The Last Time We Saw Her

by Robert Scott

  DA Haroldson agreed that the word “victim” might influence jurors, but there weren’t any jurors there that day. This wasn’t a trial, just a preliminary hearing. Judge Williams agreed with Haroldson and said that the witnesses could be referred to as “victims.”

  The next issue was that DA Haroldson wanted more than just the audio turned on to record what was transpiring in court that day. He wanted a video camera running the whole time as well.

  Haroldson argued, “If someone is convicted in a capital case, there is an automatic appeal. I’ve had experiences where those cases come back, and witnesses are no longer available. It becomes even more significant than ever to preserve the testimony of that individual.” Haroldson said that audio and video not only recorded what the witness said on the stand, but he claimed it preserved their manner of speaking as well.

  Steven Gorham, on the other hand, replied, “Excuse my language, if it goes too far, but this is kind of a setup. Here we are at a motion hearing. And if we do cross-examine any of these witnesses, it is only to help decide on these motions. The trial is about guilt or innocence of Mr. Courtney. These proceedings are not. They are about prior acts and to consolidate. There should be no video camera now.”

  Haroldson objected to the word “setup” used by Gorham, and told the judge that he’d given the defense prior warning that he was going to ask for a video camera in the present proceedings. In the end, however, Judge Williams sided with Gorham and denied the use of a video camera in court.

  With that done, Haroldson introduced his co-counsels that day—Karen Kemper, who was a Benton County DDA, and Stephanie Tuttle, a prosecutor from the Oregon Department of Justice (DOJ).

  The first witness on the stand was Natalie Kirov. Once again she told of her evening of terror at the hands of Joel Courtney in Albuquerque, New Mexico. For the first time the Wilberger family got to see Natalie in person. By now, Natalie seemed much more calm and self-assured. This, after all, was her third time in being on a witness stand.

  Karen Kemper asked Natalie, “Is English your first language?”

  Natalie replied, “No.”

  “Your first language is Russian?”

  “Yes.”

  Nonetheless, Natalie’s command of English was now better and less accented than in her New Mexico testimony. In very graphic terms Natalie answered questions about her abduction, kidnapping at knifepoint, and being sexually abused. Natalie also gave a detailed description of the man who had attacked her—a man who matched the description of the way Joel Courtney had looked in the autumn of 2004. She said he was about six feet tall, had blue eyes, and wore a silver earring in his left ear. He was driving a red Honda two-door sedan, the type of car that Joel Courtney had at the time.

  About being sexually abused at his hands, Natalie said that he had forced her to take off her clothes in the car. “He was touching me all over. My vagina. He wouldn’t let me take my coat off my face. He parked the car and put his penis in my mouth.”

  Kemper asked, “Was there some difficulty when he was trying to make you perform oral sex?”

  “Yes,” Natalie responded. “I put his penis in my mouth. And he asked me if I knew how to do it, and I said no. His penis was soft.”

  Kemper queried, “What was his mood like?”

  Natalie replied, “He seemed nervous.”

  “Was there any kind of sex act?”

  Natalie said, “Right before that, he blew smoke into my mouth, and he was on top of me. He was kissing my neck and my breasts.”

  “Did he ask you how old you were?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Kemper next had Natalie tell of her miraculous escape, and her account of running down the street clad only in a coat, which came down five inches below her waist. Kemper asked, “What can you tell us about the people who helped you?”

  Natalie replied, “The girl who walked into the restaurant said, ‘Do you want my pants?’ They were in her car. A woman and maybe three girls were with her.”

  Kemper asked, “As you got into the car with them, what were you saying to them?”

  “They were already on a cell phone. To 911. So they gave me the phone, and I described the person and then I described the car.”

  “As you were there with the people who were helping you, did you see the man again?”

  “I saw the red Honda drive away from the parking lot.”

  “Did you watch the car?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did you think might happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “Yes.”

  At the end of this impassioned testimony, Kemper said to Natalie, “I know you said you were afraid. What did you think might happen?”

  After a long pause Natalie replied, “I was afraid he would never let me go.”

  When DDA Kemper was done, there were no questions to her from the defense side of the courtroom.

  Evidence that Joel had a court appointment that he missed on May 24, 2004, in Lincoln County came in via Lincoln County court clerk Nancy Jo Katner, who was now Nancy Jo Mitchell. Mitchell had made notes about Joel Courtney’s reasons why he could not be in court on May 24. Kemper also asked about all the phone calls that had come in from Joel Courtney on May 24. In one of the phone calls, he had said he was on his way from Montana. In a later phone call, he actually said he was in Corvallis.

  Then an audiotape of the Lincoln County courtroom on May 24, 2004, was played. On it, Judge Littlefield’s voice can be heard saying the name of Joel Courtney, and there was no response. A short time later, Judge Littlefield’s voice could be heard again as he spoke to a court clerk. Littlefield said, “There is a matter of Joel Courtney, who is on his way from Montana.” Later, when an ADA asked about Courtney, Judge Littlefield made his quip, “I think he took a boat with the Lewis and Clark expedition. He probably won’t get here until 2005.”

  Then an audiotape of May 25, 2004, was played. On it could be heard a judge in the Lincoln County courtroom say, “The last call we got from Mr. Courtney, he said he was in Corvallis. Mr. Courtney was supposed to be here yesterday at eight-thirty. So I assume he’s still around Corvallis.”

  Kemper once again asked Mitchell, “Based upon your knowledge, did Joel Patrick Courtney appear in the Lincoln County court on May 24, 2004?”

  Mitchell replied, “No, he did not.”

  One interesting thing came up when the defense questioned Mitchell. She was asked, “Did Mr. Courtney ever show up at court?”

  Mitchell looked at her records and noted that Courtney did appear for an arraignment on the DUI in Judge Huckleberry’s courtroom on June 7, 2004. Which meant that if he did kidnap and murder Brooke Wilberger on May 24, 2004, he had the nerve to be in Oregon on June 7.

  Taking this a step further, Kemper on redirect asked Mitchell if Joel Courtney made any more court appearances on the DUI matter. Mitchell looked at her files and said that Joel was supposed to attend a June 21, 2004, court date. When he did not do that, a “failure to appear” warrant was issued.

  The next set of witnesses was very important for the prosecution. Not only was DA John Haroldson trying to get the cases of Diane Mason and Jade Bateman tied in with the Brooke Wilberger case, but he was also attempting to show that there was a pattern by Joel Courtney in all three cases. In Joel’s attempts toward Diane and Jade, they had survived, and Brooke had not.

  On the stand Diane Mason said that she was twenty years old in May 2004 and about five-three. She noted that she lived off campus and had a class at Shepard Hall at OSU at 10:00 A.M. on May 24, 2004. She had cut through the Oak Park Apartments parking lot that morning and noticed a green minivan there. She had then walked out onto Thirtieth Street toward campus and the green minivan had pulled up near her, partially blocking her path.

  To avoid it, Diane had to walk out into the street. When she passed the open window on the driver’s side of the minivan, a man sitting at the wheel spoke to her
and said that he was lost and that he needed help with directions. He said that he was looking for a certain fraternity near campus. Diane noticed that the man was in his late thirties or forties, had light-colored eyes, light-colored hair, and a goatee. He was wearing a “hoop-type earring” in one ear.

  Diane gave him directions, but he got out of the minivan, anyway, and said that he had a map of Corvallis in the back of the minivan. Once he slid the side door of the minivan open, Diane got nervous and left the scene. She said that she was aware of how alone she was in that location, and that she felt very vulnerable.

  Kemper had Diane mark on a map where all of this had occurred. It was not far from the OSU Reser Stadium, less than two blocks from where Brooke Wilberger had disappeared.

  Steven Gorham did not cross-examine Diane Mason.

  Jade Bateman was another important witness in the prosecution’s scenario to link Joel Courtney to three kidnapping attempts near the OSU campus on May 24, 2004—two of them unsuccessful and the third being that of Brooke Wilberger. Jade testified about being approached by a man in a green minivan while she walked through the Reser Stadium parking lot on the morning of May 24, 2004. Jade basically reiterated all the things she had told investigators about that morning and her interactions with the man in the green minivan. Jade had been concerned for her safety at the time. In fact, she told her mother, whom she was talking to on a cell phone, not to hang up.

  Bob Clifford was also part of this scenario. In May 2004, he had been an associate athletic director on the OSU campus. Clifford told Karen Kemper that he had to use a listening device because of a hearing impairment. Asked how long he had been using a listening device, Clifford said that he’d done so all of his life. In fact, there was a titanium screw in his skull, and the device was attached to that.

  Clifford said that on May 24, 2004, he’d left his office around 9:30 A.M. and was driving out of the parking lot, which was dirt and gravel at the time. “Halfway around a bend I noticed one of our female student employees walking across the parking lot. I recognized her. She was a student manager in women’s basketball. Then a green minivan pulled over and the man started talking to her. It did not seem like a normal situation to me, so I drove over and pulled up to the passenger side of the van and tried to get the driver’s attention. He kept his hands attached to the steering wheel and would not acknowledge my presence.”

  Clifford said that he then pulled around directly in front of the minivan, and the man gave him a quick glance. At that point, Jade started to walk away and the minivan driver pulled away onto Western Avenue and then onto Twenty-sixth Street. Clifford noted that the minivan had Minnesota license plates, and the man was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses.

  On cross-examination Gorham asked if Clifford had been questioned immediately after the Brooke Wilberger disappearance. Clifford said that he had been interviewed by a detective sometime in May 2004.

  Gorham then queried, “How about at the time of the throw down (photo lineup) of 2006?”

  “After the initial interview at OSU, there were follow-up interviews with the Corvallis PD.”

  “How many times were you interviewed about this?”

  “I’d say about three or four different times.”

  “If I say the name ‘John Chilcote’ (a Benton County DA Office investigator), do you know who I’m talking about?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Did you talk to him about this?”

  “No.”

  Phillip Zerzan had been a sergeant with the OSU Police Department in 2004. Karen Kemper had him respond to questions about how well he knew the OSU campus, and Zerzan said he knew it very well. As far as traffic flows onto campus, Zerzan stated, “Normal traffic flow on a school day would come in from the east and would come up Monroe and access the northern border. Or it would come in from South Philomath Boulevard. If it was coming from the coast, it would come up Philomath Boulevard.”

  Zerzan said he had become involved in the Brooke Wilberger case on May 24, 2004, because the incident had occurred only about fifty yards off campus. Zerzan added, “We recognized this would have a significant impact on the campus community. Even though it was off campus, we often responded to that area as well. It was very near the parking lot for Reser Stadium. My involvement was to ensure we provided whatever resources were necessary to the Corvallis PD. And to act as a liaison to those aspects of the investigation that involved the campus and campus community.”

  On a different set of questions about the investigation, Zerzan said, “On December 1, 2004, I was contacted by Lieutenant Keefer, of the Corvallis PD, who wanted assistance in locating and interviewing a couple of people who had association with the campus. So I assisted him with that, and in addition there was a location where a vehicle had been reported sighted at Reser Stadium on May 24, 2004. I took Lieutenant Keefer out and showed him specifically where that location was. There had been a report he was investigating that a vehicle coming from the northwest corner of the parking lot had traveled across the lot in a southeasterly direction. And as we stood there, just kind of looking over the scene, you could see the rooftops of the Oak Park Apartments. It was a direct line. It was kind of an ‘aha’ moment for me. This was where the van was, and a short distance away is where the crime occurred.”

  Lieutenant John Keefer also testified about the location where Jade Bateman and Bob Clifford said they had seen the green minivan in the Reser Stadium parking lot. By May 2004, Keefer had been with the Corvallis Police Department for eight years. About his meeting with Zerzan, Keefer said, “You could see the Oak Park Apartments from there. Mr. Clifford remembered a green van in the parking lot. The driver was speaking with Jade there. It had Minnesota plates.”

  DDA Kemper then took Keefer back to the “throw down” he had conducted with Bob Clifford. Kemper asked, “Before you showed the photo lineup to Mr. Clifford, had there been extensive publicity about Joel Courtney?”

  Keefer replied, “No, ma’am.”

  “To the best of your knowledge, had Joel Courtney’s photograph been disseminated to the public at the time you showed the photo lineup?”

  “It had not been.”

  This photo lineup was important, and Steven Gorham, on cross, queried Lieutenant Keefer more vigorously than had been done to some of the other witnesses.

  Gorham asked, “Where was the throw down conducted?”

  Keefer responded, “I believe it was in the sports complex. A conference room.”

  “How many throw downs have you done in your career?”

  Keefer said, “I can guess it would be about thirty or so.”

  “What do they tell you in your training about throw downs?”

  “In essence, we want images that are similar. Nothing that makes the suspect stand out. Position needs to rotate if different people look at it. We give an admonishment that a person can change their looks through a haircut, moustache, et cetera.”

  Gorham asked, “When Mr. Clifford looked at the photos, what comments did he make?”

  Keefer looked at his report and said, “Mr. Clifford was concerned about the red hat the suspect had worn.”

  Gorham then asked, “Did you suggest Mr. Clifford do something?”

  “I suggested that he cover the top half of the photos’ heads, to see if someone looked familiar.”

  “He only did that with the top row of photos?”

  Keefer stated, “No, I believe he did it with both rows.”

  “You asked him on a scale of one to ten, one being he wasn’t sure, and ten that he was very sure, how he felt that photo number three was the person he had seen. Well, I’ll ask a more direct question. Did he say he was certain it was not one, two, four, or six?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told you number three had the right look?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He didn’t identify number three, did he?”

  “At the end he did.”

  “But not verbally?”

>   “No, sir. But when he was about to leave, I left the number off the photograph. And he wrote down the number three.”

  “There was some discussion about high cheekbones?”

  “Not to my recollection.”

  “Well, did he tell you that number five had high cheekbones?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “What was the context of that?” Gorham wondered.

  Keefer replied, “He basically just said that. I don’t know if he was looking for high cheekbones or not.”

  “So you don’t remember him talking about the person he saw at the parking lot as having high cheekbones?”

  “I do not.”

  On redirect Kemper asked Lieutenant Keefer to look at an admonition statement that Clifford used. Keefer looked at the statement and said that since Bob Clifford had a hearing impairment, it was important to have given him a written statement.

  Kemper then asked, “Did he read the instructions carefully?”

  Keefer said, “Yes, he did.”

  Jade Bateman’s mother also took the stand, speaking of the phone call she had made to her daughter that morning. Jade had been very concerned about the man in the green van; she told her mother to stay on the phone. Jade’s mother said that it was more of a demand than a request.

  Lending weight to what Diane Mason and Jade Bateman had to say was John Chilcote, an investigator for the Benton County DA’s Office. In a turnabout of questioning, it was Steven Gorham who wanted Chilcote on the stand so that he could question him. Gorham asked on direct if Chilcote was involved with the two indictments brought forth that day by John Haroldson on the Mason and Bateman matters. Chilcote said that he was the DA’s investigator on the Brooke Wilberger case, and that he did know about the Mason and Bateman indictments.

  Gorham asked, “When did you start working on the Brooke Wilberger case?”

  Chilcote answered that he had begun on the day after she went missing.

  Asked if he knew that a tip hotline had been set up about Brooke, Chilcote said that he did.