Before He Wakes (30 page)

Wainio was immediately on his feet, protesting angrily. “Your Honor, that is an inappropriate allegation. That was an incident that occurred over ten years ago. There was never any charges, never any allegation or anything suspicious at the time. We think this matter ought to stand on its own.”

Judge Watts brought a quick end to the wrangling. Bond, he said, would be $250,000.

Barbara turned to her parents with a helpless look. She knew that they didn’t have the resources to meet such a bond and would have a hard time coming up with it.

Reporters hurried from the courtroom as Barbara was being taken back to the jail on the top floor of the courthouse. By noon, people throughout central North Carolina would know that Barbara had another husband who had died “mysteriously.”

Wednesday morning’s
Durham Herald
not only made Evenson’s allegation front-page news, it reported the effect of that news. Russ’s friend Mike Wood, who had taken over as coach of his baseball team, said that the team was stunned. “You can see it in their eyes,” he said. “They don’t really know what to think.” The players not only admired Russ but loved him, Wood said, and so did he.

“He was like a brother to me. It hurt so bad when he died. It was like someone dropped a bomb on me. I want you to be sure to print one thing. Russ Stager was one of the best people I’ve ever known.”

As people in Durham were reading this story and hearing broadcasts about the court hearing, reporters were busy digging for new material.

Thursday’s
Raleigh News and Observer
quoted medical examiner Dr. Thomas B. Clark about Russ’s shooting: “We did not find the circumstances of the death and the autopsy findings to be consistent with an accidental death.”

That set off more news stories.

By Friday, four days after Barbara’s arrest, several newspapers and radio and television stations were reporting that Larry Ford had died, like Russ, from a .25-caliber bullet wound while alone with Barbara.

The weekend brought a respite to the news stories about Barbara, but Monday morning’s
News and Observer
kicked off a new barrage. Lynn Haessly had gone to the courthouse and gotten a copy of the search warrant Buchanan had typed up.

“
COURT RECORDS SAY MRS. STAGER UNFAITHFUL TO SPOUSES
,” said that morning’s headline.

That story was more than Greta Burch could take. Greta, a high school senior, lived near Barbara, who had worked with her father, a doctor at the Duke University Medical Center. Her mother had tried to help Barbara after Russ’s death. Her brother Josh was Jason’s best friend. She and Bryan were very close. They had carpooled to high school. She had driven to Wilmington to visit Bryan the day before Barbara was arrested.

On the day Barbara’s affair was revealed in the news, Greta wrote a letter to the editor of the
Herald
. It appeared the following morning.

It all started on Feb. 1. What seemed to be a tragic accident is now a travesty. What we hear from the media and law officers is totally one-sided. If we believe what has been reported and her indictment, the death of Russell Stager was not accidental and Mrs. Barbara Stager willingly murdered her husband.

When Russell Stager died, we all suffered, but none of us can say that we suffered as much as Barbara Stager. She has carried public accusation, her own guilt at the accident, her loneliness in the same bed, the burden of handling financial matters, being there for two sons and now arrest.

The newspaper reports that possible motives include other lovers and life insurance. I am so angry at the course this incident has taken.

As an 18-year-old, I looked up to Mr. and Mrs. Stager as having the neatest, most beautiful relationship a married couple could have. The accusation of Barbara having an affair cuts like a knife. I saw those two together every Friday night at the movies and Saturdays at the mall, at home watching movies, working out and just standing by each other. When could they have even thought about affairs?

Not only were Barbara’s parents unable to come up with the money and property to post her bond, they also were keenly aware that their daughter’s and their own financial situations would not allow her to hire an attorney. The expense would be immense.

They conferred with John Wainio about this, and he presented an alternative. Barbara could declare herself indigent and get a court-appointed attorney. He would do what he could to see that she got the best attorney possible. He already had one in mind: William Cotter.

Cotter had a reputation as a scrapper, a wiry opponent, qualities he had picked up while growing up in South Boston, Massachusetts, and during six years he had spent as an Army airborne officer. Cotter had served a combat tour in Vietnam before leaving the army for college and, eventually, Duke University Law School. Many lawyers shied from capital cases, but Cotter, a Red Sox fan, applied a baseball analogy: “You either step up to the plate and take the big cuts, or you don’t.” Consequently, some of the hardest murder pitches had come his way. He had just finished the grueling retrial of a high school student who had been accused of raping a nurse and stabbing her seventy-nine times, a case into which he had put many long hours, only to strike out. Already he was into another case in which his client was charged with killing a pizza-shop manager and a convenience-store clerk during robberies. He had no time for another big case right now. And that was what he told Wainio.

As the case continued to dominate the news, though, Cotter began to feel that Barbara was already being convicted in the press, and the compulsion that always brought him to the defense of underdogs caused him to call Wainio and tell him that he had changed his mind.

Wainio filed an indigency claim with the court, asking that lawyers be appointed to defend Barbara at public expense. The claim was heard on April 26 by Judge Thomas H. Lee, who had authorized the search of Barbara’s house. Barbara listed debts of more than $150,000, including the $92,000 mortgage on her house. Her assets were far less. Her salary at Duke was only $900 a month, she claimed, although she had listed it as $1,430 when making application for a loan a few months earlier. Judge Lee noted that it was unusual for someone who owned property to be indigent, but he granted the claim and appointed William Cotter to represent her.

North Carolina law requires that two lawyers represent anybody charged with a capital offense, and Lee appointed Richard Glaser, a thirty-three-year-old former assistant U.S. attorney in West Virginia, to work with Cotter on the case. Glaser never had tried a capital case but had handled appeals in such cases.

Immediately after their appointment, Cotter and Glaser took the elevator to the jail on the top floor of the courthouse to meet their new client. Barbara was waiting for them in a small interview room, wearing the bright orange coveralls that all prisoners were issued. She cried as she told her attorneys that she was not guilty of murdering her husband.

After his mother had been in jail two weeks, Jason, a seventh-grader, got fed up with the unrelenting barrage of news reports about her. He sent a letter to the editor of the
Herald
. It was published on Wednesday morning, May 4, under the headline “
MOTHER WAS FALSELY ACCUSED OF MURDER
.”

I am writing on behalf of my mother, Barbara Stager, who has been falsely accused of murdering my father, Russell Stager.

My mom has always been very considerate of our feelings, very loving and very understanding. She listened to our problems, talked to us about them and gave us wonderful advice.

She is a mother who had a good meal prepared at meal time, looked after our health and physical needs, who saw that we went to church and did all the things that helped us to grow up to be well-rounded and respectable individuals.

Our dad, Russ Stager, spent every possible minute with us and our mother. We saw our parents together and knew them as any kids know their parents. When our father died, we all suffered, but now we are glad he doesn’t know the badness of the people who are accusing his wife and our mother of such awful things.

This whole deal is very unbelievable. The outrageousness of these accusations is pitiful on the behalf of the law enforcement. Also, the news media and reporters seem to have no sensitivity. They call on the phone, crowd around us at court hearings and ask the same questions over and over again.

They have twisted this whole story around so much that it seems like a totally different story than what really happened on Feb. 1. The accusations that have been made make our parents’ life and our mother’s life sound like an unbelievable soap opera.

Our hearts have been broken by this ordeal. We love her and miss her very much. Friends, neighbors and relatives have all been very supportive with their prayers, visits, calls and letters, and we appreciate this, but the hurt in our hearts and minds won’t go away.

Barbara was very proud of Jason’s letter. She showed it off to her cellmates, telling them that Jason had written it by himself and without prompting.

The following day, Barbara and her family were back in court, this time with the support of many friends, as Cotter sought to get her bond reduced to $50,000 so that she could be released from jail.

Cotter had brought numerous witnesses to speak to Barbara’s character, and after several had given their testimonials, Barbara’s mother, Marva, told Judge Wiley F. Bowen that she and her husband, whom she called Norman, had been married for forty-one years. Their roots in Durham County, she said, were deep. She pointed out that she had two brothers and a sister, and her husband had two brothers and seven sisters, all of whom had remained in the county. Of Barbara’s thirteen first cousins, eleven still lived in Durham County, she said.

“I believe the only asset of any real value that you and your husband have is your house, is that correct?” Cotter asked.

“Yes, sir.”

And were they ready to put up their house to make Barbara’s bond? They were, Marva said.

Cotter noted that half a dozen others were in the courtroom willing to attest to Barbara’s good character and their certainty that she would return to stand trial if released on bond. The judge indicated that it wouldn’t be necessary to hear them.

Evenson opposed Cotter’s request with the same argument he had used earlier before another judge.

“I think the court needs to be aware of the fact that the state will offer evidence that tends to show that the defendant in this case committed two killings, both involving her husbands, both while they were lying in bed, with a .25-caliber pistol…. We feel when a person commits two such crimes that there’s a safety factor.”

Cotter was angry. He did not like Evenson and had told him so. The two had clashed many times over small cases, and Cotter thought that this was a cheap shot, typical of the way Evenson worked.

“Your Honor, the biggest problem I can see with this case already is the reckless attitude with which some people are treating it, and specifically the district attorney. To say that she committed two such crimes is appalling at this stage, and I suspect it’s just for the ears of the press, because she has never been charged with, anything other than this murder, this killing, in Durham County…. He’s got no business saying that she committed two of these crimes. She has never been charged with anything in Randolph County.”

Cotter went on to point out that Barbara had two children who needed her, and that Barbara’s arrest had created many hardships for her. Her younger son was having to stay with her parents. The Duke University Medical Center had suspended her from her job until the charge had been settled. She had no mortgage insurance and couldn’t make her house payments.

“She is going to have to go and find a job when she gets out,” he said.

Barbara would not flee if granted a bond reduction, Cotter assured the judge. “This is where her church is. This is where her friends are. This is where she was raised. This lady literally has no other place to go.”

The judge was quick in his decision.

“The motion,” he said, “is denied.”

That was Barbara’s worst day since her arrest. She had cried after bond was denied the first time and again when she learned that she wouldn’t be able to hire the lawyer she wanted. Now she returned to her bunk in Cell Block Three in the women’s wing of the jail and sobbed inconsolably. Several cellmates attempted to comfort her without success and left her to cry out her disappointment.

Barbara was the only white person in the women’s wing of the jail. She was older than the other prisoners, most of whom were awaiting trial on minor charges or serving short sentences. Her cellmates found her quiet and reticent at first, but gradually they drew her out, and Barbara became almost motherly to several, offering advice and consolation whenever they sought it.

Barbara ate little, often offering her food to others, her cellmates later would recall. She rarely ventured from her cell, except for visits, or when the telephone was brought around. She got lots of mail and spent much of her time in her bunk writing letters and reading romance novels.