Love Me or I'll Kill You

by Lee Butcher

  Although Paula appeared meek, the detectives were convinced that she was more than an unwilling participant. Black believed that Paula may have been the driving force behind both armed robberies, and that she tried to look like a victim to avoid culpability.

  Chapter 13

  The sky wept on the day funeral services were held for Lois Marrero at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Tampa. Warm rain fell from a gray sky and drenched more than two thousand mourners who stood outside to pay their final respects to the first Tampa policewoman to be killed in the line of duty.

  Police officers from all around Florida gathered to say good-bye to one of their own. Lois’s casket sat near the altar draped with more than three hundred roses that had been donated by Catharine Hadaad, who had been robbed at gunpoint at Flowers By Patricia by the same man who had killed Lois. Lois’s sister, Brenda, and Lois’s domestic partner, Mickie Mashburn, walked into the church, hand in hand, in what was the last show of solidarity before their relationship ended in anger, hurt, accusations, and additional grief.

  Lois was eulogized by friends and family. Edmond Anctil, a deputy sheriff and deacon in the Catholic Church, prayed, “Hasten to meet her, angels of the Lord.” The Reverend Joseph H. Diaz, who gave the sermon, told the assembly that “Lois isn’t dead. She’s just walking a new beat.”

  Lois’s body was carried from the church by a police honor guard while bagpipes intoned a dirge of deep sorrow while thousands of ordinary citizens, some who had created monuments to Lois, kept a silent vigil. A procession of eight hundred police vehicles accompanied Lois to Myrtle Hill Cemetery, where she was laid to rest.

  In a final symbolic act, dispatchers issued a call to Lois M. Marrero, Badge 327: “Do I have Officer Lois Marrero on frequency?” There was only silence in response.

  Representative Jim Davis, of Tampa, entered a tribute to Lois into the Congressional Record as he spoke on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Davis said he joined thousands of mourners who were saying good-bye to Lois, “one of Tampa’s finest, who was struck down when a bank robber opened fire.” Lois was the first policewoman to be killed in the line of duty in Tampa, Davis said, but he added that her legacy included her dedication, courage, and an instrumental role in cracking the gangs in Ybor City.

  “It is our duty to remember Lois for the ultimate sacrifice that she made to keep our community safe,” Davis said, and “show our gratitude to the entire law enforcement community.”

  Chapter 14

  Deeann Athan was having lunch at a lawyer’s office in Tampa when she heard helicopters. She knew something big was happening. Athan, an experienced trial attorney with the Hillsborough County Public Defender’s Office, knew that her services might soon be needed.

  The television was on when she reached her office and she watched it off and on as the hostage drama unfolded. When it was over and Paula came out, Athan joked with Julianne Holt, a mitigation specialist: “We should send somebody to the police station so they don’t coerce a confession out of her.”

  But a public defender can’t do that: they have to be asked to provide counsel for a defendant who can’t afford a lawyer. Athan decided almost immediately that she wanted to represent Paula. As she explained, “A couple of years before, I represented another young woman, a teenager who was accused of killing her mother with her boyfriend and another friend. It was a high-profile case. In a lot of high-profile cases, your client is not well liked by the public, so you’re not well liked. It’s tough from the very beginning.”

  Athan believed that defendants went into court as underdogs, even though the burden of proof lay with the state. Furthermore, she thought that “presumption of innocence” was a matter of law, not reality; she thought people automatically believed the person charged with a crime was guilty.

  “We talk about presumption of innocence, but it’s a very foreign notion to human beings,” Athan said. “You see somebody stopped by the police on the side of the road. You look over and say, ‘Oh, they must have been speeding.’ We assume they’re guilty of something. Human nature fights against presumption of innocence. It takes a special, open-minded person to do that, and, I’m sorry to say, the vast majority of people who sit on juries just aren’t that way.”

  Public defenders weren’t lining up to rush to Paula’s defense. It would be a difficult case, uphill all the way. Athan was assigned to the case as soon as she asked to be Paula’s attorney.

  Athan met Paula at the Hillsborough County Jail, a forbidding compound surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire. Inside, the jail is loud with the clanging of metal and the shouts of guards and prisoners. Until they’re completely processed, detainees are kept in spartan quarters with no amenities before being sent to the general population, where there are two persons to a cell and a dayroom with a television set.

  Paula was in the jail’s most restrictive program. Paula was also under a suicide watch and a twenty-three-hour a day lockdown, which meant she was only allowed out of her cell for an hour a day. Athan was surprised at how young and innocent Paula looked. The defense attorney shuddered to think of this frail-looking girl, who had been through such a horrible day, being in a room with three experienced detectives without a lawyer to advise her. She thought it was worse than unfair.

  Athan believed that Paula’s confession was illegally obtained. When Paula asked Black if she needed a lawyer, Athan maintained that he should have stopped the interview. Instead, she believed that Black steered her away by telling her that it would be a problem to get a lawyer.

  There was no problem so far as Athan was concerned; the public defender’s office was only fifteen minutes away from where Paula was interviewed. The police also had a hotline to reach a public defender at any hour—a lawyer to represent Paula could have been at the interview in less than a half hour.

  After she introduced herself, Athan explained her job to Paula. She told Paula that a psychiatrist would be interviewing her. Paula appeared to be under so much duress that Athan didn’t think she understood half of what was going on. Paula told her that she couldn’t sleep and that she was still afraid of Chino.

  Athan spent several hours with Paula, partly to allow her to have time outside of the small cell. Then she went back to her office, thinking how meek Paula was. Violence of any kind appeared absolutely impossible. “It’s just not in her nature,” she told a colleague.

  Paula’s eyes snapped wide open: “One, two, pow!” The voice was Chino’s and it seemed to be coming from everywhere. It repeated, “One, two, pow!” Paula shuddered as Chino’s voice continued to taunt her.

  “You were supposed to do it. We agreed.”

  Along with the accusing voice, Paula heard unearthly chanting and music that seemed to fill the cell and accompany Chino’s voice. She would not have been surprised if he had appeared in the cell and killed her. Dimly, Paula realized that Chino was dead, but she was so terrorized she thought he could still hurt her.

  She curled into a fetal position on the bed and held her hands over her ears to block the voice, chanting, and eerie music. “One, two, pow!” She felt the bed shake violently.

  Dr. Michael Maher, a Tampa forensic psychiatrist, glanced at Paula’s medical record at the jail on July 9. The records showed that the jail’s doctor found Paula “depressed (immediately following arrest) and possibly suffering from hallucinations.” Concerned about her having a psychotic condition, an antidepressant medication called Trilafon, which is used to treat schizophrenia, was prescribed for several days. On July 10, Maher met with Paula for the first time at the Orient Road Jail, where Paula had been transferred. Lolly Fulgueira, Deeann Athan’s co-counsel, was present. She told Paula to be as open with Maher as she could.

  The psychiatrist wanted to conduct a psychiatric interview and obtain her history to see if there was anything that was relevant to her legal problems. He explained that he was a confidential defense expert and everything they discussed would be confidential, unless he
was called as a witness, or if her attorneys asked him to write a report.

  Paula appeared to be confused and frightened. She sobbed constantly and gave Maher the impression that she still didn’t understand his role, and she was surprised that she could help prepare her defense.

  Paula told him about her past experience, and for the past year or so “she was very confused and upset, and thought she was having a nervous breakdown. She didn’t really know what to call it. And that nothing like this had ever happened to her before.”

  “I don’t understand what happened,” Paula sobbed. “When I think about the shooting, it doesn’t seem real. It seems like a movie.”

  Paula looked terrified as she described her memory of the shooting. Frequently she switched topics, as if unable to focus. Paula alternated between talking rapidly and sitting mute and unresponsive. Maher noted that Paula “appeared to be extremely frightened” that Chino wanted her to kill herself. She still was afraid that he was going to kill her or make her kill herself.

  “I know that’s crazy,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he’s dead. But I keep hearing, ‘One, two, three,’ and then he tells me, ‘We’re going to kill ourselves. I’m gonna count to three and then we’re gonna fire.’”

  Sobbing almost hysterically, Paula said that Chino counted to three over and over and she didn’t kill herself. Chino kept counting and she couldn’t sleep. If she did go to sleep, the counting continued. “Chino yells at me. I don’t understand what he’s saying, but he’s yelling at me.”

  “Well, do you hear him yelling at you now?” Maher asked.

  “No, no, it’s not that I hear him yelling at me now, but if I’m trying to sleep, or if I’m falling asleep, I hear that ‘one, two, three’ and then it seems like he’s yelling at me. And I hear the shot sometimes.”

  Paula couldn’t remember the shooting clearly, but it was still shocking to her. She told Maher that on the day of the robbery, she didn’t believe Chino would hurt anyone.

  “Do you understand why you’re here in jail?” Maher asked.

  “Yes, Chino killed that cop and because of the bank.”

  “Were you at the bank?”

  “Yes.”

  Paula didn’t remember what she did specifically at the bank. “That’s going to be important for us to talk about,” Maher told her. “We’ll talk about it when I come to see you the next time.”

  Paula said she had been trying to get away from Chino, that he wanted her to kill herself, and she fully expected to do it. When she couldn’t do it, Paula said, Chino offered to do it for her. She said there were a lot of problems between them.

  “Problems between the two of you before this?” Maher asked.

  “Oh yeah, it goes back a long way.”

  She told Maher that Chino made her do things she didn’t want to do and threatened her if she didn’t. “Well, he tried to get you to kill yourself before?” Maher asked.

  “No, this is the first time that had happened. Sexually, he tried to force me to do things I didn’t want to do.”

  Maher didn’t pursue this area at the time because he hadn’t heard about it before. There would be plenty of time to explore it later. The psychiatrist didn’t delve into anything with great detail, since this was an orientation visit. Paula spilled out information as if it had been bottled up inside her, or she sat weeping, dazed, and unresponsive.

  Maher found Paula “in a pretty erratic state” and was concerned about her ability to make sense. The primary purpose of the visit was evaluation, to meet her and the defense team, and to have the public defender say, “This is the doctor. We want you to talk to him.”

  “I was afraid of him before this,” Paula said. “He hadn’t tried to kill me before, but I was afraid of him. I thought I was going to die before he was shot. I’m afraid he’s still gonna be able to get me to kill myself.” Paula believed that Chino exercised power over her, even though she knew he was dead.

  Maher believed that Paula was terrified of Chino on July 6, when he killed himself, and that she had been terrified for several months. Although Paula couldn’t follow a train of thought in a logical manner, Maher believed that was temporary because of her emotional stress.

  Paula was worried Chino could still hurt Ashley. She was afraid Chino would kill both Ashley and herself. Maher noted that Paula believed “there was some malevolent force” connected to Chino that could hurt her.

  “You understand he died there?” Maher asked. “Do you understand that he’s dead?”

  “I know that,” Paula answered. “They’ve told me that.”

  Even so, Maher left the interview with the feeling that Paula was in intense emotional and psychological denial. She was able to acknowledge partially that Chino was dead, but on an emotional level, she believed that he could still influence what happened. Her understanding that Chino was dead was impaired.

  Officer John E. Romak took statements and gathered evidence immediately after the crime scene had been secured. Sherry Ann Williams told Romak that she had stepped onto her patio after hearing a helicopter directly overhead. Williams then heard six or eight gunshots nearby.

  Williams ran back inside her apartment and leaned against the door. Someone shook the door violently from outside. Then she heard more gunshots and a bullet crashed through the door, just missing her. Terrified, she dropped to the floor, crawled to the telephone, and called 911 Emergency.

  Just before she went into the closet for safety, Williams heard somebody outside yell, “Call an ambulance.” She didn’t see any police officers fire their weapons.

  Next on Romak’s list was Mark Kokojan, who related the events as he saw them. He told Romak that he had known Chino, Paula, and Ashley for about a year, but that they rarely spoke. Although they had been neighbors all that time, Kokojan didn’t know Paula’s name. However, he said, he could identify her.

  The first time Kokojan saw Paula on the day of the shooting was when “she appeared very nervous and scared and was in a hurry” to use his telephone. He identified Chino as the man who ran up, snatched his keys, tried to steal his car, and then shot Officer Marrero.

  Romak’s report noted that Chino started to fire at Lois when he saw her approaching. He wrote that Chino fired at least three shots and Lois fell toward her right. Kokojan didn’t know whether Lois was hit or not, but he dived under his car for cover. Kokojan didn’t know whether or not there were any more shots.

  When the shooting stopped, Romak wrote, Kokojan crawled from beneath his car and was sitting on the ground when he noticed that Chino was still there. For a chilling moment their eyes locked. Chino seemed to be scared before he turned and ran toward the apartment building. Romak wrote that Kokojan saw the gunman run after Paula, who was already headed toward the apartment building. When Kokojan stood, Romak said, he saw Lois’s body on the ground, with blood all around her.

  Shortly afterward, Romak’s report stated, a second woman police officer arrived. Kokojan, who had gotten inside his car, opened the window and asked if he could help. The officer told him to stay inside his car and to lock the door. Romak reported that Kokojan said he could identify Paula and Chino.

  Police obtained a search warrant to search and seize property found on Chino’s body. This was a list of everything he had:

  • MAC-11 machine pistol Cobray SWD Corp brand

  • One 30-round magazine for the above-described machine pistol

  • 13 live 9mm caliber bullets

  • One black nylon strap that was attached (to the gun)

  • One clear drinking glass

  • One black Panasonic cordless telephone

  • One clear plastic Ziploc bag

  • One blue Bic lighter

  • One torn note written by the deceased

  • One Glock 9mm pistol (previously the issued property of Officer Lois Marrero)

  • One magazine for the above-described Glock pistol and 18 live 9mm bullets

  • Two pieces of bone fragments />
  • Ninety-five dollars in United States currency, with varying quantities of red dye upon them

  • One pair of gray pajama bottoms

  Officer Luis R. Adan, of the forensic unit, took Horst Gunther Albrecht’s statement. Albrecht had seen part of the foot chase, and he had witnessed the shooting. He said he could positively identify Paula and Chino.

  Adan talked to Jessica Alfaro and her daughter, Jessica De Nobrega, at their apartment. They told him they heard shooting, and that bullets flew by them as they huddled on the floor for safety.

  During his investigation Adan found that a window screen, glass, and blinds had been shot. There were several pieces of lead near a dresser, where the bullet apparently had disintegrated on impact. Adan noted that the bullets probably came from Chino’s gun when he fired in the parking lot. Had anyone been standing by the dresser, they could have been hit easily.

  Adan marked all of the evidence as exhibits and then went outside into the courtyard. He saw “numerous” shell casings littering the breezeway by the stairs leading to Chino and Paula’s apartment. Adan found a large number of bullet fragments and casings on the second-floor landing. He started to mark them with crime scene tape, but switched to numbered evidence markers.

  The number of bullet fragments and empty shell casings found made it almost miraculous that more people hadn’t been shot. Bullets and shrapnel from large-caliber weapons were everywhere—in apartment doors, doorjambs, inside apartments, in the inside and outside walls, and embedded in the floors beneath carpeting.