“In fact, until today you haven’t seen Mr. Nesbit since your wedding two and a half years ago?”
“That’s right.”
“And you timed your visit to your mother on March 7th because you knew Mr. Nesbit would not be there?”
“Correct.”
“In fact, you’ve arranged all your visits with your mother at times when Mr. Nesbit would not be present?”
She stared at the ceiling as if considering her answer before saying, “Yes.”
“Have you ever heard your mother complain about your step-fa…” Asher corrected himself, “about Mr. Nesbit?”
Francine Holt appeared flustered. “Mom wasn’t like that.”
“I’m not asking you what she was like. Have you ever heard your mother complain—”
“No,” she blurted.
Asher pivoted, as if planning to return to his seat, then turned back. “Did you know that, according to the terms of her will, if anything happened to your mother Mr. Nesbit would inherit her estate?”
“Yes.” Francine’s face flushed.
“And should Mr. Nesbit be convicted of murdering your mother, who would inherit her estate?”
“I would,” she said sheepishly.
“No further questions at this time, Your Honor.”
“Very well,” Whitaker said. “You may step down, Ms. Holt. We’ll take a fifteen-minute recess.” After providing the usual admonitions to jurors about not discussing the case, the judge tapped his gavel.
Brad wasn’t sure what Asher had accomplished with his cross examination. However, it did make sense to Brad that following his keep-an-open-mind statement earlier that morning, Asher had used a velvet demeanor with Genevieve’s daughter. To do otherwise would have alienated the jurors, which would have been counterproductive.
Brad had his own question. He wrote on his tablet before turning it face down on his chair while he took his break. It read, “Why did she call herself Francine Feldman?”
10
“The Commonwealth calls Sergeant John Cordes,” Cunningham said.
Cordes was in his early forties and looked just like Brad remembered him, including the premature baldness. He wore his usual gold-buttoned navy sport jacket, blue tie, white shirt and tan slacks. Cordes strode confidently to the witness stand, where he swore to tell the truth in a strong baritone.
They’d collaborated on a case a few years earlier when Brad had rescued an elderly client from the hands of a con man engaged in a classic Ponzi scheme. Brad had arranged for his Aunt Harriet to meet with the man at his Bryn Mawr home, pretending to be ready to invest her life savings, while he and detective Cordes listened in and recorded the entire transaction from Brad’s nearby office. Aunt Harriet rendered an Academy Award-worthy performance, and to this day brags about her role in “busting the case wide open.” Cordes arrested the man, charging him with fraud.
Diane Cunningham took at least fifteen minutes to detail Cordes’ qualifications. Although he held the rank of sergeant, he was a supervisor in the Haverford Police Department’s detective division, with eighteen years of experience. Does she have to ask about every investigative seminar the detective has ever attended?
Brad’s mind wandered. He gazed at the defense table. They were about to hear details of a brutal crime scene. David Nesbit’s demeanor could only be described as composed—not quite relaxed—but certainly composed as he leaned forward in his seat listening to the mundane details of the detective’s resume.
Brad knew that stashing a body in a freezer was usually intended to delay its discovery and confuse the time of death. Where had Genevieve Favreau Nesbit been murdered? He doubted it had been in the garage, and figured the detective would be able to pinpoint the place of her death.
Brad noticed Shane Asher put a hand on David Nesbit’s left arm, after which the defendant leaned back in his chair. From Brad’s position in the jury box, the attorney now blocked his view of the defendant, so he turned his attention back to the witness stand.
“On Wednesday, March 7th of this year,” Cunningham asked, “did you receive a call from the dispatcher regarding a homicide at One Feldman Circle?”
Cordes looked at the jury. “I did.”
“Approximately what time were you called?”
“12:10 p.m.”
“And when did you arrive at the scene?”
Cordes consulted a small notebook. “I arrived at 12:35 p.m.”
“There was a delay of twenty-five minutes?” Cunningham asked matter-of-factly.
“There was no delay,” Cordes asserted crossly, his eyes darting in the direction of the jurors. “I notified the medical examiner’s office to meet us at the scene, and then rounded up an evidence technician and a photographer. We were out the door in less than ten minutes and the distance from the station and traffic accounted for the remaining time.”
“The technician and photographer accompanied you to the crime scene?”
“Yes.”
“What are their names?”
“Skip Manville is the photographer, and Trevor Henderson is the evidence technician.”
“Describe what you saw when you arrived at One Feldman Circle.”
Cordes cleared h
is throat. “The first thing I spotted was an open garage door on the west side of the house. It was a three-car garage, and each bay had its own door, but only one of the doors was open. A woman, I later learned was Carmelita Diaz, was waiting at the front of the garage. She led me to a chest freezer where I observed the body of Genevieve Nesbit.”
“Describe for the jurors the condition in which you found the body.”
As he had previously, Cordes moved his gaze from right to left taking in each member of the jury. He paused when he got to Brad, and Brad thought he detected a glimmer of recognition on Cordes’ face, and held his gaze.
“Her head was exposed,” Cordes said, “but the body was wrapped in a pink blanket. I touched her cheek, which was frozen solid, and frost was visible in the corner of the right eye and at her nostrils. After Skip took a few photos, I pulled back the blanket and determined that the victim was wearing a camisole, bra and panties.”
While Cunningham asked for and was granted permission from the judge to show photographs of the victim on the flat screen monitor, Cordes stared at Brad. A thin smile crossed his face and he nodded. After that, it seemed to Brad as if he testified only to him.
Brad watched as the first photograph appeared on the monitor, depicting a man in front of a large chest freezer with the lid standing open. When asked to identify the photograph, Cordes said, “That’s Trevor Henderson measuring the height of the freezer.” After consulting his notebook, Cordes added, “Which was 33 inches from the floor.”
A second photo materialized showing Henderson and the detective stretching the tape measure along the front of the freezer, while Cordes testified its length as 73 inches.
Brad heard sharp intakes of breath when the third photo showed Genevieve Nesbit wrapped in the pink blanket Cordes had described.
That picture didn’t remain on the screen for very long, and was replaced by a close-up of the deceased’s head. Her dark hair, though mussed, looked like it had been recently coiffed, perhaps for a social occasion. She wore no earrings, but the photo resolution was so fine that he could see a piercing on her right earlobe. The plush pink blanket, drawn close to her neck, was trimmed in matching satin.
Genevieve’s skin had the gray pallor Brad had witnessed in other death cases, and he noted the frost Cordes had testified to around her right eye and nostrils. What struck him most was the cavernous hole where her left eye had been. Asher had alerted jurors during his opening that she’d had eye cancer and that her left eye had been removed. Asher had known that this picture was coming, and had wanted to warn them that it was not a part of the crime scene. Still, it was a foreign and unsettling sight, and Brad saw jurors in front of him shift their attention away from the video screen.
The monitor went blank, and Cunningham asked. “You mentioned meeting Ms. Diaz on your arrival. When did you first speak with Francine Holt?”
“Right before we took those photos,” Cordes explained. “I knew that the medical examiner would be arriving momentarily and wanted to establish the scene so that they could accomplish their work as soon as they got there. Ms. Diaz told me that Ms. Holt was upset and sitting in the kitchen. I stepped into the kitchen, identified myself, and asked her to wait and told her that I would return shortly. Ms. Diaz remained in the kitchen with her.”
In the row in front of him, Brad saw a female juror holding her head in her hands as she slumped against the balustrade at the front of the jury box.
“How long from the time of your arrival—” Cunningham began.
Brad raised his hand and called out, “Excuse me, Your Honor.” He pointed at the distressed juror in front of him.
“Thank you,” Judge Whitaker said, “With apologies to Ms. Cunningham, we’ll take a short recess.”
A tipstaff rushed to the jury box and escorted the dazed juror into the hall. The other jurors followed her out, with a few heading toward the restrooms. Brad found the woman bracing herself against the marble railing that surrounded the main stairwell of the courthouse. Just as the solicitous tipstaff asked her if she was okay, she vomited all over his shoes. A second tipstaff rounded up the remaining jurors and hurried them off to a nearby holding room, quite possibly the same room in which they would eventually deliberate the case.
The minutes ground by, compounded by an eerie silence. There were two restrooms at the far end of the holding room that were put to good use while everyone waited. Brad filled a paper cone from the water cooler and drank. He heard the warble of a siren, and Jerry wondered aloud if an ambulance was coming for the sick juror. “It might have been that tuna salad sandwich she had at lunch,” one juror muttered. “Yeah, or seeing those pictures,” another said with a pout.
Brad suspected the latter, even though the crime scene photos were tame compared to many bloody scenes he’d witnessed. His experience had taught him that images shown to a jury were scrutinized in advance and subject to pre-trial motions where defense attorneys tried to exclude those that might inflame jurors’ passions.
Forty minutes passed before jurors returned to the courtroom. The seat in front of Brad remained empty.
Judge Whitaker was already on the bench. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I apologize for the delay. Juror number six has been taken to the hospital. I’ve had to make a decision as to whether we should adjourn for the day, in hopes that juror six could rejoin us in the morning, or replace the juror. Alternate juror number one, please take the empty seat in the jury box.”
The woman Brad knew only as Elaine, and whom he had dubbed Crochet Lady rose, squared her shoulders, marched to her new seat, and sat as if posing for a camera. Elaine had spoken with him in the jury assembly room the previous day, and seemed conversant about many details of the case. Brad sensed she had been more than eager to sit in the jury box.
Brad noted that it was after 3:30 p.m. when Diane Cunningham recalled Sergeant Cordes to the witness stand, and the judge reminded the detective that he was still under oath. They probably faced another hour of testimony before adjourning for the day.
“After you took the photographs, did you then interview Francine Holt?”
“Yes, I did.”
“How long was that after your arrival?”
“Probably ten minutes or less. Right after staff from the medical examiner’s office arrived.”
Cunningham took two steps toward the jury box. “Describe for the jurors your meeting with Ms. Holt.”
Cordes cleared his throat, once again focused on Brad, and said, “I entered the kitchen from the garage, where I found Carmelita Diaz sitting alone at the kitchen table. I asked her where Ms. Holt had gone, and she pointed me toward the living room, where I found Francine Holt seated on a sofa and talking on her cellphone. After she spotted me, she ended her call.”
Next, Cunningham took the witness through Francine’s story of her arrival in Philadelphia and the sequence of events that took place prior to finding the body. Brad noted that the detective’s account matched Ms. Holt’s prior testimony.
There were several more innocuous questions regarding his interactions with the medical examiner, whether they had cordoned off the garage with crime scene tape (they had), and any communications he may have had with police headquarters while he was on the scene (none). Brad sensed that Cunningham might be trying to run out the clock so that Asher wouldn’t have time to cross-examine, and Cordes’ direct testimony would remain in the minds of the jurors overnight.
“Did you subsequently search the home?” Cunningham faced the jury box.
“We did.”
A trial is theatre; not nearly as exciting as a Broadway musical. Through her body language and heightened tone, Cunningham signaled BIG news would be revealed as she asked, “What, if anything, did you find?”
Cordes looked directly at Brad as he said, “Based on the physical evidence, we found the location where I believe Genevieve Nesbit was murdered.”
“Please describe that physical evidence.”
“In the master
bedroom we found the bed in disarray, indicating that a struggle had taken place, and a corner of the fitted satin sheet on the bed had come loose from the bottom of mattress. There were several hairs consistent in color and length with those of Genevieve Nesbit, and we found a pillow with what appeared to be a small reddish-brown spot and mucus residue. In addition, there was a fetid odor and the bed sheets appeared to be stained with urine.”
Brad expected that the jurors might next see a photograph of the bedroom Cordes described, but Cunningham continued, “Based on your experience, what did the presence of urine mean to you?”
“After death, the muscles relax and urine is discharged from the bladder, so it confirmed for me that that was the location of her death.”
“Now,” Cunningham took a deep breath, “the blood, mucus, and urine that you observed, were they collected for analysis?”
“Objection,” Asher said. “The detective did not testify to seeing blood?”
“Sustained,” Judge Whitaker said.
Cunningham tried again. “The reddish-brown spot you observed, along with the mucus and urine, were they collected for analysis?”
“Yes.”
Brad appreciated Cordes’ brevity, having witnessed a few long-winded detectives over the years.
“Your honor,” Cunningham began, “I have a report from Adelphi Laboratories in Langhorne, PA. We intend to call a representative of the lab to authenticate the document and the methodology used to reach their conclusions, but I would like to ask Detective Cordes a few questions regarding the report.”
“Without objection?” Whitaker glanced toward Asher.
“No objection, Your Honor,” Asher said with a broad grin.
The next few minutes were spent with the detective reviewing what appeared to be a two-page report, verifying that he had previously seen the information, and confirming that the laboratory analysis matched blood, mucus and urine found at the scene to the DNA of Genevieve Favreau Nesbit.
“Detective, where was the master bedroom in relation to the garage where the body was found?”