As she continued down Birchleaf Drive, Beaver testified, she noticed a delivery-type van parked to her right on a side street, with its lights crossing her path. As she drove by it, she could see that the vehicle’s dome lights were on and that there were newspapers in the van—she then realized the person at the driver’s seat was a delivery person.
Recognizing that Beaver’s account was wholly inconsistent with the prosecution’s theory and timeline, Holt subjected the defense witness to an aggressive cross-examination. She asked her whether she had told detectives in January 2008 she wasn’t sure what she had seen and when she had seen it. Beaver denied saying that.
Holt pressed her: “Do you recall telling the agents that, ‘It’s possible it could have been the previous Friday or another Friday prior to November 3?’”
“I told them it was possible,” Beaver replied. “I was being interviewed somewhat frequently—I mean, not like day after day. But no, about the time you try to forget about the situation and move on with your life, someone would call or it would all be drug up again. And I was really getting tired with it.”
She explained she told the detectives she was “ninety percent sure it was the Friday of the murder. It’s possible it could have been the Friday before.”
16
Surprise Witness
Becky Holt spent the evening of June 21 preparing intensely for her closing argument. Without question, this would be the most consequential closing of her career. She wanted to make sure the jury understood each piece of evidence and how it all fit together to convincingly establish Jason’s guilt. Above all else, she wanted her argument to cry out for justice for Michelle Young.
She and David Saacks were convinced Terry Tiller and Cindy Beaver would be the final witnesses to testify for the defense. Though, in the back of her mind, Holt never ruled out the possibility Jason might take the witness stand in his own defense, the approach his attorneys had been taking throughout the trial signaled they had no such intention.
For a defendant accused of murder, there is no more important strategic decision during trial than whether he will testify. Defense attorneys often begin their representation of a murder defendant with that very question at the forefront of how they will proceed.
Because the burden to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is so high, defense attorneys often conclude their best chance of winning a favorable verdict is to shine a spotlight on the gaps and deficiencies in the prosecution’s evidence, rather than on their own client. Throughout the trial, Bryan Collins and Mike Klinkosum had been doing exactly that. They hammered home with witness after witness the absence of forensic evidence that pointed at Jason—or in the case of the Franklin shoe impressions and eyewitness testimony from Cindy Beaver, the presence of evidence that pointed elsewhere.
Calling a murder defendant as a witness is fraught with enormous risk. For starters, it shifts the jury’s focus away from any gaps in forensic evidence back to the defendant. Jurors naturally focus on whether they believe the defendant—almost to the exclusion of all other evidence. The entire case tends to devolve into a single question: “Is the defendant telling the truth?”
It is a rare criminal defendant who can successfully with-stand a withering cross-examination by a skilled prosecutor. By calling the defendant as a witness, defense attorneys provide prosecutors a grand stage to dismember their client by forcing him to confront the very worst aspects of his life and the most damaging evidence against him.
In addition to any inconsistencies or evasiveness in the defendant’s answers, jurors may perceive dishonesty from body language, facial expressions, long pauses, or emotions that don’t seem genuine.
With all eyes and ears on the defendant, prosecutors have a golden opportunity to persuade the jury, “He did it. You could just sense it from the way he testified.” That is why so few murder defendants take the witness stand in their own defense.
So, as the bailiff called the courtroom to order the morning of June 22, Holt was focused intently—and exclusively—on the closing argument she believed she was moments away from delivering.
Directing his attention toward Collins, Judge Stephens asked if there would be further evidence for the defendant.
Collins jumped to his feet and responded, “Yes, sir, there will,” much to Holt’s surprise.
“Okay,” the judge said, “call your next witness.”
“We call Jason Young,” Collins announced.
“Mr. Young, come around and be sworn please,” the judge directed. Jason, wearing a gray suit and light blue shirt with a dark, patterned tie, walked toward the jury—sure to make eye contact—and stepped up to the witness stand to take the oath.
Holt and Saacks were blindsided. Ambushed. They didn’t see this coming. Mild panic set in. It was only 9:40 a.m. What if the direct examination concluded midday, requiring cross-examination to be formulated on the spot, rather than with the evening to prepare? They were about to hear, for the first time in the four and a half years since the murder, Jason’s account of his marriage to Michelle and his every step the evening before, and day of, the murder. How on Earth would they be able to question him effectively without having any time to prepare?
The reaction of jurors was quite the opposite. They had been sizing up Jason for weeks as they watched the testimony of countless other witnesses, none of whom were as significant as the defendant himself. Instead of observing him from afar as he sat by his defense team, they would now be almost close enough to touch him as he testified from the witness stand. They would be able to hear his voice, look into his eyes, and decide for themselves if he was the cold-blooded killer who bludgeoned his beautiful wife to death.
Jason clasped his hands on the desk in front of him and stared at Collins confidently, his high cheekbones and angular jaw line combining to convey a deadly serious expression. Collins began with short, crisp questions:
“State your name, please.”
“Jason Young.”
“Jason, did you love your wife, Michelle?”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
“Were you a proper husband to her?”
“No, sir, I was not.”
“Do you love Cassidy?”
“Absolutely, yes sir.”
“Are you a good father to her?”
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Did you kill your wife, Michelle?”
“No, sir,” Jason replied emphatically.
“Were you there when it happened?” Collins asked.
“No, sir.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“No, sir, I do not.”
With Jason’s forceful denial now before the jury, Collins took a step back and began leading his client through his courtship of Michelle. Jason appeared tender, thoughtful, and charming as he described the early days of their relationship. He reminisced about how Michelle seemed “a little out of my league” and how he was “overwhelmed at first.”
“We always were jokey with each other and cutting up and being silly,” he testified. “I think she was more of the serious type and I kind of was the loosener-up type, so she was always the planner and the really, the person who would take things really, really seriously, and I think sometimes she liked it because I could come in and say, ‘Oh, that’s not a big deal.’ So, we kind of equaled each other out in that regard.”
Jason recalled how he learned of Michelle’s pregnancy with Cassidy. He was upstairs in their bedroom at the
Arete Way townhome, he said, when Michelle came home to deliver the news. “We were both very shocked, like eye-opening, like whoa, it was, you know, a surprise, it wasn’t planned … but it was a good surprise.” Collins asked if her pregnancy caused them to get married. Jason responded it didn’t, but it accelerated the process. He conceded on his schedule, the timeline probably would have been “stretched out a little more.”
At his lawyer’s prompting, Jason acknowledged his weaknesses. He procrastinated on do
ing household chores. He gambled on sports, though only with his own money and never went into debt. He and Michelle had many arguments while she was pregnant with Cassidy—he described his wife as being very emotional at the time, with frequent mood swings, and how she could “cry at the drop of a hat.”
They would get angry at one another. There was a lot of yelling, Jason testified. “It would go both ways. And then sometimes I would pout and not talk.”
Jason became particularly animated as he described what he saw while peering over the curtain during Michelle’s C-section:
“Cassidy was covered with this kind of like white, I didn’t know what she was supposed to look like, but I didn’t think she was supposed to look like that … Then we heard that cry and we both smiled and they immediately did whatever they need to do. They got her bundled up and cleaned up and they took her in the same room under a little warming lamp and finished up with her there … I hadn’t gotten to hold her yet or see her, I just got to see the process of birth, but it was awesome.”
In testimony that appeared both loving and sincere, Jason explained he was the first person to change Cassidy’s diaper and see how her poop went from a tar-like substance to a mustard color and consistency. He told jurors his wife was an “absolutely amazing mother.”
After the miscarriage in May 2006, Michelle quickly became pregnant again. They were both overjoyed, Jason testified, to learn that, this time, they would be having a boy. Having both a girl and a boy “couldn’t have been more storybook,” he told the jury. “That’s just up Michelle’s alley, just how she would have wanted it.” Fighting back tears, he said having a boy was the only way he could carry on the Young name. He choked up again describing how he learned of that pregnancy—with Cassidy toddling into the den wearing a shirt saying, “I’m going to be a big sister.”
Collins then led his client through his difficult relationship with Linda. “A lot of what Michelle wanted to do was to bring her mom in and have her live with us to help out with child care and I didn’t want to be living with my mother in-law,” Jason said. He explained they had significant differences in personality, “culturally maybe a little bit of difference, just me coming from the mountains in the south and her being from Long Island and New York. I think she could be a bit domineering.”
“I was adamant about Linda not living with us,” he acknowledged. “Yes, I was.”
Jason also lamented how, during Michelle’s pregnancy with Rylan—especially during her mood swings—she would instinctively reach out to Linda whenever she was upset. And that would only compound the problem, he testified. “Her mom would get Michelle sobbing and in tears.” Moreover, Michelle herself could be overly dramatic and exaggerate problems, he said, which would cause the problem to grow further.
“Did you ever get physical with her?” Collins asked.
“Absolutely not,” Jason replied forcefully. He denied ever hitting her. He denied throwing a TV remote at her. He testified they didn’t fight more often than most people, but acknowledged they were more open about it.
Michelle had been pushing for them to see a professional marriage counselor, he said, though he was more hesitant. They had seen a counselor when Michelle was pregnant with Cassidy. He wasn’t particularly comfortable with that experience, he testified. He was much more comfortable with Meredith playing that role.
The defendant told the jury he was working on the issues in his marriage, but felt Michelle had her own, personal issues from her past—her darker side. Some things she shared with him, he said, and some she didn’t. He wanted her to work on those issues before they worked on their issues together.
“Did you want to stay married to Michelle?” Collins asked.
“Yes, I did. I wanted to have another child and I wanted the family to grow,” Jason responded. He denied ever thinking seriously about divorce.
“Did the two of you ever discuss it?”
“Yes, when we were angry,” the former salesman answered. “I think it was a fair assessment that out of anger the divorce card might be played. Out of anger, I might say, ‘Well just divorce me then.’”
Jason testified he never thought about going to a lawyer to pursue a divorce and didn’t believe Michelle had either. Collins showed him his email exchange with Michelle from October 24, 2006, and had him point out to the jury where he told his wife, “I do love you too and want it to work out.”
The Public Defender then shifted gears to the other women in Jason’s life. He started with Genevieve Cargol. Jason admitted to pinning her down in a hotel room in Texas and forcibly removing her engagement ring. He testified he was intoxicated when that incident occurred and was only 25, though conceded that was no excuse for what he had done.
“Since that incident, have you ever put your hands on a woman in anger?” Collins asked.
“No, sir,” Jason replied firmly.
Collins then asked his client if he had learned anything from that incident with Cargol.
Now contrite, the defendant responded, “It’s completely wrong to physically do anything to anyone like that when you’re angry with someone just because you’re bigger than them or stronger than them. It’s wrong.” He testified that he ultimately lost his relationship with Cargol because of what he had done to her.
Jason acknowledged that Carol Anne Sowerby had testified truthfully, admitting they had sex in the home he shared with his wife just a few weeks before the murder. He confirmed Michelle Money was also truthful in her testimony about their extramarital affair. But he denied having any plan to leave his wife for Money.
He explained he and Money had been confiding a lot in each other because they both felt they were missing intimacy in their relationships. He readily agreed his relationship with Money was “wrong.”
“I don’t think either one of us dreamed that it would ever be found out,” he testified. “We both even knew that there was no way anything would ever come from it. And we—we really knew we had to stop.” He admitted, though, they had been speaking to each other “a lot” just before the murder.
With that difficult subject out of the way, Collins pivoted to the events of November 2 and 3. Jason testified that he knew he had a very long drive to Clintwood, Virginia and decided instead of waking up at 4:00 a.m. on November 3, he would break the trip into two legs. Because he was a diamond member of the Hilton Honors Club, he planned to stop at a Hampton Inn to earn hotel points. He told the jury he and Michelle had been saving up their points, hoping to earn enough to one day vacation in Hawaii.
Jason explained he had taken a lot of grief from Michelle and her mom about not giving his wife an anniversary gift and confessed he and Michelle had a “pretty lousy” anniversary dinner. To make up for it, he testified, he wanted to surprise her with something that was “pretty non-typical for me,” and planned to spend a lot of money on a Coach purse. It was actually Money who had given him the idea to search for a purse on eBay, he noted.
Jason offered a simple explanation about why the eBay printouts he left on the printer were for auctions that were about to expire—he was only using those particular purses to get an idea on pricing, he testified. He had no intention of bidding on anything that evening.
Instead, he said, he planned to seek Meredith’s assistance later about what kind of purse to get for his wife. He had meant to place the printouts in his laptop bag, he testified, so he could have them with him during his business trip. Michelle loved surprises, he told the jury, which was why he was so determined to keep his shopping for a Coach purse a secret.
In contrast to Shelly Schaad’s testimony, Jason testified he actually knew before leaving his home on November 2 that Alan Fisher wouldn’t be coming to Raleigh that weekend. He told jurors Michelle was upset her dad wouldn’t be able to visit with Cassidy. That was the reason why he called his mom shortly after leaving the house, Jason said, as he now could spend the evening of November 3 in Brevard, rather than rushing back to Raleigh to be with his father-in-
law.
After eating dinner at the Cracker Barrel in Greensboro, Jason recounted, he drove to the Hampton Inn in Hillsville. He parked his Explorer at the side of the hotel, gathered his luggage, and went to the front desk to check in. He then took the elevator to the fourth floor and used his keycard to enter his room. After getting into the room, he called Michelle to say “good night” and, after concluding that call, spoke with Money, he acknowledged.
When that conversation ended, Jason testified, he wanted to review the electronic medical records software he planned to demonstrate the next day because he was nervous about his first solo sales call for ChartOne. He then realized he had left his laptop charging cord in his Explorer. Before heading downstairs and out to the parking lot, he told jurors, he pulled the hotel room door to the point just before it locked “to be cognizant of neighbors, ‘cause I’ve been woken up before plenty of times.” He left his keycard in his room, he said.
He then walked down the hallway, he testified, descended down four flights of steps, and headed toward the side exit door. Without his keycard, however, he realized there would be no way to get back in if he allowed the door to close. While holding the door open, he told jurors, he noticed some shrubbery nearby he was able to grab.
He recounted breaking off a twig and placing it between the door and the jamb to keep it cracked open. He then retrieved the charger from his Explorer, went back inside through the cracked-open door, and went upstairs to his room.
Just before midnight, the defendant testified, he decided to smoke a cigar, which was also outside in his Explorer. But he also wanted to see if he could get a USA Today newspaper to review sports schedules and standings. Because the front desk was on the other side of the hotel, Jason explained, he took a different stairwell down to the first floor. He walked up to the front desk and asked the attendant if he had a newspaper Jason could borrow. The attendant went back into his office and came back out with that day’s newspaper.
Murder on Birchleaf Drive Page 19