Pam (2 page)

I didn’t want to take the stand at the trial. After all, what did I have to say? But they called me anyhow.

My father told me, “
Sharon
, I
know
you don’t want to believe this, but Pam is guilty as sin.”

All I kept thinking was, why?
Doesn’t a murder need motivation?

Sometimes a fit of rage and desperation is
all
the motive that is needed.

I hated the sme
ll of the District Attorney. He
smelled like cigarettes and gin.
As if I didn’t know he stopped for a drink during lunch break.

“You know who did this?”
h
e said. “That was what she told you. Officer Jones said so in his testimony. Why do you think she said that?”

I looked at Pam, her head
down;
she didn’t even look up to me.

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it true
t
hat Mrs.
Perkins
believed that a ghost of a murder
er
wandered her home and she told you she was scared it would possess
her?
”

“Objection.”

“Over
ruled.”

“Can you explain that?” The district attorney asked.

“It’s silly. We often had séances
,
and one night we thought we made contact.
We were trying to contact the reverend in the Rockland murders.” I shrugged, trying to pass it off. But I believed we made contact
,
b
ecause things flew about the room.

“Since the court doesn’t rec
ognize séances, can you tell us
what you and Mrs. Perkins
believed?
”

“That we made contact. Pam … swore she kept seeing him and hearing him.”

“Did she mention the things he said to her?”

I shook my head. “I was too scared to ask. We believed in that stuff.”

“No further questions.”

Then her
defense attorney took his turn with me. Asking how long I knew Pam. Eventually getting around to the question, “Did you see Mrs. Perkins the
day of
the murders
?
”

“Yes, I did. She stopped at the bank.”

“They say the
murders
took place sometime between
three
and
f
ive
pm
. What time was it that she stopped in the bank?”

“Just before three pm.”

“Mrs. Perkins say
s
it was after three. Are you sure you aren’t mistaken
?
”

“No. I had a doctor’s appoint
ment,
and I left at three
.
I
t had to be just before that.”

He tried to come at me again with the same question
using
different phrasing
,
but I held firm. As much as I loved Pam, I was
n’t
going to say I saw her later than three.

I don’t think I truly believed she murdered her mother and children until Richie took the stand.

They told him they knew it was going to be
difficult
testimony, but they’d be patient.

He recanted that day with tears in his eyes
,
b
reaking down occasionally to sob.

“I blame myself,” Richie said. “I blame myself. We are argued. I told her I was leaving. That there was someone else. That I also knew she had been unfaithful and that the baby in her belly wasn’t mine. I knew it.”

I believe
that was the one and only time that
Pam lifted her head.

Richie continued
,
“I told her that I was leaving the next day after Mandy’s party.
I didn’t
want to ruin it. But I told her I was gonna take the kids. We fought. It was heated. She said … she said that I’d never take the kids. Ever. I didn’t want the kids or her mom to hear any
more …So …I left
.
I went out to get some beer
,
and when I got back ….” H
e
broke down.

Admittedly, I closed my eyes and tried not to hear him. He cried
through
the entire testimony. How he found his mother
-
in
-
law dead
,
and she was holding the lifeless baby. Doyle was on the stairs, dead. And he heard Mandy screaming. He said he tried to run up the stairs fast enough, but the cries stopped
,
and Pam, despite
the fact
that
Mandy
was dead, repeatedly stabbed her.

The look of a mad woman.

Blood all over her.

He even said she laughed and then collapsed.

They played the dispatch tape.

Willow Brooks Police Department
;
what is your emergency?

*sob*

What is your emergency?

My wife just killed my kids. She killed my kids.

The closing argument was even harder to hear.

They described how the youngest child, Lizzy
,
had been drowned. There was water in her lungs along with the knife wounds. It was believed that Pam’s mom discovered her drowning the child in the kitchen sink
,
and when she tried to stop her, Pam grabbed a knife, killing her mother. She was stabbed nine times while the lifeless baby was in her arms.

Doyle was trying to run up the stairs to get away. It didn’t much to take him down. She stabbed him only twice.

Mandy was getting ready for her big party.

She was the worst. She fought for her life. She threw things, screamed,
and ran
for the window
;
her room was disheveled
,
but she lost in the end
,
t
aking over thirty chest wounds.

It was an agonizing short trial. I was so grateful Pam never took the
stand
,
because as the
days dwindled I felt more and more contempt for her.

I
didn’t
want
to hear her talk.

By all accounts, I should not have been in that court room at all. The stress of it was too much for me. I, too, like Pam, was pregnant. But I had to be there. I
guess
I
had to know why they said she did it.

I found out.

The reason
s
for the murders were jealousy and rage. A mild
-
mannered Pam had snapped. Just simply snapped.

That’s what they said.

It took all
of
one hour to find her guilty.

A part of
me
, as insane as it sounds, blames that séance for it all. Stupid
,
I know. Maybe
k
arma played a part for messing with something we shouldn’t
have. I don’t know. But my life
from that moment on was never the same
,
and it just seemed
that
bad
luck
followed me for the longest time.

It wasn’t until I met thi
s church group, that I realized
yeah
,
the séance
w
as stupid
,
but we were young. Bad things happened for no reason
,
n
ot because of
karma
or
an old ghost, but because God had a plan.

I held on to that at a very rough time. It wasn’t until my life started to settle, and I finally put things behind me,
that
I got that call.

A place named Freedom Project.

They were contacting old witnesses. New evidence. How could that be?

But whatever they had was freeing Pam.

She wanted to contact me. They may have been opening the door for her freedom, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to open the door to that part of my life again.

When I first started at Connecticut State Hospital, the case was already fifteen years old
.
It wasn’t my case, never would be my case, but I was curious as to who this individual
was
.

Who was this woman locked behind
the
door of the modern
-
day equivalent of a padded cell
? Yet
,
she was awaiting, word had it, her acquittal.

Whether
they cared for her or talked to her or not, there wasn’t a single person unfamiliar with Pamela Dewar.
Admitted
as Pamela Perkins, her name reverted to her maiden name after her ex
-
husband, the only surviving member of her slaughtered family,
petitioned
the court for divorce and
retrieval
of his name.

Who would blame him?

Just like there wasn’t a single person who didn’t know of her, there wasn’
t
a single person who believed in her
innocence
. It was a shock to all of us that there was even an inkling of her
being acquitted
.

She proclaimed her innocence twice
,
o
nce when the police arrested her
,
and the other at her arraignment. That was it. He
r
former
husband testified to the knife i
n her hand, to watching her plunge the object in the chest of her already dead daughter.

Her fingerprints were on the knife but so were several other sets of prints. But the number one
bit of
cement was the scratch.

Without the husband
’
s renewed testimony and with DNA testing, her verdict was being overturned.

In my opinion, the DNA thing wasn’t enough to overturn it.

I thought no way, no how.

Boy
,
was I wrong.

I was
immensely
curious because she
w
as the talk
of the hospital
. Her records
indicated
that she was transferred to
S
tate from Norwich. That when she arrived at Norwich, she didn’t speak, make eye
contact
or show
emotion
. She didn’t even react when they took her child.

So
,
why
was
such a docile human being
placed in restraints and kept from general population?

A simple history of her medical records from Norwich including assessments, evaluations
,
and observations gave those answers.

Patient exhibits frequent violent outbursts of rage. She has no recollections of these outburst
s
at a later time.

On November 12, 1987
,
patient
was found repeatedly striking herself in the abdomen. She stated she did not want the child that she carried to be born into the current environment. At that point, patient was no longer pregnant. She caused no major
injuries
to her person and had no recollection of the event
after sedation wore off.

They were two of many entries. Hundreds of entries.
This led me to believe either her clinical diagnosis was accurate, or the circumstances surrounding the murders and her admission into an institute caused her to snap.

None of that was my call
,
though. I was a little too late on the whole thing. To me it was like reading a true crime novel.
They were events of the past.
I was an outsider making observations.

Admittedly, I became fascinated with the case.
I learned it and even looked up old newspaper articles.

When I arrived on the scene, her ex
-
hu
sband
had recently died of liver disease. He
more
than li
k
ely drank himself to
death
, unable to get over the events.

I never spoke to Pam or anyone who treated her
.
E
verything I learned was from her records and newspaper articles.

I was young and wet behind the ears in 2001. Once my obsession over the case
was discovered, I was relieved of my duties as a residential psychiatrist.

It probably was the best thing to happen to me. I didn’t lose my license, and I went on to private practice.

I never let the case go. In fact, I followed it more when news of her actual acquittal reached me. I don’t know why I was so fascinated by it. Maybe because there were things that didn’t add up. Things I
wanted
to know.
I wanted to write a book about it. But there was so much more I needed to learn.

Fortunately for me, I would.

I was informed by my very rattled office manager that State had made an appointment for a new patient. One that I was to treat on an outpatient basis.

My officer manger was not enthralled. I
,
on the other hand
,
was elated. The new patient I was to see on April 4
th
was none other than Pamela Dewar.