Murder on Birchleaf Drive

by Steven B Epstein

  Forced to answer, Jason responded, “I told the attorney what I’m telling the people here today. I told the attorney about my experience riding up to the house and the car being seized. I told the attorney about where I was, that I was away on a business trip. I told my attorney that I was alone and by myself. I told my attorney that my wife was pregnant. I told my attorney that I was having an affair. I told my attorney a lot, and my attorney said, ‘I don’t think you should talk to law enforcement.’”

  “So you continued to follow the advice to keep your mouth shut, to not say anything, even after you were arrested?” Holt asked.

  Collins again lodged an objection, which Judge Stephens promptly overruled.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Jason responded.

  “You never yourself, or anyone acting on your behalf, contacted investigators to find out about the investigation into your wife’s murder, did you?”

  “I didn’t,” Jason conceded.

  “Did you ask anyone to contact law enforcement to find out what was going on?”

  “I didn’t talk about it with anyone. No, ma’am.”

  Holt then paused and began ruffling through her notes. After about four minutes—which seemed more like an hour—she looked up at Judge Stephens, sheepishly, and said, “That’s all I have. Thank you.”

  Her cross-examination lasted all of 52 minutes. During that time, she didn’t ask Jason a single question about the murder or murder scene. She didn’t press Jason on his story about why he used his Hampton Inn keycard only a single time, yet admitted to leaving his room at least twice. Or what happened to the shirt he was wearing when he appeared at the hotel’s front desk just before midnight. Or his account of smoking a cigar in the parking lot—with no coat or gloves—in the bone-chilling cold and wind. The defense team had presented her a golden opportunity to forcefully attack Jason on those subjects. Yet, for whatever reason, she didn’t seize it.

  In view of the brutality of the murder, most prosecutors would have subjected Jason to an aggressive, confrontational cross-examination. For instance, Holt could have asked Jason, “You bludgeoned your wife to death by repeatedly striking her in the head with a blunt object, didn’t you? You hit her forcefully enough to expose her skull and jawbone, knock out her teeth, and cause her blood to splatter all over the walls, didn’t you?”

  Jason didn’t have to answer those questions and have the jury scrutinize his facial expressions, demeanor, and body language while doing so. Nor was he forced to look at the gruesome photos of his wife’s disfigured and bloody face or of her dead body lying amidst pools of blood and Cassidy’s bloody footprints. The jury would never see his reaction to those photos—because he was never confronted with them.

  He also wasn’t asked whether it had been a mere coincidence that, on the very night his wife was murdered, the surveillance camera at the Hampton Inn was tampered with—not once, but twice. He wasn’t forced to deny he printed out the eBay auction items, and left them on the printer, to have a reason to send Meredith to the house to find Michelle’s body and Cassidy. Or to deny that he called Michelle three times on November 3 to make it appear he didn’t know she was dead. Or that he knew full well before his stepfather told him that Michelle was dead—because he had killed her.

  Holt also neglected to confront the defendant with the July 2006 email in which he angrily lashed out at Michelle: I could kill u for not letting me finish the yard this morning. Or the lengthy email he wrote to Cargol 52 days before the murder professing his love for her. Or his email exchange with Money just six days before the murder in which he professed: i feel lucky just to know you, much less love you, but i do.

  Jason wasn’t even asked about the $2 million life insurance policy on which he was the sole beneficiary. Or the double-indemnity provision that would have led to him collecting a payout of $4 million. Holt didn’t ask what efforts he had made in the years since the murder to find the “real killer.” The prosecution team had been caught so off guard that these questions never made it into the outline they had hurriedly prepared during the lunch hour. Jason therefore didn’t need to address any of these difficult subjects. He was basically given a free pass.

  Collins and Klinkosum couldn’t have been more pleased. Considering the enormous risk they had taken by calling Jason as a witness, he had left the witness stand virtually unscathed. Hardly anything Holt had gotten him to admit was important and most of it merely rehashed answers he had already provided in response to Collins’ questions. More importantly, her questions didn’t rattle him or make him appear defensive or combative. He was polite and respectful from beginning to end, with appropriate body language and emotions. Even likable, they believed.

  Their gambit had paid off. Given the absence of forensic evidence linking Jason to the crime scene and his strong performance as a witness, acquittal now seemed to be a very legitimate possibility. They just needed to close the deal with a strong closing argument.

  17

  Closing Arguments

  In a criminal case, if the defense presents any evidence at all, the State gets the last word. And if the prosecutors desire, they can force defense counsel to make their closing argument first, without the benefit of hearing a single word of the State’s argument. That way, they can listen carefully to the defense team’s arguments and respond to each and every point they make.

  In contrast, the defendant’s attorneys are forced to guess what the prosecutors will argue and attempt to respond based on their guesses.

  That is precisely how the closing arguments proceeded on June 23, 2011, before a packed courtroom at the Wake County Courthouse. At Judge Stephens’ prompting, Mike Klinkosum rose and walked toward the jury, a discernible spring in his step. He placed his notes on the lectern, looked up, and focused the jurors on their task.

  “Any time another human is killed, is murdered,” he began, “it is a natural human reaction to want to punish, to want to blame. That’s a natural human reaction. But in our society, we say that is not done unless and until the government proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the person they accuse of murder actually committed that murder. We do not convict, we do not punish, except by proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  He framed the remainder of his argument around the forensic evidence—“circumstantial evidence,” as he called it—that “shows that Jason Young did not kill his wife, could not have killed his wife, and that this case is not solved.” Klink discussed seven such circumstances, labeling the first, “the fight.”

  “All of the evidence in this case in that crime scene, in that bedroom, indicates there was a fight,” he argued. “Ladies and gentlemen, there was hair pulled out, there was blood all over the walls almost up to the ceiling, papers strewn everywhere, pillows strewn on the floor—there was a fight.”

  He focused on the scratch marks on Michelle’s neck “from where she was trying to pry her attacker’s hands off of her throat.” But four days later, when “Jason Young was made to strip naked before the CCBI,” he reminded jurors, “there was not a mark on Mr. Young.” Logically, he explained, if Jason had been Michelle’s attacker, “you would have seen scratches on his neck, at least on his arms, at the least on his hands where she was trying to pry hands away from her neck.”

  But there were no marks on his body—anywhere.

  Klinkosum labeled the second circumstance “the blood.” He pointed to the crime scene photos. “There was blood all over one side of that bedroom. It had soaked into the carpet. It had pooled between the wall and the molding at the bottom of the floor. It was all over the walls.”

  He reminded the jury that Jason’s Ford Explorer had been seized the minute Jason got back to Raleigh, without even allowing his family to remove their luggage. “They not only looked for blood in his car, ladies and gentlemen, … they scoured that vehicle, the outside of it and the inside of it for blood, and didn’t find one drop of blood anywhere in that Ford Explorer. Not one drop.” How could Jason have “killed his wife
in one of the bloodiest ways possible,” gotten back into his Explorer, and driven all the way back to Virginia without a single drop of blood winding up in his vehicle? Jason’s attorney asked.

  The blood evidence related to Cassidy, he argued, pointed away from his client, not toward him. “You saw her bathroom. You saw how much blood was in that bathroom, how she tracked it in on her feet, how she smeared it on the walls, how she had smeared it behind the bathroom door.” That had to mean someone had placed her in the bathroom and shut the door. But when Meredith found her, Klink reminded jurors, she was “shockingly clean.” Someone had to have cleaned her up. But Jason wouldn’t have had the time to do so, he insisted.

  The defense lawyer then transitioned to the third circumstance: “no fiber transfer.” He noted investigators had taken carpet samples from the Hampton Inn and had scoured the Birchleaf Drive home for any similar fibers. Not a single one had been found. “The State wants you to believe that Mr. Young committed this crime, killed his wife and got out without any blood on him and somehow managed to not track any fibers from the hotel room into that house. Not possible, ladies and gentlemen,” he argued. “It’s not possible because Jason Young did not murder his wife and this case is not solved.”

  The fourth circumstance was DNA. Two cigarette butts had been found, which contained DNA traced to two unknown males. Klinkosum argued two unknown males must have been in the house. In addition, a hair was found on the wedding photo whose DNA didn’t match Jason, Michelle, or anyone connected to the case. That hair, Klink reminded the jury, contained an antigen root—meaning it had been forcibly removed—which suggested it had been pulled out during the attacker’s fight with Michelle.

  The DNA on the jewelry box was particularly noteworthy, he argued, because it was swabbed before the house was ever released. The State considered those swabs so important, they sent them not to the SBI lab, but to LabCorp, which found a mixture of DNA belonging to more than one individual. “And the important thing, ladies and gentlemen,” Klinkosum reminded them, “is that DNA didn’t match Michelle Young and it doesn’t match Jason Young.”

  He then transitioned to the fifth circumstance: fingerprints. Fingerprints were found, he told jurors, which didn’t match Jason, Michelle, or anyone else who was known to have been in the house. “That means there were some strangers in that house at some point, ladies and gentlemen, and those prints were collected before this house was released.”

  Most importantly, the medicine cup that rested on top of the Tylenol bottle in Cassidy’s room contained a fingerprint that didn’t match anyone connected with the family. “Think about this, ladies and gentlemen,” Klink continued. “If the State is right and someone tried to drug Cassidy Young to make her fall asleep and used the Tylenol and they mixed it with the Pancof or something else … they had to take the medicine cup off the Tylenol bottle.” And that person left behind a fingerprint that did not match Jason’s—because he didn’t kill his wife and this case is not solved.”

  The sixth circumstance involved Jason’s phone calls the evening before the murder. During his drive to Virginia on November 2, Klinkosum acknowledged, his client was “burning up the cell phone, talking to Michelle Money.” He was talking to her “about everything under the sun.” He was talking to his mom about picking up some furniture. “Does that sound like a man who’s got a plan and who is trying to pull off a murder and get away with it?” he asked rhetorically.

  When he saw that Demetrius Barrett had left him a message, Klink continued, Jason called him back and talked about a home warranty on a heat pump, of all things. They talked about a football game on TV Jason was watching. “Does that sound like a man who is actively plotting to kill someone and try and get away with it? If that’s the case, ladies and gentlemen, he would have been in deep thought planning this out. He wouldn’t have called Demetrius back or he would have called him back and said, ‘Look, I’ve got a lot on my mind. I can’t talk to you right now. We’ll talk later. Bye,’ and would have hung up.”

  The defense attorney then turned to the seventh and final circumstance: “The Hampton Inn itself.”

  “The State wants you to believe that Jason Young somehow climbed up and messed with the camera, disabled the camera on the western end of the hotel. But what do we know about that?” Once again, Klinkosum reminded jurors, the fingerprints pointed to someone else—the prints on the camera didn’t match Jason. “Why? Because he didn’t jump up there to disable it.” He noted how observant investigators were to notice the water pipe above the camera and swab it for DNA. Once again, no match—the DNA was from an unknown male.

  But even assuming it was Jason who pushed the camera up toward the ceiling, he argued, “Why in the world, if he did that, why, if he figured out that camera was the one he needed to take out so he could get away with the murder of his wife, did he go back to the front desk at midnight, at 11:59, in full view of the camera at the front desk” without disguising himself or covering his face or head?

  The circumstantial and physical evidence, Klinkosum insisted, didn’t add up. Rather, the prosecution was seeking a conviction because of his client’s behavior toward Michelle. “I told you in opening and I say to you again,” he told jurors, “he has acted like an immature jerk. And I say that to you, ladies and gentlemen, because I can’t think of a stronger word that is acceptable to say in a court of law.” But that was not a basis to convict his client of murder, Jason’s lawyer insisted.

  “They have spent three weeks bringing in all this information about his bad behavior, about how he and Michelle fought, about how he was cheating on her, about things he’s doing with wedding rings. But they haven’t presented one piece of concrete evidence, either direct or circumstantial, that Jason Young killed Michelle. Not one.”

  He then pivoted to Gracie Dahms’s testimony. “She was only shown one photograph. In six or seven interviews, they only showed her one photograph and they never bothered to test her memory by giving her a photo lineup,” Klink protested. “They never bothered to do that even though she could not describe to them his face or his height or his weight or any detail of what he was wearing.”

  And just a few weeks before the trial, at a pre-trial hearing, when asked to describe the person who threw money at her early that morning, “she said, ‘Well, he was a little bit taller than me and had a little bit of hair.’’’ “Ladies and gentlemen,” Klinkosum reminded jurors, “she’s five feet tall. A little bit taller is five one, five two. Jason Young is six feet one inches tall … The person she saw is a short, bald guy, not someone who’s six feet one inches tall and has a thick head of hair.”

  Finishing his argument, Jason’s attorney implored the jury to look at the circumstantial evidence. “Please look at it. Look at it hard. Because when you look at the seven circumstances in this case, when you look at the physical evidence, ladies and gentlemen, Jason Young did not murder his wife and his unborn child and this case is not solved, ladies and gentlemen. And the only just verdict in this case is to find him not guilty.”

  With that, Klinkosum took his seat at the defense counsel table.

  Collins then rose to deliver the final closing on Jason’s behalf. He began by introducing the jury to the concept of confirmation bias, musing, “Sometimes you find what you’re looking for.” It was completely understandable, he said, that the police began their investigation thinking Jason was the attacker.

  “They should have been suspicious of him,” Collins acknowledged. “He’s the husband. He’s not there. He won’t talk. You always suspect the husband. Then Keith Hicks, the young man at the Hampton Inn, finds a rock in the door and then the camera is moved and Keith Hicks thinks that’s important and he reports that to the police. And then they find out that he’s having an affair. Of course they suspect him. Nobody blames the police for suspecting him.”

  Collins made clear he wasn’t suggesting there was a “rush to judgment”—borrowing the phrase from the O.J. Simpson case—recognizing
the investigation lasted three years. “But I think it is fair to say,” he continued, “that they jumped to some conclusions. And they went looking for things. But then the physical evidence didn’t make sense, as Mr. Klinkosum has very aptly told you.” That was true despite “all of the resources that the State of North Carolina has poured into the investigation of this case,” including the FBI, SBI, Medical Examiner’s office, DNA experts, blood experts, a fiber expert, shoeprint experts, a computer expert, and hundreds of interviews.

  “They tried to solve this case for three years and you have seen the totality of what they have found. That’s because you can’t find evidence of guilt when your suspect is not guilty, no matter how hard you try.”

  It was notable, Collins suggested, that his client’s arrest wasn’t triggered by any particular finding, conclusion, or discovery. “It just came after a time. And it looks like they just gave up and decided to arrest him because they had found all they could find.”

  The Public Defender then turned to a litany of evidence the prosecution wanted the jury to find significant even though “if you didn’t know that somebody had been murdered,” he told jurors, it would all be “completely innocuous.” Falling into that category were Jason’s internet searches for head traumas and knockouts. “If his plan was to strangle her, what difference does that make?” he asked incredulously. Further, did Jason really need to research “head trauma,” he asked rhetorically, to know that beating someone in the head with something heavy thirty times is going to kill them?

  The garden hose by the back walkway was equally unimportant, Collins argued, even though there was a little bit of water trickling out the end. So was Jason’s search for a Coach purse via eBay auctions that were about to close. Even more insignificant was the discovery “that some of his DNA was in his own house and his fingerprints were in his own house.”