The Killing Kind (29 page)

A
fter a much-needed weekend break, on Monday, October 24, they were back at it. Before the end of that previous Friday, Locke Bell and Stephanie Hamlin had introduced what might be considered the apex of the state’s case: Eddie Strait, the YCSO investigator who had interviewed Danny Hembree after he was arrested in December 2009 for those IHOP burglaries. It was that arrest and the interviews that followed—wherein Hembree admitted to murdering “those girls”—that the state had on videotape/DVD, which became the beginning of the end for Danny Robbie Hembree.

Through Strait’s testimony, the state was able to enter those DVDs, on which Hembree had admitted to both crimes. The key witness for the state in explaining all of this was going to be GCPD detective Matt Hensley. Hensley was slated to give a detailed account of the admissions, thus setting up that walk-through video of Momma’s house and the interviews Hensley and Sumner conducted with Hembree after the YCSO handed him over.

Before Hensley could do that, however, Strait concluded his testimony and the state called Rob Probst, the man behind the camera recording the walk-through interview. After Probst, Kimberly Miller, a scientist who received blood from the body of Randi’s burned corpse and compared it to the blood found inside Momma’s house—which was Randi Saldana’s—was called.

As murder trials go, all of this testimony was brief and to the point, with very little contention or cross-examination from Hembree’s attorneys. For the defense, the best it could do here was to allow the experts to speak their truth and get them off the stand as quickly as possible. All of this evidence was unimpeachable, scientific, nonexculpatory forensics, which, for the most part, was unchallengeable.

Tuesday morning began with more of the same: experts and blood evidence. All of it was based on the blood found inside Momma’s house as compared to Randi Saldana’s DNA. There was a discussion regarding Hembree’s DNA being mixed with some of the samples taken. In pithy, unblemished, and easy-to-understand testimony by several experts, it was clear the science in this case backed up the videotaped admission/confession Hembree had made to not one investigator, but a total of five.

Watching this, one could say the state’s case against Hembree had gone past overdrive and was now headed into hyperspeed toward the finish line.

M
att Hensley wanted to see Hembree pay for his crimes ever since a few years back when Hembree, in such a cold and callous manner, admitted to killing the women as if they deserved to die. To Hensley, Danny Hembree was a sociopath without the possibility of redemption—a violent, bloodthirsty killer at the core of his being. Nothing was going to stop Hembree from killing again, Hensley was certain—that is, except life behind bars or a death sentence.

“I was well prepared for testifying in this trial and felt like I knew this case better than anyone,” Hensley said later. “I was prepared to present the evidence and handle any questions the defense had to throw at me.”

Despite all of his preparation, however, Hensley was “a little nervous upon taking the stand.”

There were cameras in the courtroom, recording the trial for the nightly newscasts. All the local media was present, as well as a few national writers and producers. For Hensley, it seemed like the world was watching. He’d never been involved in a case with this much interest.

“This was the first trial I had been involved in with this magnitude of media attention,” Hensley recalled.

Walking from the prosecution’s table to the stand, Hensley told himself:
Just don’t trip and fall or do something embarrassing like that.

Funny what runs through your mind at pivotal moments.

And because he had prepped so well, once the questions came, he found that his “nervousness quickly subsided and everything went smoothly.”

Hensley talked about how he had initially become involved in the case as a sideline investigator, playing off the YCSO’s work, watching in the background as a case against Hembree materialized. Yet, no sooner did Hamlin and Hensley get a solid back-and-forth rhythm going than the judge stopped proceedings—at 11:31
A.M.
—to take up a matter, he explained to jurors, he “need[ed] to . . . understand and determine before we can go forward with evidence in your presence.”

Matt Hensley wanted to testify about something Hembree had said in his presence. The judge wasn’t sure the comment fell under the guidelines of evidence. So out the jury went, once again, to wait for the lawyers to hash it out.

The argument was over what Hembree had said while they were serving the search warrant at Nick’s house. The judge wanted to make sure it was not going to be prejudicial toward Hembree. So he implored Hensley, without the jury present, to tell him what Hembree had actually said.

“I heard Danny Hembree tell Nicole Catterton that she doesn’t have to let us search her room or take any of her jewelry without a paper,” Hensley clarified.

Beam thought a moment. He wanted to know what relevance that statement had in Hembree’s case. Because what it sounded like to him, Beam insisted, was his client advising his girlfriend of her legal rights.

Nothing more.

Hamlin contended the statement showed how Hembree did not want Nicole to cooperate with the search. Then, further along, the ADA said it also gave the impression Hembree didn’t want cops to find Randi’s jewelry, which they were searching for under the warrant.

They went back and forth before the judge overruled Beam’s objection and asked that the jury be brought back in.

Hensley continued answering questions and was able to tell the jury what Hembree had said. With that now on record, Hamlin asked Hensley about the night of December 5, 2009—how Eddie Strait woke Hensley from a deep sleep and they realized the case was now in the hands of the GCPD.

What Hamlin wanted Hensley to point out before they viewed the interview in open court was the fact that Danny Hembree was “alert” and coherent. He could talk about things fluidly (which jurors would see for themselves once the video played). And he understood completely what was happening. Hembree wasn’t some junkie coming down off a binge of heroin, scratching his legs, sweating, seeing invisible spiders crawling along the walls, begging for some sort of replacement narcotic. Hembree was a crack addict who had stopped smoking the drug many hours before. He was a man who had taken a nap, gotten himself something to eat, had several cups of coffee, and smoked several cigarettes. In addition, Hensley noted, Hembree waived his rights to an attorney. He wanted this confession to take place as much as they did.

The DVDs were introduced. What was important about the DVDs became a significant ruling by the judge regarding what the jury was going hear on the DVDs. A painstaking process took place of editing and redacting (muting) portions of the DVDs to take out anything Hembree had discussed other than the two murders. None of the other crimes Hembree admitted to—the savage rape attack in the woods with his partner in crime, Bobby Johnson, the abduction and violent attack of the man from the hotel, the Deb Ratchford murder, and the Florida cases. None of those were part of the DVDs. The jury would not hear of Hembree’s penchant for violence and his history of attacking and/or raping and/or attempting to kill people.

With all of that discussed, the state played the first DVD.

A break followed the screening of the first DVD. After a lunch recess and several arguments without the jury present, it wasn’t until three o’clock that they were ready to begin hearing testimony again.

Although he’d be back the next day, Hensley was done for now. The state indicated it was close to resting its case, and called forensic pathologist Dr. Cynthia Schandl. Schandl had conducted Heather’s autopsy. She was going to be an important witness for both sides. If Hembree’s team didn’t believe Heather was murdered, Schandl was the witness they’d want to begin broaching that argumentative theory with on cross-examination.

L
ocke Bell took the bridles and questioned the state’s pathologist. Bell knew Dr. Schandl could have a major impact on the state’s case. So, about five minutes into his direct, Bell handed the pathologist a graphic image of Heather’s neck.

“Do you recognize that photograph?”

“This is a photograph fairly close-up when Heather Catterton still has her sweatshirt around her neck,” Schandl explained. “And you can see the necklace around her neck, and there’s still some plant debris on her body, and so it’s basically a close-up of her neck.”

“Does that show some of the external—if I use the wrong words, please correct me—external trauma to the neck area?”

Stopping just short of giving Bell what he wanted, she said, “Well, what it shows is discoloration around the neck area. . . .”

That discoloration, of course, would fit neatly into an argument—backed up by Hembree’s own words—that Heather’s killer had carefully placed his foot on her neck to hold her down so the bag over her head could finish a job he’d started.

For the next few minutes, they discussed the clothing Heather wore and the clothing found down the road from her body.

Bell asked the pathologist to explain what suffocation is and how it is viewed on the body by a pathologist during autopsy, following up with, “The defendant stated he placed a plastic bag over Miss Catterton’s mouth to suffocate her, putting a hand on her, and just held her and held her nose. Is there
anything
about the autopsy you did that would be inconsistent with what he said?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you find
anything
in the autopsy that would show that she was not suffocated?”

“No, sir.”

“Is suffocation something you can always . . . Is there always physical evidence of it? Or sometimes there’s no evidence? How does that work?”

Dr. Schandl cleared her throat, shifted a bit to get comfortable, and leaned into the microphone. “Sometimes there is no evidence and sometimes there is some evidence.” Giving an example of what she meant, she talked about how, in some cases, there “is a way to commit suicide by suffocation that won’t leave any marks where you’re using a plastic bag and, you know, this elaborate contraption. . . . The bag doesn’t fall down on your face.”

It was an important clarification. Why? The pathologist had put context into her argument. She illuminated that by seeing suicides of this nature come through her autopsy suite throughout the years, the research proved that not all suffocation deaths showed clear signs of trauma. “And basically,” she concluded her thought, “you’re just excluding oxygen. There’s no trauma to anything. So you’re not going to see anything on the body.”

Beam took notes.

“Now,” Schandl continued, “if somebody is smothering somebody with something, then you
may
expect to have some trauma, maybe, you know. It just depends on the situation—how much resistance there is, how much trauma you might get. But, again, there is the whole continuum between seeing absolutely nothing on one side and seeing all kinds of trauma on the other side. . . .”

Bell knew he had given the jury a reasonable explanation as to why they might not see Hollywood
CSI
-like trauma in Heather’s autopsy: those purple, yellow, and red bruises that television crime shows play up.

Still, the DA needed to take it one step further. “Mr. Hembree stated . . . that he used a cord around her neck to bring her to the floor and then released it. Would the defendant’s using a cord around her neck to bring her to the floor and then releasing it be inconsistent with your findings?”

“No, sir.”

“At one point, the defendant said, he stepped on her throat. Would that automatically cause damage to the throat, which would be found in an autopsy?”

“Not necessarily. It would depend on many different factors.... There’s a very popular form of massage where people walk around on people’s backs and you’re not leaving bruises. So, I mean, it really depends upon the level of force that was used so that you can step on someone and
not
cause bruising.”

“The defendant stated he had given cocaine to Miss Catterton that night. Would that be consistent with your findings?”

“Yes, sir.”

Bell introduced the autopsy report.

Schandl talked about how homicide is sometimes not always immediately visible in an autopsy, but a pathologist with concerns about a death might report the death as “pending.” That term—“pending”—was designed to figure into an ongoing investigation law enforcement was conducting. If a pathologist, for example, was given a police report months after an autopsy she had conducted where the cause of death was still in question—and in that report a suspect confessed to the murder and admitted suffocating the victim—the pathologist would then amend her report, simply because she now had all of the facts in front of her.

The next point of contention Bell had to address was the amount of cocaine in Heather’s system. Bell had to make sure the jury knew it wasn’t a lethal amount, which Hembree’s team was certain to argue.

One of the problems with proving an overdose is that there is no textbook lethal amount of cocaine available for experts. For each user, the amount she uses daily determines the amount that can kill her. It’s different for every user.

“That’s true,” Schandl said to Bell’s mention of this. “It can be very low, or it can be very high.”

Users develop tolerances.

“
If you were suspecting or looking to see if someone died of a cocaine overdose,” Bell asked, “are there specific things you would look for in an autopsy?”

“Not necessarily. Because, again, the level can be anywhere. Now, if you have someone who is a chronic user or somebody who has heart disease, they’re going to be at an increased risk for a sudden death from cocaine because they already have something wrong with the heart. . . .” Further, she said how cocaine, especially, “puts an increased stress on the heart by increasing your heart rate, making your vessels constrict and get smaller. . . .” The combination of an underlying heart condition and cocaine was a recipe for a sudden heart attack. “So, I mean, it’s more likely that you have a cocaine-related death when you have a preexisting heart condition of some sort.”

After a pause, the doctor added: “But, again, it’s not reliable as far as the level goes, and there’s nothing specific to look for. If someone takes cocaine over their whole lifetime or other stimulants of that sort, you can see chronic changes in the heart. . . .”

Switching gears, Bell said: “Let me ask you . . . did you see any—in autopsy, looking at Randi—did you see any signs that she had a stroke?”

There was the concern that Hembree would claim Randi died at his house of an overdose or she had a sudden reaction to smoking dope and he panicked and hid her death by burning her corpse. Bell had to make it clear he was referring to both girls here.

“No, sir.”

“How about any signs of a heart attack?”

“No, sir.”

“So, did you see any of these signs that you say are sometimes there if someone has died of a cocaine overdose?”

“No. There was nothing to point to that. No, sir.”

Bell asked a few more questions and handed Schandl to Beam.