Blues in the Night (23 page)
thirty-eight
The defense had only two witnesses, Korwin and Lenore. The psychiatrist’s testimony corroborated a diagnosis of postpartum psychosis, and Donna Bergen was unable to gain any ground.
MS. BERGEN: Dr. Korwin, have you ever had a patient who fabricated?
A: Patients lie all the time. It’s my job to separate fiction from truth.
Q: And you’ve never been fooled?
A: Not to my knowledge.
Q: So it’s possible that you
may
have been fooled.
A: Anything’s possible, Ms. Bergen. But Lenore Saunders didn’t fool me. She shook her child when she was experiencing a psychotic episode.
Q: You’d stake your reputation on that?
A: I thought we were in a courtroom, Ms. Bergen, not Vegas. But yes, I would. She loved her child deeply and would never have done anything to hurt him.
Korwin couldn’t have been more emphatic. I was impatient to hear Lenore’s story in her own words, to read the lies that, according to Donna Bergen, had worried him.
“I wanted stability,” Lenore told Chapman and the jury after he’d led her through the trauma of her childhood. “I wanted a family like everybody else, but I didn’t have it. Looking back, I think I was depressed. I guess that’s why I loved acting so much. It gave me a chance to forget my problems, to be somebody else.”
She talked about meeting Robbie, falling in love.
“How did you feel when you found out you were pregnant, Lenore?” Chapman asked.
“Nervous,” she admitted. “I didn’t know how Robbie would react, and I was afraid of raising a child on my own. I didn’t want to repeat my mother’s mistake. I wanted my child to have two parents. But Robbie was wonderful. He insisted that we get married right away.”
“Were you looking forward to having the baby?”
“Very much. I wanted to be a good mother. I wanted to provide our baby with love and security, with a stable home.”
“The very things you didn’t have growing up,” Chapman said. “So what happened, Lenore?”
“After the baby was born, I felt miserable. It wasn’t what I’d expected.” She talked about the crying, the sleeplessness, the listlessness, the anxiety. “I thought it was the baby blues, that they were just lasting longer.”
“Your husband testified that he wanted to hire a full-time nurse, but you objected,” Chapman said.
“I thought I’d feel better, and I wanted to take care of the baby myself, I guess because my mom wasn’t around much for me when I was young. I didn’t want strangers taking care of my baby.”
“Did you tell your pediatrician your concerns?”
“I tried to. He said I’d feel better as soon as the baby slept through the night. He said that a lot of new mothers felt like this.”
“Did you tell him about hearing frightening voices?”
“No. The voice said not to tell anyone.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?”
“No.”
“Not even your husband?”
“The voice said not to tell anyone, not to trust anyone, even the doctors. Not even Robbie.”
“There are books and articles on postpartum depression and psychosis, Lenore. There have been television shows on the subject, and it’s been on the news. Why didn’t you get help?”
“I didn’t read those books,” she said. “I didn’t watch those shows. They’re too frightening. I heard about postpartum depression, but I never connected it with what I was going through. I thought the voices I heard were real.”
She lied.
My mind flashed to the books Lenore had been seen reading in the library, and my face burned as though she’d slapped me.
“When Max was born,” Chapman said, “the hospital gave you a pamphlet about postpartum illness with a number to call for help.”
“I didn’t read the pamphlet. I didn’t keep it. I didn’t know I was ill. I thought the voices were real.”
“What happened on that Thursday, Lenore?” Chapman asked.
She’d had a rough night, and the baby hadn’t stopped crying all day. She’d wanted to get some sleep, but the housekeeper hadn’t showed. So she’d rocked the baby all day, and then toward evening, she’d heard voices saying strange things. Horrible things.
“It was a deep voice, a male voice, coming from inside the baby. I’d heard the voice a few days before, but not this strong.”
“What things did the voice say?” Chapman asked.
“He said there was an evil spirit trying to kill the baby and me. He said the evil was growing and would kill us soon. I knew then that’s why the baby was crying so much, because this thing was inside him. I knew I had to shake it out of him or we would all die.”
“Lenore, there are people who think you shook your baby so hard that he died because you were frustrated and lost control. They say you pretended to hear voices because you were afraid you’d be punished.”
“I had to shake Max to save him. I didn’t shake him because I was frustrated.”
“That made sense to you?”
“At the time it made perfect sense. I loved my baby. I would never do anything to hurt him. I wanted him to be safe.”
She said it over and over, every chance she had, during the remainder of Chapman’s questioning and during Bergen’s long, relentless cross-examination. “I love my baby. I would never do anything to harm my baby.”
MS. BERGEN: Mrs. Saunders, when did you first hear these voices?
A: I think it was on Tuesday.
Q: Tuesday, March 5?
A: Yes.
Q: And what did you do?
A: I didn’t know what to do. I asked Robbie if he thought the baby sounded normal. Robbie didn’t hear anything, so I thought I was just overtired.
Q: But you didn’t tell him you’d heard strange voices.
A: No.
Q: On Thursday, March 7, two days later, what time did you start hearing these voices?
A: Sometime in the early evening.
Q: Can you be more specific?
A: I’m sorry. I don’t remember.
Q: They worried you?
A: Yes. I was terribly frightened.
Q: Why didn’t you phone your husband and ask him to come home?
A: The voice said not to.
Q: Did you talk to your husband earlier in the day?
A: Yes, he phoned me in the afternoon.
Q: What time was that?
A: I don’t remember.
Q:Your husband testified that it was around three o’clock. Does that sound right?
A: I guess so. He would know.
Q:And you didn’t mention the voices to him at that time?
A: I didn’t hear them at that time. I started hearing them later.
Q:Actually, Mrs. Saunders, during the preliminary hearing you stated that you’d phoned your husband and told him you were nervous.
A: I may have.
Q: Did you phone him, or did he phone you?
A: I don’t remember everything that happened during the day clearly. I was very tired. I’d been up all night with the baby.
Q: But you remember talking to your husband?
A: Yes.
Q: And you told him you were worried.
A: I may have.
Q: But you didn’t mention the voices.
A: No.
Q: Did you phone your husband later that day?
A: No.
Q: Because the voices told you not to call him?
A: Yes.
Q: And you did everything the voices told you to do?
A: Yes.
Q: So you didn’t phone anyone?
A: No, I don’t remember calling anyone.
The prosecutor introduced into evidence Robert Saunders’s cell phone records for that Thursday, then gave a copy to Lenore.
MS. BERGEN: Looking at page seven, the eighth line. The phone number highlighted in yellow is the number from which a call was placed to your husband’s cellular phone at five twenty-six in the evening and a message was left. Do you recognize that number?
A: Yes. It’s our home number.
Q: You testified that you were home alone in the house, that the housekeeper wasn’t there. Is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: So Mrs. Saunders, can you tell us who made that call to your husband’s cellular phone?
A: I don’t know.
Q: Did the voices make the call?
FROM MR. CHAPMAN: Objection!
MS. BERGEN: I’ll withdraw that. Can you explain the phone call, Mrs. Saunders?
A: It’s what I said before. I guess I must have called him. I don’t remember doing it.
Q: You don’t remember doing it.
A: No.
I could imagine Donna Bergen’s sarcasm and assumed the jury had heard it, too. Yet, judging by the manslaughter verdict, they’d believed Lenore. So, obviously, had the judge. In spite of the sarcasm, or because of it?
MS. BERGEN: Your husband testified that he phoned you a little before six o’clock that evening, but you didn’t answer.
A: I was probably sleeping.
Q:You testified earlier that you were exhausted that day because you hadn’t been able to sleep for even five minutes.
A: I tried lying down. I may have fallen asleep for a few minutes. I don’t really remember.
Q:Maybe you didn’t answer the phone because you were shaking the baby.
A: I don’t remember hearing the phone.
Q: Mrs. Saunders, what were you doing when you first heard the voices?
A: I don’t remember exactly. I think I was lying down.
Q: What did the voices sound like?
A: They were male voices. They were loud and angry.
Q:Can you demonstrate for the court what they sounded like?
A: I—I can’t.
Q: Why can’t you?
A: I have no sense of it now.
Q: Maybe that’s because you never heard them.
A: I heard them, but I have no sense of it now.
It was an odd phrase, I thought, yet strangely familiar. I wondered why.
MS. BERGEN: Where was the baby when you heard the voices?
A: He was in his crib.
Q: During the preliminary hearing, you said you were holding him.
A: I took him out of the crib, and held him. That’s what I meant.
Q: But it’s not what you said. If he was saying terrible things, and you thought something inside him was going to kill you, why would you take him out of the crib?
A: I don’t remember everything exactly. I remember hearing the voices. I probably picked him up because he was crying, and then heard the voices.
Q: What did they tell you?
A: To kill the baby. They said the baby was evil.
Q: What did you do?
A: I loved my baby. I wanted to shake the evil out of him, to make the voices stop. I wanted to save the baby.
Q: You wanted to save the baby, so you shook him so hard you broke his neck?
A: I loved my baby. I had to save the baby.
Q: How long did you shake the baby?
A: I don’t know.
Q: Two minutes? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes?
A: I don’t remember. It didn’t seem like a long time.
Q:Long enough and hard enough to kill him. And then what happened?
A: And then the voices stopped.
Q: What did you do?
A: I think I put the baby in the crib, so he could rest.
Q:Your husband testified that he found you in the rocking chair, holding the baby.
A: I guess I must have picked him up again later. I don’t remember the details.
Q: It’s interesting that you remember exactly what the voices told you, but you don’t remember other things at all, like phoning your husband’s cell phone.
A: I heard the voices. They said I should kill my baby, so I had to save him.
Bubbie G says a liar must have a good memory. I could see why Donna Bergen hadn’t believed Lenore—I didn’t believe her—and why Korwin, hearing her testimony, might have been troubled.
I had wondered why the prosecution’s psychiatrist hadn’t testified, but I found Leonard Vogel’s testimony in the state’s rebuttal, after the defense rested its case.
Vogel insisted that Lenore had been fabricating; that there had been no prior history of bipolar disorder or manic depression typical of patients suffering from postpartum psychosis; that she had said nothing to her pediatrician about hearing anything strange in her baby’s cry. Chapman had brought up Lenore’s difficult childhood and suggested that depression hadn’t been diagnosed because she’d never sought help.
MR. CHAPMAN: Do you think that’s possible, Dr. Vogel?
A: Sure, it’s possible. But it’s a far cry, if you’ll excuse the pun, from general depression to postpartum psychosis. It’s a major leap.
MR. CHAPMAN: So you think Mrs. Saunders invented all this?
A: I do. It’s a great defense.
Q: And you’re basing your assumption on the fact that she didn’t mention hearing voices to her pediatrician?
A: That’s one of my reasons. It’s not the only one.
Q: Since Dr. List isn’t a mental health expert, is it possible that Mrs. Saunders was reluctant to reveal something she feared might make her sound crazy?
A: Sure, it’s possible. It’s equally possible that she didn’t say anything because she invented all that later after she realized she’d killed her baby.
Q: But it’s possible, Dr. Vogel?
A: Yes, it’s possible.
Q: And if the voices told a psychotic person not to tell anyone, including her doctor, would that person obey the voices?
A: If the person were truly psychotic, yes.
Even Vogel hadn’t suggested Donna Bergen’s theory: that Lenore had planned on killing Max. Bergen never brought it up either, not in her opening, and not in her closing statements, because it hadn’t occurred to her until after the trial was over.
She
did
raise all of the inconsistencies in Lenore’s testimony. She also raised the fact that Betty Rowan, the defendant’s mother, hadn’t testified for her daughter:
“Who better could have told us about Lenore Saunders’s devotion to her newborn son? Who better could have given us insight into the depression that supposedly afflicted the defendant throughout her adolescence and adulthood? Who better could have persuaded us that her daughter was telling the truth about the death of Max Saunders? I find it interesting that the defendant’s mother chose not to testify, don’t you? I can’t understand why, unless she didn’t believe her own daughter and knew that you and I would realize that if she took the stand.”
It was a powerful statement, and a compelling condemnation, but it hadn’t been compelling enough to persuade the jury to convict Lenore of second-degree murder. I was reading the rest of Donna Bergen’s closing statement and was annoyed when the phone rang, but my annoyance disappeared when I looked at my Caller ID.
