Disturbed Ground (32 page)

Why wasn't he—or
anyone—
being charged as an accomplice?

CHAPTER34

Williamson had sketched the essentials of eight murders, but count nine remained. The troublesome one. For both sides, this count was pivotal. Ruth Munroe, as the only victim autopsied at the time of death, could shed critical light on the manner in which the others had died.

Forensic pathologist Gwen Flail, the doctor who had performed the autopsy on April 28, 1982, testified to the fatal levels of codeine and acetaminophen (or Tylenol) in Munroe's system. Initially, her death was deemed a suicide, then reclassified as "undetermined."

Dr. Hall went on to describe a curious "green, minty substance" in Munroe's stomach. This seemed rather innocuous in itself, but an ominous tie to murder was pending.

While these legal proceedings unfolded inside, two men and a pretty blonde waited in the hall with shallow breathing and wet palms. Named Clausen from her first marriage, these were Ruth Munroe's children. A decade had passed since their mother had breathed her last breath, but being here brought them fresh pain as they realized that she could be alive today—playing with her grandchildren—if it weren't for Dorothea Puente!

The prosecutor called them one by one, and after the impartial testimonies of bureaucrats and experts, these flesh-and-blood relatives electrified the court. Tall, wholesome, and good-looking, Allan Clausen took the stand, and Williamson led him through recollections of moving his mother into Dorothea Puente's F Street house on April 11, Easter Sunday, 1982. At that time, he said, his mother was strong and in good health.

They were a close family, and his mother, who was "spiritual" and "had the fear of God" did not believe in suicide, he said. "My mother always told me, if a person committed suicide, it would only hurt the family."

The prosecutor asked if she had been allergic to any medicines.

"Codeine and penicillin," came the answer, which would echo throughout the day.

When Williamson had no further questions, the court turned to the defense, but Clymo and Vlautin excused the witness. Munroe's children were not the ones to attack. They had another strategy.

William Clausen, the shorter, stockier brother, next described a loving woman who doted on her grandchildren. When she'd moved into Dorothea's house, he stated flatly
,
she was "healthy as a horse." But then her health had quickly deteriorated.

William stopped by the house to see his mother about four days before she died. "She looked nervous. She had a drink in her hand, which was out of character. She said Dorothea had given her a creme de menthe to calm her nerves."

This explained the curious "green, minty substance" found in his mother’s stomach. He shot Dorothea Puente a look of pure loathing.

Asked about the night before his mother's death, William Clausen spoke with a new edge to his voice. His mother was in bed when he arrived, and Dorothea told him that the doctor had just left. "The door was closed and she didn't want me to go in there." (He shot Dorothea another look.)

"Did you go into the room to see your mother?"

He did. He found his mother motionless, unable to speak. "Mom was lying there on her side, facing the wall. Her eyes were open, and I saw a tear come out of her eye."

The courtroom was utterly still.

"I told her, ‘It's okay. Dorothea will take care of you.'"
He swallowed and explained that Dorothea Puente had told the family that she was a nurse. She'd asked Munroe's children to trust her, "to accept her in, like a grandmother."

Next came Ruth Munroe's daughter, a lovely young woman named Rosemary Gibson, whose voice cracked with emotion.

Williamson asked if she had a lot of contact with her mother.

"Very much so," she said. "We were very close." She described her mother as "overweight, but healthy.”

"Did you see a change in her health?"

"Yes.”

"When?"

"In the last week," she said, with tears in her eyes, "in the last three or four or five days."

"Did you see her with liquor?"

"I didn't."

"Was your mother a drinker?"

"No, she wasn't a drinker."

Rosemary said she'd seen her mother the night before she died.

"Why didn't you call a doctor?" Williamson asked softly.

"Dorothea said she'd taken her to UC Davis, to emergency. She said that Mom was all stressed out, that they gave her a shot, and to leave her alone." Voice wavering, she went on, "Dorothea said, "She's okay, I can take care of her, don't worry about it.'"

In obvious distress, Rosemary described going into her mother's room to check on her that last night, not realizing that she was on her deathbed. She'd found her mother "sleeping real heavy," which was unusual. She hadn't woken up.

Again, Clymo had no questions.

Rosemary Gibson bolted from the courtroom.
Her family was waiting in the hall, and so was the media. With tears in
her eyes, she urged her brothers to hurry and they fled the courthouse.

Ruth Munroe's family had brought the hearing to a dramatic peak. And for the defense, this was dangerous testimony, the sort that would make jurors weep. If the other eight counts were the rope with which to hang their client, count nine was the noose.

Acting on that old axiom that the best defense is a good offense, they launched their attack, arguing that count nine should be dropped.
And unfortunately, the court records allowed ample room for debate.

In May 1982, shortly after Munroe's death, Dorothea Puente had been arrested and held in the county jail, but her case never came to trial, because the deputy DA handling the case offered a plea bargain: In exchange for her plea of guilty to four felony counts, two counts were dropped, and a possible homicide dismissed. Puente snapped it up, and all investigation into the suspicious death ceased. But the records referred to the alleged homicide victim only as Puente's "friend and acquaintance." Missing from the records was any specific
name.

It was outrageous but true.
And t
his omission allowed Clymo and Vlautin to contend that the individual in question was Ruth Munroe. Their client could not be charged with Munroe's murder, they said, since the matter had been resolved in 1982!

Impossible, Williamson countered. The victim in question was a woman by the name of Esther Busby (who had been drugged and robbed by her “nurse’s aid, Dorothea Montalvo, in 1981). It couldn't have been Munroe, he said, because it wasn't until August that the DA's office had been alerted to the possibility that Munroe had been murdered, shortly after Puente had been sentenced, and
a month after the plea bargain
.

Judge Ohanesian listened to both sides, pondering the legal boundaries before making a limited ruling, and the matter was addressed again the next day.

Williamson elicited testimony from former
Deputy DA William Wood, who had arranged the controversial plea bargain. Wood’s testimony was limited to the barest essentials, mostly case numbers and dates. With that, Williamson felt he'd given it his best. There was no jury, no real reason to posture or elaborate; the judge knew the issues. The prosecution rested.

While the state was required to make its case, the defense had no such burden. Why tip their hand? The preliminary hearing allowed them to explore the state's case, listen to the witnesses, find their weaknesses, and prepare for the battle that mattered: the trial. They weren't required to call a single witness, but the defense attorneys felt they had something to gain and little to lose.

First, with a handful of witnesses, they expunged the character of Brenda Trujillo—not a difficult task, considering her reputation as a liar and a drug addict. Then, to counter the testimony of Michelle Crowl, they called Paulina Pinson, the jail mate to whom Dorothea Puente had allegedly confessed her crimes. Pinson spat out contempt for Crowl, declaring that she'd never heard Puente utter any of the damning things Crowl had claimed.

(What would a jury think? "My ex-con is better than your ex-con?")

This was low-caliber fire; the real fight was still over count nine, which was too dangerous to ignore. The defense attorneys feared that Munroe's autopsy, coupled with the emotional testimonies of her children, might topple the other eight counts like dominoes.

They put former Deputy DA William Wood back on the stand, and Vlautin grilled him about the 1982 plea bargain. He essentially accused Wood of deliberately concealing the identity of the alleged homicide victim, even of purposely omitting the name when the plea was written up.

Williamson barked objections, but Wood had to stand up to these accusations. Seeming to brace himself in the witness box, Wood vehemently denied that Munroe had been named as the homicide. This was simply impossible, he declared, since Munroe's children had contacted him
after
the plea bargain, after seeing Puente's sentence written up in the newspaper. Wood even supplied dated memos to back him up.

Vlautin insinuated that Wood had fabricated these memos after the
fact. This was a slap to Wood, who had spent plenty of time in court, but didn't much care for being a witness. By the time he stepped off the stand, he was red and fuming.

But Vlautin was still calm and controlled. And with his next witness, Puente's unimpressive defense attorney from 1982, Dennis Porter, he would try another approach.

Waving the 1982 file before him, Vlautin quizzed Dorothea's former attorney about what was in it. Porter had long since abandoned confounding legal profession and had gone on to other business. Now, seeming positive about whatever it was he'd agreed to back in 1982, Porter gamely the testified that the alleged homicide was Ruth Munroe.

Williamson exploded, snatching the file out of Vlautin's hand and beseeching the judge to read it herself. He knew Munroe's name was nowhere in Porter's file, and he blew up at Vlautin, whom he accused of unethically misleading his own witness.

All this heat and noise over count nine boiled down to fundamentally different beliefs. Williamson, a man attuned to fine legal distinctions and trained to avoid even a whisper of unethical conduct, was outraged that Vlautin had put Porter on the stand and, in his view, knowingly allowed him to give false testimony. ("They'd pull my ticket [license] if I pulled that kind of thing," he growled afterward.)

But to the defense, it seemed the prosecutor had climbed up on his high horse for some unnecessary posturing. This was essential to their argument: Porter had failed to competently represent the plea bargain to his client. Even if the alleged homicide hadn't been Munroe, the other name, Esther Busby, hadn't penetrated Porter's brain, much less his file. So Dorothea Puente had
understood
that the deceased "friend and acquaintance" in question was Ruth Munroe, and to try her now for Munroe's murder was in violation of the 1982 plea bargain.

(Later, Williamson reluctantly gave them the benefit of the doubt, grumbling, "Maybe they don't see it as black-and-white as I do.")

For the rest of the prelim, the hostility between the attorneys hung in the air like a noxious vapor.

In a last-ditch effort to undermine count nine, the defense brusquely cross-examined Ruth Munroe's children, trying to shake their stories, particularly regarding timing. Indeed, each of them remembered the sequence of events a little differently, but the common theme was
the newspaper article: After reading about Puente's sentencing, they'd talked to Wood.

And if there were minor discrepancies in their stories, didn't this only strengthen their credibility? If they had been coached, or had concocted a story, wouldn't they have ironed out differences?