Saacks suggested Jason was lying about going out to the parking lot to smoke a cigar. “What do you need to smoke a cigar? You need a cigar, right? You need lighters, matches. What else do you need? Don’t you need little clippers, right, you got to cut off the end of the cigar before you start smoking it.” None of those items were found in his Explorer when it was searched. “He wants to tell you that he’s been smoking cigars for years. For years,” Saacks said sarcastically. “Yet no one else has said that.”
He then turned to the shoe impression evidence, describing it as “huge.” Holding up one of the Hush Puppies Orbital shoes entered into evidence, he stated, “This sole does match, is consistent with, the bloody prints in that scene.”
Even though Jason wasn’t the only one who had a pair of Orbitals, Sealys, or Bellevilles, it was an “awfully big coincidence,” he argued, that the bloody print next to Michelle just happened to be of the type of shoe her husband had purchased one year earlier.
“And just to direct the point home, just to drive it home, four days after Michelle is dead, where is the defendant found? He’s at DSW buying another pair of shoes that are awfully similar to these Hush Puppy Orbitals.”
Just as Collins had predicted, Saacks asked, where were Jason’s Hush Puppies? Where was the shirt Jason was wearing when he was seen at the front desk of the Hampton Inn at midnight? It couldn’t have been the same shirt Jason was photographed in at Cassidy’s third birthday party, he asserted, because it wasn’t in any of his luggage or in his Explorer when investigators searched it the day of his wife’s death.
Finally, Saacks turned to the most difficult subject confronting the State: the Franklin size 10 shoeprints.
“What does it mean? Does it necessarily mean that there had to be another person in there? No. The defendant could have changed into another pair of shoes,” he suggested, reminding the jury that the assailant went into Jason’s closet. “This was a pair of shoes that was found for about ten bucks at a Dollar Store. So a cheap pair of shoes that might have been laying around, needed to use to get away, would fit, would fit with what was going on at that time.”
And then, despite any evidence at all that Jason conspired with someone else, Saacks suggested perhaps he did. “If that does mean another person is in that house, does that excuse the defendant?” If Jason did commit the murder with someone else’s assistance, he argued, “it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t personally have to do everything to constitute the crime. This tells you that the one mystery that really might be out there doesn’t make a difference.”
As Saacks neared the end of his argument, he asked the jury to assume Jason wasn’t the killer. “I invite you to do what some of those crime scene technicians do—flip it. They change the contrast, right? Sometimes they darken photographs to make something, they put chemicals on something to make it seen. Flip it and let’s say the defendant is not guilty, somebody else did this. How do you then explain all this other stuff that points to the defendant?”
“When did you realize that this was not a coincidence any more?” the prosecutor asked the jury. “Was it after the no forced entry to the house? The nature of the assault? Or the rock and the camera at the hotel? When did you know beyond any reasonable doubt that the defendant did this? Was it after the Hush Puppy shoeprint? Was it after his motive is played out? Was it after all the ring incidents? Was it after he gave up Cassidy before answering any questions about this case?”
As he began wrapping up, Saacks told the jury Jason had “a very twisted definition of love. He claims that he loved his wife and loved Cassidy during this whole time. You have to wonder how much he loved Michelle as he was bludgeoning her to death on the floor of their own bedroom. Michelle Young had no other enemies but the one she shared her bed with. You have to wonder how much he actually loved Cassidy when he gave her up for his sake.”
He closed by suggesting the question before the jury wasn’t whether Jason did this, but whether jurors had enough evidence before them to say he did. “All we ask is you answer that simple question. And we look for justice for Michelle, for Cassidy, for Rylan, and, frankly, for all of us in that simple answer. Thank you.”
Holt then stood up to deliver the final argument of the trial. She began by focusing on Jason’s failure to cooperate with investigators, noting that he had no fewer than 1,693 days “to come up with the story that he told you in court yesterday. From November the 3rd of 2006 until June the 22nd of 2011.” And that was after he had the opportunity to review all of the investigative reports and listen to every other witness testify.
After all that, “he took the stand to tell you that on the night that his wife was murdered, he was asleep in a hotel room in Hillsville, Virginia,” the Assistant DA told jurors, incredulously.
“He didn’t tell that to investigators on November the 3rd of 2006,” she continued. He didn’t tell that to his family and friends on November the 3rd, 2006, or in the days, weeks, months, years that followed. He didn’t discuss his wife’s murder with his friends, with his family, or even Michelle Money, the woman with whom he was having an affair. … He expects you to believe the story that he told you from the witness stand 1,693 days later,” she told jurors, in a mocking tone.
Holt then walked the jury through the timeline of key events, with digital photos displayed on a large projection screen behind her: Jason and Michelle’s August 2003 civil ceremony; their formal wedding on October 10, 2003; Cassidy’s birth on March 29, 2004; and the purchase of their home at 5108 Birchleaf Drive in the summer of 2005.
She paused to discuss the email Jason sent to Genevieve Cargol in September 2006 and how, in that email, “He basically told her that he loved her and has always loved her and would love her forever.”
She recalled Cargol’s testimony of the incident in Texas, when she confronted Jason about his drinking and how he responded by wrestling her to the ground, pinning her arms behind her, and forcibly removing her engagement ring.
“What you know,” the prosecutor continued, “is that that was not the first incident of violence between Genevieve and Jason, that there had been a prior event where he took his hand and punched her windshield with such force that it broke.”
Holt reminded jurors of Jason’s intimate weekend with Michelle Money in early October 2006 and the heated argument between Jason and Michelle during and after their belated anniversary dinner, leading him to angrily tell his wife the next morning, “‘I’m done. I’m through with this.’” She also highlighted Jason’s infidelity with Carol Anne Sowerby the following weekend and yet another ring incident with her. And then the November 1 TV remote incident, leading his wife, this time, to say, “I can’t do this anymore.”
She then turned to the evening before the murder, showing the jury the still image of Jason checking out at the Cracker Barrel wearing a cream-colored, Henley-type shirt, dark pants, and dark brown shoes. The projection screen then displayed several images of Jason at the Hampton Inn: his check-in at the front desk at 10:54 p.m. wearing the same clothes; his second appearance at the front desk at 11:59 p.m., this time wearing a dark sweater-type shirt with the thin, white stripe investigators would never find; followed by still images of Jason walking down the western hallway toward the exit. He left the hotel, Holt argued, to travel to Raleigh to kill his wife.
She contended Jason drugged Cassidy with a combination of adult strength Tylenol and Pancof PD because he planned to leave her in the house and didn’t want to harm her. “What robber, what intruder,” she asked rhetorically, “would have taken the time to deal with the child?” It made no sense for Jason to print off the Coach purses from eBay, Holt argued, because their third anniversary had already passed. Rather, he printed them off—and left them behind—she asserted, to have a reason to call Meredith to get her inside the house.
Holt recounted Jason’s “unfortunate mistake of getting mad and getting angry and cussing out a clerk. Why is that important? That is important because she remembe
red him, Gracie Dahms Bailey at the Four Brothers Amoco in King, North Carolina, remembered the defendant coming in.” Jason paid in cash, she suggested, so no one would know about the purchase. “He didn’t want you to know about the cash purchase in King, North Carolina, and you probably never would have, had he not yelled at that clerk and made such an impression.”
The gas purchases revealed on Jason’s credit card, she argued, were merely the ones “he wants you to know about.” But that didn’t mean he hadn’t made others, including during the time he supposedly got lost on his way to his sales meeting in Clintwood, Virginia—which was how Holt responded to Collins’ contention Jason would have run out of gas long before stopping to refuel in Duffield, Virginia.
Working her way through the timeline on November 3, the prosecutor stopped to play Jason’s voicemail message to Meredith at 12:14 p.m., in which he asked her to stop by the house to retrieve the eBay printouts; and then his second message to Meredith at 1:37 p.m. to make sure she had done so. It was clear, she told the jury, Jason was “desperate to make sure someone has gone and recovered Cassidy.”
By that evening, she continued, Jason was already refusing to speak with the police. “And in the days, weeks, and months that follow, the defendant doesn’t call the investigators, he doesn’t ask questions, he doesn’t talk to his friends and family.”
Having completed the timeline—which occupied the bulk of her closing argument—Holt turned her attention to motive. Why did Jason want Michelle dead? She suggested to jurors he didn’t want his mother-in-law moving into the house after Rylan was born. “He didn’t want to be pinned down,” but rather, “wanted to live as a single person and you know that because of his actions.”
“He has taken the stand and told you that he loved his wife and that he was working on his marriage,” the Assistant DA said, in utter disbelief. “Everything that you have heard is contrary to that. How are you working on your marriage when you’re contacting old girlfriends and telling them that they’re the love of your life and you’re having sex the week before in the same house, when you’re involved in an affair, where you talked more than 400 times in a month?”
Jason killed Michelle—rather than divorcing her—Holt argued, because he concluded “it would be worse to be divorced from Michelle than to be married.”
“He told Josh Dalton,” she reminded jurors, “‘If I divorce her, she will move to New York and take Cassidy.’ He couldn’t have that.” And even if Jason did love his daughter, he “loved Jason Young more than Cassidy because when it came down to it, rather than answer questions, rather than submit to a sworn statement, he gave up Cassidy. And in those 1,693 days, he didn’t tell anybody that he was at the hotel sleeping … but he expects you to believe that because now it is contrived so that he can take care and explain away every piece of evidence.”
Turning to Jason’s shoes, she argued, “Don’t you know that he knew he had to answer where those Hush Puppy shoes were? Don’t you know he knew that was coming? But what was his answer to that? ‘I’m pretty darn sure that Michelle either threw those away or gave them to charity.’” She told the jury Jason knew “exactly where they are ‘cause he threw them away. … He had to get rid of those Hush Puppies. He had to get rid of that shirt. He had to dispose of them and then he had to make sure that someone came to discover Cassidy.”
As she began wrapping up, Holt implored the jury not to believe Jason’s eleventh-hour testimony: “Tell Jason Young by your verdict that you’re not buying what he’s trying to sell. Tell Jason Young that his story and his tears on this witness stand were too little, too late.”
Working herself up to a fever pitch, she ended with a cry for justice: “Tell Jason Young that there will be justice for Michelle. Tell Jason Young that there will be justice for Cassidy. That there will be justice for Rylan. Tell Jason Young that he is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of the first-degree murder of Michelle Marie Fisher Young. Thank you.”
With that, Holt took her seat, leaving Jason’s fate in the hands of twelve complete strangers. Had she and Saacks done enough to convince them to return a verdict in their—and Michelle’s—favor? Or had Jason, Collins, and Klinkosum been more persuasive? The next few days would answer those questions—as well as determine the fate of Jason Lynn Young.
18
Jury
Jury deliberations represent an abrupt reversal of the trial process. The jury suddenly assumes control of the case the moment it is set free to deliberate, while the judge and lawyers relinquish control.
For the first time, jurors get to speak and have their voices heard, while the activity inside the courtroom comes to a screeching halt. For the defendant, lawyers, and families waiting on the other side of the jury room door, time seems to stand still. The anxiety and tension are often so palpable, they are almost debilitating.
In a trial involving one spouse accused of killing the other, the anguish experienced by both sets of families reaches a crescendo at the precise moment the defendant’s fate is placed in the jury’s hands. Linda and Meredith had waited over three years for Jason’s arrest and another eighteen months for him to be brought to trial. Their quest for justice had been arduous and at times excruciating. And here they were, moments away from what they hoped would be closure. And justice. But the fear that haunted them was that they would get neither.
Meanwhile, Pat Young and her daughters Kim and Heather clung to the hope that the jury would set Jason free. That he would finally have his life back. And that he would once again be part of their birthday and holiday gatherings at Pat’s home in Brevard. With luck, they hoped, Cassidy would be able to join them as well. But by the same token, they knew there was every possibility the jury’s verdict could result in Jason spending the rest of his life in prison. The difference between those two possibilities could hardly have been more extreme.
It wasn’t just Jason Young and the two families whose fate was hanging in the balance. Sheriff Donnie Harrison and his team of deputies and detectives—most notably Sergeant Spivey—had invested tremendous time and resources into the case for nearly five years. So, too, had the CCBI and virtually every section of the SBI crime lab. Sheriff Harrison, Sergeant Spivey, Agent Galloway, and every law enforcement officer and crime lab agent who testified at trial had their reputations riding on the jury’s verdict as well.
• • • • •
Jury deliberations began in earnest just after 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 23, after Judge Stephens recited some seventeen pages of instructions. The jury deliberated for about two hours before retiring for the day. When jurors returned that Friday morning, the judge had a dry erase board, flip chart, and plenty of markers deposited into the jury room to assist them with their task. With the weekend quickly approaching, there was great hope on both sides that there would soon be a verdict.
That hope was dashed at 1:30 p.m., just before the jury went to lunch. At that time, the bailiff handed Judge Stephens a lengthy note, penned by the foreperson, which contained nine separate requests. The jury asked to be provided still frames from the surveillance videos of Jason paying his bill at the Cracker Barrel in Greensboro as well as when he was walking down the western hallway at the Hampton Inn. Jurors asked to be provided still frames that clearly showed the shoes Jason was wearing.
They also asked for the photos of Cassidy’s third birthday party, which showed what Jason was wearing; crime scene photos of Cassidy’s bathroom; and photos of the exterior side of the emergency exit at the Hampton Inn, showing what was to the right of that exit door. They asked to review the transcript of Meredith’s call to the 911 dispatcher; LabCorp’s DNA analysis; the eBay and MapQuest printouts; and Jason’s September 2006 email to Genevieve Cargol.
Just before 3:00 p.m., the jury was ushered back into the courtroom. One by one, each item requested, except one, was either projected onto a large screen or passed through the jury box for jurors to examine individually. Because no photo had been entered into evidence sh
owing what was to the right of the Hampton Inn emergency exit door, however, Judge Stephens informed jurors he couldn’t accommodate that request.
After they had reviewed all the requested items, the jurors went back into the jury room for about ninety minutes, before indicating they were ready to go home for the weekend—without a verdict.
Jason, his family, Linda, and Meredith would have to wait at least another three days for their decision.
• • • • •
Monday, June 27, 2006, would prove to be a momentous—albeit heart-wrenching—day for everyone involved in the trial. After less than two hours of deliberations, the foreperson had the bailiff deliver another note to Judge Stephens.
The judge quietly reviewed the note and then invited all four lawyers to join him in chambers to discuss it. After about thirty minutes, the lawyers reemerged. As he was nearing his seat at his counsel table, Collins glanced at the gallery’s first pew and, spotting Pat Young, gave her a wink.
“Good news?” she wondered.
Judge Stephens then took his seat at the bench and read the jury’s note aloud:
“Your Honor, over the weekend I have looked up the responsibilities of a jury foreperson. One that stuck out was to act as a mediator and manager of this group of jurors. Unfortunately, at this time, we are at an impasse and appear to be immovably hung. We currently sit at a 6/6 ratio and do not appear to be able to make any further movement. Where do we go from here?”
Upon hearing the content of the note, Pat instantly understood the reason behind Collins’ wink. A sense of relief began washing over her. On the other side of the courtroom, Linda and Meredith were bewildered. They hadn’t fully considered the possibility of a hung jury. The anxiety they had been feeling since Thursday afternoon was quickly replaced by a sense of doom and despair.
Murder on Birchleaf Drive Page 23