by Burl Barer
“I went into Mark Perez’s room. He was just waking up. He sat up in bed and was squinting his eyes, clearing his eyes. I started to ask him if he heard anything and started just telling him to stay in his room and not come out because I didn’t want him to get involved in this or see what was going on. I was in there for a short thirty seconds. Andrew Webb came in and he started saying the same type of things to Mark, ‘Just stay in your room; don’t come out; you don’t want to see what’s going on.’ Then Paul came up to Mark Perez’s door and said something, but I don’t remember what he said. Andrew told him to leave.
“We went back into the living room, into the dining room area,” testified Chris St. Pierre. “Paul was there. He was starting to cut the carpet up around the body and folding it up over the body. We helped him roll the body up and finish cutting up the other side of the carpet.”
“At that time,” asked Ladenburg, “did you see any knife wounds in Mr. Achord, and if you had seen knife wounds, would you have told the police about it on the nineteenth of June when you made your statement to them?”
Chris St. Pierre assured him that he most certainly would have told the police about knife wounds had he known about them. After all, he led the police to the body. If he knew there were knife wounds, he would also know those wounds would be revealed once the body was recovered.
“After we rolled up the body in the carpet, Paul, Andrew, and I carried it out to Andrew’s car,” he said, continuing his testimony. “We placed it in the backseat. We were going to go bury the body, you know.”
Ladenburg knew the story all too well, and all the different versions. The defense strategy was direct and clearly supported. Chris was the “cooperative defendant”—he helped the police, directed them to evidence and the bodies, and told them everything he knew. Andrew Webb, whose plea-bargain statement was the only “evidence” loosely linking Chris St. Pierre to the killing of John Achord, was the “unco-operative defendant.” He was the unreliable opposite of Chris St. Pierre. He refused to testify, admitted his statement was false, and took full responsibility for the murder of Damon Wells. Paul St. Pierre was the “insane defendant”—the one for whom murder was an accomplishment worth bragging about, and everyone else was perceived as a possible enemy, potential victim, or both.
Chris St. Pierre’s testimony, Ladenburg reasoned, would demonstrate his willingness and honesty, differentiate him from the unwilling and dishonest Andrew Webb, and definitely raise reasonable doubt about the prosecution’s charge of aggravated first-degree murder. The entire “aggravated” aspect of the charge revolved around Andrew Webb’s assertion that Chris St. Pierre encouraged his brother to kill Achord to cover up the Wells homicide. Chris testified that he thought John Achord was dead from the .45 head shot, he never heard Achord breathing, never saw him move, was convinced that Paul had killed him with the .45, and that Andrew Webb never once suggested calling the police or ambulance.
“Andrew said that you told him that the police should not be called because Paul was high on acid and the police would not believe him,” said Murdach, “and that you said that if the police came snooping around they might find out about Damon Wells. Did you ever say that?”
“No, I never heard anything like that,” responded Chris St. Pierre. When Webb’s latest revised version was recounted, the narrative in which Chris’s comments about covering up the Wells murder took place the next day, St. Pierre said even that was untrue. “As a matter of fact, if Andrew said it was the next day, that’s impossible because I didn’t see Andrew for three days afterward. Paul and Andrew were working together at the bakery, they might have had some discussion like that, but nothing like that was ever said in my presence.”
David Murdach began his cross-examination asking for clarification about the genesis of the decapitation concept, an idea originated by Tony Youso. “The next day, Paul was discussing what had happened with Tony Youso. Paul was still concerned about the bullet being in the man’s head. Tony Youso suggested that he remove the head. Once Paul got the idea into his head himself, he said, ‘Yeah, I better do it, I guess.’ At that time, Paul gave Tony and I some money and told him to go get some cement and stuff.”
Murdach wanted one more point made clear to the jury, and he asked the question with practiced precision. “From your testimony, I understand you to say that you do not recall any conversation whatsoever about any discussion about calling the police?”
St. Pierre answered, “No.”
“Is that because,” asked Murdach, “you didn’t hear it? Were you present during the entire time that Andrew and Paul were together by the body of John Achord?” Chris St. Pierre had already testified that he went into Mark Perez’s room, but Murdach wanted to make sure the jury had it drilled into their heads so they would never forget it.
“So I understand what you said,” restated Murdach, “you left the room for a period of time and if there was a conversation between Paul and Andrew, you were not in their presence?”
“I was not in their presence,” confirmed Chris St. Pierre. Murdach had no further questions, but prosecutor Carl Hultman had plenty of questions designed to elicit testimony that would hopefully reveal Christopher St. Pierre as a disgusting, repellent, heartless murderer. He wanted to paint him as a man devoid of compassion, who willingly participated in the kidnapping and killing of Damon Wells, concealed the crime, encouraged the murder of John Achord, participated in the gruesome decapitation of Achord’s corpse, concealed those crimes as well, and only revealed information after he was in police custody.
“Chris, I believe you said that there wasn’t any conversation that you ever heard about being concerned about the police finding out about Damon Wells’s murder,” said Hultman. Again, St. Pierre stated that he never heard such a conversation. “But you were afraid of being found out, weren’t you?”
“If I was so afraid of being found out, I wouldn’t have gone and told the police everything like I did,” replied St. Pierre strongly. It was then that Hultman moved in. “In your statement, you say that Detective Price came by your house three weeks after Damon’s death. You knew the police understood and realized that your house was the last place Damon was seen alive. You knew that, didn’t you?” The witness agreed.
“So you knew sometime in March of 1984, two months before John Achord was killed, that the police knew Damon Wells had not been seen alive since he came to your house. Therefore, you people would be logical suspects. You knew that, didn’t you? Detective Price came to your house and asked about Damon Wells. You lied to him about that, didn’t you? That’s because you were afraid of being found out, isn’t it?”
“I was afraid,” admitted St. Pierre. “I was afraid that if I told what Andrew had done and stuff, if he could get at me, he would kill me.” Hultman questioned if that was the only source of St. Pierre’s fear, asking if he felt guilty about what he had done. “I didn’t feel guilty of murder; I didn’t kill anybody,” responded St. Pierre.
Carl Hultman elicited testimony concerning the witness’s previous murder conviction in the Wells trial, his life sentence plus an additional thirty years for the kidnapping and assault. “That’s the kidnapping you say was a voluntary trip by Damon Wells, is that correct? Do you want to think about it for a minute? Are you sure that’s what it was? A voluntary trip? Damon went voluntarily with you and your brother and Andrew Webb?”
“Yes,” said Christopher St. Pierre.
“The jury didn’t believe you last time,” said Hultman with a hint of sarcasm, “did they?” Both defense counsels voiced objections sustained by Judge Steiner. David Murdach then asked that the jury be excused. Once the jurors went out, Murdach went ballistic. “This is prosecutorial misconduct,” he said vehemently. “The jury should be admonished to disregard that last question and admonished to disregard any comments further along this line.”
The reason for Murdach’s outrage was that Carl Hultman was trying to get Chris St. Pierre to mention that he didn’t
take the stand in his own behalf during the Wells trial. “The prosecutor knows that neither Paul nor Chris testified in the previous trial. This is nothing more than an attempt to get into evidence that Christopher St. Pierre didn’t take the stand.”
“He exercised his Fifth Amendment privilege,” added John Ladenburg. “The case is presently on appeal. If it is retried, he may exercise that privilege again. I don’t think the prosecutor should be allowed to do this.”
The judge agreed; the jury would be instructed to disregard the question. Hultman then told the court that he intended to ask the same question again, except change the wording slightly.
“I move for a mistrial,” said Murdach.
“Your motion is denied,” said Steiner. “Bring in the jury.”
Carl Hultman asked for a brief delay. He wanted another intended line of questioning approved. “I intend to ask him to describe Damon Wells’s physical size inasmuch as he’s asserted that Damon went voluntarily. I think his size, relative to Andrew Webb and the St. Pierre brothers, is a matter which relates to a question of how anybody would believe his claim that Damon went voluntarily. I think that’s an absurd statement! I think the jury is entitled to know that Damon Wells was very, very small—five feet tall and [about] one hundred five pounds. We are looking at the witness’s credibility, and I think the jury is entitled to examine his credibility on this matter.”
Judge Steiner ruled otherwise. “The fact of the conviction of kidnapping speaks for itself. You are retrying the first case.” The prosecutor argued that the witness was not testifying honestly or accurately. “I don’t think it is relevant at all,” said Steiner. The jurors returned, and he advised them to disregard the previous question and the answer.
Hultman, however, refused to abandon the Wells incident. He continued questioning Chris St. Pierre about his violent contributions to Damon Wells’s final hours. “Yes” was the reply, again and again, as the prosecutor asked, “Did you beat Damon Wells in the bathroom? Did you beat him again in the car? Did you beat him still more at the beach?”
And finally: “Did you think there was anything wrong with what happened to Damon Wells?” The only answer was affirmative, giving Hultman the opening he was waiting for. “Then why did you stand there for five to ten minutes waiting for him to bleed to death?”
“What was I supposed to do? Was I supposed to run off yelling for help? What was I supposed to do? I stood there in shock,” said St. Pierre. “There was nothing I could do.”
“Except hide the evidence of the crime?”
“That’s true,” admitted St. Pierre. “I did participate in covering up the evidence.” Hultman asked about building a fire and burning their clothes. “I didn’t do that. I didn’t burn my clothes. I did burn my boots.” The prosecutor selected a particularly disturbing portion of Christopher St. Pierre’s original sworn statement, and read it aloud: “ ‘We took showers to wash away the blood.’ ”
“Is that right?” asked Hultman. “Did you shower to wash away the blood?”
“I didn’t have to take a shower,” St. Pierre said. “I could have just washed my hands. I had some blood on my hands.” The witness’s remark, a simple statement of physical fact, was too similar to an expression indicating undeniable guilt for Hultman to resist.
“Did you have ... blood on your hands?” he asked slowly. St. Pierre answered yes. “Interesting comment,” Hultman murmured. Murdach instantly objected.
“Objection sustained,” ruled the judge. “That remark will be stricken. The jury is instructed to disregard it.”
Instructing a jury to disregard a remark is often the same as asking them to not think about green elephants. Once the remark is made, or the question asked, the impression has been made. Lawyers, of course, know this. It is precisely for this reason that they often risk a sustained objection—they know that it is impossible to disregard 100 percent a remark that one is told to disregard.
With tension and temperature rising in the Pierce County courtroom, the prosecution questioned Chris St. Pierre’s firm assertion that he never saw Paul St. Pierre stab John Achord, nor did he notice the wounds. “When you came into the room, you walked by the body; I assume you looked at it?” asked Carl Hultman.
“I tried not to, but I looked at it. I just went into shock, like it was unbelievable. I mean, you leave the house for a half hour or something and come back and there’s a guy lying on the floor here, shot in the head, blood all over the place.”
Christopher St. Pierre held steadfast in his claim that he was out of the room, speaking with Mark Perez, when Paul St. Pierre stabbed John Achord. “The first I knew of the stab wounds at all was after the autopsy was performed,” he repeatedly said. “That’s when I first heard about the stab wounds; I never saw Paul stab him; I never saw the wounds.”
“That stabbing would have had to have happened in that thirty seconds when you were in Mark Perez’s room, all twelve stab wounds would had to have happened in that thirty seconds that were outside your presence, wouldn’t it?”
“I never saw it happen; I never heard it happen! When I came back into the room, Paul was already cutting the carpet up around the body. I had a pretty good idea what he was going to do with the body, what he wanted to do with the body.”
It was the state’s contention that Chris St. Pierre encouraged the murder of John Achord to conceal the murder of Damon Wells. Hence, Carl Hultman continually linked the two events during his cross-examination. “Why didn’t you call the police? Is it because you were afraid that they wouldn’t believe Paul because he was high on acid?”
“I didn’t care if they believed Paul or not. I wasn’t the one who shot the guy,” St. Pierre replied. He acknowledged that the police were not called. This was the introduction Carl Hultman wanted to trigger his next barrage of interrelated questions. “On the night John Achord was killed, the police didn’t know where Damon’s body was, did they? They didn’t know anything about it yet, did they? They didn’t know your actual involvement or what anybody had done to Damon Wells, did they?” Each question was answered negatively. “You didn’t want them to know about it, did you?”
“I came forward and told that stuff had gone too far,” said Chris St. Pierre. “It had to be stopped!”
“Nobody is disagreeing with that,” Hultman said, and delivered the remark as if it were a punch line. He cast a glance at John Ladenburg and perceived the defense counsel’s preobjection body language. The unspoken was easily deciphered and just as easily ignored. Carl Hultman would abandon this line of questioning only by court ruling.
“What we are talking about is your state of mind when John Achord was murdered,” explained Hultman to St. Pierre. “You were afraid about being found out about Damon Wells; that’s why he was murdered, too, isn’t it?”
Ladenburg’s anticipated objection found voice before his client could answer. “I think this is the fourth time this question has been asked. I don’t see any point in Mr. Hultman continuing to ask the same question over and over again in this trial.”
“I’m trying to get at the truth, Your Honor,” pleaded Hultman. The judge permitted the prosecutor to continue.
“That’s why he was murdered, isn’t it?” reiterated Hultman. “So the police would not find out about Damon Wells, isn’t that true?”
“I don’t know why Paul killed him,” said St. Pierre. “You’ll have to ask him. I don’t know what transpired. I wasn’t there. I can’t tell you.”
What St. Pierre could tell and confirm under oath was that at no time after discovering the body of John Achord did he even consider calling the police. Despite numerous opportunities to distance himself from the murder and burial, he fully participated in every aspect of the transporting of the body, the burial, preparation for the decapitation, and the delivery of Achord’s severed head to the Puyallup River Bridge.
“When the decision was made to decapitate John Achord’s body, you went and got the cement with Youso. Who made you
do that?”
“Paul told me to do it, and I was just listening to him,” answered Chris St. Pierre, admitting that while he could have gone to the police, he went instead to help his brother remove John Achord’s head. “Paul dug the body up. I helped him get the body out of the grave. Then I went back and got the bucket and cement, mixed up some cement. Paul went back into the brush. I was by the road. He was about thirty feet back by the grave site and proceeded to remove John Achord’s head. He chopped it off with an ax. He came out of the brush carrying John Achord’s head. He came over and placed the head in the bucket of cement; we brought it back to the house, removed the lid, and saw that the cement had set up. Paul placed it in the garage. Then he asked Tony and I to get rid of it.”
Hultman provided a thoughtful pause sufficient for whatever ghoulish images occupied the jurors’ minds to sink in before commenting, “You people spent a lot of time moving bodies and stuff at night, didn’t you?”
“Objection,” declared Ladenburg; “Sustained,” ruled the judge. Carl Hultman was past any objection, sustained or overruled; he was already asking Chris St. Pierre for an important clarification regarding his stance of innocence in the murder of John Achord. “So your claim is that you just happened to be an unfortunate guy in the wrong place at the wrong time all the time, is that kind of what your claim is here?”
“I was caught in the middle of a lot of stuff. I was afraid for my life. I didn’t know what to do. I told the police repeatedly when I gave my statement that for turning these guys in, I was most likely going to be killed.”
“You told them that you were afraid,” countered Hultman, “that you were going to be convicted of murder! You told the police that, didn’t you?”
“No, I said, ‘I’ll probably be charged with the murder. ’ ”
“That’s all,” stated Hultman. He was done with Christopher St. Pierre. John Ladenburg, however, was entitled to redirect examination—an immediate opportunity to punch holes in Hultman’s portrayal of his client’s motives and involvement in the death of John Achord.