Buried Memories (26 page)

“She was wringing her hands,” Burris replied, “but there were four or five people in her trailer so I couldn’t sit down and talk with her. I went back the next day.”

“How did she appear then?”

“About the same. Didn’t appear in a grief-stricken manner, just a little nervous, uncomfortable. Tell you the truth, that made me feel a little nervous and uncomfortable.”

Bandy nodded as he paced toward the jury so Burris would have to aim his next answer in that direction. “Did she ask about insurance?”

“Yes. I told her I’d check and find out what kind of insurance there was with the city of Dallas.”

“So you had to return a third day?” Bandy clarified. “What did you find out about insurance?”

“I learned he had twice his annual salary, with a $15,000 life insurance policy on top of that. Plus, he had life insurance with Republic National Life which amounts to about $24,000.”

“Who was the beneficiary on these policies?”

“Betty Beets.”

On that note, Bandy passed the witness, and E. Ray stood to cross-examine.

“Okay, you go out and discuss insurance. Are you aware that she never drew any insurance?”

“Yes, sir,” Burris answered.

“Are you aware that it is alleged in this indictment that she
did
draw insurance?” E. Ray said, eyes wide with his own astonishment that the prosecution had lied.

“No, sir, I wasn’t aware.”

Bandy almost knocked his chair over as he rushed to stand and object. “That’s a misstatement of law, Your Honor!”

Judge Holland replied, “The jury will remember what the indictment said.”

“Did she cooperate with you?” E. Ray asked.

“Yes, sir.”

Having heard that Betty had too many people around her to talk with the chaplain on his first visit, E. Ray felt safe to ask, “The first time you was there, did Betty ask about insurance?”

“No,” Burris said, giving his answer to E. Ray’s final question.

Betty’s son, Robby Branson, the alleged accomplice to Jimmy Don’s murder, was the closest to being an eyewitness the court would ever find. Robby’s good looks compensated for his outdated, tan leisure suit.

Robby took the stand, never once looking at his mother, and Bandy led him through the scenario that he had previously told Bandy was the worst night of his life.

“When did you learn that your mother first planned to kill Jimmy Don?”

“It was just that night. We didn’t talk about it first. She just told me. Expected me to help her.” Robby was breathing hard and his words came out in short gasps.

“Start right before your mother told you about her plans.”

“I had been out riding my bike and went home to get a drink of water. That’s when she said she was going to shoot Jimmy Don.

“I was almost sick to my stomach. I couldn’t understand why she was doing this.”

Robby went on to describe the entire evening, and his answers didn’t waver from the first time he told the investigators about the night of the killing. He also explained the elaborate scheme with the boat that his mother had concocted the next day that served as her alibi.

Now E. Ray stood to cross-examine the witness. He strolled to the youth, looking sternly at Robby as if he hadn’t turned in his homework assignment on time.

“Did you ever tell anyone about the alleged shooting?”

“Yes, sir, my ex-wife. It was just bugging me and I thought I should tell her.”

“It was bugging you because you really killed Jimmy Don Beets with a handgun.”

Bandy and his assistant, Allen Boswell, were in shock. At the grand jury hearing, a rumor had circulated that E. Ray would attempt to pin both murders on Robby. After the hearing, Robby told the prosecution, “Just let them try. I never met Wayne Barker in my life. I was living with my dad then.”

Now Andrews had revised that scenario, labeling Robby only the killer of Jimmy Don Beets. The prosecution searched its collective minds for clues about Robby killing Jimmy Don, but there were none. No sister had hinted about Robby being the triggerman. They had uncovered no evidence suggesting Robby had a motive. And if Betty had been wrongly accused, E. Ray would have been screaming “false arrest” long before now. Still, E. Ray had a lot of fans in Henderson County, and some could have found their way to the jury, so the prosecution would have to start shooting holes in E. Ray’s new theory.

Now at the trial, Robby sat gasping at E. Ray’s accusation that he was the murderer. Finally, he shouted,

“No, sir!”

“Your mama and stepfather just got off a vacation. You didn’t always get along with Jimmy Don Beets.”

“Yes, I did,” he said defensively.

“Didn’t you hot-wire his boat while he was gone?” Andrews asked with an “I know you did this” tone to his voice.

“Yes, sir,” he said, his voice now quiet.

“Didn’t he really get hot about that?”

“We didn’t get into an argument,” Robby replied.

“He didn’t like it one bit, did he? You wrecked one of the motorcycles.”

“Yes, sir.”

Having set the stage, E. Ray said, “Okay. Take us back to August fifth now. Where was your mother in the house when she said, ‘I’m gonna kill him’?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Okay, your mother says she’s gonna kill Jimmy Don, and since she’s in the kitchen, you say, ‘Pass me something to eat.’ ”

“No, sir.”

“But it took you until right now, some two years later, to get religion, didn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“Buying your story, the State was right in on it. What did they offer you for your testimony?” E. Ray stepped closer to Robby as he questioned him.

“Nothing.”

“You went before the grand jury to testify against your own mama, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“So you could have a little soul cleaning. Put it on someone else. That would be just fine, wouldn’t it?” Now E. Ray stood only a few feet from Robby.

“No, sir.”

“You don’t care what happens to her. You don’t care if they put her to sleep, do you?”

“Yes, sir,” Robby said, frowning.

“You sure do. You know your mother never killed anyone. You know you did. You know your mother took up for you. You can come up here and say, she’s forty-eight. Let her die because my soul’s clean.”

Now E. Ray stood almost nose to nose with Robby. Bandy objected, saying Andrews was standing too close, badgering the witness.

Andrews waved his hand at the objection. “I’m tired,” he told the judge. “I’m gonna sit down anyway.” He went back to his chair, dropped into the seat, but continued the questioning.

“Robby, she took the rap for you. You called down here on the jail telephone and she asked if you told them everything. Remember that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But you didn’t tell them everything. You didn’t tell them that you killed Jimmy Don, did you?”

“I didn’t have no reason to tell them that I killed him ’cause I didn’t,” he said, his voice sounding like a pleading child’s who’d been unfairly blamed.

“You didn’t kill him, just like you didn’t have any arguments with him. You came down here to the DA with your story that your mother killed him and they let you go anywhere and live your life scot free. That’s what you got promised, didn’t you?”

“No, sir. They didn’t promise me anything.”

“You never come down to the jail. You completely abandoned the lady. How come you just kept this a big secret for a couple years?”

“Because I was protecting my mother.”

“Your mother was protecting you,” E. Ray fired back. “When have you been in trouble that she hasn’t helped you?”

“I was in trouble a couple times for burglary.”

Bandy jumped to his feet. “I object, Your Honor. This is not relevant to the case.”

“Branson’s credibility is certainly at stake,” E. Ray said.

When the judge overruled Bandy’s objection, he sat down, disgusted. It wasn’t fair. Andrews’s own credibility was at stake because he knew all of Robby’s legal problems, having defended him. Now he was using that confidential attorney-client information against his previous client.

Andrews pulled his lanky body out of his chair. His boots scuffed on the carpet as he closed in on Robby again. “It would be a lot easier if someone else took the trip, right, partner? Is that your mother?” E. Ray asked, as he pointed to Betty Beets, forcing Robby to look at her. “Has she always been good to you?”

“Up until now.”

“What’s she done to you now?”

“She’s lying now, saying that I killed him when she did.”

“She’s gonna take the stand. Does that surprise you?” E. Ray asked, a faint smile on his lips.

Robby glanced at his mother, but said nothing.

“In truth and in fact, you got into a fight with Jimmy Don Beets and shot him in the back of his head and buried him under the wishing well and tried to put the blame on your mother. Have you got anybody to say that you didn’t?”

“No, sir. There were no witnesses, unless she wants to come forward and say that she did it.”

“She’s going to take the witness stand, my friend. I can promise you that.

“You say you told your wife. You weren’t married at the time you killed Jimmy Don Beets?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you understand what you just said?” Andrews gloated.

Bandy, enraged, stood up immediately and objected that E. Ray would try a basic trick question like that.

The judge sustained the objection and let Bandy explain to Robby that he had just been hoodwinked.

With a smug look because he got away with something, E. Ray Andrews turned Robby Branson over for Bandy’s redirect.

Bandy wanted to show Robby’s willingness to testify, to prove he had nothing to hide.

“You were subpoenaed to come here?” Bandy asked.

“I would have come anyway because I want to cover my back just like she’s trying to cover hers.”

Bandy said, “You weren’t subpoenaed to go to the grand jury, but you testified voluntarily.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that reply, Judge Holland closed the first day of the trial.

Robby Branson left the courtroom, and a television camera caught him with his arm around a pretty brunette. Robby continued down the courthouse’s marble staircase, appearing relieved as he chatted with his girlfriend and smiled broadly.

Bandy and Boswell went to the prosecutor’s office to consider Andrews’s surprise “Robby did it” angle. O’Brien followed them inside.

“There can’t be anything to it,” O’Brien said. “If it were true, E. Ray would have been screaming ‘false arrest’ when we picked up Betty. Besides, whoever killed Jimmy Don had to also have killed Barker, or Betty had loaned him the gun. And you just don’t have a couple different people wanting to start using Betty’s yard as a cemetery.”

“That has to be right,” Bandy said. “The bullets were identical. Let’s just see how this plays out. It wouldn’t be the first time E. Ray painted himself into a corner.”

TWENTY-FOUR

Shirley Thompson Stegner, the first person called when court reconvened the next day, ranked only second in importance to her brother Robby. DA Bandy led her through her mother’s planning to kill Jimmy Don.

“Your mother wanted you to help her? To be an accomplice to a murder she committed?” Bandy asked, as he stood near Betty so all eyes in the courtroom would be centered on her.

“I told her I wouldn’t help. She knew I didn’t want her to kill him.”

As the jury heard Shirley relate her role in the murders, she verified everything that Robby had told the court.

Afterward, Andrews jumbled the facts again.

He looked Shirley in the eye and said, “You didn’t like Jimmy Don Beets, did you?”

Shock painted her face. “That’s a lie, she said. “I cared very much for him.”

E. Ray placed his hands on his hips. In a stern voice he said, “I didn’t ask you to call me a liar.”

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I did care for him. He was the best stepfather I ever had.”

“Just a few minutes ago you said you conspired to murder him.”

“No, I didn’t,” Shirley said, visibly shaken. A chain-smoker, she had had to leave her beloved cigarettes outside, and her hands shook for the security of the nicotine between her fingers. “My mother had talked to me about killing him and I told her I didn’t want anything to do with it. I didn’t want to discuss it.”

On Bandy’s redirect, he asked Shirley, “If you thought Jimmy Don Beets’s life was in danger and you were so fond of him, how come you didn’t tell somebody?”

“Because I was afraid of my mother.”

“Has your mother ever done anything to you?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t.”

Betty, sitting close to E. Ray, frequently whispered in his ear. She seemed especially agitated by Shirley’s last remark.

Then Bandy stood in front of Shirley and said very slowly, “Has your mother ever put you in that kind of situation before?”

“Yes, sir.”

Knowing what was coming, Andrews rose to object, but Bandy asked the judge for permission to approach his bench.

After the judge excused the jury, Bandy presented the prosecution’s artillery to fight E. Ray’s accusation of Robby being the murderer. Bandy said, “Introducing the death of Doyle Wayne Barker becomes very relevant at this point. Here are two bodies that are inextricably entwined. Both men were shot by the same gun using the same type of bullets. This shows Betty’s design. Your Honor, this is very important because Shirley’s testimony can rebut the defense’s theory that Robby Branson murdered Mr. Beets.”

The judge agreed with the DA. E. Ray tore off his wire-rim glasses and objected, but Judge Holland reiterated that the testimony would continue. The bailiff strolled over and opened the door to the jury’s quarters.

Bandy began patiently and deliberately. “Shirley, I call your attention to October of 1981. You’re sitting around the campfire. Do you recall having a conversation with your mother at that time in reference to the killing of Doyle Wayne Barker?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What did she tell you?”

“She said she was going to kill him because he had beat her so many times and she just couldn’t stand it anymore. She said if they were to get a divorce he would end up with the trailer because it’s in his name.”