Murder on Birchleaf Drive
Page 20
Jason told the jury that he was carrying a bottle of water—as the surveillance video revealed—because his mouth tended to get dry when he smoked cigars. He left the hotel through the same exit door he had used earlier, he testified, and, once again, propped the door open with a twig.
He then went outside to the parking lot and grabbed a cigar out of his SUV. Because it was so windy, he recounted, he lit the entire book of matches to get a big enough flame to light the cigar. The windy conditions made it impossible to look at the newspaper while he was smoking. After finishing the cigar, he said, he went back inside through the exit door he had propped open.
Once again, Jason explained, he had left his room door unlocked, which allowed him to get back in without using his keycard. He then brushed his teeth, set the alarm clock for either 6:15 or 6:30 a.m., and went to sleep. He told the jury he remained in his room until leaving the next morning for the final time, eating breakfast in the hotel lobby before driving off for his business meeting.
Jason emphatically denied he was the man Gracie Dahms saw pumping gas at the Four Brothers gas station that morning. Unlike the man she described as being about her height—five feet tall—Jason told the jury he was six foot one. At the time Dahms saw that man, he insisted, “I was in my hotel room.”
Collins asked his client to explain why the SBI computer forensics examiner had found searches for “knockout blow” and “anatomy of a knockout” on his home computer.
Jason said just a few months before Michelle’s murder, he had been the first to arrive at a horrible car accident. One of the drivers had been knocked out. He felt helpless. He wanted to know if there was anything else he could have done to administer first aid. He performed those computer searches, he said, to learn the answer.
Jason described the route he traveled to Clintwood, Virginia, and how he got lost on the tricky mountain roads, making him thirty minutes late for his appointment. Because the cell phone coverage was so spotty, he explained, he couldn’t even call the hospital to let his contact there know he would be late.
As he was putting his laptop in its bag following the unsuccessful sales meeting, Jason recounted, he realized he had left the eBay printouts at home, rather than taking them with him. He worried they would spoil the surprise he was planning for Michelle if she found them.
He acknowledged he and his wife had a pretty big fight a few days earlier—“the one where she said that I threw the remote, and on top of that, I was getting, you know, and you have heard testimony about, I kind of got scolded from Linda and some people about not doing enough for the anniversary and the anniversary meal didn’t go right, so I really was wanting to kind of make up for a lot in a big way, and I really wanted it to be a surprise. A surprise to Michelle means so much more than anything.”
Collins then asked Jason about the anniversary card postmarked from Orlando. “Were you visiting Michelle Money at the time?”
“Yes, and that’s what I went to Orlando for,” he confessed.
“Was that part of the reason why you felt so bad about it?” Collins asked.
“Yes, sir. I was—I have a lot of guilt for that,” Jason responded, trying his best to convey remorse.
He testified he tried to catch Michelle at the house the morning of November 3 before she went to her doctor’s appointment and took Cassidy to her daycare. When she didn’t answer, he left a message on the answering machine. He knew she was heading into work after her appointment, so he tried calling her there as well. When she didn’t answer that time, he told jurors, he tried her cell phone, thinking she must have been at lunch. But she didn’t answer that phone either.
When he arrived at his mother’s home in Brevard, Jason recounted, he saw her and Gerald standing in the yard. They were holding each other and walking toward his car. He realized his mom was upset and something was wrong, he told jurors. That’s when Gerald told him, “Michelle is dead.”
For the first time since taking the witness stand, Jason began to cry, struggling to get the words out. “I just—I just fell. I just—I broke on the inside, I just broke, and I didn’t believe it,” he told jurors between sobs. “It was—it just didn’t feel real, it didn’t feel like it was—it didn’t feel like it was happening. I just didn’t believe it and I didn’t understand it.”
Though Jason remembered crying inside his mother’s home, he confessed to not being able to remember much else from that afternoon. He did recall that when he, Pat, Heather, and Joe stopped at the Applebee’s near Meredith’s home that night, his mother indicated Ryan Schaad and Josh Dalton were saying he needed to get a lawyer and to not speak with law enforcement until he did.
When he met with his lawyer the following week, Jason testified, he was advised not to talk to the police or even his family and friends “about anything.” And he took his lawyer’s advice “to the letter.”
Collins asked him about the Hush Puppies Orbital shoes he had purchased from the DSW Warehouse. He wore them a lot, Jason testified, both for business and casually. Because of that, he said, they had become worn out. He told the jury he wasn’t wearing the Orbitals on November 2. He explained his wife constantly went through their closets to gather things to take to Goodwill—he believed she had donated the shoes before her death.
Next, Collins showed his client the photo of Cassidy’s third birthday party Pat had testified about—the one of him standing behind his daughter as his mom was scooping ice cream. Jason confirmed the photo was taken on March 29, 2007, Cassidy’s birthday.
Collins asked his client to focus on the shirt he was wearing in the photo. Jason pointed out the thin, white stripe across the chest. Though his lawyer didn’t specifically ask Jason if that was the shirt he had been wearing the second time he appeared at the front desk of the Hampton Inn, just before midnight, that is precisely what they were hoping the jury would believe.
The next topic was Michelle’s funeral. Jason testified he had picked out the colored daisies that adorned the top of her casket. When he described how he had placed the small piece of paper containing the words to the song, A Bushel and a Peck, into Michelle’s hand, Jason grabbed his face, sobbing.
“Did you say goodbye to Rylan?” Collins asked him.
Jason nodded his head up and down.
“How did you do that?”
“All I could do was just put my hand on her stomach,” he responded, and then broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.
When he was finally able to regain his composure, the former salesman explained that Cassidy wasn’t at the funeral because he didn’t want her around all of the media. “It was terrible, you know, hiding in the bushes, and they were relentless … I wanted her away from that, I wanted her away from all of it.” That is why he had Heather and Joe take her back to Brevard, he testified.
His lawyer then shifted gears to Jason’s interactions with his sister-in-law and mother-in-law in the months following the murder, and their visits with Cassidy. The defendant explained that, initially, he did permit them to visit with his daughter. That changed, however, when Linda “had gotten really, really loud and really dramatic” in front of Cassidy. At that point, after talking with his mother, he decided, “I didn’t want Cassidy around that.” So he cut off contact between Cassidy and her aunt and grandmother.
After receiving a letter from their lawyer and retaining Alice Stubbs to represent him, Jason testified, he concluded he couldn’t afford a full-blown custody fight. He had lost two jobs due to all of the media coverage surrounding Michelle’s murder. He agreed to give up custody of Cassidy, he explained, because he simply didn’t have the resources to fight. Plus, he knew custody is always subject to change. But, “it still was very hard,” Jason said, trying to convey to the jury his anguish over that difficult situation.
Collins then began his final series of questions. “How has your life been impacted by the death of your wife?”
“I’ve lost everything,” Jason answered. “I’ve lost family, friends, jobs.
I’ve lost everything.”
“Jason, have you ever intentionally, physically harmed somebody?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you have a memory of the last time you spoke to Michelle?”
“It would be wonderful for me to say I remember what we talked about that night on the phone,” he responded, “but I know it was a normal ‘good night, I made it up here safely,’ a normal conversation, and I don’t remember.”
“Do you know of any reason why someone would want to kill your wife?” Collins asked.
“No, sir.”
“The State contended in their opening argument that you went there to strangle her. Is that true?”
“No, sir.”
“And that you hit her on the head thirty times. Did you do that?”
“No, sir.”
“Were you there when it happened?”
“No, sir,” Jason replied emphatically.
“Do you know who did it?” Collins asked.
“No, sir.”
“Did you have anything to do with killing her?”
“No, sir.”
“That’s all the questions I have,” Collins said, passing the witness to the prosecutors for cross-examination.
For three solid hours, the jury—indeed, the entire courtroom—was mesmerized by Jason’s testimony. It was compelling. He seemed genuine and sincere—heartfelt even—as well as contrite and humble in admitting to his failings. His denial of any involvement in Michelle’s murder was direct and forceful. Jason had clearly moved the needle in the direction of acquittal.
Collins completed his questioning at 12:52 p.m. “At least we’ve got a lunch break,” Holt thought to herself. She would have all of an hour to prepare the most important cross-examination of her career. On an empty stomach, no less.
It was apparent from the outset of her cross-examination, however, that she didn’t have adequate time to prepare. The Assistant DA meandered from topic to topic, with no obvious organization, long pauses separating one subject from the next. Her questioning was slow and devoid of rhythm. She confronted Jason with seemingly trivial points and details. At times, it was hard to understand where she was going.
Holt began her questioning by focusing on Jason’s unfaithfulness to Michelle—before they were married. She asked him about a trip they had taken to Puerto Rico and the questions Michelle had for him after they returned.
“Michelle had found a pair of panties in your suitcase, isn’t that right?” the Assistant DA asked.
“No, ma’am, that’s not right,” the defendant responded.
“You don’t recall her getting upset about finding a pair of panties and asking you about where they had come from?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And what you told her was that the maid had probably put them in your suitcase in Puerto Rico. Isn’t that right?”
“No, ma’am, that’s not right.”
“You had a sexual relationship with Julie Tyndall during the time you were supposedly dating Michelle Fisher, who later became your wife. Isn’t that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am, that is correct.”
The prosecutor asked whether he and Michelle had disputes over financial matters and about his online gambling. He agreed they did. She re-plowed with Jason his friction with his mother-in-law, which he readily admitted—again. For the second time, he told the jury he was adamantly opposed to Linda moving into his home, and wanted to minimize the time she spent with his family over the 2006 holidays. Yet Jason adamantly denied telling Michelle, after he learned she was pregnant with Cassidy, that if she didn’t abort the baby, he would hold it against her and the baby for the rest of their lives.
Finally, Holt began focusing on the events of November 2 and 3, suggesting that Jason had fabricated his testimony about leaving the hotel to smoke a cigar. “Isn’t it true, Mr. Young, that you, on occasion, would take a strong stand against smoking and argue with people about smoking, that that was one of the things that you did not like?”
“Cigarette smoking I think is very bad,” Jason said. But he didn’t feel the same way about cigars, which he had been smoking since working for Black & Decker before he and Michelle met, though he agreed he didn’t smoke them often.
Jason’s testimony about smoking a cigar in the Hampton Inn parking lot highlighted an important clue the prosecution team had missed during Klinkosum’s opening statement. There was only one witness in the entire world who could have established he had smoked a cigar at the hotel: Jason Young. Thus, Klink’s reference—weeks earlier—to his client smoking a cigar telegraphed that Jason would testify in his own defense. Having failed to pick up on that significant clue, it was Jason who was now getting the better of Holt during his cross-examination, rather than the other way around.
The defendant also denied having a four-hour counseling session with Meredith the Friday before the murder. He testified he couldn’t imagine what Cassidy would have been doing that length of time and that, to the best of his recollection, such a lengthy session with Meredith never occurred.
Holt then shifted her focus to Genevieve Cargol, asking Jason whether he had been violent with her prior to the incident in Texas. He denied he was, though admitted striking the windshield of her car hard enough that it had to be replaced. He denied ever punching a hole in the wall of his apartment in Charlotte in reaction to Cargol finding and reading a letter Carol Anne Sowerby had written him. But he did admit it made him mad she had read that letter.
The prosecutor next focused on Jason’s argument with his wife about how she was getting to Ryan’s and Shelly’s wedding, as well as their belated anniversary dinner. Michelle was upset the night of their anniversary dinner, the former salesman testified, because he was on the phone with a co-worker during the entire car ride to Bella Monica, not because of their travel plans to Winston-Salem.
Shifting gears again, Holt asked, “You made it well-known, you told friends, didn’t you, that you didn’t have enough sex in your marriage?”
Jason admitted he told friends, family members, his mother, and even co-workers he didn’t have enough sex in his marriage. “Intimacy was a problem,” he agreed.
“In fact, you told your wife that maybe she should let you have a girl on the side, didn’t you?” she asked.
“I think I said that in jest one time, being angry and saying it in a sarcastic way. Yes, ma’am.”
“Mr. Young, you have told this jury that you loved your wife. Did you love your wife when you were having an affair with Michelle Money?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did you love your wife when you were having sex with Carol Anne Sowerby in her home on the couch with your daughter upstairs?”
“I didn’t have sex with Carol Anne in her home.”
“How about in your wife’s home?” Holt asked, correcting her mistake.
“Yes, ma’am. I did love my wife.”
“Did you love your wife when you wrote Genevieve Cargol an email and told her that she was the love of your life?”
“Yes, ma’am. I did.”
Jason agreed he was not “working on” his marriage when he was having sex with Sowerby two weeks before Michelle was murdered. “That was not the way to work on a marriage,” he admitted, seemingly contrite. “That was very detrimental.” He conceded the email he sent to Cargol that September was also not “working on” his marriage.
The Assistant DA asked whether Jason was “working on” his marriage when he communicated with Money more than 400 times in the month before the murder. He acknowledged he and Money “confided a lot in each other and we talked about my issues with my wife and she talked about her issues with her husband and we both tried to kind of help each other in regards to things we could do to make the other person more loving towards us.”
“So is the answer, ‘yes,’ when you had an affair with Michelle Money, that you were working on your marriage?” Holt asked, this time unable to control her scorn and derision.
“Mr. Young, you’ve told this jury that you love your daughter Cassidy. Is that right?” Holt asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And this is the same daughter that, rather than answer any questions, you signed over custody to Meredith Fisher?”
“Yes, ma’am, that is exactly what happened. I had to sign over custody. I couldn’t financially fight that battle,” Jason reiterated.
Holt asked Jason whether, as part of the custody case, he would have been required to sit for a deposition and to answer questions. “Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, ma’am. From what I understand.”
“Your attorney told you that?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But instead of doing that, you signed over custody of your child. Is that right?”
“Yes, ma’am. I did sign over custody of my child,” Jason agreed.
“You understood that you were giving up physical custody in exchange for not having to sit for a deposition, not having to answer questions, and not having to undergo a psychological evaluation.”
“That was all part of the agreement. Yes, ma’am.”
After a lengthy pause, Holt pivoted to Jason’s refusal to cooperate with law enforcement. He agreed he decided on November 3 not to talk to the police, not to provide any information about his wife, his home, or even to listen to what they had to say. He also acknowledged that he decided not to talk to his friends or his family, testifying, “I followed my legal counsel’s advice to the tee.”
The Assistant DA asked Jason to describe what he said to his attorney when he finally met with him. Collins objected on the basis of the attorney-client privilege. Judge Stephens overruled his objection, likely because the defendant had waived the privilege by testifying that he was not speaking with the police, or his friends or family, because that is what his attorney told him to do.