A Fever in the Heart: And Other True Cases (27 page)

Would he testify? Murder defendants usually don't, but Turfy Pleasant had such an outgoing manner about him. He might make a good witness for himself, and then again, if he took the stand, he would risk opening himself up to Jeff Sullivan's fierce cross-examination. Time would tell.

Would Jerilee testify? And what about Anthony Pleasant and Kenny Marino?

They were rumored to be potential witnesses for the state. The players took their positions in the courtroom. Judge Carl Lay sat on an unfamiliar bench in Department 27 of King County. The six who would be present for the whole trial were seated at a long oak table. J. Adam Moore and Christopher Tait sat on either side of their client, Angelo Denny "Turfy" Pleasant. Yakima County Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey C.

Sullivan sat at the far end of the table next to Vern Henderson who would be the "friend of the court," the detective responsible for bringing in evidence and being available for consultation on the investigative facts. Deputy Prosecutor Mike Mcguigan sat to Henderson's right. First, a jury had to be selected. Monday, August 16, passed and only eight jurors were chosen. It would be Tuesday at noon before a full jury was seated. Eight women and four men, and three alternates two men and a woman.

Potential jurors who had demurred had done so because they didn't want to be tied up for two weeks or possibly three, not because they had formed opinions on the case. Adam Moore asked interesting questions of potential jurors.

"If'a' wants someone removed and he goes to B' and asks him to do the job, what kind of judgment would you make about A' and B?"" Moore asked one juror a question that spurred Sullivan to ask for a sidebar conference: "Have you ever known a man who became extremely jealous over a woman?" After the sidebar with Judge Carl Lay, there were no more questions in that vein from the defense. Moore also asked a potential juror, "Have you ever known anybody, who, out of loyalty, took the blame for something he did not do?" Jeff Sullivan shifted uneasily at that line of questioning, but he did not object. P.M. on August 17, Jeff sullivan rose to begin his opening statements. If ever opening statements were diametrically opposed regarding the facts of a case, those of Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan and defense lawyers Adam Moore and Chris Tait were. Sullivan's voice was disdainful as he paced in long strides in front of the jury box. He promised the jurors that the state would offer them proof that Angelo Pleasant was guilty of two murders, and that they would actually hear him confess to those murders on tape.

Sullivan told them that the defendant had killed Morris Blankenbaker "in cold blood" at the urging of his mentor and former coach. Then, Sullivan said, Pleasant had killed Moore himself because Moore "had a claw in him." There was no one else involved, Sullivan said bitingly. Only Turfy Pleasant. Jeff Sullivan was succinct as he gave the jurors two terrible scenarios of murder the first of the night Morris was killed and the second of the Christmas Eve shooting of Gabby Moore. The prosecutor spoke for thirty-five minutes, as a hushed courtroom listened avidly. It was the first time Olive Blankenbaker had really heard her son's death described. It was difficult to listen, but she could not not listen, this was what she had come to Seattle to do, to hear all the evidence and, hopefully, to see justice done. Sullivan explained how Gabby Moore had told Turfy Pleasant on November 21, "If you're going to do it, tonight's the night." The prosecutor described Morris's arrival home after work, the familiar voice calling to him from the alley, and then the shot that hit him in the mouth, knocking out several teeth, before it lodged in his spine. The second bullet had struck him behind the left ear, and the third in the back of the head. Sullivan said that on Christmas Eve, Gabby Moore had coerced Turfy into retrieving that same gun by threatening to turn him in to the Yakima Police, his finger poised over the final digit of the police number. Turfy had gone back to his cousin's, Sullivan said, retrieved the. 22, and returned to Moore's apartment later. According to Sullivan, he had found his brother and Stoney Morton there, although they didn't stay long. A short time later, Turfy had shot Gabby Moore from a distance of nine inches. There should be no going back, the prosecutor stressed. Turfy Pleasant had confessed twice. Within days of Turfy's arrest, he had described both murder sand on tape. More long-winded and perhaps a bit more histrionic, Adam Moore and Chris Tait painted Turfy Pleasant as an innocent man, almost a saint, a family man who had confessed to two murders only to protect his younger brother and his best friend. For an hour and a half, the defense team gave their version of the murders. Yes, they readily acknowledged, Turfy had known about Gabby's plan to kill Morris, but he had absolutely refused to have any part in it. Chris Tait agreed with Jeff Sullivan's chronology of events on November 21, but only up to a point. Tait said that when Turfy left the Red Lion, he was with his brother Anthony. The Colt Woodsman. 22 was under the front seat of Turfy's car. In this scenario, the two brothers drove around for a while and then Anthony had said he wanted to go visit Morris. Turfy had obliged him and parked on Lincoln Avenue, a half block away from Morris's house. Yes, Turfy had seen his younger brother take something from beneath the seat, but he thought it was only a beer. That's what Anthony had been drinking during the evening. When they saw Morris's car pulling up, both brothers had gotten out of their car. Here, the script for murder changed radically as it played out in the defense case. When they were a few feet apart, it had been Anthony who told Morris he wanted to talk to him about Jerilee. According to Chris Tait, Morris had said he didn't care to discuss her and had walked menacingly toward Anthony. It was at that point, Tait said, that Anthony Pleasant had pulled out the gun and shot Morris. Running away, the Pleasant brothers had driven off, promising never to tell anyone. They were "very close," Tait said.

Later, when Turfy was arrested, he was "willing to take the rap."

It was not until detectives bore down on him, saying they did not believe that he had acted alone that Turfy had changed his story and admitted to them that Anthony had killed Morris. His first confession had not been the truth, only the words of a brother trying to save a younger brother. Adam Moore rose to continue the defense's opening remarks. He explained how Gabby Moore had been killed. Moore listed four themes that sparked murder: jealousy, manipulation, loyalty. .. and irony. Gabby Moore had been living in a "fantasy world, consumed with the intent to get Jerilee back. It was more than he could hold up to. .

. the loss of her. .."

But, Moore said, Gabby's fantasy had "backfired." Jerilee had added up the facts and she suspected her ex-husband had had a hand in the murder of Morris, her once and future husband. Adam Moore gave Gabby grudging credit for being "clever in a bizarre way" when he planned his own shooting to take the suspicion off himself. Yes, on Christmas Eve he had demanded that Turfy go and get the same gun that had killed Morris and shoot him. But Turfy had refused adamantly. Yes, Turfy had stayed on talking with Gabby after Anthony and Stoney had left Gabby's apartment.

Gabby had received a phone call and that call, said Adam Moore, was from Kenny Marino. Gabby had not wanted to discuss it with Turfy, but Turfy had said he was upset by the call. Later in the evening, this rendition of the "facts" went on, Kenny Marino had come over to Gabby's. By this time, Adam Moore said that Turfy had returned with the gun he had borrowed for the second time and he had given it to Gabby. When Kenny Marino came over, Turfy had urged Gabby to take a walk in the backyard with him to clear his head and to help him forget his wild plan about wanting Turfy to shoot him. Apparently unconvinced, Gabby had walked into the house, while Turfy stayed outside, turning the situation over and over in his mind, trying to find some solution to Gabby's problem sand his own. And then, according to Adam Moore, Turfy had frozen in horror as a shot sounded inside. When he ran in, he had seen his best friend standing over their coach with the pistol in his hand. Gabby was lying on the kitchen floor with blood covering his T-shirt. "Merry Christmas, everyone," Adam Moore said sarcastically, with a wave of his hand. But Moore wasn't quite through. According to the defense attorney, Turfy had promised Kenny Marino that he would take the rap for him too.

Turfy had said since he had no previous record, the court would go easy on him. The jurors sat expressionless as all jurors, everywhere, always do.

What could they be thinking? The two versions of the murders were so disparate. Was it possible that the young man at the defense table was so good-hearted and generous of spirit that he would risk giving up years of his own life to keep his younger brother and best friend out of prison? Or was it possible that he really had shot an old friend in cold blood and then turned on the coach he had once loved in a panic that he might be discovered? The jurors had weeks of testimony to listen to.

Maybe the truth would filter out like clear water from a silty stream.

Adam Moore had either mis spoken in the last part of his dramatic opening remarks, or he was not aware of the details of the crime scene that Sergeant Bob Brimmer and Detective Howard Cyr had noted. Kenny Marino could not have been standing over a body dressed in a bloody T-shirt. There had been no blood on Gabby's T-shirt not a speck of it not until Brimmer and Cyr had lifted his body to turn it over. Then it had gushed out, quarts of it.

But, by then, the killeror killers were long gone.

The prosecution began its case. Whenever possible, a good prosecution case begins with witnesses whose words can reconstruct the ambiance of the crime scene, using exhibits and evidence that will draw the jurors back in time to the moment of murder. It was the middle of an unusually hot summer in Seattle. To step from the marble halls of the King County Courthouse into the late afternoon heat was akin to walking into a sauna. What Jeff Sullivan had to do was summon up the icy dawn the November before in Yakima, and then the snowy Christmas Eve that followed. He had to make the jurors shiver involuntarily, even as they perspired in fact. He needed to let them feel the shock Morris's apartment house neighbors had felt when they heard Jerilee scream. They had to "hear" the screams themselves.

Gerda Lenberg, Dale Soost, and Rowland Seal were only the first of dozens of witnesses who would make their way across the mountains to Seattle so that they could fill in their personal "segments" in a giant mosaic of murder. Since the jurors were from the Seattle area and not familiar with the streets of Yakima, Jeff Sullivan provided an easel with a large sheet of white paper so that addresses, streets, and directions could be drawn in by witnesses. Gerda Lenberg picked up a crayon and made the first marks on the pristine white. "Five-oh-six East Lincoln," she said, drawing in the location of her duplex. "That's Lincoln Avenue there and the alley runs north and south down here like this. (She drew a line south from her home to the other end of the alley, marking Lincoln Avenue where it ran east and west.) This would be B' Street here."

"Okay," the prosecutor nodded. "Would you draw the "Right there on the corner. .. right on the alley." (She drew a rectangle where the alley connected with Lincoln Avenue.) Gerda had heard the footsteps and the "firecrackers" between "five, six, seven minutes after two." She had heard only one person running. She was sure of that.

Adam Moore rose to cross-examine, and the tone of the defense soon became evident. Turfy Pleasant's attorneys would attempt to convince the jury that the police and prosecutors had unduly influenced witnesses. It is a standard and often effective technique. Any prosecutor, or defense attorney, will talk to his witnesses before trial, but nervous witnesses can be made to feel that they should not have spoken to anyone. "In your statement," Moore asked, "on March second. .. you don't say how many people. .. were making footsteps, do you? Since then have you talked to Mr. Sullivan or any policeman about this?" Mrs. Lenberg gave an odd non sequitur answer: "Just when I shut my eyes and looked back on the night, and I can hear the echo because of the close proximity of the buildings.

.. and I just heard one echo."

"My question was: Did you talk to Mr. Sullivan or any of the policemen before getting on the stand about how many footsteps you thought there were?" Gerda knew what she knew, and she said she had told that to one detective. Moore cut her off, asking about gravel and the interval between one foot and then the other hitting. It was not gravel, she said, but blacktop. She was a good prosecution witness.

So was Dale Soost. He had heard three shots sometime between midnight and 4:15 A.M. He had not looked at the clock. He had heard the woman scream as he waited on the sidewalk around 5:00. He had not spoken to her or looked at the victim's body. "No questions," Moore said.

Rowland Seal spoke rapidly but with infinite precision. "I'm an auto body and fender mechanic," he said in answer to Sullivan's initial question. "With a great many very busy hobbies.... l manage a couple of duck clubs. I am a professional roller skating instructor, I teach trapshooting, shotgun shooting... I have friends in the Game Department and I do photography work for them, and keep track of wildlife counts, big game, birds and such as that." Sullivan had Seal draw the apartment house at 208 North Sixth on "State's Identification -2." (His and Soost's apartment house was on the opposite end of the alley from Gerda Lenberg's.) "Were you awakened sometime during the night?" Where Soost had been vague, Seal was right on the mark. "A few seconds before two-oh-five in the morning"

"How did you know it was a few seconds before two-oh five?"

"Well, I have a digital watch and digital clock next to my bed that I cross-checked the next morning. .. and I heard three shots bang, bang-bang, and I and my wife both looked at the clock immediately, so I would say I was awakened a few seconds before the length of time it takes you to come back down on the bed and turn over and look at the clock." Seal had peered from his window, but he said he could not have seen Morris Blankenbaker lying dead in his side yard. The cones of lights from the porches and the alley all ended before they came to that part of the yard. Rowland Seal had walked along the apartment house side of the wire fence and seen the dead man, and he had tried to talk with the screaming woman, who could not be comforted. "She was very hysterical," he testified. "That's why I was rather blunt with her to kind of get her to do something and get her settled down.... She was in front of the house and I said, Get in there and call the police or I will." And I said, Well, if you aren't going to do it, I will." So I started into the house started toward the step sand the dog wouldn't let me in." Rowland Seal was an excellent witness. His recall was obviously as set as Jell-O, and Chris Tait said quietly, "No questions." The first three witnesses had described how it was in the wee hours of the Friday night/Saturday morning when Morris Blankenbaker died. Each had heard something slightly different, but their testimony meshed. Gerda Lenberg spoke of hearing the "firecrackers," and the sound of running feet with hollow-sounding heels in the alley just outside her bedroom window. Dale Soost had heard shots and gone back to sleep. Rowland Seal, punctilious and precise, knew the number of shots, the exact time he had heard them.