by Fred Rosen
“If she has no recollection,” Graybill continued, “she will be prevented from testifying as to the relationship [with Grady] as it relates to murder in the first and second-degree, manslaughter and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.”
He reiterated, “Mr. Levine, I will give you until 1:30 P.M. [today] whether, in light of my ruling, you wish to file for a mistrial, which I will consider, and to confer with your client over this matter. This court is in recess,” and Graybill stood, and began leaving.
“Your Honor—” Arnie shouted.
Graybill stopped.
“Mr. Levine, I said this court is in recess!”
“But Your Honor, I just have a question.”
Graybill returned to the bench, at which point Arnie asked Graybill to clarify his ruling. He did.
“You can’t have it both ways, Mr. Levine. Mrs. Stiles must first take the stand before evidence of battered spouse syndrome is offered. I will allow their [the experts’] testimony if Mrs. Stiles admits that she arranged to have her husband killed.”
Her memory of the event would have to miraculously return. And quickly.
“But Your Honor—”
“Mr. Levine, I’ve made my ruling!”
That afternoon, Arnie requested time to prepare Teresa for her testimony. The judge agreed, and said that court would reconvene at 8:45 A.M. tomorrow.
A few minutes later, at 1:40 P.M., Arnie Levine came to the media room to give a statement to the reporters. The print reporters stayed on the fringes of the crowd, busily taking notes.
He announced that Teresa’s memory of planning the crime had returned. “She says ‘I did it, I remember doing it and did it to protect my family.’ In this type of trauma, this is not unusual,” Arnie told the reporters gravely.
Tomorrow, Teresa Stiles would take the stand. Her memory would return just in time to admit to the world her crime.
Outside the courtroom, her family huddled around the accused murderess. Cathy tried to console her mother. Teresa grasped a tissue in her hands, nervously wringing it out.
“It just keeps getting worse,” she muttered.
Seventeen
July 15.
Early the next morning, Graybill reversed himself.
“Battered wife syndrome is not in and of itself a defense for murder in the first-degree and conspiracy to commit murder,” Graybill began. “The defendant need not take the stand in this case. The defendant has the right to present whatever evidence is proper.”
Graybill went on to say that the defense had to prove there was “imminent danger” to Teresa from Grady, that is, she felt in imminent danger of being killed by Lobster Boy, in order for him to allow the expert testimony.
“I will wait and see if there’s competent testimony to support a self-defense instruction,” he finished.
Levine and Graybill went at it again on the definition of imminent danger while Teresa looked puzzled. But Arnie seemed to get some satisfaction out of the judge’s explanation. He was ready to present his case.
“The defense calls Harry Glenn Newman, Sr.”
Midget Man was wheeled in and placed in front of the witness-box where he was sworn in. Brandishing his miniature cane, Glenn fidgeted in his seat.
“Mr. Newman, how long did you know Grady Stiles?” Arnie asked.
“I knew Grady for thirty years in the shows,” Glenn responded in his gravelly voice.
In the back of the courtroom, Mark Zewalk, the pool cameraman, zoomed in on Glenn while photographer Peter Cosgrove clicked off a couple of frames.
Arnie asked Glenn to relate what occurred the night Grady threw Teresa out.
“Mary called me. She said, ‘Come pick me up in the Pittsburgh Airport.’ When I picked her up, there was black-and-blue on her face, her arms and legs. She pulled her dress up to show me.”
At the defense table, Teresa sobbed into her handkerchief.
Glenn remembered the date as May 22, 1974. “She stayed with me and [eventually] we got married, after Grady divorced her.”
“Where’d you live?”
“We moved to Upper Middletown, Pennsylvania.”
“What did you do there?”
“I worked as a welder. Mary, she stayed at home.”
But Teresa was heartbroken that her kids, Cathy and Donna, were living with Grady.
“Did she try to contact them?” Arnie wondered.
“She sent stuff to them,” Glenn responded, “and Grady sent it back.”
And then Glenn described their visit to see Grady and the kids in 1976.
“Mary’s family lived in Vermont and she wanted to take the family there, so we went to Pittsburgh to pick them up at Grady’s.”
“During the course of the meeting, did Mr. Stiles pull out a weapon and put it to his wife’s head?”
“Objection! Irrelevant!” said Spoto, darting to her feet. The judge asked the bailiff to remove the jury.
Once they were gone, Graybill nodded at Spoto.
“Her relationship with the victim is not relevant,” she said.
The judge looked at her incredulously.
“What is the basis of your objection?” Graybill asked.
“We object on the basis of remoteness of time.”
Judge Graybill leaned on the arm of his chair with one hand. He looked off into the distance, deep in thought. When he finally turned back around, Glenn looked up at him expectantly.
“Objection overruled,” Graybill intoned.
The jury was brought back in and seated. Glenn picked up his testimony.
“Grady pulls out a gun and calls another guy in. Paul Fishbaugh.”
“Who was Mr. Fishbaugh?” Arnie asked.
“He was The Fat Man who worked for Grady. He had a sawed-off shotgun in his hand. Grady told him—”
Spoto jumped to her feet.
“Objection. Hearsay.”
“Sustained. Mr. Newman, you may testify to what you saw, not what was said,” Graybill admonished him.
“Mr. Newman, what did you see?”
“Grady, he poked her in the face and legs and tried to get to her privates with his hand and the gun. I said, ‘He’ll kill us all.’ Then he hit me a couple of times in the face.”
“How long did the incident last?”
“Thirty minutes.”
“What did you do?”
“I told Mary, ‘If he’s gonna shoot us, he’s gonna shoot us,’ so we walked outside and left.”
“Did he call you after that?”
“We had an unlisted telephone number where we lived in Pennsylvania. But Grady got it and he called to harass us.”
“Mr. Newman, do you drink?”
“When I first got married, I was drinking, but I stopped because she wanted me to.”
“When was the next time you saw Grady Stiles?”
“In 1985, Grady came back into our lives. By that time, we were living in Okeechobee. The two girls and my son were with us.”
Arnie asked for some clarification of their living arrangements since they had gotten married. Glenn explained that after Grady had divorced Teresa, he had taken her, her two daughters and his son back to Ohio.
“Then I fell from a roof and hurt my back bad. Mary left me in 1985 and divorced me in 1989. She took all the kids and went to Grady and remarried him. Mary didn’t tell me she’d remarried.”
“Objection.” It was Hanes. “Once again, hearsay.”
“Sustained.” Graybill turned to Glenn and in a weary voice warned, “Mr. Newman, you may only testify to what you saw and what you said, not what someone else said.”
“I have no further questions,” Arnie said, and took his seat.
“Your Honor—” Glenn began angrily.
“That is all, Mr. Newman.”
“I can’t believe …” Glenn muttered, brandishing his cane like a weapon.
“You will be assisted out of the courtroom!”
The bailiff pushed the brake on the wheelchair and whee
led Glenn through the wooden divider out of the courtroom.
“The defense calls Mary Teresa Stiles.”
“How old are you?” Levine began.
“I’m fifty-six.”
A collective rumble and shifting of seats in the courtroom. She looked ten years older. The pretty, svelte showgirl was gone. In her place was a haggard woman dressed in a dowdy yellow pantsuit.
“Would you describe your early life?”
“I lived with my mother and stepfather. My mother divorced [when I was] five or six. I lived with them until I was eighteen.”
“What was it like living with them?”
“My stepfather was abusive.”
Teresa looked down and sobbed and continued to cry intermittently throughout the direct examination.
“We had a … sexual relationship for two or three years.”
“Did you do anything about it?”
“I complained to my mother.”
“What happened?”
“She slapped me across the face several times. ‘He wouldn’t do anything like that,’ she said.”
When she was eighteen, she ran away to join the carnival.
“I was married before Grady for ten months and had a daughter named Debra.”
Arnie wanted to know what that first marriage was like.
“I was physically abused by my first husband. He busted all my teeth, poured hot coffee on me. He walked me around with a switchblade in my back and knocked me down the stairs while I was still pregnant.”
“And how did that marriage end?”
“He left me.”
“When did you meet Grady?”
“In 1958. Working in the sideshow. My first husband was also a carny.”
“What was Grady’s act like?”
“He would sit on an elevated stage and do a lecture on his condition and family history. He’d started performing at seven, and eventually stopped in 1991. By that time, he owned shows and people worked for him.”
“When were you married?”
“The latter part of 1958 to 1959. We lived in the DeSoto Trailer Park [in Gibsonton].”
Then Arnie asked her to describe her childbirth experiences.
“My first baby [with Grady] was born in 1960. It was a girl.”
“What happened?”
“She lived twenty-six days and died from virus pneumonia.”
“When was your second child born?”
“My second child [with Grady] was born in 1961.”
“And that baby?”
“That child lived sixty-three days and died of virus pneumonia, too,” Teresa sobbed.
Then Teresa described the rest of her children by Grady.
“Donna’s thirty and Cathy is twenty-five. He would beat them,” and she sobbed again.
It seemed that Donna, in particular, didn’t like to eat.
“He’d make her sit there for hours and hours with the food in front of her and beat her if she didn’t eat it.”
Arnie asked her about Grady’s drinking, which always seemed to trigger the abuse.
“He was drunk on the platform [one night] and couldn’t sit up. I asked him to go in the house. He slapped me and told me to get the kids out of his sight.
“A few days later, he jumped off the couch [ran across the floor on his hands] and punched me in the stomach. He beat me up and tore my panty hose,” she was sobbing continuously now, “and tried to tear an IUD out. I was all bloody and he told me to get out with twenty dollars.”
Despite the sordid details and inconsistencies of fact, there was something up to that point that was strangely unmoving about her testimony. Maybe it was too much preparation or maybe it was just that her life had been so horrendous, it was hard to take it all in.
“[After our divorce], he wouldn’t allow me to have contact with the kids,” Teresa continued.
“Was there some sort of incident after the divorce where Grady came to your house and harassed you?”
“In May 1975, we were living in a mobile home in Smock, Pennsylvania. Grady had a friend drive him to the house.”
“What happened?”
“He jumped out of the car, ran on his hands up to the door and pounded on it. ‘Open the door,’ he screamed. He cussed me. He pulled the screen door open and broke his watch. When he left, I put a warrant out on him.”
“When did you see Grady again?”
“August of 1976. My mother and stepfather lived in Vermont. I wanted to take the kids up there to visit. Grady says I gotta go in the house to take the kids. Glenn didn’t want to go, but we went anyway.”
Teresa proceeded to tell the court how Grady had lured her to his Pittsburgh apartment to pick up the kids, instead pulled a gun on her, and while The Fat Man entered and covered Glenn and the baby, Grady proceeded to beat her up while she begged to let them go.
It was a harrowing story. Everyone, including the usually skeptical reporters, was clearly moved. The judge decided it was a good time to take a recess.
When court reconvened, Teresa described the nomadic life of the carnival, and how Glenn, Jr., lost schooling because of their moving around.
“I divorced Glenn, [Sr.], in 1988. That was the same year I saw Grady.” It was the first time she had seen Lobster Boy since 1978. They had been divorced fourteen years, and had not seen each other in ten.
By June or July of that year, Teresa was ill. She entered the hospital in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and stayed there for two weeks. She sent the kids to live with “… his [Grady’s] people [parents] in Pittsburgh.” And she saw Grady again.
After she got out of the hospital, she took the family back with her to Okeechobee.
“Christmas of 1988, Grady came over and asked me to marry him. I said yes I would.”
“Why?” Arnie asked.
“I was still in love with him,” Teresa answered. “He appeared to be different. Not drinking. He even treated Glenn like his own. He’d visit in the wintertime, every weekend.”
“What happened after you were married?”
“He started drinking again,” Teresa said wearily, holding back the sobs. “A half-pint, then a pint went to a fifth. He told Glenn, ‘You eat too much food. You’re a pig. Get out of my house. You belong to another man.’
“He started calling me all kinds of filthy names.”
Then one time, Teresa had a 104 degree fever and had to go to the hospital. Her husband, meanwhile, had gone out drinking. When she got home, a drunk Grady confronted her in their bedroom.
“He asked me where I been. I told him I was sick and went to the hospital. ‘You’re a liar,’ he said, and punched me in the stomach with his fist. I begged him to stop. He slapped me. I went to the motel with the kids. I knew I was in for it that night.”
“Did your children try to help you when your husband beat you?” Arnie asked.
“When the kids tried to help me, they were hit. When Cathy was pregnant, Grady knocked her out of her chair. She had an emergency C-section. The placenta had separated from the baby. Knocked her teeth loose.”
Teresa recounted another time where “Grady threw Little Grady into a wall.”
“Did you ever call the police?” Arnie questioned.
Teresa said they’d called the police sometime during 1990 or 1991. She told them Grady would get drunk and hit her. “They don’t do anything. They say, ‘This is a domestic problem. I’m sure if you talk it over, everything would be fine.’
“In 1991, we were running the [three shows]. He’d been on a drunk all day.” Grady proceeded to hit her and call her a bitch. “Grady,” she pleaded, “I can’t take any more of this.”
Grady slapped her in reply. She asked for a divorce.
“He said, ‘I told you once, we’re married, it’s for life.’”
Arnie asked if there were any other abusive incidents she could recall.
“He grabbed a pillow and held it over my face,” Teresa responded. “I couldn’t breathe. I tried to push his arms
off, but he was too strong. I was scared I was gonna die. He finally let go. I was always afraid of making too much noise. It would wake the boys up.”
By that time, only Little Grady and Glenn were living with them.
Teresa testified that she had visible bruises—black-and-blue marks—and wore lots of shirts and pants to hide them. “I lied to the kids about them.”
She recalled still another shocking incident of abuse when the two boys and Cathy were present.
“In Uniontown in 1990, Grady cussed me out, then grabbed me by the throat and choked me. Little Grady covered himself with a blanket. Cathy hit him with the phone on the arms and the head,” until he stopped.
And still another.
“It was in Nassau County [at the Coliseum]. Grady had been drinking and comes in the trailer. ‘Fix me a drink.’ I told him, ‘Grady, we don’t have any more.’ He wrapped his fingers in my hair and jerked my head so hard my head popped. ‘I told you to fix me another drink. I told you.’ He pushed his thumbs between my jawbone and pushed.”
The pain was so intense, Teresa almost blacked out.
“Grady said, ‘I told you, never, ever run out of whiskey.’ I went out and bought some.”
In December 1991, she went on, he hit her with a belt buckle. Grady had told her, “‘I’m talking to you, pay attention.’ He jumps on the bed and he’s telling me I was no good.”
“What did you say?” Levine asked.
“Why don’t you get it over with?”
Another time, he jumped down, scuttled across the floor, and head butted her in the mouth because she had asked him for a divorce.
“He’d say, ‘You know, I killed once before and I’ll get away with it again. One of these days [it’ll be] you and your family.’”
Teresa rocked back and forth, back and forth, eyes brimming with tears, holding a tissue tightly in her hands.
And then, Arnie asked her about an incident of sexual abuse during the 1992 season. They were playing a date in Hebron, Connecticut.
“I had gone to the show office at night and I carried a large amount of cash to take in. I was gone overly long.”
When she got back Grady confronted her. “‘Where you been all this time?’
“I told him, ‘At the office.’
“‘You’re lying to me. You were laying around with someone,’ he said.”