by Marti Green
“Mind? No, I’m thrilled.” Sophie sat back on the couch and Molly sat down next to her and wrapped her hand around her daughter’s.
“This is Sarah and this is Jacob,” Donna said, pointing to her two children.
Molly’s eyes moistened. “You named her after Mom.”
Donna nodded. “I miss her. Dad, too.”
Molly looked at her niece and nephew. She’d never even seen pictures of them before, and now they were before her in the flesh. Sarah looked like childhood pictures of her namesake, with blonde hair, a pug nose, and a round face. Jacob was more angular, with light-brown hair that flopped over his eyes and covered his ears and neck. Molly leaned over and held out her hand to Sarah. “Nice to meet you. How old are you?”
“I’m nine. Almost ten. And it’s serendipitous to meet you.”
Molly looked at her sister quizzically. “Sarah likes big words,” Donna said.
“That’s because I have Williams syndrome,” Sarah piped in. “It makes me special.”
Dani, who’d taken a seat at the end of the coach, laughed quietly at that and beamed at Sarah.
“I can see you’re special,” Molly said. “And how old are you?” she asked Jacob, who’d been squirming on the couch ever since she walked in.
“I’m six and I’m in the first grade.”
“Well, I bet you’re learning a lot of good things.”
“I can read,” Jacob said, sticking out his chest.
“Maybe you can read me a book later?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, kids, scoot,” Donna said. “Let Molly get settled.”
Molly held on to Sophie’s hand to make sure she didn’t leave with the younger children, then looked up at Donna. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“What for?”
“For posting bail, for letting me stay here. I’ve been pretty horrible to you, never answering your letters or letting you visit me.”
“Oh, Molly, I’m the one to ask for forgiveness. I never should have doubted you.” She stood erect over her sister. “And I promise. I’ll never doubt you again.”
CHAPTER
47
Dani had hoped the district attorney would choose not to retry Molly. She had already served twelve years for a crime of which the evidence was flimsy. But the prosecutor knew that, no matter what any expert said, jurors were spellbound by confessions. And so he had chosen to go ahead.
Now, six weeks after Molly’s release, Dani, Tommy, and Melanie were booked into rooms in the local Holiday Inn. Even though their homes were only two hours away, it was too long a drive to go back and forth each day during the trial. Juror selection was scheduled to begin the next morning. Unlike high-powered firms with wealthy clients, there was no jury consultant who’d sit in the courtroom and advise Dani on which men and women were more likely to be sympathetic to Molly. She had only herself to rely on. Although she rarely tried jury cases at HIPP, she expected to call on her years of experience prosecuting cases at the US Attorney’s Office.
“All set for tomorrow?” Tommy asked.
“Yep.”
“Nervous?”
“Yep.” Dani was always nervous at the start of a trial, just as she always had to calm her nerves at the start of an oral argument on her appeals cases. But she knew the nerves would die down, and instinct and skill would take over once she began.
“I told the witnesses it would probably be at least a week before we got to them,” Melanie said.
“That sounds right.” Dani calculated two days for juror selection, three days for the prosecution’s case, and four days for the defense. Given the lack of forensic evidence, the district attorney should be able to get in everything he needed in one day, but Dani knew from experience he would drag it out.
They ate dinner together, Dani foregoing any alcohol, then retreated to their rooms. Once again, Dani looked over her notes. She was prepared, ready to give Molly her chance for freedom.
The next morning, they headed over to the courthouse together. The courtroom assigned to them was as airless as the building that housed it. Dani and Melanie took seats up front, with Molly sitting between them. Acting Chief Justice Arnold Silver presided over the proceedings. Forty prospective jurors were seated, ready to be called for voir dire. Dani had considered moving the judge for a change of venue to a different county but decided against it. The publicity surrounding Judge Bryson and Sheriff Engles’s arrest would more likely work in her favor.
The first six prospective jurors were called to the jury box. After they took their seats, Assistant District Attorney Eric Murdoch began his questioning. He went through the jurors methodically, asking their names, whether they had any relationship with the defendant, her attorney or the ADA, their occupation, and about their family. He asked them if they’d read about the case or if they’d read about the arrests of Bryson and Engles. He asked if they could keep an open mind and judge the case on the evidence and not on any knowledge or experience they brought to the jury room. When he finished with each one, Dani had only one question: do you believe a person can confess to a crime when she didn’t commit it? At the end of two days, they had their jury.
After the day in court ended, she drove Molly back to her sister’s home. Once settled in the car, Molly asked, “Do you think we have a good jury?”
“I hope so. You can never tell, though. Sometimes jurors answer what they think you want to hear and then do an about-face during deliberations.”
“I’m frightened.”
Dani glanced over at her client. Her face was pale and her hands shook. Keeping one hand on the wheel, Dani covered Molly’s hand with her other. “You have a right to be scared. And when you’re at home, let it all out. Cry or scream or run around in circles. But tomorrow, in the courtroom, I want you to look calm, but resolute. You want the jurors to see you’re taking the trial seriously, but you’re not afraid because you know you’re innocent. Can you do that?”
“I’ll—I’ll try.”
“Good girl.”
“It’s just—I can’t go back there. Now that I’m free, now that I have a chance to be with Sophie, now that I’m getting close to Donna again, getting to know my niece and nephew—I just can’t do it.”
Dani understood. She also understood it was up to her to make sure Molly didn’t go back to prison.
“Ready, Mr. Murdoch?” the judge asked.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
Murdoch walked over to the jury box, ready to begin his opening statement. He stood a foot away from the jurors and looked solemnly at each one before beginning.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You are here to decide whether Molly Singer, when she was seventeen years old, murdered her mother and father. You will hear testimony that on the night her parents were murdered, she was the only other person in the house. You will learn that no doors or windows were broken or tampered with. Her classmates at the time will tell you that she often complained about the restraints placed on her by her parents. And you will see on videotape her confession to the crime. When you hear all the evidence, you will realize that no other conclusion can be reached but that Ms. Singer murdered her parents. Thank you.”
Murdoch walked slowly back to his seat and sat down. Judge Silver nodded at Dani and she stood up, then walked over to the jurors.
“Good morning. Mr. Murdoch would like you to think that this is a very simple case. And it is. It is simple because you will find, as the prosecution presents its case, that there is absolutely no evidence that ties Ms. Singer to the crime. There is no weapon with her fingerprints on it. There was no blood on Ms. Singer from the bodies of her parents. There is no evidence of psychological disturbance in her history. The complaints she made to her classmates are the same that you probably made when you were a teenager. The only basis they have for believing Ms. Singer committed this horrible
crime against parents she loved is her confession, which she immediately recanted when she was no longer in police custody. You will hear a great deal of evidence about the phenomena of false confessions and realize that Ms. Singer was tricked into believing she’d done something she hadn’t. Listen to the evidence carefully, and when you do you’ll conclude that the state has not come close to meeting its burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Thank you.”
Dani walked back to her table and sat down. Melanie nodded at her.
“Call your first witness,” the judge said to Murdoch.
“Detective Dylan Baxter.”
A broad-shouldered man with thinning hair combed over a bald spot, dressed in casual cream-colored slacks and a striped button-down shirt, ambled to the front of the room and took a seat in the witness box. After he was sworn in, Murdoch said, “Please state your name and occupation.”
“Dylan Baxter, detective first grade with the New York State Police.”
“And how long have you been a police officer?”
“Twenty-two years, the last fourteen as a detective.”
“Were you present at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Singer the morning they were murdered?”
“Yes, sir. I was called to the scene and was lead detective on the case.”
“And what did you observe when you arrived?”
“The first thing I saw was their daughter, Molly. She was sitting in the living room with the first police officers that arrived at the premises.”
“Would you describe how she looked?”
“Very calm. She just sat on the couch quietly. When she saw me, she nodded.”
“Thank you. Now what did you do next?”
“I went upstairs and viewed the bodies. Mr. Singer was fully in bed, and Mrs. Singer was lying partially out of the bed.”
“And what did that indicate to you?”
“That Mr. Singer was murdered first and Mrs. Singer was awakened by it and tried to escape.”
“Isn’t it true that suggests there were two murderers?”
“Not necessarily. Mrs. Singer might not have awakened until the attacker had finished with her husband and come over to her side of the bed.”
“But she was half out of the bed, trying to escape, you said. If the attacker was standing over her, wouldn’t he have just pushed her back down on the bed?”
“She,” the detective said, emphasizing the pronoun “may have been on her way over to that side when she awoke. Only the murderer”—he pointed to Molly—“the defendant over there, knows exactly how it went down.”
Bristling, Dani considered objecting to Baxter’s description of Molly as the murderer—after all, that’s what this trial was to determine—and decided to let it pass, fearing that an objection would only highlight his characterization further for the jury.
“Did you examine the premises for signs of a break-in?”
“Yes. My men and I examined every window and door and found no evidence of a break-in. I questioned Molly Singer as to whether the front door had been locked the night before, and she told me it had.”
“At some point did your attention turn to Ms. Singer?”
“Yes, right away. Her demeanor was strange. She didn’t appear to be upset or disturbed. She just sat on the couch and seemed very cool to me.”
“Did you bring her to the police station for questioning?”
“Yes.”
“Please describe what took place then.”
“Well, at first she kept saying that she went to sleep after one a.m. and didn’t hear or see anything until she woke up the next morning and found her parents dead. But after a while, she told us she’d taken Ambien the night before. She’d read about people doing things while they were on Ambien and started to question whether she could have killed her parents without knowing about it. We talked some more and she began to realize that that’s what she’d done. Little details came back to her, and she put those details in her confession.”
“Was her confession videotaped?”
“Yes, sir, that’s standard practice.”
Murdoch turned to the judge. “Your Honor, I’d like to show the videotape now.”
“Go ahead.”
The videotape was played. In it, Molly looked like the frightened teenager she was. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and her face was pale. Dani knew the impact it would have on the jury as they heard her speak, her voice meek, confessing to the murders. Murdoch finished with a few more questions for the detective, then sat down.
Dani rose and approached the witness.
“Mr. Baxter, have you ever seen someone in shock before?”
“Sure.”
“Isn’t it true that someone who’s just witnessed a traumatic event can appear unnaturally calm?”
“I suppose. But most seventeen-year-olds would be hysterical if they saw their parents murdered.”
“Did you listen to the 911 call that Molly made?”
“I did. And she was agitated on that call, but she could have been putting it on. She was nothing like that when I saw her.”
“And how long after the call did you arrive?”
“About thirty minutes.”
“So, isn’t it possible that during those thirty minutes a state of shock could have set in?”
“Anything’s possible.”
“Now, turning to the doors and windows. Do you know if the Singers kept a spare key anywhere outside the house, in case they were locked out?”
“No. I don’t. But if they did, how would the intruder know where to look?”
“Do you keep a spare key for your house?”
Murdoch called out, “Objection. Irrelevant.”
“It goes to the commonality of keys and their hiding places, Your Honor.”
“I’ll let him answer.”
“Yeah, I have a key. It’s in a fake rock by the front door.” He allowed himself a small grin at the jurors. “Though I guess now I’ll have to move it.”
“And where did you purchase that fake rock?”
“Home Depot.”
“Isn’t it true that many people purchase fake rocks to hide keys to their house?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Have you ever heard of someone hiding a key to their house under a doormat?”
“Sure.”
“How about under a decorative item near the front door?”
“I guess.”
“In your experience, isn’t it common for people to keep spare keys outside their house in case they lock themselves out?”
“I don’t know. I never polled most people.”
“Let’s move on and talk about your questioning of Molly at the police station. Did you tell Molly that you had evidence she’d committed the crime?”
“Sure. It’s standard police interrogation to do that to get a confession.”
“And didn’t you say you found the murder weapon, and her fingerprints were on it?”
“I did.”
“Isn’t it true that you told Molly she didn’t remember murdering her parents because she’d taken Ambien?”
“That’s not how I remember it. I recall her suggesting it first.”
“How long had you been questioning Molly before you began telling her about this so-called evidence you had?”
“A few hours.”
“Exactly how many?”
“I’d say about nine hours.”
Dani allowed that to sink in before she went on.
“And was Molly able to talk to anyone, a lawyer or a family member, during those nine hours?”
“She waived her right to counsel.”
“So, she was a seventeen-year-old girl who’d discovered her parents murdered, had been all alone for nine hours while she was being questioned and to
ld that you had proof she’d murdered her parents, then given a reason why she couldn’t remember, is that right?”
“Yeah. Only she’s the one who told us about the Ambien and not remembering things.”
“And how long after you told her you had proof she’d committed the murders did she confess?”
“About another two hours later.”
“Was her entire interrogation videotaped?”
“That’s not standard procedure. We just video the confession.”
“So you don’t have on video the hours she spent denying involvement in the murders.”
“They all start out saying they didn’t do it.”
“Thank you. I have no further questions.”
The morning continued with Murdoch’s questioning of the other police officers at the scene and Dani’s cross-examination of them. At noon, the judge called a recess for lunch. Dani and her team, along with Molly and Donna, headed over to the same nondescript luncheonette with gourmet food they’d found during Molly’s first 440 hearing.
“How do you think it’s going?” Molly asked when they were seated.
“Exactly as expected so far.” She turned to Tommy. “Were you keeping an eye on the jurors?”
“Yeah. Jurors five and seven concern me. They were listening real intently when Murdoch talked about her confession.”
Dani sighed. No matter how many experts she brought in to explain why people confessed to a crime they didn’t commit, it would still be a battle to convince the jurors. It was especially true in New York State, which held the distinction of having overturned the most wrongful convictions for murder since 2000. In many of those cases, where DNA later proved they had not committed the crime, the defendants had confessed.
She wished Judge Bryson and Sheriff Engles had been tried and convicted before Molly’s trial. Then, with both Finn and Frank’s testimony about the overheard conversation, the evidence would be strong that others had a motive to kill Molly’s father. But an arrest didn’t carry the weight of a conviction.
With the murder of Paul Scoby, Cosgrove had decided to go slowly with their prosecution, stall for more time to search for the money they pocketed from the fraud scheme. Cosgrove had told Dani that the state police had been tracking down every lead in the murder of Paul Scoby but, so far, had come up empty-handed. The car involved in the shoot-out at Reynolds’s house had stolen plates that led back to an elderly woman who rarely took her car out of her garage. And despite knocking on every door near Scoby’s home, no witness came forward with any useable information. Still, they hadn’t given up on the investigation.