A Mother’s Promise

by Lee Barnett

  It was only a week or so after that memorable holiday that Juan came home from work with an envelope and a bottle of champagne. I looked at him. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘We’re approved!’

  As a family we celebrated our impending new adventure. That very evening once the children were sound asleep, Juan and I built a fire in our Weber grill and, piece by piece, we burned all evidence of my past, making it difficult for anyone to prove that Dorothy Lee Barnett had ever existed.

  19

  Brisbane Women’s Correctional Centre

  Queensland, Australia

  2014

  I HAD BEEN MOVED AGAIN. IT WAS TIME TO GET ACQUAINTED WITH this new lot of personalities. Many of the girls had nightly methadone doses and I had noticed if they didn’t get their medicine right on time they started to get extremely anxious and would physically sway back and forth as they stared out the window of the locked units waiting to be called for their treatment. I met and instantly liked Kam, an elderly Indian woman who was in for murdering her partner. Her English was pretty rudimentary but we had three things in common: we were both older than the rest of the girls, Kam quite a bit more than me; we both loved Indian food, and Kam could make the best; and we both loved playing gin. Kam played an Indian version that I had to learn to adjust to, never really knowing if it really was an Indian version or simply a convenient way to cheat! But our old lady routine was quickly set: dinner, shower, pyjamas and cards sitting on Kam’s bed until we were both too tired to play any more.

  At last I saw the TV ad for Today Tonight where my beautiful daughter said ominously, ‘What if everything in your life was a lie?’ Sammy and I shared a giggle over that but before she hung up she told me how a judge had awarded a $50,000,000 judgment against me. Surely that was fifty thousand, not fifty million? But Samantha was insistent. I chuckled and told her that if I didn’t have it they couldn’t get it, and that I was highly unlikely ever to have 50 million dollars. Sammy also told me about the $5,000,000 lawsuits that Harris brought against Cliff, Mom and Susan when I was gone. ‘And what’s more, he even sued poor Susan twice, once using my name as the plaintiff when I would have been about four or five years old!’ said Sammy. My God, I thought, what people had to endure because of me.

  I rang Cliff to see if he knew anything more about the judgement and lawsuits. Cliff confirmed it was true: Mom, Susan and Cliff had each been sued for five million dollars by Harris after I left. And apparently Susan’s second suit was largely because I had put the house in her name, which Hans Paul had organised. And Mom and Cliff had been sued for lending me money for the Appellate Court, which was $15,000 in total – a sum that had all gone to pay Hans Paul. We then spoke a little more about Hans Paul and specifically Peter Richmond’s GQ article that mentioned Paul’s suicide. Cliff told me that after Hans Paul’s death, when someone tried to obtain the records that pertained to me, including the $15,000 payment made for his services in representing me, it was discovered that all of my records had disappeared. I wondered, not for the first time, whether his death had anything to do with my case.

  In March 2014, I was called to reception and told to sit in the same little room I had shared with Mary from the US Embassy and wait for the phone to ring. At last it did, and I picked up.

  ‘Hi, Lee. I’m Russell Mace, a lawyer from Charleston.’

  I wasn’t to know it at the time, but this was to be the beginning of a tremendous working relationship – and friendship – with my new US lawyer. It was certainly going to make for quite a contrast from the lawyers from my past. Gordon had recommended him to me. Russell was impressed at how I still had the support of my old friends after so many years.

  I was resolute about doing things properly this time, so one of my first questions to him was whether he knew Lee Robinson. Russell said he hadn’t heard of her but did google her and thought she had quit practising law and had moved to another state. This was the same conclusion my sleuthing daughter had come up with.

  ‘And what about Mendel Rivers?’

  Russell said he only knew that name because he knew his congressman father had a great reputation as a lawyer and a politician. And he had not heard of Hans Paul. In fact, he didn’t seem to know any of the people I was concerned about. He told me that he had checked out Graham Sturgis, largely because of his demonstrable antipathy towards me, and had discovered that he was predominantly an equine lawyer. A lawyer for horses. Damn, did I laugh at that!

  Next, Russell ran through a few names that he was looking into, because the prosecution appeared intent on bringing a case of conspiracy against me. I was surprised Gordon’s name was in there as Gordon had nothing to do with my leaving. He had merely been kind enough to have given me a ride into Charleston on the day of my departure to ‘meet a friend’, not knowing I was meeting Tommy instead. And Susan was mentioned, too, along with my mom.

  ‘That’s crazy, Russell,’ I said. ‘I did all of this on my own. No one knew anything. Why are they dragging other people through the mud?’

  ‘When they have a conspiracy they have a bigger case, and it justifies all the money spent on looking for you and returning you to the US.’

  I had to concede that made a certain sort of sense.

  From Russell’s first words to me, I felt a connection. I wasn’t sure how good he was or what experience he had, I just knew I liked him and, more importantly, I felt I could trust him.

  I told him I wanted him to be my new lawyer – deal done. What was next?

  Russell told me to be careful who I spoke to in prison – inmates and officers alike – because my case was so high-profile someone was likely to be paid to inform on me. Okay, I said.

  He told me not to give the authorities any information or papers. Oh. ‘Well, it’s a little late for that,’ I said. ‘I already gave them pretty much everything when they raided my house. I had thought it would be better that way, to be honest.’

  To my relief and delight, Russell laughed out loud. ‘There’s a difference in being honest and lying, and there’s a difference in letting them find stuff and giving it to them.’

  I told him I had given them all my passports and birth certificates. ‘They already knew most of the information so I thought it easier to just cooperate.’

  There was a sigh on the other end of the line. ‘Well, you didn’t need to make it that easy for them. Did you give them a statement? Did they record it?’

  Yes and yes.

  ‘But I didn’t agree to an official interview at the station.’

  ‘Well, you did that right,’ he laughed. Then he added, ‘Can you hear that clicking noise on the phone? That’s probably someone listening in on our calls right now.’

  ‘Before we get started,’ Russell said, ‘I want to ask a question. Ever since I first thought about taking your case I’ve been asking a number of people in Charleston what they think about it, trying to gauge what a possible jury might decide. And the main question that keeps coming up is: if Harris wanted you to abort your baby, why did he fight like hell to gain custody?’

  ‘Good question,’ I said, ‘and I’ll try to answer it. I think that Harris’s whole life was and is a facade. His dad was from a good South Carolina family, his mom not so much. Growing up, the importance of heritage was always pushed on the kids by their mother, and when his dad died I think it was the only thing she really had left.

  ‘Once Harris got into Andover and Yale and was surrounded by the elite, his facade grew stronger. When he moved to Charleston and started working at Merrill Lynch, keeping up this ruse was the most important thing in his life. We married and I did the worst thing imaginable: I fell pregnant. When I wouldn’t abort and he left me, Harris had to make up a story to explain to everyone why a man would leave his pregnant wife, so he told them I was mentally ill and dangerous. He didn’t think that through very well, because when people found out that I alone was raising my newborn they started questioning him as to how he could let his crazy v
iolent wife care for his baby. That left him only one choice – go for full custody. If they got me on lithium I feel he could justify giving Samantha back to me and he would remain the man of integrity, the Southern gentleman he claimed to be.’

  ‘I see,’ said Russell, ‘that seems to fit the story quite well. I was given access to the Dropbox containing your transcripts and evidence by a friend of yours named Bruce Michell.’

  ‘Great, he’s my own personal Erin Brockovich!’ I said enthusiastically

  We started to go through more details when he asked the simple question, ‘How did you get messed up with all these people, Lee?’

  I paused for a moment before telling him of the link between Bjorksten, Lee Robinson and Mendel Rivers. I told Russell about the first time I had met Mendel and how his wife Rebecca had slipped me the piece of paper with the phone number on it.

  ‘Do you think that was a set-up?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I think Rebecca was aware of the team that was working against me and knew her husband was just another part of that team. I think her conscience got the better of her while she was playing with Samantha and I was meeting with Mendel.’

  ‘That was really telling,’ said Russell, ‘and frankly it makes me sick to think our profession could do that.’

  I agreed, then admitted that I had been so worried that every move I made would be used against me that I just kept Mendel on as my lawyer.

  I told Russell that once Harris said he intended to fight for full custody, Graham Sturgis said we needed to appoint a guardian ad litem (GAL). I didn’t want to and thought there were something unnatural about having a stranger determine what was best for my baby, but according to Lee Robinson I had no choice. At that time, too, I was also a little gun-shy of more people being added to the mix, afraid that once again I would be set up. And yet I obeyed the rules, and one rule from Lee Robinson was that you never, ever raised any type of accusations of abuse to the GAL or you could kiss your custody goodbye. So for much of 1993 I went along and played the game I was told to. I recalled the day I was introduced to Jania Sommers, our paid GAL, and how she was nothing like I expected with her long flowing hippy skirt and long black hair heavily streaked with grey. The woman seemed quite circumspect, even inexpressive, and she was probably the only person who on meeting Samantha hadn’t grinned from ear to ear.

  Jania Sommers started the whole paid GAL service in South Carolina and she did very well financially out of it. After Jania had been appointed, I was pulled into court left and right, issued with emergency orders demanding more time for Harris with Samantha; sometimes only a couple of weeks after the previous time. Each and every time I had to pay. They tried to bleed me dry, and they succeeded. She also rang people about me, not to ask how I was doing as a single mother but instead to tell everyone that I had a mental illness and needed to be on lithium. One woman from the La Leche nursing group named Diana Roberts who was helping me out said in an affidavit that she was shocked when Jania had called her and said that during my pregnancy I hadn’t eaten enough and that I might not be able to breastfeed. Diana told Jania that I was doing a good job. Jania then asked her if I had told her I was seeing a psychiatrist. Diana said yes, that I was a very open person. ‘So I guess you know that Lee will probably be put on lithium,’ she had continued, ‘and isn’t it true you can’t nurse while taking that?’

  I told Russell that my character witnesses at the hearing included family friends, some around Mom’s age, some I’d known my whole life. They all said what a wonderful person I was and what an incredible mom I was. My friend Patty, who had become something of a surrogate father to Samantha and had attended all my Lamaze ante-natal classes, the amnio and the birth itself, also testified that she listened in when Harris called and had heard, repeatedly, Harris whisper that I was sick, ugly and insane and tell me over and over that there was no baby.

  I also recounted the claims made that I had an almost inexhaustible supply of paramours and cheated on Harris constantly after he had left me. Of course the truth was that I had no romantic relationships, as any males who I spent company with were friends that I had had for many many years – granted, some might have been old boyfriends, but they were only friends at that time. I explained how a private detective had been hired to follow me around and ‘caught’ me playing darts in a bar with my good friend Jimmy on a weekend when I didn’t have Samantha. Judge Mallard hadn’t liked that news one bit, even though Harris had walked out of my life a year before. And I explained how I had been accused of physically abusing my old boyfriends. Two of my previously serious boyfriends came to testify – one a local attorney, who said he still loved me; and Jim, who I had dated for more than three years and who had since married. Jim also refuted Sonya’s deposition, which stated that I had beaten Jim all the way on the drive from Charleston to Summerville, and then told him I was going to blow his fucking brains out. None of it had ever happened, and furthermore Jim had never known me to have a gun.

  ‘Okay, let’s get a bit of Harris’s history,’ Russell said. ‘You said Harris’s dad died. How did his father die?’

  ‘He supposedly had an anaphylactic reaction to an antibiotic at home when Harris was eight. Harris’s dad was a doctor and his mom was a nurse. Fast-forward to 1990 or 1991 when I was with Harris’s neighbour and childhood friend Hal and his girlfriend Stephanie on Johns Island. Hal said outright that Harris’s mom had killed his father. Later he lied about it on the witness stand, but you can ask Stephanie because she has already reached out to me here in prison. At the time I asked Harris about it, thinking it was a fitting reason as to why he disliked his mom, and most women for that matter. He did not deny it and said only that he couldn’t remember anything about his childhood before he was eight. Harris’s brother John also said he had heard the same thing.’

  Russell thought about all this for a moment and then suggested we turn to some of Harris’s more audacious statements on the witness stand.

  ‘Firstly,’ I began, ‘notes from Harris’s psychologist Susan McClure and Dr Bjorksten say he attended Yale for three and a half years, leaving with only one semester left. When confronted with the fact that he had only been at Yale for a year, his response was that he was so brilliant he got three and a half years’ credit for that one year, and that both Bjorksten and McClure got it wrong. I love it when he says he got into John Hopkins, Brown and Harvard all on early acceptance for the accelerated medical program. And what about his claim that he got nearly perfect SAT scores? And how he lettered in all the sports and graduated in the top 1 per cent of his class at Andover? But my favourite claim of all has to be that Yale bored him and and wasn’t sufficiently challenged, so he dropped out. The truth, Russell, is that Harris only finished college when he attended night school at College of Charleston when he was thirty. He was then hired by his uncle who ran the Merrill Lynch office in Charleston. Harris told me and every one else he was born in Columbia, South Carolina, when he was actually born in Pennsylvania.’

  I stopped for a moment to take a breath and then told Russell how Harris liked to think of himself as a Southern gentleman, and how in court the judge just loved Harris’s self-proclaimed chivalry even when Harris went on to say the most deplorable things about me and sex right there in the courtroom. For example, he said things like, ‘I mean, we had an extremely active sexual life. I slept with her every time she wanted to.’

  ‘How often was that?’ Graham asked Harris.

  ‘A lot. Lee valued, shall we say, quantity more than quality, and we used to joke about having to retrain me so I wouldn’t last long.’

  What had appalled me about these comments wasn’t so much the words he used but the self-important way he said them in the courtroom.

  And then I remembered how a couple of times Harris’s responses in the courtroom had been truly wild. He got extremely agitated and upset and his anger could clearly be seen. If only the hearing had been taped, because his true response wasn’t evident in the transcri
pts. It had to be heard or seen.

  I also told Russell that he needed to be aware that Harris was a self-proclaimed expert of pretty much everything. ‘Did you know, for instance, that he had performed a lot of hysterectomies?’

  ‘Good grief, what do you mean by that?’ Russell asked.

  ‘Okay, jot this page and volume down: page 263, volume 10.’ I listened to the sound of Russell taking notes.

  ‘This was all about when I had the miscarriage scare. Harris claimed that “there was nothing there”, meaning no fetus in the toilet. But then he continued, “There was blood, but there was nothing else there. I mean, I’m not saying that I’m a physician or anything. I have been first surgical assistant to a gynecologist. I’ve done a lot of hysterectomies. So, I’ve been a surgical assistant …” and on and on he goes.’