Practice to Deceive

by Ann Rule

  I have known Nordby for more than thirty years. When I first met him, he was working as an assistant to the Pierce County, Washington, medical examiner. A Scandinavian originally from Minnesota, Nordby is tall with thick blond hair, now turning to gray, and a “walrus mustache.” There is no question that he is very intelligent—so smart, in fact, that he sometimes has difficulty communicating his expertise to laymen.

  Nordby heads Final Analysis Forensics, and gives his areas of expertise as: “Medical-legal death investigations; blood stain patterns; trace evidence analysis; crime-scene processing and investigation; reconstruction of crime scenes; ballistics; firearms and gunshot residue testing.”

  He has written or contributed to three textbooks on forensic techniques. Dr. Nordby, however, is not a medical doctor, but holds a PhD.

  On July 19, 2012, Dr. Nordby took the witness stand. His testimony on blood spatter to come was so esoteric that he took it upon himself to give the jurors some education in the way blood behaves. He spoke of forward spatter, back spatter, impact spatter, and two kinds of sprays. And then there were stains: drip, swipe, wipe, soaking, wicking, saturation, transference.

  Although Jon Nordby knew well what he was discussing, most of the jurors had trouble following his testimony.

  The gist of the hours he spent testifying was that he did not acknowledge that Russel Douglas had been shot while he sat behind the wheel of his car. Nordby suggested that the blood patterns were inconsistent with that conclusion.

  If he was shot outside the Tracker, how would that be significant in this case? Russ weighed about two hundred pounds, and after he was shot, he would have been, quite literally, dead weight and very difficult to lift and put back behind the wheel.

  Detective Mark Plumberg felt that an attempt to move Douglas was possible, because of the slight shift of blood in his hand, but if that succeeded, the blood movement on the victim’s shirt and hand would have been far more noticeable.

  And where was this line of testimony going? Since the gun wasn’t there, there wasn’t any chance that Russ’s death had been a suicide.

  As Greg Banks cross-examined Nordby, he began by quietly questioning the witness to suggest that his education and experience were not those of a true forensic expert.

  “Are you a medical pathologist?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a medical degree or a medical residency?”

  “No.”

  “What was your bachelor’s degree in?”

  “Arts and philosophy.”

  “Your master’s?”

  “Philosophy and math.”

  “PhD?”

  “Philosophy.”

  After a break for lunch, the cross-examination continued and the courtroom was filled with thoughts and scenarios involving blood for the rest of the afternoon.

  To offer a movie parallel to the back spatter in the actual murder, Dr. Nordby even brought in a gunshot scene from the film Pulp Fiction starring John Travolta and Samuel Jackson, explaining that Travolta was “drenched in blood,” while Jackson had simulated brain matter on him after the shots were fired.

  Greg Banks suggested that the hefty witness fee had relevance to possible bias on Dr. Nordby’s part. He asked him what his fees were for his testimony on the behalf of Jim Huden’s defense.

  “Thirty thousand dollars. That’s three thousand dollars per day—in court at five hundred dollars an hour. In general, I charge two hundred and fifty dollars an hour, plus travel.”

  Asked by Matthew Montoya why he hadn’t read narratives about the homicide, Dr. Nordby said he hadn’t wanted to taint his own impression.

  “Why did you include information about Pulp Fiction [the movie] in your report?”

  “To mention a current example—that back spatter is a natural phenomenon.”

  The afternoon lengthened and Nordby apologized that tests on another case had been inserted by mistake into the appendix of his long report on the Douglas case.

  The jurors were tired, and some of them complained that they hadn’t been able to hear some of Jon Nordby’s testimony. In the end, the day hadn’t gone well for the defense.

  There was another witness subpoenaed by Montoya that afternoon. He was Ron Young, one of Jim Huden’s oldest friends. Young said he had seen Jim about three times during the Christmas holidays in 2003. The last time was on the twenty-sixth.

  “Morning or afternoon?” Montoya asked.

  “Between noon and one.”

  “Was he by himself?”

  “No, he was with Peggy Sue Thomas.”

  “No more questions.”

  On Friday, July 20, 2012, Banks recalled Detective Mark Plumberg to the stand. The tall investigator went over the circumstances of his videotaping Jim Huden in Punta Gorda in the late summer of 2004. He, Mike Beech, and the Florida officer were present at the time.

  After some editing (to remove about eight minutes of tape where Huden sat alone waiting for the interview to begin), Matt Montoya reviewed the tape and agreed that the jury could see it. It was shown to both the jury and the gallery.

  It was, of course, a damning tape, where Jim had been advised of his Miranda rights and he freely admitted going to Whidbey Island with Peggy at Christmas, and discussed the present he delivered “to Mark’s apartment” during that time.

  Greg Banks again questioned the county coroner, Robert Bishop, to help the jury understand blood back spatter. Bishop had been the Island County coroner for decades. When Banks asked him how much experience he had in evaluating fatal gunshot wounds to the head, Bishop answered: “Ninety-two fatal gunshot to the head cases [specifically], and over five thousand deaths since I became coroner.”

  “What is your opinion as to where the victim was shot [inside the car versus outside]?”

  “I feel very strongly he was shot where he was found, considering evidence of blood drainage as the victim was positioned in the car, lack of blood over bottom of the driver’s-side door frame, position of feet, no bunching of pants around the knees—which appears when a body has been moved—and the tiny shards of shattered sunglasses.”

  Bishop’s testimony negated virtually all of Dr. Jon Nordby’s scientific conclusions. Indeed, Nordby’s ponderous and lengthy time on the witness stand had obviously annoyed some of the jurors as they struggled to keep up with his theories.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  * * *

  EVERYONE INVOLVED HAD EXPECTED Jim Huden’s trial to last at least two weeks. But then the gallery had hoped to hear from both Jim and Peggy Sue. Most of the testimony so far had shown that everywhere that Jim went in late 2003 and early 2004, Peggy Sue went, too.

  No longer.

  Jim had never made so much as a move toward the witness chair, and no one had seen Peggy Sue anywhere near the Island County courtroom. Had they testified, the trial would certainly have been much longer. As it was, there had been only eight days of testimony when the opposing attorneys rose to make their final statements. Judge Vickie Churchill would then give the jury instructions for their deliberation.

  Judge Churchill advised the jury on that Friday morning that they would need to agree that four elements of the case before them had been proven in order to find James Huden guilty of first-degree, aggravated murder:

  1. That Russel Douglas was indeed deceased.

  2. That the incident occurred in the state of Washington.

  3. That James Huden was involved in the murder of Russel Douglas on December 26, 2003.

  4. That Douglas’s homicide was premeditated.

  Greg Banks began his closing arguments and stressed that all of these essentials had been proven in Huden’s trial. Bill Hill’s testimony and physical evidence had validated the third element, and circumstantial evidence had substantiated the fourth. The site of Russ Douglas’s homicide and the fact that he was deceased left no doubt that number one and number two were correct.

  Banks moved to charts and photographs that would help the jurors understan
d timelines and the trail of the deadly .380 Bersa to and from Washington State and Arizona.

  Russ Douglas’s face appeared on the screen, along with photos of Bill Hill and Keith Ogden.

  “This case is also about heroes,” Banks said. “I submit to you that Bill Hill is a hero; he had to choose between loyalty to his best and closest friend, and what his conscience told him.”

  And so, of course, did Keith Ogden, the former Oregon cop who hadn’t hesitated to turn in the .380 when he learned that Washington detectives were looking for it.

  “Neither of them were familiar with Whidbey Island or the crime, but they were motivated to testify against Huden because of their consciences.

  “Mr. Hill knew there was something up here that he had to make right.”

  Greg Banks had begun his opening remarks by saying that, “Mr. Huden assassinated Russel Douglas; [and now] the evidence is in, and most assuredly, the evidence has shown what I said to be true. And I repeat now that the defendant did cold-bloodedly assassinate Mr. Douglas.”

  The prosecutor had spoken for just under an hour and a half. He obviously knew every facet of the homicide almost nine years earlier and he had reconstructed it flawlessly for the jurors.

  Matt Montoya responded for the defense. He scoffed at the state’s reasoning and evidence. Montoya used a phrase repeatedly that was difficult to grasp, as he asked the jury to think “critically,” and he praised Dr. Nordby’s expertise.

  “Facts are the enemy of the truth,” Montoya said. He asked jurors if the state had truly overcome the presumption of Jim Huden’s innocence.

  Facts are the enemy of the truth.

  In what way? I wondered. Perhaps Jon Nordby, whose PhD in philosophy had led him to teach that subject at Pacific Lutheran University, could explain it.

  Montoya said, “No one—no one can put Mr. Huden on Whidbey Island on December 26, 2003!”

  But what about the sales slip for the cigars that Peggy Sue Thomas had—the one with that same date on it? Peggy Sue had saved it so carefully . . .

  What about Jim’s and Peggy Sue’s story about returning Dick Deposit’s house key on that day?

  Over and over again, Matt Montoya’s point was that nothing Greg Banks said “made sense.” Why didn’t Huden throw the gun into the Sound, if indeed he had one? Who said that Huden was abused as a child?

  Facts are the enemy of the truth.

  Montoya had relied on the testimonies of Jon Nordby—indeed, gambling thirty-six thousand dollars on Nordby’s fee—and Ron Young, one of Jim Huden’s three best friends since their teen years. Young lived in Tukwila, Washington, at least two hours away from Freeland. He had said he saw Huden on December 26, sometime between noon and 1 P.M.

  “How could my client have arrived in Longview by five P.M.?”

  Very easily. Even driving the speed limit, Longview wasn’t much more than two and a half to three hours away from the landing dock of the Mukilteo or Keystone ferries.

  That period between noon and 1 P.M. on the day after Christmas 2003 was vital.

  Maybe Montoya’s axiom works better backward.

  The truth is the enemy of the facts. No, that didn’t make sense either . . .

  Montoya was correct. Nothing matched. Jim and Peggy could not have been two places at once over the noon hour when experts believed Russel Douglas was murdered.

  “I ask you for a verdict of not guilty,” Matt Montoya finished.

  Greg Banks spoke once more.

  “Facts are stubborn things—there is no way they can be avoided. You need to look at the fact using common sense, while thinking critically. Don’t be distracted by any lack of phone records. They’re not always available and don’t always provide evidence. Regarding Ron Young; eight years later he recalls the time of day he saw Jim Huden when he’d seen him three or four times since, but can’t recall when.

  “The evidence is overwhelming. Focus on the facts—they are stubborn.”

  At approximately 1 P.M. on July 20—a Friday—the jurors retired to deliberate.

  It didn’t take long. By 11 A.M. on Monday, July 23, Judge Vickie Churchill’s courtroom was packed. A verdict had been reached. It seemed as though everyone who had waited for a verdict for so long was there, with the somewhat surprising exception of Brenna Douglas, the victim’s widow, and their children, Hannah and Jack.

  Peggy Sue Thomas wasn’t there, either—but that wasn’t surprising.

  Judge Churchill accepted the slip of paper with the verdict from the jury foreman.

  James Huden, fifty-nine, had been found guilty of murder, with aggravating circumstances in that a firearm was the weapon, and the victim was particularly vulnerable. Strapped into his car seat behind the steering wheel, believing he was there to pick up a package for his wife, he had seen a man approaching. Whether he had seen Huden before or if he was a complete stranger, no one might ever know for sure.

  Certainly, Russ Douglas had had almost no warning that would prepare him for what was to come.

  This was not a movie or television courtroom; there were no outcries or shouts. The room was very quiet, and Jim Huden kept his head down as he heard his fate read aloud.

  Russel Douglas’s mother, Gail O’Neal, stepfather, Bob, sister, Holly Hunziker, and her husband, Victor, were there. His father, Jim Douglas, was on Skype from Alaska. It was over, at least until Huden’s formal sentencing, and as that sunk in, the Douglas family began to cry softly.

  Jim Huden would remain in the Island County Jail until the sentencing date Judge Churchill chose. It would take almost exactly a month. Sentencing was set for the afternoon of August 24.

  Prosecutor Greg Banks commented that he planned to ask for an “exceptional sentence” for Jim Huden because the murder had been so coldly premeditated. That might mean as much as a thirty-one-year prison sentence—until Huden was ninety years old.

  “And even that does not come close to accounting for the malevolence of this crime,” Banks added.

  * * *

  SHIRLEY HICKMAN, MY COURTROOM assistant for this book, is married to Lloyd Jackson, and knows many of his and Jim’s longtime friends.

  “I feel so sorry for Jim’s friends: Lloyd, Dick Deposit, Jeff Gaylord, Ron Young, who have known him for so long and can’t believe he’s capable of such a terrible crime,” Shirley told me. “They are all suffering through this ordeal. It’s almost as if their youth was a lie, and now someone they trusted and loved is not who they thought he was. Or maybe he was, but something or someone influenced him in this tragedy.”

  * * *

  JIM HUDEN’S SENTENCING WAS moved ahead a few days, and he was back in court on August 21 at 9 A.M.

  Greg Banks categorized Russel Douglas’s murder as “the most egregious, atrocious, premeditated crime,” and said that Huden deserved no leniency.

  Several offers of leniency had been offered to Jim Huden if he would cooperate and help the prosecutor and investigating detectives understand why Douglas was murdered. They all believed that he had been heavily manipulated by the woman he was passionately in love with at the end of 2003: Peggy Sue.

  But Jim had never said anything that might damage her or help to convict her.

  His only counteroffer was not one they could even consider. He didn’t hint at what he might tell them, but he had offered to cooperate if his prison sentence would be set at only ten years.

  Greg Banks pointed out that Russ Douglas’s murder was cold-blooded, calculated, and planned well in advance.

  “He had many opportunities to change his mind,” Banks said, “but he carried through with the planned assassination of someone he didn’t even know!”

  Banks’s suggestion for sentencing was eighty years, considering that Russ’s two children each faced forty years without a father. He also recommended financial restitution that Jim Huden was responsible for: approximately thirteen thousand dollars for the prosecution costs, thirty-six thousand dollars for Dr. Jon Nordby, and reimbursement to Russel’s fath
er, Jim Douglas, for burial expenses.

  Jim Douglas and Russ’s brother, Matthew, gave their victims’ statements through Skype. His stepfather, Bob O’Neal, his mother, Gail, and sister, Holly, made eye contact with Huden as they spoke of the terrible loss they had suffered because of the coldly motiveless murder.

  “I gave him his first hug,” Gail O’Neal said, “but I wasn’t there to give him his last hug . . . In one split second, you pulled the trigger and you killed Russ. And you changed our lives and futures forever.”

  Unlike Jim’s mien throughout his trial, he did meet their eyes, but he never changed expression.

  They all had the same question: “Why? You didn’t even know him!”

  “He was a good father to his children,” Gail O’Neal said. “He was in no way an abuser. You must have listened to someone else and someone needs to own up; someone needs to tell the truth so that this family can put it behind us.”

  But Jim Huden had no statement to make. Was he protecting someone—or was he hoping to file an appeal for a new trial? His attorney said later that that was why Jim didn’t say a word.

  Judge Vickie Churchill sentenced him to eighty years, while telling him that everyone needed to know why. “There is something more to this case, and we all know it. Anything else is just crazy.”

  And of course it was.

  After Jim Huden was handcuffed and led from the courtroom, the judge offered her sympathy to Russel Douglas’s family, and urged them to move on with their lives in a positive manner, in the hope that would help them in the healing process.

  Once again, Brenna Douglas was absent from the courtroom. Greg Banks had told her of the new date and time—but she said she was afraid media crews from around the country would be there and she would be exposed by television coverage.

  Brenna had had no choice but to testify six weeks earlier, but she never came back. Her husband had been dead for almost nine years, and it was obvious that Brenna wanted the whole thing to just go away.

  But she was still a “person of interest,” and she knew it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT