“The cross,” Emily said, “was honking huge. My dad wore white shirts with some sort of tie and then the huge wooden cross on a leather strap thingy that hung down to the middle of his chest, almost down to his stomach. I believe that someone from church gave that cross to my dad, as it was not something he purchased himself. See, my dad has always felt as if he was being persecuted and that he was the one on trial, since he had to tell so many personal details.... He always said the media persecuted him, tarnished his character, and made him into this bad person. So, in my opinion, he wore the cross to show he was religious and to symbolize he was almost being persecuted like Jesus. Now, of course, there is no comparison between Jesus and my dad and this comparison is just [from] me, but that is how I remember seeing it.... [He] could never see what he did wrong and the pain he caused to his family.”
When they returned two days later, Paul Walton made a point to enter into the record several documents, giving the jury an idea of how Donna Trapani could have gotten hold of Gail Fulton’s schedule. Certain work documents Donna had asked George to fill out for CCHH were revealing in that regard. It seemed no matter what Paul Walton and George Fulton talked about, the pendulum swung toward Donna Trapani and her desire to erase Gail out of their lives.
There was no indication how Lawrence Kaluzny was going to treat George Fulton. Arguably, George was Kaluzny’s biggest obstacle to overcome. If Donna Trapani was going to argue that Sybil Padgett and the others acted on their own behalf, was it really necessary to contest George Fulton’s direct testimony?
Kaluzny got right to the point: How was your marriage with Gail before you met Donna?
George said it was okay. He and Gail had “disagreements” and there were “small things.” In no way was the marriage in trouble.
Then they talked about CCHH and the dynamics of how the company ran.
Then, after saying it was not his intention to embarrass George or smear his reputation, Kaluzny made a point to have George tell the jury he had been lying to Gail for quite some time. That every day he spent with Donna was a lie.
George was asked about all the traveling he did.
Then he was questioned about “opening up to Donna” and if that was what attracted him to her.
George agreed.
Kaluzny asked George if he was thinking of divorcing Gail.
He said he was, back then.
After that, Kaluzny started in about Gail’s schedule and how it might have been George who had inadvertently given it to other employees at CCHH.
Sure, that was possible, George agreed.
Sybil Padgett became a hot topic. During his questioning Kaluzny was able to paint Sybil as a derelict employee whom Donna felt sorry for and had given chances to because of Sybil’s children. Donna felt sorry for her, the questions suggested.
“Was there any resentment detected toward you,” Kaluzny asked, trying to drum up a motive on Sybil’s part, “because of the salary you were earning, the position you were taking in the company?” George had already made it clear to the court that he and Donna were the highest-paid employees. Could this have sparked enough hatred on Sybil’s part, along with George coming into the fold and taking Donna away, to want to go and kill George’s wife on her own?
69
THERE CAME A time during George Fulton’s cross-examination when jurors and trial observers developed a look of fatigue. Not that anyone was particularly tired. But George’s answers to what seemed to be baseless questions were beating on an issue that could be beat no more. It was almost as though the more George talked, the more jurors despised Donna Trapani and her weak attempt at blaming someone else for a crime she had planned, plotted, facilitated, paid for, and, clearly, enjoyed seeing played out. Alienating a jury is not hard to do during a murder trial. And once a juror crossed that threshold of scratching reasonable doubt off the table, he or she was finished.
“At some point you decided,” Larry Kaluzny asked George, “that Gail had to know about what was going on between you and Donna, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Gail, or did she find out about it?”
“She found out.”
“What time period are we talking here?”
And this was how it went: rehashing regurgitated information that meant absolutely nothing to Donna Trapani’s or Sybil Padgett’s end result.
Donna’s lawyer then brought his line of questioning back to Gail threatening suicide, as if her state of mind had anything to do with Donna’s guilt or innocence.
George opened up; he said he cheated on his wife. Deceived her. Lied to her. Treated her like garbage. What else did the attorney want to know? There was an indication that maybe George did not have any feelings about how he had treated Gail. That he was perhaps cold. So he turned the tables and questioned Kaluzny, asking sharply, “How do you think you would feel, Mr. Kaluzny? Tell me.”
“I think we would all understand she might be suicidal.”
“She wasn’t suicidal. She just mentioned it, Mr. Kaluzny. My wife had great faith. She wouldn’t do that, because she had the children. Also, if she did that, she would hurt the children, and she knew that was not the right thing to do!”
George was tired of having to answer for Gail, a dead woman.
So Kaluzny went back to the Fourth of July. He asked George to describe his approach to the two women meeting, saying, “Was there some idea in your mind that Gail and Donna had many things in common about education, themselves, not just you?”
“I think the things they had in common, Mr. Kaluzny, were me, and that they were women. That was about it.”
“Well, certainly, Mr. Fulton, you were in love with Gail during some time?”
“Yes, I was.”
“You were in love with Donna as well?”
“Yes.”
“So—and you are painting her out to be a monster, and I understand that, we all understand that . . . but during a time period—”
Paul Walton interrupted, “That’s argumentative.”
Kaluzny continued, not paying any mind to the objection.
“Sustained,” the judge said. “You may continue.”
George responded by saying he did not think Donna was a “monster,” because, at that time, “I trusted her.”
As the cross-examination became somewhat heated between the two men, Kaluzny asked George if he had any way to truly know whether anyone else tried to copy Donna’s printing or handwriting in any of the notes she had supposedly sent him. How could George be so sure, in other words, that someone else wasn’t forging Donna’s hand and sending George all those notes? If Sybil was the killer and had wanted to set up Donna, how could George be so sure Sybil had not forged those notes and letters?
Without breaking out laughing at the question, George made a good point, agreeing that he had no way of knowing if someone had forged Donna’s handwriting, but that her style, George testified, her demeanor in those letters, the words on the page she chose to use, gave her away. Donna’s character could not be forged.
“She writes, and writes, and writes, and writes,” George said. “Just like she talks, and talks, and talks, and talks.”
Donna was her own worst enemy.
Kaluzny saw a window. “By the way,” he asked, “did you send a card to Donna at the jail in Oakland County?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You also sent one to the other defendant?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Now—and I don’t want to mislead anybody—it was basically in the nature of a religious connotation rather than personal?”
“Yes, it was,” George answered.
“All right, I want to give you a chance to explain it. Why would you send a card to the people”—Kaluzny stopped himself before he put Donna into that mix of “people”—“one that had already been convicted in killing your wife, and the other people involved in this case?”
“Mr. Kaluzny, I truly believe love is greater th
an hate. Mrs. Trapani and her three co-conspirators tested that philosophy or belief. I also, after what I went through . . . I wanted to learn to forgive myself for what I have done to my family, my wife, my mother-in-law, and everybody, and the people that did this, because I cannot feel without forgiving. If God can forgive me for what I have done, I have to forgive them. Otherwise, I cannot heal and get on with my life.”
The questioning reverted back to how George felt about Donna on the Fourth of July and those e-mails he wrote telling her how much he loved and missed her.
Another aspect of Kaluzny’s strategy became apparent after the attorney asked George a series of questions pertaining to the first interview George gave police. During that interview George had said he and Gail did not have any marital problems; and so Kaluzny tried to point out that here was a man and a woman who had just ended an affair, his wife had been murdered, and he was in no way thinking that his mistress had anything to do with it.
But again, George was honest; he might have been an adulterer, his testimony implied, and treated Gail badly at times, but he damn well knew—once he had a chance to sit down and see it all clearly—that Donna had hated Gail enough, and been obsessed with him, to the point of wanting Gail out of the picture. No matter how hard Kaluzny tried, he could not crack George and get him to admit to anything even remotely redeeming for his client. The evidence against Donna was too solid. He could attack George’s character all day long, paint him as a cad and a Lothario, but it didn’t change the fact that Donna Trapani had hired someone to whack his wife with the hope of winning back the man’s love.
Raymond Correll, Sybil’s attorney, had a few questions for George after Kaluzny finished. They seemed at best trivial; at worst, nothing more than a waste of everyone’s time. When he was done, Correll passed the witness back to the judge, who asked Paul Walton if he had anything (he didn’t), and then if Kaluzny had anything additional for George (he didn’t).
“You may be excused, Mr. Fulton.”
Gail’s husband walked out of the courtroom.
The remainder of the day was consumed by Dr. R. Ortiz-Reyes, who talked jurors through Gail’s autopsy. Again, the courtroom was hit with a dose of sobering reality when the doctor spoke of how those bullets ricocheted inside Gail’s body. By the time he finished, the jury understood Gail had bled to death, a long and slow process, and suffered greatly before she expired. And there could be no doubt, as Gail slipped away, she knew her attacker had been sent by her rival, Donna Trapani.
Kevin Ouellette’s girlfriend at the time of the murder testified. She had dated Kevin and lived with him inside Sybil’s house. She told stories of meeting Donna, and how Donna and Kevin and Patrick and Sybil retreated into Donna’s bedroom at various times. She explained how she knew what was going on, although her belief then was that Kevin was being hired by Donna to beat up somebody.
A friend of Sybil Padgett’s testified. The guy met Sybil as she showed up one day to nurse his father. They struck up a friendship. Within a few questions it was apparent why the man was on the stand: Sybil had gone to the guy weeks after meeting him and asked if he could find her a gun.
“Were you able to get her a gun?”
“Yes.”
Next, Kevin’s friend from Akron, Ohio, came in and gave her version of that part of the murder—detailing the night Kevin and Patrick and Sybil showed up looking for bullets and weed.
By Friday, December 1, 2000, Todd Franklin had given his version of turning Sybil in to the authorities after making that call to police and breaking the case open. As each of these material witnesses came forward, stood, held up their right hands, sat and testified, the one result was that Donna Trapani had been the woman behind the curtain in Emerald City the entire time. If nothing else, it became obvious that Sybil and Patrick were not smart enough to pull this murder off on their own—and anyway, why would Sybil Padgett, Patrick Alexander, or Kevin Ouellette want to kill a woman located over a thousand miles away from Florida—and one whom they had never known?
Gail Fulton’s mother—bless her heart—sat down and talked jurors through the life of her daughter and those disturbing phone calls Dora had received from Donna. Dora mentioned how she had confronted George and gotten no response from him when she asked about his having an affair. It was heart-piercing testimony, humanizing Gail, bringing jurors into the life of a woman who suffered under the umbrella of a loveless marriage for so many years. However, Gail was, as of September 1999, coming around, feeling better about her life and husband. Gail was, Dora said, in “good spirits.”
70
THERE WAS A certain boyish immaturity that fit Patrick Alexander well. He donned peach fuzz, a kindergartener’s first-day-of-school haircut, and a tired look of defeat in his eyes. Patrick was a kid, in so many ways. With the right deal he could get out of prison and still have plenty of life left to live.
This was the one plus Larry Kaluzny had going after Patrick: Patrick Alexander would say whatever he needed to get out of prison as soon as he could.
Maybe even lie.
There was some talk among the lawyers regarding Patrick’s criminal record coming in. The jury was asked to leave the room while Patrick answered questions. Yes, he was a career criminal. He had been busted for grand theft, breaking and entering, destruction of county property, and, as he put it, “several thefts.” He also had broken his probation so many times he had lost count. On top of all that, however, Patrick had come forward and bartered a deal for his “truthful testimony” for one reason: a reduction in his sentence.
After several sidebar conversations among the lawyers, the jury was brought back in and the trial resumed.
It wasn’t quite love at first sight, Patrick explained, when he and Sybil hooked up.
“One weekend I went to stay at her house with her brother,” he said, “and when Miss Padgett came in, after the weekend was over, I asked her permission to stay with her. . . .”
Why?
“Because the person I was staying with,” Patrick explained, “had attempted to run me over with a truck, so I needed a place to stay.”
One thing led to another, and Patrick started sleeping with Sybil.
Patrick talked jurors through their early relationship and how, by driving Sybil to work every day, he eventually met Donna.
Not far into his direct examination, Patrick gave up the goods. Paul Walton asked when the first time was Donna had brought up hurting someone.
“On the porch,” he answered.
“What do you remember about that—what was said?”
“We had set on the porch for maybe an hour or so, and Miss Trapani, she was discussing how she was having problems with her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s wife. And she initially stated that she wanted to find someone to commit a murder.”
Walton asked his witness to be more specific. Did Donna say “commit a murder”?
“To kill someone,” Patrick clarified.
At first, Patrick and Sybil didn’t think Donna was serious, so they “blew it off.” But Donna brought it up again, not long after that first conversation. They were poolside at Donna’s house one night. Patrick and Sybil were drinking. Donna started to riff on having someone murdered. She talked about it incessantly, almost as if she was bullying Patrick, who had told Donna by then he was not the right person to go around hurting people for money.
“Miss Trapani stated that, once again, that—she talked about her problems with her boyfriend and his wife. She then stated that the wife’s name to be Martha Gail Fulton . . . [and] that she was going to make a trip to Michigan, which is where Mrs. Fulton and Mr. Fulton resided. She then stated a sum of money of fifteen thousand dollars to have Miss Fulton killed.” (Throughout his testimony, Patrick would occasionally refer to the married Gail as “Miss Fulton.”)
Patrick said he and Sybil were paid $1,000 to drive to Michigan and stalk Gail.
From there it became a matter of going through the story and having Patrick recou
nt his and Sybil’s roles in the murder. The thought that kept coming up for anyone listening to this testimony was how close Patrick’s story was in terms of Kevin Ouellette’s. There was not a lot of wiggle room here for a defense attorney to poke holes in. And that’s the funny thing about the truth: If you speak it, it never wavers or suffers from lack of integrity. It is, as they say, what it is. The truth will not change. Lies become tangled in a mesh of additional lies. They don’t add up. Liars are caught within the tiniest details: times, places, colors, words, and those odds and ends that prevaricators never think of when lying.
Patrick went through it all: the maps, the masks, the gun, the bullets, the rental car, the walk through the library to find Gail as she worked, Kevin slashing the tire of Gail’s van, the crash and boom of the weapon rounds going off in Kevin’s hand, the getaway.
He didn’t miss a beat.
One chilling moment came when Patrick explained Donna’s initial plan, saying, “Her first suggestion was that Miss Padgett and I kidnap Miss Fulton and bring her to Florida so . . . [Donna] could deal with her. Another suggestion she made was to inject [Gail] with antifreeze, or have her swallow antifreeze.”
Donna had even drafted a suicide note for Patrick and Sybil to leave on Gail’s body after they were finished.
Imagine . . . Donna had gone as far as to use Gail’s own emotional fragility against her to have her murdered and cover it up. That spoke to the sociopathic mind-set Donna had tapped into as she planned and plotted Gail’s demise. Antifreeze. Suicide. It was all alarmingly cruel punishment Donna was willing to dole out for the sake of winning.
For the sake of taking a man away from a woman.
For the sake of control.
Another revelation Patrick laid on everyone was that he and Sybil had not only gone up to Michigan in September to stalk Gail, but also to kill her.
“What changed your mind?” Walton asked.
“Seeing [her] in the person, herself, and also seeing [her] children coming and going from the house.”
Kiss of the She-Devil Page 29