by Burl Barer
“On Monday, we’ll resume this case,” Hultman continued, “with Detective Yerbury, and then pathologist Dr. Lacsina.” The state succinctly encapsulated Lacsina’s testimony. “It is his opinion that John Achord died as a result of stab wounds ... the head wound was more a wound to the jaw.”
“As I say,” Hultman concluded, “once you have heard the testimony and evidence, you will have no doubt that the defendants are guilty as charged. Thank you.”
Ladenburg and Murdach, as previously agreed, reserved their opening statements for another time; the prosecution called their first witness—Mrs. Opal Bitney, the married mother of five boys, the youngest being John Achord. Soon after taking the witness stand, Mrs. Bitney handed Carl Hultman her son’s photograph. “When was that picture taken?” he asked.
“It was made for my Mother’s Day present in 1984,” she answered softly, “six days before he disappeared.” The state offered the photo as Plaintiff’s Exhibit #1, and Judge Steiner asked if there were any objections. If there were, neither Murdach nor Ladenburg were going to make them in front of the jury, the victim’s mother, and in such close proximity to Mrs. Bitney’s heartbreaking mention of Mother’s Day.
“No,” answered David Murdach, “we’ll reserve our objections to be heard outside the presence of jury.” The court reserved ruling. “Don’t show it to the jury,” said Steiner, and Hultman set the photograph aside.
Mrs. Bitney ended her brief testimony by insisting that John Achord didn’t use illegal drugs. As she stepped down from the stand, the judge kindly asked her to wait out in the hall for a few minutes. Somewhat mystified, Bitney complied. Steiner sent the jury out as well, and David Murdach approached the bench.
“Family members from both the St. Pierre and Achord families will be sitting here in the courtroom,” said Murdach. “And there has been a problem generated in this case which you may not be aware of. There have been threatening phone calls between the St. Pierres and the Achords, and vice versa. I don’t think it is appropriate under those circumstances for any witness who testifies in this case to be seated back in the courtroom—I think every witness should be excluded if they are not going to be called upon.” By excluding every witness from the courtroom, not allowing Mrs. Bitney to attend the trial would not be “unfair treatment.”
Neither Hultman nor Judge Steiner found merit in Murdach’s entreaty. “Mrs. Bitney has been under enormous pressure since her son disappeared,” remarked Carl Hultman. “I think she should be entitled to sit through the proceedings.”
“This is a public courtroom,” Judge Steiner said sternly, “and anyone who wants to come has a right to be here. This lady has a right to observe.” Changing the subject, the judge inquired about objections to Achord’s photograph. Did they want to hash that out now or at noon? “Noon,” replied Murdach. The jury returned, and Carl Hultman elicited exceptionally short testimony from Tacoma Police officers confirming Achord’s official Missing Persons report.
With the overture and preamble of the prosecution’s case behind him, Carl Hultman could now begin building toward his intended climax of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. The first player in the state’s orchestrated exposition was twenty-three-year-old Mark Perez.
“I object!” It was Hultman raising his voice, interrupting David Murdach’s cross-examination of Mark Perez. Under Hultman’s direct examination, Perez testified about the post-gunshot admonition from Andrew Webb that he should stay in his room, and the corresponding invitation from Paul St. Pierre to come take a look at what was in the dining room. He also gave testimony about the cut-up carpet, and recounted virtually everything found in his statement to the Tacoma Police.
The question to which Hultman objected concerned Perez’s experience with LSD, a powerful psychedelic drug. The judge overruled Hultman, and Perez replied, “In my lifetime, I’ve tried it.”
“You’ve sold LSD to Paul, haven’t you?” Murdach’s question brought another, more forceful objection from the prosecution. The jury was temporarily excused while Judge Steiner asked questions of his own.
“This question is part of your defense, right? Your defense is that your client had LSD and he must have gotten it from somewhere. Is that right?” Defense counsel confirmed; the prosecution continued objecting.
“You’re asking,” said Hultman to Murdach, “Mr. Perez to answer a question that has Fifth Amendment strings attached to it that I can’t advise him about, and I don’t think the court can, either. He needs independent counsel. Whether he sold LSD to Paul St. Pierre sometime in the past is not relevant to this case.”
“You can ask Mr. Perez, ‘Do you know whether Paul has used LSD?’ ” advised the judge, “but don’t ask him whether he sold it. Now, let’s bring the jury in.”
“Wait.” Murdach wasn’t done. He wanted more from Perez than Steiner would allow. “I think I’m entitled to ask whether he or his girlfriend sold LSD to Paul that night. Mr. Perez can figure out his Fifth Amendment rights for himself. We have a right to ask.”
The court always has an obligation of protection—protecting the witness’s rights. Steiner advised Perez of his right to remain silent, and the right to have an attorney. Hultman and Murdach continued arguing until they were firmly interrupted, but not by Judge Steiner. The man verbally breaking through was Mark Perez.
“I don’t like being here as well as anybody else does,” stated Perez emphatically, “and if he has a question he wants to ask pertaining to this particular night, I’ll just let him ask it. I don’t want to postpone it any longer than it has been.”
“All right,” said the judge, “let’s bring out the jury.”
Mark Perez answered Murdach’s drug-related question, revealing that Paul St. Pierre often purchased his LSD via Perez’s ex-girlfriend’s cousin. That individual, in turn, had procured it from someone else. On the night of the Rush concert, Andrew Webb, Paul St. Pierre, and Cory Cunningham planned to share five hits. Although they asked Perez to supply the drug, he was bedridden with an ear infection. “I didn’t go to the concert,” recalled Perez, “and Rush was my favorite band.”
The prosecution’s next witness was Gordon Gibson, formerly incarcerated with the St. Pierres, who recounted Paul’s explanation for killing John Achord: “He was a jerk.” Furthermore, recalled Gibson, “he didn’t say they buried him or anything; he just said he cut off the guy’s head, put it in a bucket, and threw it into the Puyallup River.”
Gibson, after assuring everyone that he received no special benefits in exchange for his testimony, stepped down. The jury went to lunch, and Carl Hultman requested special considerations for his next witness—the man who tossed John Achord’s head into the river.
“Anthony Youso’s testimony isn’t very long,” said Hultman. “I know we’re expecting Dr. Tappin to begin at one-thirty and that’s out of an extraordinary amount of courtesy to the defense.” Tappin, recently recovered from heart surgery, was scheduled for a European excursion. Securing his vital testimony on behalf of Paul St. Pierre required an interruption in the state’s case.
“Mr. Youso resides in Colorado. We flew him here Sunday night,” explained Hultman. “I request that Dr. Tappin wait five, ten, fifteen minutes so I can put on Mr. Youso and he can catch his plane. We have reservations for Mr. Youso this afternoon.”
The defense allowed Youso in, but objected to John Achord’s photograph. “It’s not relevant,” objected Murdach, “and it is not material to any element of this case because I am prepared to stipulate that Mr. Achord was a human being. My client shot this man; this man was stabbed and this man was buried. I’m willing to stipulate that the body that was found in the grave is Mr. Achord and that we are talking about him.”
To Hultman’s surprise, Judge Steiner excluded John Achord’s picture. “I think the jury should have an opportunity to see who the victim was. We did the same thing in Damon Wells’s case. They made no objection to his picture coming in, so I’m not sure why there is a change in position on that
.”
“I don’t think it is necessary,” repeated the judge. “I’m going to exclude it. Anything else?” There was one more matter, and it also involved photography. Anthony Youso, the next witness for the prosecution, did not want his picture taken.
Tony Youso couldn’t remember very much about anything, nor did he want to. He’d spent a good year distancing himself from the St. Pierres and the infamous bucket, both physically and emotionally. Under Carl Hultman’s guidance, and after a careful review of his sworn statement, Youso testified. Speaking so softly that he was almost inaudible, Youso haltingly answered the prosecutor’s questions.
The courtesy David Murdach displayed concerning Youso’s travel arrangements vanished during cross-examination. “Isn’t it true that you almost killed somebody in an accident May 18, 1984? Do you remember running into the house claiming that you thought you killed somebody?”
“I don’t know,” answered Youso. “I don’t remember anything about the accident except that I didn’t hit another car; the car hit me. I remember going through a green light and looking over to my left, and that was it. I went to the hospital and had a CAT scan done. They released me and my mom took me home. The doctors just told me to be cautious with myself. If it had been serious, I probably would have been told.”
Following the accident, police originally charged Youso with “hit and run.” The nature of his head injury validated his innocence, placing blame on the other driver. All charges against Youso regarding the traffic incident were dropped.
Murdach questioned Youso relentlessly, demanding he accurately recount conversations had with Paul St. Pierre. “It’s been a year and I’ve just been trying to forget this, so I really don’t know. To tell you the truth,” Youso replied, “I have a very short memory span. It’s hard for me to remember things.”
“Isn’t it true, Mr. Youso, that you told Mr. Paul St. Pierre to go up and cut the head off the body? Isn’t it true that you’re the one who suggested cutting the head off the body so they couldn’t find the bullet?”
“I don’t know,” said Youso repeatedly. “I don’t know if I did or if I didn’t. If I did, I don’t know. I’m not sure.” When Murdach asked him why he couldn’t remember, Youso became more irritated and less defensive. “How would you feel if you were going through this? You try to forget as much as you can! I didn’t kill nobody!
“Yes, sir, I disposed of evidence in this case,” admitted Youso. “What are you going to do when your life might be in danger, or your family’s life?” Enough was enough. The questioning stopped and an exasperated Anthony Youso stepped down from the witness stand.
Youso turned his back on David Murdach, squared his shoulders, and walked out of the Pierce County Courthouse.
“I don’t think Youso should’ve walked on those criminal charges, or been treated so lightly even though he didn’t actually do the murder,” commented Roy Kissler several years later. “I don’t recall all that he was involved in, but if he were involved in digging up somebody that’s been murdered, and if he helped decapitate him, put his head in the bucket, then Tony Youso got off easy—he ‘walked’ on the whole thing. Walked on the charges, walked right out of sight, too.”
“I think Youso really agonized over the whole thing,” said a more sympathetic Marty Webb. “It was much more devastating to him to be involved in something like that than it was for Paul St. Pierre. That’s probably because Tony had some brain cells that still worked, while Paul was a few clowns short of a circus. Shrinks were checking him out all the time, and I believe the doctors finally determined that he was ‘terminally uptight and dangerous as hell.’ ”
The official diagnosis by learned psychologists and psychiatrists was couched in more professional parlance than Ms. Webb’s colloquial rendering, and that was the primary purpose of Dr. Tappin’s testimony. Before the doctor took the stand, Murdach asked Judge Steiner if Paul St. Pierre could be excused from the room.
“We could have him sitting on the bench out in the hall, Your Honor,” said Murdach, and kindly offered his mathematical equation for the redistribution of courtroom guards. If Paul St. Pierre voluntarily waited outside while his doctor explained the depths of his depravity, delusions, and dangerousness, St. Pierre would be waiving his constitutional right to attend any and all proceedings. Judge Steiner saw numerous problems in that eventuality.
“I would prefer for him not to be here,” reiterated Murdach. “If the court is afraid of his competency to waive his right to sit here, then I think we should look into competency more. If he is incompetent now, he shouldn’t be here.”
Steiner emphatically disagreed. “I think he should stay here,” the judge ruled. “Bring in the jury.”
David Murdach insisted his client was not guilty by reason of insanity. To verify Paul St. Pierre’s tragic mental condition, Murdach enlisted several respected and accomplished mental health professionals, including Dr. Charles Tappin. Jurors were somewhat mystified when Tappin gave defense testimony in the middle of the prosecution’s presentation.
“Under normal circumstances, the defense would not call witnesses or present evidence prior to the state resting its case,” explained Murdach. “For the record, and so the jury understands, Dr. Tappin is being called out of order. We would normally wait until the conclusion of the state’s case to present any evidence whatsoever. But in an effort to let him keep his time commitments to go to Europe, and the length of this trial, counsel has consented, and we’ve agreed, to have him testify now rather than later.”
Tappin previously provided pretrial reports to the court concerning St. Pierre’s competency to stand trial. Determination of diminished mental capacity, however, was another medical and legal matter altogether. Per Murdach’s request, Dr. Tappin conducted extensive testing, interviews, and evaluations of Paul St. Pierre’s mental condition.
David Murdach knew that Dr. Tappin’s prestigious professional credentials, coupled with the physician’s pleasant, self-effacing manner, would make a profound and positive impression upon the jurors. A graduate of the University of Kiel in Germany, Charles Tappin opened a private practice in Seattle, Washington, following his psychiatry residency at the University of Washington.
“I am a private practicing psychiatrist at Fairfax Hospital, as well as Cabrini Hospital, in Seattle,” said Dr. Tappin. “I am also on the instruction staff at the University of Washington, and considered an associate staff member at Harborview Hospital,” he added. Dr. Tappin, a member of the American Psychiatric Association, is board certified in psychiatry, and the published author of works dealing with forensic medicine in psychiatry. There was no way the jurors could doubt his diagnosis.
“What kind of examinations did you perform on Paul St. Pierre in connection with my request to determine whether or not he suffers from mental illness?” asked Murdach.
Dr. Tappin smoothly explained that the examination usually takes the form of a lengthy interview. “One goes into the history of the individual and his adjustment to life, to school, to work, and to his relationship with individuals,” answered the doctor. “I also had at my disposal information from various sources dating back to the time he was in school. As a rule,” he explained, “we try to get as much data as possible. I think psychiatric evaluation entails talking with the individual for quite a considerable length of time.
“Mr. St. Pierre suffers from what we call a paranoid personality illness. This diagnosis has been substantiated by all of the examiners who have seen him,” testified Tappin. “We all agree that he suffers from a rather severe mental illness. He would like to see himself as being a big individual and therefore he has attempted to fortify himself by surrounding himself with dangerous weapons.”
David Murdach repeatedly asked Dr. Tappin if Paul St. Pierre’s condition was truly a mental illness. “Oh, yes,” Tappin repeatedly said, “it’s a mental illness.” Further, Tappin described St. Pierre’s condition as “extreme.”
The main point Murdach wan
ted Tappin to communicate was that Paul St. Pierre was incapable of forming rational judgment, especially under the influence of LSD and alcohol. If his client was not able to form the conscious intent of murder, Paul St. Pierre could be considered not guilty of aggravated first-degree murder.
“As a result of your examination of Mr. Paul St. Pierre,” asked David Murdach, “do you have an opinion within a reasonable certainty whether or not Mr. Paul St. Pierre would be capable of consciously forming an intent to murder or kill Mr. John Achord?”
“Yes, I have,” responded Dr. Tappin. “Paul St. Pierre is suffering from a chronic paranoid condition, and having taken alcohol and LSD was not in a position to process in a rational manner what was going on around him, and therefore was unable to form any rational judgment with respect to his responses toward the individual concerned. In the formation of intention to harm someone, I feel it is necessary that the individual be in control of his intellectual and cognitive capacities.”
When David Murdach inquired as to his client’s mental condition during the grave site decapitation of John Achord, the extremity of Paul St. Pierre’s mental illness baffled even the imminent Dr. Tappin. “Despite my psychiatric expertise,” he admitted, “I am bewildered by the bizarreness of this whole incident, and really question to what degree this individual is disturbed. This is a disturbance beyond paranoia. It comes closer to a severe mental illness, more toward a schizophrenic type of thing.”
Carl Hultman’s cross-examination targeted the concept of “intent”—the rational process of which, according to Tappin, Paul St. Pierre was bereft. Hultman continually used the word “intent” in the colloquial meaning. In describing St. Pierre’s shooting of Achord, Hultman asked Tappin if this took place because St. Pierre imagined Achord was a threat. “So he intended to stop whatever threat he saw, didn’t he?” asked Hultman.