Dance of Death (28 page)

Bill Diggs must have lain awake all night thinking about damage control, for his first question of the day was so intimidating that it set the tone for the remainder of his cross-examination.

“Is it,
Detective
King?” he asked slyly.

Deputy solicitor Humphries' gentle questioning the day before suddenly gave way to a blistering cross-examination from the defense. Diggs came out of his corner swinging and went after King with a vengeance. In a loud, sometimes sarcastic voice, he pounced on the detective from the get-go. With a series of questions he asked with his back turned toward the witness, he began accusing King of having a role in purposely staging the times and places of Renee's interviews that put her at an unfair disadvantage.

It was a valiant effort—but, somehow, somewhere—Diggs got sidetracked. When King bucked up and refused to answer questions regarding simple information, to his satisfaction, Diggs lost his focus and King's cross-examination turned into an ugly slugfest. He kept firing his questions at King so fast and furious, often on insignificant matters, that they overlapped his answers, prompting Judge Cottingham to issue several harsh warnings.

“Are you gonna let me finish my answer?” King would shoot back at Diggs throughout his testimony when he tried to snowball him with rapid questions. A frustrated Diggs would respond with: “All I'm trying to ask you is . . . that's all I'm trying to get to.” Back and forth it went each time, until Diggs made the statement to King, “I understand how limited your knowledge is with respect to this case.”

Humphries jumped to his feet in a strong prosecution objection. “(He's) characterizing the testimony, Your Honor. That's improper and he knows it.”

Diggs didn't fare any better after that, and seemed to get deeper and deeper into a pissing contest with Sergeant King. But he never could land a solid punch. King led him around in circles, time and time again, until he was totally frustrated. Diggs took on the face of a law student who had just been told there was a pop quiz and he had studied the wrong chapter the night before.

“How many interviews did you conduct?” Diggs asked.

King looked at him as though he were confused. “How many interviews? Interviews that I had personally conducted?”

“Well, when I say you, in that sense, I mean the detective unit that was working on this case? However many detectives that may have been?”

“There were several interviews conducted,” King answered.

“Okay, could you tell me the individuals who were interviewed?”

“I don't have the names. No, I don't.”

“Do you know . . . ,” Diggs said, wagging his head like a dog. “Is there anybody in the Myrtle Beach Police Department that would have a list of the names of people who were interviewed by that investigative unit prior to your going to North Carolina?”

“Yes, it would be documented which investigator talked to who.”

“And who . . . who would have that documentation?”

“Whichever investigator was assisting in, in talking with these different people.”

Diggs took a deep breath. “All right. Did the investigators talk among themselves or did they construct this wall of silence between themselves?”

“I don't understand what you're talking about,” King responded. “‘A wall of silence'?”

“Did the . . . Did the detectives discuss this case among themselves and share information?”

“That's correct.”

“And did they share it with you?”

“I may have some of it. Yes.”

“And they may have shared it with you, but you just forgot it. Is that what you're saying?”

“No, that's not what I'm saying,” King shot back.

“Did they share it with you or not?”

“Like I said, I may have got some of the information. Yes.”

Diggs kept his back turned toward King. “Either you did or you did not, or you forgot it. Now which one is it? Did you get information from them or not?”

“No, sir,” the judge admonished Diggs. “You're not gonna limit him that way. He may explain his answer.”

“All right, certainly, I wish he would do that, Your Honor.”

King still wouldn't answer. After several questions, and getting the runaround, Diggs asked him again, with sarcasm as thick as karo syrup: “Did you get it or not? That's all I am asking. Can you tell us for sure if you got the information?”

“I'm telling you, Mr. Diggs. I may have got some of the information.”

“All right. And I—I . . . I concede that. You're doing the best you can. Is that correct?”

“Is that a question you're asking me?” King asked, catching his drift.

“Yes, sir. You're doing your best?”

King didn't respond, but the judge did. “That's a question for the jury,” Cottingham admonished the counselor. “Go ahead.”

Diggs grilled King further about how they determined John was a suspect. At one point, he asked, “Well, did you base your analysis on anything other than evidence that you were collecting? I mean, when you talk about this, was it like crystal balls or something?”

Eyes in the jury widened. The judge boomed, “That would be an improper question.”

“Well, I apologize for that,” Diggs conceded.

“That's totally improper,” Cottingham reminded him.

The jury's body language indicated Diggs had hit a sour note. His banter with Sergeant King did more to turn the jury off to his line of questioning than to turn them on. And to make matters worse, the remainder of his time would be spent in hurling spitballs at King, getting objections from the prosecution and then sparring with the judge. Cottingham even lost his patience with Diggs and his antics. After Diggs's persistent protest that King wasn't cooperating with him, Cottingham shouted, “No, sir, that's not true. The jury will determine that. Now don't argue with me. Get on with the question.”

Finally Diggs threw up his hands in despair and called it quits. “I don't have anything else. I'm gonna bring him back as a defense witness, Your Honor. At this point—”

Judge Cottingham wouldn't let him off the hook. “No, wait a minute.” He called Diggs back to the front of the courtroom. “Let this record reflect that I'm giving you unlimited opportunity to cross-examine this witness. I only say to you that question was answered, and the record will reflect it, on three separate occasions, and that's sufficient as to that question. Now, if you've got any more, have at it.”

“Your Honor, I don't have any more at this time,” a totally perturbed Diggs answered.

On redirect, Humphries again had no problem soliciting information from King. In questions about Renee and John's relationship, he worked the sergeant like a well-oiled machine. They were obviously on the same team, but more important, he knew what buttons of his to push and what buttons not to push.

Finally, after about five minutes of smooth sailing, Humphries asked King, “Did [Renee] later explain to you what she meant by her statement [of] ‘I kind of changed in that relationship'?”

“Yes.”

“How did she explain that change? Was it a change in her, the relationship or the character of the relationship?”

“It was a change in the relationship,” King answered.

Diggs objected, but the judge allowed it.

When King stated, “It became a sexual relationship,” Humphries made him repeat it again.

The prosecution was racking up big time, as Humphries and King continued to work off each other. The average juror had watched enough court cases on television and at the movies to know so many conspirators were inept at keeping their story straight and normally became very sloppy in their schemes. They were very surprised to hear Renee's lawyer Victor Leckowitz had allowed her to confess, unless he mistakenly thought she was innocent. Jurors were smart enough to understand the police can be overbearing, but not to the point where she would confess to an incriminating statement that could be used against her. She was obviously not the brightest bulb in the chandelier for not keeping her mouth shut, but it was a hard sale to say she invented a story because she was tired and wanted to go home.

Diggs's rhythm had been broken by King, and it clearly showed. When he had questioned the detective on the stand, it was like playing tennis with no one to return his serves. It wasn't fair to the defense. Diggs objected several times to the prosecution's line of questions related to Renee and John's relationship, but it didn't take root. King was a key witness, but every step Diggs took to go after him, he had been hammered. Finally, in desperation, he asked for a sidebar. The judge dismissed the jury.

“Your Honor,” Diggs stated candidly, “the question I have is I don't understand how the witness can testify that through his investigation he learned that the defendant supposedly was lying about a relationship [with Frazier] and the time limit or the length of it when the court will not permit him to tell me what he learned about the position of the body of Brent Poole when he was shot.”

“Well, you examined him exhaustively on that subject, Mr. Diggs. He told you and this jury at least three times, and perhaps five times, that he got his information only on the position of the body from the doctor.”

Diggs continued to protest for several minutes. “My objection is we've got a two . . . we're not . . . The solicitor can bring in information based on what the detective learned in his investigation, but I can't. And that's what I object to.”

When Diggs had exhausted his argument, Orrie West, his co-counselor, attempted to come to his aid. She didn't fare any better.

“No, ma'am. I'm gonna take one lawyer at a time now,” Cottingham advised her. West retreated to her seat at the defense table.

But Diggs stood his ground, arguing back and forth with the judge for another five minutes about how King was responding to his questions. “But, Your Honor,” he had said, “with all due respect, he didn't answer.... He gave an answer, but it wasn't responsive. I would ask Your Honor to direct him to answer the question.”

“He did,” Cottingham said impatiently. “The record is clear on that.... He answered it. Three times. No, sir. I'm through with that issue now, through with it.”

The morning had been a disaster for Renee Poole's defense. If it wasn't a revelation to her, it was to nearly everyone who mattered. The defense had never anticipated King's strength on the witness stand, and, as a result, they had been completely derailed.

In the second half of the morning's proceedings, the prosecution called another of its key witnesses, Detective Terry Altman. Just as the defense had finally settled their stomachs from their fiasco with King, another formidable opponent was taking the stand.

Solicitor Hembree began Altman's testimony by having him provide a detailed account of the night of Brent Poole's murder, what had taken place at the hospital between him and Dr. Duffy and his view of Renee's demeanor after she had been told her husband was dead.

“The first time I saw her [on the beach], she was just sitting there like this, with her hands clasped.” Altman mimicked her position. “She looked a little pale, but very nonemotional, not upset. . . .”

A few questions later, Hembree then asked Altman about her demeanor and her condition at 5:10
A.M
. when he went in to speak with her?

“She was very nonemotional and very calm,” Altman answered. “Her voice was just a steady monotone. She was just really sitting there. Just very nonemotional and calm.”

“Did it strike you as odd? Did her demeanor strike you as strange?”

Altman pulled at his tie. “Yeah, it really caught my attention.” He told the jury the impression he got was that it didn't really seem to make sense why she was calm and collected about what had happened. Her husband had just been shot, and she wasn't crying. Just calm. “Just like the jurors are sitting right now is how she was sitting. Just sitting there,” he marveled.

“Did you question her about that?” Hembree inquired.

“Yes, I did. I asked her . . . I told her that it seemed very strange that she was nonemotional and that she was not crying.”

“What was her response to you?”

Altman paused, then turned toward the jurors. “Her reply was that she had already done her crying.”

“How long had this been after the killing of her husband?”

Both West and Diggs rose in unison in protest. Cottingham agreed the question was improper. He advised the jury to disregard the question and that the phraseology of that question was totally improper. “Dismiss it from your mind,” he said.

In Altman's testimony, Hembree carried the jurors through the details of each of his interviews with Renee. The first time he had talked with her on June 10, she had told him it “could have been” John Frazier who shot her husband; then when he called her on June 11, she said, “When the suspect talked, it sounded like he was using black slang words.” Altman said he asked her if it was a black person who had robbed them, she said she didn't know.

Hembree had Altman step down from the witness stand and add six more pictures to the Styrofoam board resting on a tripod in front of the jurors, describing each place that Renee and Brent had visited the night before and where he had been killed.

Altman testified he heard from Renee again, on June 11, that she had called him to see how the investigation was going. Said she had brought up the fact that Brent had insurance, and when questioned as to the amount, she had said, $100,000. She also had indicated during that conversation there was going to be some other financial resources available to her in the way of a benefits package with Brent's employer, Mack Trucks.

The prosecution in this case never had to prove motive. But they had just supplied the jury with one: money!

Hembree then asked Altman to describe his meeting at the Davie County Sheriff's Office in Mocksville on June 12. Since his story coincided with Sergeant King's, the prosecution had planned on the jury listening to portions of the tape, rather than reviewing all of the testimony. Again they furnished headphones and typed transcripts for the jury and the press.

Altman was asked to set the stage for the taped interview. He stated that when she presented herself at Davie County, she was once again very calm and collected, and a little bit more confident and assertive in her answers. He clarified what had been going on with Renee's lawyers and what happened after the break. Prior to the break, she had been very vague with specifics as to the identity of the shooter. But after the break, she confessed that the shooter was John Frazier. It was then Sergeant King had called back to Myrtle Beach and a warrant was issued for John Frazier for murder and armed robbery and obstruction of justice for Renee.

Hembree wanted the jury to understand Renee had been charged and arrested at the wake for “obstruction of justice,” but not for “conspiracy to commit murder.” The conspiracy charge came about after Renee had been placed under arrest and interviewed in custody at the Winston-Salem Police Department on June 13.

“Again, what was her demeanor on this occasion?” Hembree asked in equally measured and precise tones.

“Very calm and collected still,” Altman said. “I think she was a little upset that she had been arrested, but very calm and very coherent of what was going on around her and where she was.”

The taped interview Hembree had planned on publishing was almost two hours long. Because it was nearly noon, Judge Cottingham offered Diggs the opportunity to interview Altman before the jury heard the tape.

On cross-examination, Diggs found the going much easier with Altman than he had with King. He reviewed Altman's involvement in Renee's interviews and discussed his motive. “Were you aware that officers in the police department had described Mrs. Poole as being in shock?” he asked.

Altman said he wasn't aware of that.

“Were you aware that they had described her as crying, uncontrollably so?”

“I don't remember anybody saying that, no.”

Diggs dug deeper. “All right. Do you remember them telling you that she had been trembling?” As with Detective King, he kept his back turned toward the witness, looking at the jurors for a nod of affirmation.

“Like I said, I don't remember anybody telling me that specifically.”

“Now, you're the lead detective in this case, are you not?” Diggs asked. Altman acknowledged he was. “And so you've seen those reports, have you not?”

“I've seen those reports, yes.”

Diggs then challenged if Altman had seen those references and characteristics in those reports, and that he had been in the courtroom for the trial and listened to the testimony of Officer Brown, then he should have known she was in shock. Altman claimed he had not read them and they were not fresh in his memory.

The defense scored on this point, but it was a moot point. And Diggs wanted something more. When he began questioning Altman about his method of interview, everyone in the courtroom recognized that he was going for the knockout.

“Are you telling the jury there was no intent on the part of the police department to kind of tag-team Renee at this point?”

Altman looked surprised. “I don't understand what you mean by that.”

“With first Detective King and then you?”

“I don't really understand what you mean by ‘tag team.'”

Diggs narrowed his eyes. “I mean him interviewing her at length and then you coming in and going over the same stuff again at length. Was there an intent and a design to bring that about?”

“No,” Altman quickly answered. “Like I said before, I didn't know all the facts of the case and I had to become educated, so to speak, of what was going on.” He stated John Frazier was not the primary suspect until after Renee's interview. That he wasn't convinced of that until after the one interview and the two telephone calls with her.

Diggs asked the detective how many times had Renee told him John Frazier was not the shooter. Altman said he didn't know, he had never counted them. Diggs also brought out the fact that Renee had had ineffective counsel during that interview. “Even on the tape itself that we just heard, he says, ‘Renee, that doesn't make sense.' Remember that?”

Altman had remembered him saying that.

“At one point, you have a conversation with Victor Leckowitz. At the conclusion of the interview. And he says something about having to go out of the country?”

Altman had heard him say that, too.

“Yeah, [and he said,] ‘Go ahead, and if you want to talk to Renee, you just go ahead and do whatever you want to do to wrap this thing up,' in effect. That's what he tells you, right?”

Altman had not heard that part, and told Diggs so. “No. He specifically told Renee that if we had any more questions, that he directed her to answer them.”

“All right,” Diggs said, “in effect to what I just said, ‘Go ahead and have at it. Wrap it up and get whatever you need from her and be done with it.'”

“Well, those are your words,” Altman returned. “His words were, if you have any more questions, he gave her permission to answer them.”

“The bottom line, there is no difference, is there?”

Altman said the way he saw it Leckowitz was telling her that if the police had any more questions, to answer them.

“And so with his blessings, you go ahead and do that?”

Altman agreed he had.

Diggs got through much of Renee's testimony and had Altman read a great deal of it back to the jury. But with all the different interviews she had had with the police, it was difficult for both Diggs and the jury to keep straight what was said in what interview. One point Diggs did make was when he got Altman to agree that it was vague, how Frazier had gotten in front of them, and that it was vague now.

“It was always vague,” Diggs added. “And what do we know any more today about how Brent was killed than we knew the first night that she talked to you about it?”

“Well, we know he was shot,” Altman quipped.

“Well, yes,” Diggs came back, “But on the vagueness issue, she's pretty much told the same—relayed the same events from the very first day until the last day she ever spoke about the case?”

Altman had to agree.

Renee had sat still during Altman's entire testimony. She looked straight at him, glaring, as if to say it was all his fault that she was sitting in this courtroom today.

After lunch, Hembree entered into evidence Renee's taped interview conducted on June 13, 1998. Again, as the prior day, Judge Cottingham issued a lengthy discourse to the jury in regard to the alleged statements of the defendant contained in the 148 pages of the transcript. Renee slumped in her chair at the defense table, listening to her life pass by as the drama played out before her. For the first time in her trial, she visibly broke down. As she listened to the detectives chisel away at her story until she finally laid out the entire scenario of how she had set up her husband's murder, she lowered her head and mopped her eyes with a white handkerchief. She had confessed no less than eight different times on tape of having conspired to her husband's murder. Some jurors wondered why she was crying at that point. Upon hearing the tape again in the courtroom, had it suddenly dawned upon her just how much trouble she had gotten herself into?

Another difficult problem the defense had was that key aspects against their client was in the form of taped interviews and they couldn't cross-examine the audiotapes. All they could do was cross-examine the officers who took the interviews. Diggs's recross of Altman was tough, as expected, though considerably different from King's. While in King's, Diggs had come out swinging, he paced himself with Altman, at times being nice to him and at times grilling him hard. The line of defense with which he had chosen to do battle against Altman was to discredit him as a professional for allowing her interviews to continue on the night of her husband's murder without Mirandizing her until he got what he wanted.

Altman said his position with Renee was treating her both as a victim and a witness at that time and he had no responsibility to Mirandize until she had become a suspect.

Continuing to play pit bull, Diggs went after Altman's experience and background. He got him to admit he had only been a detective two years when he had been assigned lead to the case and that he had never been to a specific homicide class, not even the first class on investigative techniques. Altman had attended a couple of interview classes on how to interview witnesses and suspects, but failed to identify any of the big names in interview techniques.

Diggs kept gnawing away. “Have you ever had any training or discussion with your superiors on how to play one codefendant against another?”

“No,” Altman answered.

“Have you ever had a class or any training or any seminar or any in-house instruction that tells you when you interview defendants, that you can lie to them?”

Altman frowned. “I don't remember any specific training on that. I think it's just a common knowledge that you can tell them certain things.”

“Who in your department has told you that you can lie to a defendant or a suspect or a witness?”

Altman shrugged. “Nobody has told me that.”

“All right, you have just assumed on your own that you could do that as part of proper police technique?”

“I don't think I've assumed it. I know I've heard it somewhere and I know that the technique has been used before.”

Diggs chewed on that a little longer, then asked him, “Do you remember where you heard it?”

“No. I sure don't.”

“All right, but you acknowledge to this jury now that you did lie to Renee during the interview that they just heard?”

Altman admitted he had told her some things that were not true.

“You lied to her,” Diggs growled.

“I did tell her some things that were not true” was all Altman was going to admit.

“And you knew they weren't true,” Diggs added.