Lobster Boy

by Fred Rosen

  And Grady kept it up, a nonstop verbal stream of abuse. All Teresa could hope for was that he’d run out of steam soon, or the alcohol would anesthetize him and force him to calm down.

  As he lay in bed at night, he turned to his wife and said, “I should just kill you. Get it over with.” Then he fell off into a drunken stupor.

  Weeks went by and Chris failed to deliver on his promise. Then came November 29.

  The day of the murder was a lazy sort of day, and Dennis Cowell was visiting his friend Chris Wyant at his trailer on Inglewood Drive. They were just hanging out, not doing much, when Glenn Newman burst through the door at 4 P.M.

  “It’s got to be tonight, Chris,” Glenn announced breathlessly, “or my mom’s going to call the cops saying that you broke into the house and stole the money.”

  Chris and Glenn talked, planning the impending murder, while Dennis listened. Dennis would later say that the murder had been planned originally for November 30 at an unknown location. Dennis left.

  Chris had played chess a few times with Glenn. Ironically, he was the only one of Glenn’s friends that Grady let visit the trailer.

  “If anything happens, if you turn around and blame me or say that I’ve done something, I’ve got a bullet for everyone in the house,” Chris warned.

  Chris loaded the .32 Colt Automatic with copper-tipped, full metal jacket, .32-caliber bullets. The metal jacket ensured that the lead core would stay intact when a bullet struck the target, in this case, Grady Stiles.

  The bullet would penetrate his body in a clean wound channel. Had Chris opted for a hollow-point design, the tip would have expanded on contact, making a larger wound. But in a contract killing, the idea is not to wound, but to kill, and Chris had chosen well both his ammunition and gun.

  Later in the evening, Glenn was alone in his bedroom in the rear of the trailer when he heard a knock at his window. The window was broken at the bottom and it flopped open.

  “Who is it?”

  “Chris,” said a voice, whispering from outside.

  Glenn stuck his head out, and they began chewing the fat like nothing special was happening.

  “Want to play basketball tomorrow?” Chris asked.

  “Not sure. Chris, I want the money back. That I gave you.”

  “Can’t do that,” Chris responded.

  “I want the money back, Chris,” Glenn repeated. “I don’t want this done ’cause I don’t want to get in any trouble my mom and everybody else.”

  “Can’t give you the money back,” Chris said. “I already spent it.”

  He pulled the gun from his jacket and showed it to Glenn. It was wrapped in panty hose. The panty hose would stop the shells from ejecting onto the ground, where the cops could discover them. He was also smart enough to encase his hands in gloves, so there’d be no prints if the gun was recovered, which he didn’t plan on happening anyway.

  “I’m going to drop the gun in the water,” he said. “Throw it in. After.”

  He said he’d do the job around eleven. Soon after, he left.

  About 7:30 or 8 P.M., Glenn told Teresa what he had done.

  “You said you wanted to get away from this man, that you were tired of him abusing you, and I tried to get it settled. I didn’t know how he was going to settle it.”

  It was curious that Glenn was using the past tense, as if Grady had already been hit. There was still plenty of time to call the police and stop the murder from happening.

  At approximately 9:30 P.M., Dennis went by Chris’s house, again to hang out, but Chris was nowhere around. Instead, Dennis went to his girlfriend’s, where he spent the night.

  Glenn recalled that at 11 P.M., he and Teresa left Grady drunk and alone in the recliner, watching the video Ruby.

  Apparently, it never occurred to them that Little Grady was also in danger. If he happened to crawl into the proceedings while Chris was doing the dirty work, it would be nothing for Chris to shoot a witness. In fact, he’d have to, so there was no eyewitness to the crime. Apparently, this never occurred to either the son or the mother.

  Then again, Little Grady was Barbara’s son, not Teresa’s.

  Shortly after eleven, the back door to the trailer opened. In the light spilling from inside, Chris’s outfit could be seen clearly.

  He wore a black leather jacket with a Raiders hat turned around backward. On his feet were black Nike Cavericis tennis shoes. His slim torso was encased in a black-and-white “IOU” T-shirt. Blue jeans completed the uniform of alienation.

  Having been to the house many times before to play chess with Glenn, Chris knew the layout. He sneaked along the corridor, passing the kitchen and stepping into the living room. By that time, Grady had seen him.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Grady raged.

  Chris muttered something.

  “Get the fuck out of my house. Don’t ever come around here again,” Grady shouted and turned back to the TV.

  Chris retreated to the kitchen hallway. He turned and aimed.

  The first shot entered the back of Grady’s head. By the time it lodged in his brain, his heart had stopped.

  The next two shots appeared in a horizontal row next to the first.

  When Glenn heard the shots, he ran out of Cathy’s trailer. He saw a young man fleeing from the back door of the brown trailer. Glenn immediately recognized Chris Wyant.

  Son of a bitch, he’d done it!

  Part Three

  The Trial

  Thirteen

  After Glenn finished giving his statement, the detectives rode back out to Gibsonton, and found Teresa Stiles at home.

  “Mrs. Stiles, we’ve been talking to Glenn and we need you to come downtown with us and straighten out some facts,” Willette told her.

  “It’s not necessary for you to accompany us,” Fig said formally, “but it sure would help.”

  Teresa agreed. On the way downtown to the office, Willette continued:

  “Teresa, Glenn talked and gave us a version of what happened out there. He’s made statements to us that aren’t in your favor or anybody’s favor, and we need you to straighten them out. I want you to make sure that you understand your Constitutional rights.”

  Willette read to her the standard Miranda Warning. After that, they held off interviewing her until they got to headquarters. Teresa, meanwhile, was getting visibly more upset.

  When they arrived, Teresa was taken to an interrogation room at Buchman Plaza. The time was 10:30 P.M.

  “Glenn told us the whole thing, Mrs. Stiles, about the plot to murder your husband. Do you wish to make a statement?” Willette asked.

  Like her son, she, too, signed a “Consent to Interview” form. The time was 10:30 P.M., November 30.

  “All right, tell us what happened,” said Fig.

  “My husband was very abusive. Very abusive, to both me and my kids. He’d beat us. When he drank alcohol, he was just a monster. Uncontrollable. He would beat me and the children with those claws of his. At times, he’d even head butt me, making me bleed.

  “Several months ago, I was talking to my daughter Cathy about killing my husband. It didn’t matter to me if he was shot or stabbed or whatever, just as long as he was killed. Glenn, he eventually became aware of what I wanted. Glenn said he knew someone who could do the job.

  “But I just want to say, right here and now, that I want to accept all blame for the killing. I want my family out of it. See, I gave Glenn fifteen hundred dollars cash as a payment to Chris in order to murder my husband.”

  “Did you ever meet Chris?”

  “Yes, but we never discussed the killing I wanted him to do. See, the arrangement was made between me and Glenn. Then Glenn got with Chris Wyant, paid the money, and made the arrangements for the killing. Then about two weeks ago, I told my daughter Cathy that the contract was off and no killing was going to happen.”

  Now, Teresa was swearing that the hit had been taken off and Grady was supposed to live.

  “Why i
s it that you left the trailer just a few minutes before Chris came in and did what he’d been hired to do?”

  “I did not go outside because I knew Chris was coming. I went outside because I wanted to check on my grandchild who was sick,” she stated adamantly.

  “Where’d you get the money to hire Chris in the first place?”

  “By my own means,” she answered defensively. “I’m a showgirl. I have access to my own finances.”

  “Why didn’t you just divorce him?”

  “I couldn’t get a divorce from Grady because he threatened to kill me if I did.”

  “Even though you were divorced from him on a previous occasion?”

  “Yes, he’s much worse now than he’s ever been.”

  “Was,” Willette corrected.

  Christopher Wyant was taken into custody at 1:15 A.M. on December 1. Alter being advised of his rights, he refused to give a statement and requested an attorney.

  Willette closed the trunk of the LTD. In his hands, he held the dirty rubber boots he always kept in the car’s trunk. Quickly, he changed into them, then looked around.

  The place was thick with lush, overhanging foliage, wild bushes, weeds, and all kinds of green plants sprouting from the forest floor.

  “This way,” Cowell said, and led the way down a rutted, dirt road that the fall rains had turned into a sea of dark brown mud.

  Seen from the air, the forest was actually large groves of trees, bushes, and plants, broken at jagged intervals by clearings and a meandering body of water that the locals called Bullfrog Creek. Cutting right through the heart of this waterland was a raised two-lane blacktop.

  Detectives Michael Willette, Fig Figueredo, and their supervisor, Cpl. Pops Baker, followed Cowell down the road, and into the dense undergrowth. As they went, the sounds of civilization faded, replaced by the incessant croaking of frogs, the occasional bird-call, and the constant hum of insects.

  Time after time, Willette had to push back a branch that whisked toward his face. He wondered how Cowell had found this place.

  No way they could find what they were looking for without Cowell’s help, Willette thought. But he knew the kid wasn’t being altruistic.

  “Look, Dennis, we have a signed confession from Glenn. He says you bought the gun. He says you gave it to Chris, who did the job. Now if you don’t want to get in any more trouble than you already are, why don’t you help us?” Willette had advised him.

  They’d been walking for a while, Willette not too sure of the time, when Cowell pointed.

  “Over here. Near the palmetto.”

  Close to a palmetto tree, Cowell pointed at the ground.

  “Over there.”

  A water-filled footprint in the mud marked the spot. Taking care not to disturb the footprint, which would later be measured and photographed for evidence, Willette watched Cowell bend down and dig down a few inches. His hand disappeared in the lush earth, coming up with a plastic bag.

  Already wearing his rubber gloves, Willette took the bag and brushed it free of mud and dirt. Encased in the clear plastic, was an old, rusty-looking, .32-caliber Colt Automatic. He removed it from the bag, and checked the clip. The gun was still loaded.

  Ballistics should bear out that the automatic was the murder weapon. And they had the confessions. They now had as tight a case as possible against Teresa Stiles, Glenn Newman, and Chris Wyant.

  As for his active participation in the case, Willette was finished. He had found the three elements needed to obtain a conviction—motive, means, and opportunity. It was first-degree, cold-blooded, premeditated murder. Still, Willette had been around long enough to know there’s no such thing as an open and shut case.

  On November 30, 1992, Mary Teresa Stiles was charged with first-degree murder. A second charge of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder was later added.

  Her son Harry Glenn Newman, Jr., was indicted on the same charges.

  Like his alleged coconspirators, Wyant, too, was indicted for murder one and conspiracy to commit murder one. Because of the cold-blooded nature of the crimes, all were held without bond.

  Under Florida law, it is up to the state to decide whether or not to recommend the death penalty in a capital case. Upon conviction, it is then up to the jury to decide whether to go along with the prosecutor’s recommendation.

  The homicide committee of the state attorney’s office in Hillsborough County, composed of upper echelon personnel from that office, met to consider their decision. Showing compassion, they decided not to seek the death penalty against any of the defendants.

  The case was then assigned to Judge Barbara Fleischer. Around the courthouse, she had a reputation of being sympathetic to the plight of abused women.

  Since the part each defendant played in the alleged conspiracy was unique, and since at any point, one could conceivably testify against the other if a deal was made, each acquired separate counsel, though they would all be tried at the same time.

  At first, Teresa Stiles engaged the services of Herbert Sterling, a respected criminal attorney. But they soon had a falling-out and Teresa engaged the services of Peter Catania.

  A young attorney in his mid-thirties, Catania is easily the best-dressed lawyer in the Tampa courthouse. He agreed to represent Glenn Newman pro bono. But according to Sterling, “Mr. Catania’s contract included representation of the literary rights of the wife and son,” which was a direct violation of the Florida canon of ethics for attorneys. According to those rules, an attorney who represents criminal defendants may not take any money regarding literary rights. That part of Catania’s contract with Teresa and Glenn was later dissolved.

  Realizing the case was bigger and more complicated than he’d thought, Catania brought in Arnold D. Levine to represent Teresa.

  Arnie, as he’s known to friends, colleagues, and media alike, is a legendary figure in Tampa’s legal circles. His multimillion-dollar practice specializes in high-profile criminal and civil cases, which he frequently wins.

  Tall, broad-shouldered and silver-haired, the Harvard-educated, sixtyish Levine cuts a dashing figure in the courthouse. Always good for a sound bite, his Bostonian-inflected stentorian tones penetrate to the most remote sections of the courtroom.

  By the time Teresa Stiles retained his services, Levine’s reputation as a controversial lawyer, who zealously represents his clients, was well established.

  As a gesture of his sympathy to Teresa Stiles’s plight, and her apparent lack of funds, Arnie agreed to take the case pro bono. Of course, given the bizarre background, and the nature of the crime, the trial was bound to attract extensive media coverage.

  That left Christopher Wyant. Since he was the alleged triggerman, there was no public outpouring of sympathy. He had done the deed, pure and simple. No attorney volunteered to take on his case, so Judge Fleischer assigned Brian J. Donerly.

  A private practitioner, Donerly is rumpled, bearded, and bespectacled, an attorney who looks like he’d be more at home in the safe confines of academia rather than the rough and tumble world of courthouse dueling in a criminal trial.

  Considering her confession and the facts of the case, it was going to take a pretty unique defense to get Teresa Stiles acquitted, which is exactly what Arnie Levine intended. Arnie figured he had found a way.

  Battered wife syndrome.

  As a defense in a murder-for-hire, it had never been tried in Florida before. Essentially, Levine would have to prove that Teresa Stiles was so intimidated by her husband and so fearful of her life if she left him that murder-for-hire was her only way out. It was a defense that had been tried unsuccessfully in three previous cases in the United States. Still, Levine, who had a deserved reputation as a brilliant trial lawyer, felt that not only was the defense justified, they would win.

  In support of that claim, Levine filed a brief that explained in detail to the court what battered wife syndrome is, and in so doing, the type of living conditions Teresa Stiles was forced to live under. Ultima
tely, though, it would be up to a jury to answer that question.

  The first trial of all three defendants began and ended quickly in July 1993, when Det. Michael Willette inadvertently blurted out on the stand that Glenn Newman had failed a lie-detector test. Judge Fleischer glared at the homicide detective who sat like a deflated balloon in the witness-box.

  It was an accidental response to prosecutor Ron Hanes’s questions. As soon as he’d said it, Willette realized his mistake. Since polygraph results cannot be admitted as evidence in a court of law, Judge Fleischer was forced to rule a mistrial.

  Judge Fleischer subsequently decided that the defendants would be tried separately. Teresa Stiles would be tried first. Her new trial was scheduled to begin November 1.

  In the interim, Ron Hanes decided to file a motion with the state supreme court, asking them to overturn Judge Fleischer’s ruling allowing battered wife syndrome in the case of a contract killing as a legitimate defense for homicide. Because the court needed time to review his petition, Teresa’s trial was put on hold.

  Fourteen

  The trial of Christopher Wyant on the charges that he conspired to and then committed the murder in cold blood of Grady Stiles, Jr., began in courtroom number seven of the Hillsborough County Courthouse Annex on January 18, 1994, the type of hot, sunny winter’s day that Tampa is famous for.

  Maybe it was the weather, though probably it was just a lack of interest. After all, Wyant was just the hit man, not the brains of the plot. And his attorney was the court-appointed, rumpled Brian Donerly, not the charismatic Arnie Levine. Whatever it was, the ten long, plain, brown benches made of worn oak, in the spectator section of the cavernous, green-painted courtroom were practically deserted.

  But Chris’s mother, Janice Lee Wyant, was there, a worried expression on her pinched face. Her wardrobe for court was tight jeans and a low-cut, tight top that emphasized her youthful figure. Accompanying Janice was her six-year-old daughter Heather, Chris’s sister.