Cruel Death

by M. William Phelps

  “I used a knife,” BJ said.

  “You used a knife,” Collins remarked, shaking his head. “What kind of knife?”

  “A silver one.”

  “A silver one. Are we talking about a butcher knife twelve inches long, or a pocketknife four inches long?”

  “Somewhere in between.”

  “Somewhere. In. Between.”

  They argued over which knife BJ used, finally deciding on a knife that BJ had brought with him to Ocean City from home.

  Collins flipped a page of his notes and asked, “Let’s start—which one did you dismember first?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  BJ shook his head. It seemed to Collins that a person should recall effortlessly which body he cut up first. It was such an unimaginable horror—how could a man forget such a thing?

  “OK, do you remember which limb you took off first?”

  BJ’s lawyer objected.

  “He’s got a right to ask these questions,” the judge said reluctantly.

  “No,” BJ answered.

  “Where, exactly, did you dismember these people?”

  “Right where they were.”

  “Right where they were?” Collins asked. “Well, right next to where they were was a hot tub, wasn’t there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you dismember them in the hot tub?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t? You dismembered them right there on the floor?”

  “Yes.”

  A few questions later, Collins asked, “Did you go out and buy Drano the next day?”

  “Yes.”

  “OK, why did you go out and buy Drano?”

  “I . . . I . . . There was blood in the hot tub.”

  “Oh, I see, OK,” Collins said with a sarcastic effect, “there was blood in the hot tub. Now, how did the blood get into the hot tub?”

  “I don’t know how it got there.”

  (In her statement to the Secret Service, Erika had claimed BJ was standing in the hot tub, his naked body painted with the victims’ blood, like some sort of warrior. After having masturbated on them, he cut the bodies up inside the hot tub. Erika had recalled seeing Joshua’s torso on the edge of the hot tub as BJ stood by watching, asking for her help to get it into a duffel bag.)

  It got to the point where whatever Collins asked, no matter how hard he pushed, BJ kept to his story. At one point, despite the objections from BJ’s attorneys, Collins put up a full-color image of Joshua Ford’s severed arm, which was sitting on a medical examiner’s metal table. Then Collins asked, “What is that?”

  BJ’s lawyer interrupted. “Your Honor, I object. This is ghoulish and unnecessary.”

  “Overruled.”

  “What is that?” Collins asked a second time.

  “Joshua Ford’s arm,” BJ said.

  The arm had been removed with a clean slice near the shoulder. There was no residual cartilage, skin, or bone hanging from it.

  “Did you remove that arm?”

  “Objection!”

  “Overruled.”

  “Yes,” BJ said.

  “Now, there are a bunch of other cuts on that arm, did you do those, too?”

  BJ thought about it. “No.”

  Collins put up a photo of another arm. “Whose arm is that?”

  “Joshua Ford’s.”

  This arm had obviously taken a bit more might to be removed, as if BJ had a tough time cutting it off, gave up, and, bracing himself by putting his foot on Joshua’s shoulder, pulled (or ripped) the arm off, instead. It looked as though it had been torn from the shoulder instead of cut; there was tissue and cartilage and tendons hanging from it.

  “You see a difference in the two?” Collins wondered aloud.

  The judge finally sustained one of the objections from Burton Anderson.

  Collins showed a series of additional photos depicting the dismembered bodies. When he arrived at Joshua’s torso, he asked BJ, “Did you cut Joshua’s head off?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you cut Martha Crutchley’s head off?”

  “Yes.”

  After BJ established that he had, all by himself, dismembered the bodies, Collins asked him where Joshua’s head had been placed after it was decapitated from his body. (Both heads were never found.) “What did you do with it?” Collins asked.

  “I put it in the same place as everything else.”

  90

  Closing One Door

  Near the end of the afternoon on Tuesday, April 8, 2003, both sides were given the opportunity to address the jury one final time. In his closing argument, as BJ sat and looked on with little or no emotion, Joel Todd came out of the box strong, stating emphatically, “These victims were killed by a heartless, mindless, cold-blooded, calculated couple—and one member of that couple is here today.”

  Todd painted BJ as a sadistic, violent, “trained killer,” based on the time BJ had spent in the SEALs, as it were, graduating honor man at the top of his class. He said BJ had selective memory, recalling only what he wanted to, regarding the night Geney and Joshua were so brutally murdered for no good reason other than they met up with a couple whose lot in life was to play a game of “catch and release” with pocketbooks. A sick and twisted amusement at that: one that BJ and Erika, Todd suggested, had devised as a way to entertain themselves.

  “This defendant could only remember what had helped him. He has no credibility whatsoever,” Todd asserted.

  Todd talked about the state’s star witness, Karen Wilson, and her devastating testimony, which included a confession from BJ that he was indeed involved in the killings. Jurors had to consider Karen’s vulnerable state that night and the fact that she had no real reason to walk into a courtroom and lie about such a traumatic event in her life. “He told her he was ridding the earth of those bad people,” Todd said quite convincingly. When it came down to it, jurors would either believe Karen Wilson or not.

  BJ’s attorney Burton Anderson had some help. William Brennan stood and began his closing after Joel Todd finished, and the judge announced to the jury that the trial was nearly concluded.

  Hang tight. Almost there.

  Brennan figuratively pointed a finger directly at Erika, saying how manipulative and controlling the woman was, and how BJ was basically led down a path to these murders by an overbearing wife ever since leaving the SEALs. When push came to shove, and he was roused out of a stupor in that Jeep that night, BJ faced a terrible dilemma: turn his wife in to the authorities, or help her clean up two murders and (try to) get away with the crimes.

  BJ had said he felt an obligation to help his wife, whom he loved.

  “The woman who cannot control herself,” Brennan raged loudly, “that is the same person who committed these murders.”

  More than once, Brennan claimed Erika was crazy. In one example, he put up a photo of Erika. She was smiling, wearing Joshua’s ring on a chain around her neck. “A trophy,” Brennan suggested. The woman was wearing a piece of her victim because she was sick and twisted and got off on the fact that she had killed two people. Then, a short while later, “I asked Benjamin what happened that night. The state’s attorneys didn’t want you to know. They want to talk to you about everything except what happened in that apartment, and which of those two people is going to go nuts when the purse is missing? What possible motive could there be for Benjamin Sifrit to kill two people? What possible motive?”

  Brennan made a great point, saying that the only reason why Karen Wilson was alive and able to walk in and testify was the simple fact that BJ wasn’t passed out in a Jeep downstairs on the night when Erika started that “missing purse” game for a second time that week. The fact was, BJ was standing there inside the condo to “control his wife,” Brennan told jurors, who seemed to take note of such an important observation.

  Wrapping up that observation neatly, Brennan concluded, “When Benjamin Sifrit is there, people don’t die.�
� There was passion and fervor in his voice. Brennan clearly believed what he was saying.

  On the flip side of that argument, Brennan shouted, “When Benjamin is not around, well, ladies and gentlemen, Erika is not kept under control.”

  In his rebuttal, Joel Todd said the defense was simply trying to push all the blame on Erika Sifrit. “When the facts are in your favor, you argue the facts. When the law is in your favor,” Todd added before pausing a moment, “you argue the law. When neither is in your favor, you get angry and point the finger.”

  Regarding whether Karen Wilson was making up things that simply didn’t happen, which was the notion that Brennan was suggesting in his closing, Todd said, “Who in this case has more of a motive not to tell the truth? Benjamin is not telling the truth, because he doesn’t want you to hear it.”

  Most important, Todd wanted to impress, if the jury was not entirely convinced BJ had actually pulled the trigger, they could still find him guilty of first-degree murder if they believed—and Todd cautiously and persuasively pointed this out—that BJ had “aided and abetted in the homicides.”

  If BJ was there, in other words, in that condo when Erika killed Geney and Joshua, and did nothing to stop it, he could still be found guilty of first-degree murder. Jurors needed to be aware of that option.

  Sitting down, looking over at jurors, Todd was a bit apprehensive and guarded. He knew BJ was guilty. He knew Erika and BJ were equally responsible for the murders of Geney and Joshua. But he also knew how juries could react to testimony and lack of evidence. Because when it came down to it, Joel Todd had no smoking gun. There was nothing tying BJ Sifrit directly to the murders of Geney and Joshua.

  91

  Shock and Awe

  “BJ’s was the weaker of the two cases,” Joel Todd told me later. In fact, as they prepared for BJ’s trial, Todd and Collins were “not convinced,” Todd said, “that we would not get anything out of BJ’s case other than burglary convictions, and possibly an accessory after that fact.”

  Why?

  “BJ had lawyered up from the moment he was arrested. And all of the evidence that we had,” Todd explained, “pointed to Erika. She was the collector and she was the one that had the IDs, the gun. . . . BJ certainly knew about it all. He couldn’t have been there and not known about it. But the most we could show was that BJ probably helped clean up the mess . . . but technically that wouldn’t even make him an aider and abettor.”

  Erika had an uncanny knack, Todd said, to tell the police only what they knew at the time. And when she figured out what the police knew, she would add to it—but again, only what they knew. Never what they didn’t know. In that respect, Erika had probably made up her mind early on what she was going to do and say in order to make her case stronger. For BJ, he had simply refused to talk at all, which was one of the best things he could have ever done. As it deliberated into its second day, the jury didn’t have a statement from BJ to look back on and compare to any new facts in the case. The jury had to base its verdict solely on the state’s case against BJ and the evidence against him—which wasn’t much.

  On Wednesday, April 9, 2003, the jury returned to the Montgomery County courtroom where it had heard the state’s case against BJ, and the judge announced there was a verdict.

  Joel Todd and Scott Collins weren’t feeling it. The room had an uncomfortable feel to it, and the jury’s posture and movement reflected what was certain to be a surprising—and disappointing—decision.

  Indeed, BJ was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Geney. Shockingly, he was cleared of all murder charges in the killing of Joshua.

  A collective gasp seemed to hiccup throughout the courtroom.

  Mark Ford, Joshua’s brother, was beside himself, as was Deborah, his wife, Joshua’s sister-in-law.

  No one could believe it—except, maybe, for Joel Todd and Scott Collins, who looked disheartened, but not all that surprised.

  Scott Bernal’s heart dropped. He was devastated, and began, at that moment, to blame himself—he could have done more to get his points across to Scott Collins, who questioned BJ.

  “Look,” Bernal said later, “this jury believed that Geney, who was not killed first, according to BJ, just stayed still for the ten to fifteen minutes it took Erika to supposedly run eleven floors down into the parking lot, wake her extremely intoxicated husband up, make this drunk coherent enough to understand what she was telling him, get him out of the car, go up to the eleventh floor, then up an additional floor, once inside the unit, and see what Erika had done (according to BJ). All this, while Geney just waited around to be killed. If Scott Collins would have addressed the door being kicked in, the jury would have seen right through that sadistic prick’s (BJ’s) bullshit. It still bothers me today. Throughout that trial, I wrote several other notes to Collins to address other issues. He brought up a couple, not all.... The one thing I’ve learned in my career is that you never have enough evidence. Confidence in oneself is necessary in any investigation. Ego is not. . . .”

  BJ sat, sullen and stiff; it was almost as if he didn’t really realize what had just happened.

  The jury also convicted BJ of being an accessory after the fact for dismembering the bodies and discarding them in a Dumpster to help cover up the crimes.

  The jury took all of fourteen hours to come to its decision. Mark Ford told the Associated Press afterward, “I’m totally disgusted. He took away a good brother. He’s walking on my brother!”

  Judge Weinstein addressed the court after the complete verdict was read, saying he was delaying BJ’s sentencing until a trial date could be set for what amounted to a burglary charge against him. But most people sitting there knew BJ was not going to be sentenced until Erika’s trial was concluded.

  From where Collins and Todd sat in the front row, the trial had gone better than expected. It seemed every decision, every motion, every objection, and every little nuance that makes up a criminal murder trial had gone their way. Because of that, Todd said later, they had expected maybe a better outcome, but they were pleased nonetheless that BJ had been convicted of at least one murder. He could have walked altogether, which would have been a disaster.

  Heading out of the courtroom, Todd and Collins showed the disappointment on their long faces. Whether they expected it, or whether they ended up with more than they had expected, it really didn’t matter. What mattered was that Joshua Ford’s brutal death had not been redeemed by a court of law.

  They had all been staying at the same hotel: Todd, Collins, and many of the family members of the victims, all of whom had attended the trial.

  Todd expected to have to sit down and meet with them and talk about what had happened, and where they were taking the case against Erika. As he was in his hotel room, however, figuring out how to go about consoling the families, Deborah Ford knocked on the door.

  “I just wanted to make sure you were OK,” Deborah said comfortingly. “We all did.”

  The families were concerned that Todd and Collins would be depressed and broken by what had happened.

  “Thank you,” Todd said, and they sat and talked.

  “That is the type of people the Ford and Crutchley family members are,” Todd later told me. “Within all of their pain, here they were worried about Scott and [me]. They wanted to comfort me. That really showed me something.”

  92

  Stealing the Spotlight

  With BJ’s trial out of the way, Joel Todd and Scott Collins focused on the one person they believed was more responsible for the murders of Joshua Ford and Martha Crutchley than BJ. And yet, from the moment Todd awoke on May 22, 2003, he knew it was going to be an uphill battle all the way to get that conviction. To his stunning surprise, the Baltimore Sun had interviewed Mitch and Cookie Grace, along with several of Erika’s supporters, in what turned out to be a five-thousand-word article—two full pages and one-half page of the newspaper, which is a lot of real estate for a daily newspaper to devote to any story—ru
nning under the banner headline LIFE INTERRUPTED.

  “What is this?” Todd said aloud as he opened the morning paper. “I was furious,” he later added. “I immediately felt that somehow Mitch Grace had used his wealth or influence to get that article planted . . . hoping that it would have an impact on the trial.”

  There, sitting in front of the seasoned prosecutor on his kitchen table, was a photo of Mitch Grace looking down, sullen and stone-cold in shock; Cookie’s head on his shoulder, his arm around her. Mitch looked as though he had just stopped crying. Below the rather large photo of Mitch and Cookie was a snapshot of Erika on the basketball court, and below that was another photo of Erika with Benjamin, both of them smiling, sitting in a restaurant, somewhere, with a draft beer in front of them.

  “There was no good reason for that article to be printed!” Todd said.

  He couldn’t believe it. Here was a seemingly sympathetic portrait of a family that, according to the article, had been turned inside out (rightly so) by the charges against Erika.

  As Todd turned the page after reading the lead, which was about Erika’s “charmed existence” in Altoona, growing up under the umbra of a wealthy father and loving parents, there, staring back up at him, was a photo of Erika from high school. The photo had taken up almost a quarter of the entire second page. The strange part about it, Todd considered, was the photo of the victims, Joshua and Geney (one quarter the size of Erika’s), tucked underneath. Erika had upstaged two murder victims who had been “butchered,” Todd said later, and “dismembered. . . . It was a disgrace. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.”

  It wasn’t until the third—and final—page of the article that Erika was presented as a criminal, in handcuffs, walking into the courthouse in between an armed officer and a prison guard; her head was bowed, her skinny arms skeletal and brittle. Yet, the headline accompanying the photo said it all: LIVES ON HOLD FOR ONLY CHILD.

  Near the end of the article, Mitch told the reporter, “It’s awful to lose somebody and not be able to even say goodbye.” Mitch was referring to the victims’ families and their suffering, but part of the statement was no doubt meant to support his own feelings of not being able to hold his daughter, or even touch her since she had been arrested. Chiming in on Mitch’s comment, Cookie said that it would have been easier in some ways for them if Erika was gone completely.