The Dreams of Ada (41 page)

Calhoun’s testimony had appeared, at first, to be a major breakthrough for the defense—until after the recess, when he said the Fontenot pictures had been taken Memorial Day, and therefore were falsely dated. That clearly had been devastating to the defense. One picture did have the wrapped Easter basket—but would the jury accept that mute testimony, in light of the doubt Calhoun had cast on the others? That the same roll of film was used did not prove conclusively the pictures had been taken the same day.

The attorneys, hurrying to Wyatt’s office, tried to put these thoughts from their minds. Waiting for them, they knew, were pictures Richard Kerner had taken that day—pictures that had gotten Wyatt excited, that made him think they might have solved the case—with suspects other than Ward and Fontenot.

Their attention returned to Calhoun’s testimony, however, when, at 6
P.M
., moments after they arrived at the office, Calhoun showed up there as well.

The young man looked upset, confused. He told Wyatt that his conscience was bothering him. He said he was afraid that during Peterson’s redirect examination, he may have left the impression with the jury that he was sure the “April 16” photos were taken Memorial Day. He was not positive about that, he said, and did not want to leave the wrong impression. He was on no side, he said; he just wanted to tell the truth.

Wyatt’s spirits soared; he was impressed with the young man’s concern. He told him they had two options. They could bring that out when they called him to testify for the defense; or he could go talk to the judge in the morning, and explain his position, and ask the judge if he could go right back on the stand to clarify it. Wyatt told him to do whichever he wanted; he did not know if the judge would go along with the second option.

Calhoun left, to decide what to do.

Wyatt, Butner, Bill Willett, and Bill Cathey went into the library. Wyatt spread before them the new pictures Kerner had taken. The investigator had tracked down and photographed the truck Jason Lurch had mentioned the night before—the truck his nephew, Ricky Brewer, had owned at the time of the disappearance. In the pictures was a pickup, pale gray or beige. It was shiny, not rough—but it had patches of red primer all over it, larger wheels on the back, and had no tailgate. It seemed to the attorneys to fit the description of the truck seen at J.P.’s by Wise and Paschall—even more than the others Kerner had photographed.

Kerner had talked to the nephew as well. He was very cooperative. He was married, had children, worked the night shift at a factory. But he was also about five-eight, slim, with sandy-brown hair, shoulder length, parted in the middle—just like the composite sketch. The attorneys were joyful, began joking. They felt these pictures, combined with Jason Lurch’s testimony, would convince the jury it was they who had been seen at J.P.’s that night.

And perhaps—since Jim Moyer placed Lurch at McAnally’s—it was possible that these two were the killers.

George Butner was elated. For the first time since he took the case he felt there was a chance of getting Ward and Fontenot off. But with two other sets of truck photos already introduced by the defense, he felt they needed to get an identification of this truck from Wise or Paschall.

The attorneys agreed that Paschall probably would say it might be the truck and it might not be—as he had done with the other truck pictures. They decided Karen Wise was their best bet. But they did not know how to reach her; she had been avoiding Kerner.

They decided to call Sue Mayhue, the woman in the D.A.’s office who kept track of witnesses, to ask her for Wise’s phone number. But they knew this would tip off the D.A., who might tell Ms. Wise not to talk to them.

“Ask for three numbers,” Bill Cathy suggested, grinning.

They liked that idea. Bill Willett made a list of several witnesses whose numbers they would ask for, to confuse the opposition, to send them scurrying. He called the D.A.’s office. Chris Ross answered. Ms. Mayhue had already left. Willett looked up her home phone number, and called her there. The line was busy. He called again a few minutes later. There was no answer. The attorneys were convinced that Ross had called her and told her not to be available.

Still, the lawyers were in a boisterous mood.

Talking further, they decided to jettison the Elmore City scenario, to focus in on Lurch and his nephew as the likeliest suspects. Wyatt got an idea. Xeroxed diagrams of the longer scenario had already been prepared for their own use. They could “accidentally” let one slip to the floor during a recess in the morning, let the D.A. find it and be thrown off the track.

Between Gordon Calhoun’s conscience and Richard Kerner’s photos, they felt things were going their way. Their new optimism was irrepressible; they laughed and joked for the first time in weeks.

But they knew that the confession tapes would be played the next day, and that they were disastrous to the defense.

“Tomorrow I’m going to wear my flak jacket,” George Butner said.

Wyatt sent word to Tricia that night: he did not know if Tommy would get off; but they should have plans ready to spirit him out of town, directly from the courthouse, in case he did.

DAY EIGHT

By now the cast of characters was as in a long-running show, and the audience was diminishing. Dr. Haraway, Betty Haraway, and their daughter, Cinda, sat in the second row, as they did every day; Melvin Ward sat in the third row, the press up front. The rest of the spectator section, filled to capacity the first few days, had thinned to about two-thirds. But this afternoon would be box-office. Word had spread through the courthouse, and this afternoon the benches would be packed, the spectators hip to hip in discomfort; this afternoon they would show the tapes.

The morning began with a former inmate at the city jail, Terry McCartney Holland, on the stand. Mrs. Holland told of a conversation she’d had in the jail with Fontenot shortly after his arrest. She said he first told her that he, Tommy, and Odell Titsworth had done it. He was excited when he said that, she said; he told her the same story that was on the tapes; and he gave her three guesses as to where they had put the body: in the river, in the concrete bunker, in the burned-out house. She added that he later told her other versions, in which he was not involved, just Tommy and Odell. On cross-examination, she said she felt Karl got a kick out of telling these stories; he would be wide-eyed as he told the stories, walking all over his cell; he enjoyed the notoriety, she said. Karl told “tall stories” about everything, she said. He told her what a great guy his buddy Tommy Ward was—“a great-looking guy, well-built, stocky.” She expected, from Karl, to meet “a great god” in Tommy Ward, she said. She heard so many different stories from Karl that after a while she didn’t believe any of them. He scared her at first—then she realized he was “just a blowhard,” she said; but Karl did think a lot of Tommy; it was sort of “hero worship.”

Bill Peterson and Chris Ross then began the ironic part of their task: to prove false much of the information on the taped confessions. If they didn’t do it, the defense would, with much greater impact on the jury.

They called Forrest Simpson, the man who owned the burned-out house. He told how it had been a useless eyesore, how he had salvaged what he could, and burned the rest to the ground, in June of 1983—ten months before Denice Haraway disappeared.

They called Michelle Wheeler, Odell Titsworth’s girlfriend. She told how Odell’s arm had been broken in a scuffle with the police two nights before the disappearance, how it had been in a cast for weeks afterward. She said Odell had tattoos on both arms from his knuckles to his shoulders, as well as on his back, his chest, his thighs, his legs. She said he was in severe pain from the broken arm on April 28, and did not leave the house.

They called Michelle’s mother, Agnes Lumpmouth, whose home Michelle and Odell were staying in. She, too, said Odell was in great pain, so great that he had to sleep sitting up, and that he did not leave the house that night.

They called Dr. Jack B. Howard, the orthopedic surgeon who treated Titsworth’s arm for a spiral fracture. “If it were my arm, it would hurt like the dickens,” he said.

Now it was the afternoon of the eighth day. Courthouse workers, other attorneys packed the spectator section along with the regulars. The state was approaching the climax of its case.

Rusty Featherstone, a deputy inspector of the OSBI, took the stand. He was a stocky gentleman with a neatly trimmed, ruddy beard. He wore a dark blue three-piece suit, a striped tie, glasses. His manner suggested a self-assured scientist more than a cop, though he had been an OSBI agent for four years, a police officer before that.

Featherstone was the OSBI’s polygraph expert. It was he who had questioned Tommy Ward on October 18 for several hours with lie-detector apparatus attached to Ward’s body. But in the ensuing questioning, by law, the fact that a polygraph exam had been given could not be mentioned in court. Both sides questioned him, and Featherstone answered, as if the questioning had been no different from any of the other interviews. Though the agent had told Ward he had failed the polygraph, no evidence to support this, or to undermine it, would be presented in court, or anywhere else.

Featherstone said that Ward had appeared in his office, voluntarily, at 10:30 in the morning of October 18, dressed casually in jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. He said Gary Rogers introduced them, and left. At 11:05 he read Ward his rights, Featherstone said. He asked routine questions about Ward’s medical history, he said, and then asked what Ward had done on April 28. Ward said he had worked on the plumbing at his house until 9
P.M
., then went to Jannette Roberts’s place, and then to a party at a neighbor’s, Gordon Calhoun. He met Fontenot at the party, and they stayed there till 4
A.M
., then left.

The questioning went on for some time, Featherstone said. Then he told Ward that he had the impression Ward was carrying some kind of burden he had to get rid of.

Tommy said he’d had nothing to do with the abduction, Featherstone said, but that he said he’d had a dream in which he was involved. In the dream, the agent quoted Ward as saying, he and Karl had left with the girl, went out to a power station. Titsworth threatened to rape the girl. Ward threatened to leave, and he did.

The agent said that soon after, Tommy said he only wished it was a dream, that it had really occurred.

“Mr. Ward seemed to me still not to be relieving himself of what was troubling him—his burden,” Featherstone testified. Then, he said, Ward admitted he had stayed for the sexual assault, and described it in detail.

At that point, Gary Rogers and Dennis Smith entered the room, the agent said. He said it was about two in the afternoon when Ward first said he had been involved. Though he had shown up voluntarily, from that point on Ward was not free to leave.

Bill Peterson prepared to enter the Tommy Ward confession tape into evidence. Wyatt objected. The jury was sent out of the courtroom while Judge Powers listened to the arguments. The objections were overruled.

The two video monitors were once again set up in the courtroom. Downstairs, Bud and Tricia were waiting, nervously, in case their turn to testify would come. They knew the tapes were about to roll.

“This is the day we’ve been hoping for eleven months wouldn’t happen,” Tricia said.

14

THE TAPES—TOMMY

T
ommy Ward’s confession tape was admitted into evidence as state exhibit 30. The jury was brought back in. The tension in the courtroom hung like the humidity outside, thick and moist. The lights were dimmed. The tape began to roll. The image of Ward, seated, wearing jeans, tennis sneakers, a yellow and black T-shirt, appeared on the screens, one facing the jury, the other facing the judge. There was not a sound in the courtroom except for the voices coming from the video set.

What follows is the official, unedited transcript of the tape, as it was seen and heard by the jury:

STATEMENT OF TOMMY WARD

QUESTIONS BY AGENT RUSTY FEATHERSTONE:

Q. Okay, Tommy, I’ve got a few things I need to say first. The date today is October 18, 1984. We are at the headquarters office of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, located in Oklahoma City. We are currently in my office. I am Deputy Inspector Rusty Featherstone, as you know.

Present also in the room is Special Agent Gary Rogers of the OSBI out of the Ada office; Captain Dennis Smith of the Ada Police Department, detective division; and Agent Dee Cordray of the OSBI here in headquarters in Oklahoma City.

The time currently as is shown on our clock, also, in military time is 1858 hours, or 6:58
P.M
. Okay?

Now, we’ve been at this for some time, talking about an investigation into the disappearance of Donna Denice Haraway from a convenience store in Ada, is that correct?

A. That’s correct.

Q. Okay. Now, during the course of our conversation prior to this, have you been given the opportunity to go to the rest room at any time?

A. Yeah.

Q. Okay. Have you been allowed to have anything to drink or to smoke or to eat?

A. Yes.

Q. Okay. With that in mind, I want to remind you that earlier, we also discussed your rights. In other words, your rights as far as the right to having an attorney present while you’re being interviewed in this investigation. Do you recall me advising you of your rights earlier—?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. —the Miranda warning?

A. Yeah.

Q. Okay. I’m going to reread those rights to you to help refresh your memory even further, okay?

A. Okay.

Q. My name is Rusty Featherstone, an agent to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. I wish to advise you that you have an absolute right to remain silent; that anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law; that you have a right to talk to an attorney before and have an attorney present with you during questioning; that if you cannot afford to hire an attorney, one will be appointed to represent you without charge before any questioning, if you so desire. If you do decide to answer any questions, you may stop at any time you wish. Do you understand all of that?

A. Yeah.

Q. Okay. The next part is a paragraph entitled “Waiver.” And in this waiver it states: “I fully understand the statement advising me of my rights, and I’m willing to answer questions. I do not want an attorney, and understand that I may refuse to answer questions any time during the questioning. No promise has been made to me, nor have any threats been made against me.” Is that correct?

A. That’s correct.

Q. Okay. You’re doing this strictly through your own wanting to be voluntary.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Nobody has coerced you or threatened you in any way.

A. (
Witness indicating affirmatively
.)

Q. You’re doing this strictly because you want to tell the truth, is that correct?

A. That’s correct.

Q. Okay. And earlier, when I read this form to you, I gave you the opportunity to look it over and to sign it if you agreed with it, is that correct?

A. That’s correct.

Q. And did you do so?

A. Yes.

Q. Did you sign it? Okay. All right. What I’d like to do at this point is have you think back to the date we’ve been talking about, April 28, 1983, [
sic
] involving the investigation of the missing of Donna Denice Haraway from McAnally’s—I’m sorry, 1984, 1984—from McAnally’s convenience store at 2727 Arlington in Ada, Oklahoma. Okay? And I know we’ve already talked about it a little bit, but what I’d like for you to do at this point is just start on that afternoon. I think we might as well start with the party that you were attending.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. And then what happened, who you left with; and just in your own words at your own speed, I want you to go step by step through everything that happened to the rest of that evening involving this girl, okay?

A. Okay.

Q. Just go ahead and begin. Feel free to drink your Coke or have a cigarette as you talk—

A. Okay.

Q. —whatever makes you feel more comfortable.

A. Okay. All right. On—do I start with the date?

Q. That’s fine.

A. All right. On—what—the 28th of April—

Q. Uh-huh.

A. April—me and—

Q. Do you recall the day of the week?

A. It was a Saturday.

Q. Saturday? Okay, that’s fine. Go ahead.

A. Okay. I was at a keg party and I ran into a couple of guys that I hadn’t seen in a long time. And one of them’s name was Titsdale, and he asked me if I wanted to go riding around with them and go get high and drink some beer. And I told him sure. And so we went riding around, and went out by—

Q. Tommy, excuse me. Before you get into your story, now, you said Titsdale, now—

A. —Titsworth.

Q. Okay. What’s his first name?

A. I can’t recall it.

Q. Is it Odell?

A. Odell Titsworth.

Q. All right. And who was the other person besides Odell Titsworth?

A. Karl Fontenot.

Q. Karl Fontenot?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Okay. Now, I’m going to ask you, if you would, to speak up while you’re telling your story so we can hear.

A. Okay. And so they asked me to go riding around and get high and do some drinking with them. And so we went riding around and we went out by the Evangelistic Temple. And we was sitting out at the Evangelistic Temple where we got high and drank. After we got through drinking and all, Titsworth, he was asking me about going to—if I knew where a place was where we could get some money. And I told him about McAnally’s, that a while back I heard that there was a robbery out there and that there was a large sum of money taken from out there. I said, “If you want to rob any place, that would be the place to rob.” And so we started going out there, and we got out there and we went in. And Titsworth started throwing stuff around and she come out from behind the counter and he grabbed her and pushed her over to me. And I grabbed her and—put her arm around behind my back—I mean, behind her back. And I started to walk out the door with her. And Titsworth, he grabbed money out of the register. And we went out to the pickup.

Q. Okay, Tommy. Let me slow you down just a little bit, okay?

A. Okay.

Q. Let me back up and ask you one thing. Now, you say “her,” okay?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Who are we talking about when you say “her”?

A. Haraway.

Q. Haraway?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Okay. Did you know her prior to this particular day?

A. Yes, I’ve seen her—my ex-girlfriend used to work out there.

Q. At the same store?

A. Yeah.

Q. Okay. And this is the McAnally’s I referred to earlier, at 2727 Arlington in Ada?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Okay.

A. And so I walked out with her, and we went out to the pickup. And Titsdale was—grabbed her from me, and they walked around. And I got in the pickup and Karl Fontenot got in the back of the pickup. And she was sitting in the middle. And Titsworth, he was driving. So we left there and went out around Richardson Loop to the power plant by Reeves’ Packing Plant.

Q. Okay. Tommy, why did you take this girl with you?

A. Just because we didn’t want her to identify us.

Q. Was this discussed prior to going into the store?

A. Yes.

Q. By who?

A. By Titsworth.

Q. What was said?

A. He said that we’d go in and get the money and leave, and I didn’t have any idea that we was going to take her with us until he said that she could identify us. And I didn’t think that they was going to do any harm to her, you know. But—

Q. What did he say he was going to do with her?

A. He told me that he was going to kill her after we got out to the power plant.

Q. This is while you were in the store?

A. No, when we was out at the power plant.

Q. Okay. But anyway, you took her from the store, apparently, because you thought she could be a witness?

A. Uh-huh.

QUESTIONS BY AGENT GARY ROGERS:

Q. Did she ever say anything at the store?

A. No.

Q. Did she say anything when you—who told her it was a robbery?

A. Titsworth.

Q. Okay. Who was the first person in the store?

A. Titsworth.

Q. Did he have any kind of weapon?

A. Yes, he had a knife.

Q. What kind of knife was it?

A. It was a lock-blade he carried on his side.

Q. About how long was the blade?

A. It was about this long (
indicating
), about six inches long.

Q. About a six-inch blade, lock-blade pocket knife?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. So he went in first and started throwing stuff around, is that correct?

A. Uh-huh, yes, sir.

Q. And you went in behind him?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. And at that point she came out around the counter to keep him from—what kind of stuff was he throwing around in the store?

A. It was the potato chips and stuff that was on the aisle, the side aisle right when you go in the door.

Q. Okay, so she came out around the counter.

A. —to draw her attention away from the counter, you know, around to where he was at.

Q. He grabbed her—

A. Uh-huh.

Q. —shoved her to you.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. You twisted her arm up behind her back and—

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Did she [start] saying anything then?

A. No, she was—well, she was asking what’s going on and she was scared and everything. And Titsdale, he told me that we was going to take her with us. And so I stood there in the door with her until he got the money out of the cash register. And I started walking out the door with her and then that’s when he come up beside me and grabbed her. And we went on out to the pickup and he put her in the pickup.

Q. All right. Where was the pickup parked when you got there?

A. It was out by the gas pumps.

Q. Between the gas pumps and the front door?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Which way was it facing?

A. It was facing toward the east.

Q. Toward the east. All right. When you all got in the pickup and Fontenot got in the back of the pickup, you took out east on Arlington?

A. No, we went back west on Arlington.

Q. You just cut through the median there—

A. Yeah.

Q. —and then turned back west on Arlington?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Where did you go from there?

A. Out to the power plant.

Q. I mean, what route did you take?

A. Richardson Loop.

Q. Okay. So in other words, you went down Arlington, west on Arlington to Mississippi?

A. Mississippi.

Q. Then back north on Mississippi to Richardson Loop?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Then back west past the Holiday Inn and Wal-Mart—

A. Uh-huh.

Q. —on the Richardson Loop.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Around the bypass and you dropped off on Reeves Road?

A. On Reeves Road.

Q. Okay. And then what happened?

A. Then turned back up right to the power plant.

Q. You went up to the power plant—

A. And went to the power plant and stopped up there. And I got out—

QUESTIONS BY AGENT FEATHERSTONE:

Q. Why did you go out there, Tommy?

A. Huh?

Q. Why did you go to the power plant?

A. I don’t know. It’s—Titsdale was driving and we pulled over up there.

Q. Whose idea was it to go out there?

A. I guess it was his, you know, we went on out there.

Q. He knew how to find his way out there?

A. Yeah.

Q. Okay. Was there any discussion in the pickup on the way out there, anybody talking?

A. No, not much, because he had the stereo up loud and all, and he—she was asking him what was going on, and he kept on telling her to keep her mouth shut.

Q. Okay.

QUESTIONS BY AGENT ROGERS:

Q. Was she hit any time in the pickup?

A. Yes, he slapped her a couple of times.

Q. Who is he?

A. Titsworth.

Q. Titsworth?

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Where was he hitting her at?

A. On the side of the face. And then we got out to the power plant and got out, and I told him that it was a crazy deal, you know, in doing this, and that I didn’t want to have any part to do with it. And so he got her out of the pickup. And then they walked around to the back of the pickup with Karl Fontenot and put the tailgate down and Titsworth started taking her clothing off. And—