Love Me or I'll Kill You

by Lee Butcher

  Black said the suspect had to ask for a lawyer specifically. Athan asked why the police didn’t get a public defender for Paula. She insisted that Black knew Paula could have had a public defender in less than an hour. Black contended that it wasn’t his job to get an attorney for Paula. He said he wasn’t sure a public defender would be available on a Friday afternoon.

  “Detective Black, what’s the point of telling her you can have an attorney if you are not allowed to let her make a phone call to an attorney or call an attorney for her?” Athan asked.

  Athan continued to ask the question and Black continued to be evasive. It had gone on long enough for Pruner. He stood to object. “Objection, Judge. This is argumentative at this point.”

  Padgett said, “It’s getting to be. . . .”

  “I’ve told you before, I’m not going to get her an attorney,” Black told Athan firmly. “That’s not my job. I don’t go around getting defense attorneys.” Black said if Paula had said specifically, “I want a lawyer,” he would have stopped the interview.

  “If she was deluded about her right to an attorney, it wouldn’t be a voluntary and intelligent statement, would it?” Athan asked.

  Pruner objected, but Padgett overruled him. “Deluded by? What do you mean?” Black asked.

  “Tricked.”

  “I think you can hear the tape. I didn’t try to trick her.”

  Judge Padgett interrupted: “She’s saying if.”

  “I apologize,” Black said. “If I was trying to trick her, then, yes, it would be. I was not trying to trick her.”

  “When you say, ‘That’s the only problem,’ she’s sitting there for twenty seconds thinking, correct?”

  “She’s thinking. She’s making a conscious decision.”

  “Detective Black?” Athan said impatiently.

  “Mrs. Athan, I’m trying to answer you fully,” Black said sharply. “Just take a moment and wait and let me answer, please. Okay?”

  Black reiterated his previous testimony that it was Paula’s decision to decide whether or not she wanted a lawyer, and that he was simply waiting for her to make up her mind.

  “So when she is thinking for twenty seconds, which is a long pause, you can’t, to this day, tell us what she was thinking, can you?”

  Black wouldn’t concede the point. “Yes, I can, because she says, ‘Okay, I’ll go with it.’”

  “And you got the result that you intended when you told her that it would be a problem bringing an attorney there at that moment?”

  “Right. That is correct.”

  Pruner objected when Athan asked if Black had an opinion as a detective of twenty years if the day’s trauma had affected Paula. Padgett overruled him. Black said it would affect anyone, but he didn’t think it would change what Paula would tell him.

  Black said that when he asked Paula if she had any mental illnesses, she told him she was depressed. Athan asked him if he wasn’t really looking for schizophrenia, hearing voices, hallucinating, or something more serious because “depression doesn’t set off any bells or whistles.” Black answered that he didn’t think depression was “a big deal. You get depressed over a bad grade in school.”

  “Or being beaten by your paramour who lives with you?” Athan asked.

  “She didn’t say that.”

  “You don’t ask her what that meant, did you?”

  Athan tried to show that the interview had not been conducted properly. Sometimes Black tried so hard to confuse Paula that he asked more than one question at a time, Athan said. She read one instance where Black had framed five questions as one. Black claimed that the questions were all related and that one answer would suffice.

  Athan asked about the Bank of America robbery. “It’s a pretty stupid thing they did that day, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes. And it cost so dearly.”

  The detective and the lawyer continued to duel over Black’s interrogation techniques. Athan said that Black had not met Paula before the interview and asked if his assessments about her were made “in a vacuum.” Black said that Paula’s actions that day told him what he needed to know. He added that Paula had several opportunities to get away from Chino.

  “This isn’t a whodunit,” Athan said. “This is a ‘why did it happen,’ right?”

  “And a ‘why it happened,’ why she did what she did after it happened,” Black answered.

  Athan said, “The reason that we’re here is for this jury to determine why this happened, that’s it.”

  Pruner objected, saying that Athan had made a statement, not asked a question. Padgett sustained the objection. Athan and Black continued a heated duel over the nature of Black’s questions during Paula’s interview.

  “So Paula said, ‘I got to do it, I got to go there,’” Athan said. “Your next question was ‘So he asked you to go along?’”

  Black disagreed, saying it was obvious that Paula “had” to go once she was committed to the robbery.

  “Did you change what she said to something different?” Athan asked. “That’s the question—”

  The judge interrupted. “Please don’t let this get out of control.”

  Black agreed that Paula told him Chino gave her the gun outside the bank. “He told me to hold it (the gun). I was scared. I didn’t want to go in.”

  “You didn’t ask her what she was scared of?” Athan asked.

  “I think it’s fairly obvious she was scared because there is a possibility they could get caught and they would be in the situation that they’re in right now.”

  Black admitted that he kept asking Paula the same question until he got the answer he wanted.

  Athan asked, “So you want to make sure that she says, ‘He didn’t force me.’ You wanted that in the statement. That’s why you say to her, ‘He didn’t force you to go in, though.’ Right?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You didn’t ask her if she was scared of Chino, did you?”

  “I asked her if she was forced by Chino to do this. She said no. Chino is dead and presents no danger to her. If there is ever a time to come forward and say, ‘Yes, he threatened me’—that would be the time to do it. She didn’t.”

  After a few more heated exchanges that seemed to go nowhere, Black was excused. Athan sat down and looked exasperated. She knew that Black was a seasoned detective who knew how to get a confession. She wasn’t pleased about it.

  Chapter 20

  The state showed that Paula purchased the MAC-11 from Robert P. Henderson, manager of University Gun and Pawn. Under cross-examination Henderson said that even though Paula bought the gun, Chino showed the most interest in the weapon. Henderson said he didn’t think that it was a “straw man” purchase—that Paula was buying the gun for Chino with Chino’s money. Henderson said all the paperwork for the gun purchase was in order.

  For the state, linking Paula to the MAC-11 was just part of the tedium of building a case. The prosecution rested after Henderson’s testimony. Athan was getting ready to set off some fireworks. She asked to approach the bench outside the jury’s presence. Padgett sent the jury from the courtroom and Athan presented legal precedents dealing with felony. Although she had no good argument to the state’s case for robbery, she didn’t think Paula should be charged with felony murder.

  “The felony was over,” she said. “The actions that took place after Mr. DeJesus and Paula Gutierrez left the apartment were a completely separate incident.”

  Athan had several precedents to support her argument. She cited Hornbrook v. State, a case that was decided by the Florida Supreme Court in 1955. In that incident two gunmen robbed a bartender, made their getaway in a stolen car, and took hostages. When police spotted the stolen vehicle, a gunfight ensued and a police officer was killed. Hornbrook escaped, but was captured later. The Florida high court turned to a California case, People v. Boss for guidance, since it considered Florida law too vague.

  If Paula had found a safe haven, Athan argued, the felony was ove
r. The Boss case stipulated that a crime is not completed if the perpetrators have not found even a temporary place of safety. In that case, Athan argued, the opposite must be true.

  “Paula Gutierrez had arrived at her home, the most secure place for her. The law looks at your home as your castle for purposes of defense,” Athan said. “She was there. She had showered and changed her clothes. She won her way to a place of temporary safety, even if it was momentarily. The flight from the robbery was complete.”

  The Florida Supreme Court ruled that a felony continues from the time it is committed, even though the pursuit may technically be over. In the case of a felon making a getaway, the court stated that in considering flight, “the most important consideration is whether the fleeing felon has reached a place of temporary safety.”

  “In the case of Paula Gutierrez,” Athan said, “she had not only reached her own apartment, but she had reached the Regency Apartments, where they were picked up by Lissette Santiago. But the most important fact in breaking the chain is that she had reached her home at the Crossings, where she took a shower and changed her clothes.”

  Athan argued that the flight from the robbery had ended. And because it had, Athan said, Chino’s pursuit by Lois was “a new sequence of events.” The defense attorney also argued that the Fourth District Court of Appeals ruled that, when evaluating flight, one of the most important things to consider is whether there’s been a break in the chain of events and if the felon has reached a place of temporary safety.

  Athan told the judge that the cases she presented were not “absolutely on point.” But she maintained that Paula and Chino had “broken the chain” of events when they reached their home. “They were at a place of safety, even if it was just for five minutes or ten minutes or fifteen minutes,” she said. “The chain is broken. The homicide committed by Mr. DeJesus is not connected to the robbery . . . and the state has failed to prove a prima facie case.”

  Turpin said the state’s argument relied on the same cases Athan presented, but interpreted them differently. The ASA said that Paula still was being pursued by the police when Lois was killed, and that the police officer’s murder allowed her to continue her flight.

  Turpin argued that Paula and Chino had only gone to the Regency to abandon the yellow Xterra because it was so noticeable. When they got to the Crossings, Turpin told the judge, both immediately showered to wash off red dye and tear gas residue. They only did this, Turpin said, so they could continue fleeing.

  “They can’t go walking around the city of Tampa with red dye, stinking of tear gas, and expect not to draw attention to themselves,” Turpin said. “They kept the gun with them at all times because they were still fleeing.” Lissette Santiago and Mark Kokojan both testified that Paula carried the bag containing the gun until minutes before Lois was murdered.

  Paula and Chino had not reached a “place of temporary safety,” Turpin said. “They were constantly on the move. They ditched their clothes. They ditched the red dye that was all over their persons, and then they were moving.”

  Paula and Chino heard the police helicopter circling long before anyone else did, Turpin told the judge. “They were listening for the helicopters because they were still on the run,” Turpin said.

  Padgett interrupted. “Okay. Okay.”

  “Just let me go on,” Turpin said.

  “No, that’s all I need to hear,” Padgett said. He said it was up to the jury to decide whether Paula had reached a safe haven. Padgett looked at Athan. “I submit that your client and Mr. DeJesus probably didn’t even think they were home free.” The judge said the evidence showed that Chino’s mother was waiting downstairs for them and that Paula and Chino were “just going to get their stuff and go.”

  Padgett denied the defense’s motion and told the bailiff to bring the jury back in. It was time for the defense to present its case. Athan called Shepler, who had already testified for the state, to the witness chair. She considered him one of her best witnesses.

  Shepler’s body trembled and his eyes teared up as he remembered the emotional events Athan asked about. She elicited testimony from the police officer from the time he heard radio traffic about the Bank of America robbery, through the search for the SUV, and the shoot-out at the Crossings. The key testimony Athan wanted from Shepler was what he saw Chino do on the balcony during the gunfight.

  Athan showed Shepler photographs of the apartment complex and asked him to point out his and Chino’s positions. The laser pointer the officer used wobbled over the map.

  “I won’t get anybody in the eyes with this,” Shepler said in a trembling voice.

  “Where is your car?”

  “I can’t stop shaking. That’s my car right there. I stopped right there.”

  Shepler pointed to the photograph to show where he first had seen Lois pursuing Chino. Lois disappeared from his view and he heard her radio that Chino was doubling back. Shepler said he drove to an area where he might cut Chino off. Just as he got out of the car, “I hear, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, and not a sound, not a sound, dead silence,” Shepler said. “A string of gunfire.”

  Shepler said he ran to the parking lot, and other patrol cars pulled up. “Man, that gunfire is fresh,” he said. As he looked around the parking lot, Shepler told Athan, he saw Lois’s body lying on the ground with a pool of blood around her head and face.

  Shepler said that his immediate thought was to help Lois, but he couldn’t because he would be exposed. As he scanned the parking lot, Shepler said, he saw a man standing near Lois’s body.

  “As soon as I look at him, I’m trying to figure out who he is,” Shepler said. “And all of a sudden, he’s got his gun up and he’s looking right at me like he had been waiting for me. And he just boom, boom, boom, and he started shooting at me. So I started returning fire against him.”

  Shepler said that he was wide open in the parking lot when the gunman ran toward the apartment buildings. “I realize I’m just standing in the wide open parking lot and this guy is trying to kill me, and I’m trying to kill him,” he said. Shepler said he saw no other police officers and that he was “totally focused” on the gunman.

  “I got him in the sight of my gun and I said, ‘Let him stop running so I can kill him,’” Shepler said. “But he makes that corner and I put another round or two after him . . . and he gets into the breezeway.”

  Shepler said the gunman was alone. The police officer left his cover and ran after the shooter. As he ran through the parking lot, Shepler testified, he glanced at Lois. “There’s nothing I can do to help you,” he said. “I got to get this bastard.”

  As he ran to a better spot, Shepler said, he saw the gunman on the second-floor landing. Shepler said he had his gun out and was ready to fire another shot. The policeman testified that he held his fire when he saw a young female just a few feet from the gunman. Shepler said he had not seen the woman before.

  “So what happens next?” Athan asked.

  “He grabs the female around the throat.”

  “Did you point your gun at him?”

  “Yeah, had my gun on him.”

  “How did he grab the female?”

  “He grabbed her like this.” Shepler demonstrated a choke hold that would put the gunman’s forearm under the woman’s windpipe. Shepler said he held his fire because he didn’t want to hit the woman. “Within a second or two, it starts up again.”

  “Do you know who was shooting at him?”

  “Yeah. At this point I see Cole Scudder coming right through there.” Shepler pointed to a first-floor landing.

  Shepler said the gunman looked away from him and started shooting at Scudder. Shepler said Scudder returned fire and took shelter. The gunman kicked a door in, Shepler said, and the woman in the choke hold was screaming. Shepler said that when the door was kicked in, the man and woman disappeared inside.

  When Athan took her seat, she believed she had made her point: Chino had used Paula as a shield to protect himself. It
wasn’t an act that showed Chino had any great regard for Paula.

  Pruner began his cross-examination and it was clear what he was up to. Employing the same chronological order that Athan had, Pruner used Shepler’s activities to show that the pursuit of the bank robbers was continuing when Lois was killed. Pruner stumbled once when he asked: “Did that (the pursuit) appear to be in somewhat of an organized systematic search in a grid pattern?”

  “I don’t know what it was,” Shepler replied. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Shepler said that he didn’t actually see Chino kick the door in, but he saw the foot up and kick something. “Or he was kicking the brick wall,” he said, “and I don’t think that’s what he would be doing.”

  Athan asked Shepler on redirect how many times he had been in a gun battle. He answered that gunfight was his first and that he had never seen a fellow officer gunned down.

  “You’re still emotionally affected by that?” Athan asked.

  Shepler could only nod in the affirmative.

  “Were you affected by what you were seeing and experiencing while you were chasing this guy?”

  “I didn’t have a chance to be affected by it,” he said. “I had to continue to function. I was trying to stay alive.”

  “Shepler had the most unobstructed view of the balcony,” Athan said to a reporter when Pruner ended his cross-examination. “He knows what he saw and he saw Chino use her as a human shield. The state’s trying to make Shepler look confused, but he wasn’t.”

  Athan’s next witness was Carey Forney, who was driving to work from a convenience store when he saw something horrifying at the Crossings apartments: a police officer and a man facing each other with guns aimed at each other. Forney said he braked to a stop.

  “It seemed like a long time, but it only lasted a couple of seconds and he shot her,” Forney said. “She fell. And the other cops busted loose.... When they ran into the breezeway, I heard a whole bunch of gunfire and I just backed my car up as much as I could.”

  Forney said he could see the gunman on the second-floor landing. He heard gunfire. “It sounded like a war,” he said. Forney left his car and ran to the Lindell car dealership next door, where he worked. Besides the gunman, Forney said, he saw a woman pacing back and forth on the balcony.