The Stranger Beside Me (50 page)

Ted wasn't going to like him much.

On February 22nd, Cowart announced that Ted would go on trial for the Chi Omega murders and the Tallahassee attacks, on May 21st. He also again denied Bundy's request for Millard Farmer. The judge said he would decide in April if a nonprejudiced jury could be empanelled in the capital city. He agreed with the defense that it was unlikely that back-toback trials could be held without prejudicing the defendant. Ted was still, officially, the lead defense attorney-Minerva was only there to advise him as far as he was concerned.

The defendant requested on April llth that newspeople be barred from taking his picture when he was brought to the

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courthouse in chains and wearing his leg brace, and from attending the proceedings leading up to trial. He would be questioning witnesses himself, he said, and he didn't want the media listening in. Judge Cowart denied that request saying, "If you exclude the press, you exclude the public."

A month later, Ted had had enough of Judge Cowart and moved to have him step down just as Judge Rudd had, claiming that Rudd's prejudice had flowed to Cowart too. Cowart denied the motion, saying it was

"legally insufficient." Anyone who has observed Judge Cowart over time would doubt that he could ever be swayed or prejudiced by other's opinions; he is a man who patently thinks for himself. The Bundy hearings were now being recorded by a television camera and by one still camera-as had been agreed in a recent Florida Supreme Court edict. Cowart continued to deny Ted's request for the barring of all cameras. "We're conducting the public's business, gentlemen, and we're going to conduct it in the sunshine. We're sitting in Florida." Cowart would rarely display any animosity toward the defendant who railed against him, although, as the months progressed, he would at times chastise Bundy's temper tantrums as he would a small child. He seemed to bear no particular ill will toward Ted. Even as Ted had asked to have him removed from the case, Cowart remarked on Ted's suit and tie, "You look nice today."

And Ted had responded, "I'm disguised-as an attorney today." The pretrial hearings began in May in Tallahassee. The defense wanted the bite-mark testimony out, claiming that there had been insufficient probable cause for the search warrant that brought Ted to a dentist to have his teeth impressions taken. The defense claimed that he had not been a true suspect in the Chi Omega killings at that time. Cowart delayed his ruling.

Ted Bundy's murder trial was to begin on June llth, but, on the last day of May there were rampant rumors that he was going to change his plea-that he would plea bargain to a lesser charge thanlfirst degree murder, and thus save himself from the specter or the electric chair. Florida's electric chair was a terribly real threat. Only five days before, Florida had proved that it would carry out its death sentences. On May 25th, John Spenkelink, convicted of the murder in 1973 of killing a fellow ex-con in a Tallahassee

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motel room, had been executed. It was the first execution in the United States since Gary Gilmore had gone before the firing squad in Utah on January 19, 1977, at his own request. It was the first where a condemned man had gone into the death chamber against his will in America since 1967.

Ted Bundy had been geographically close to both men; fully aware of the fate of both, and he must have realized that Spenkelink's fate might await him in the not-too-distant future.

Louise Bundy flew to Tallahassee, as did John Henry Browne. Carole Ann Boone joined his mother and Browne in urging him to plead guilty to lesser charges. There had been a great deal of negotiating back and forth between Tallahassee, Leon County, Lake City, the prosecution and the defense. It was rumored that, if Ted would plead guilty to second degree murder in the two Chi Omega cases and in Kimberly Leach's murder, he would avoid the chair. The state would agree that he serve instead three consecutive twenty-five-year terms.

On May 31, there was a private session in Judge Cowart's chambers with Ted and his attorneys present. Ted filed a secret motion-a motion believed to be the guilty pleas to second degree murder. It would mean that he might never walk free again, but he wouldn't die in the electric chair either.

According to Florida Deputy State Attorney Jerry Blair--who awaited his day in the courtroom with Ted in the Leach case-Ted acknowledged his guilt to everything he was charged with, in both cases. Blair alleged that Ted, in fact, carried in his hand a written confession. All of his legal advisors, including Millard Farmer and Mike Minerva, had urged him to accept the lifeline held out. But the plea bargaining broke down. Ted tore up the papers in his hand and told Cowart, "I'd like to withdraw that motion."

Ted moved to have his public defender, Minerva, removed from the case-claiming that Minerva was trying to coerce him into admitting guilt. The state attorneys could not enter into a plea bargain in such a case. With Ted intimating that his own attorney was pressuring him to confess, any plea bargaining would automatically be overturned by an appellate court. Blair vowed that "if he [Ted] wanted a trial, he was going to get it."

None of the specifics of Ted's "almost" guilty plea reached the press, but rumors were strong. And it had been Ted's last

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chance; Governor Bob Graham had predicted he would "sign more death warrants," and Ted's name seemed already to be written there in invisible ink.

Minerva wanted out. Ted wanted him out, calling his public defender

"incompetent."

It looked like any trial would be postponed once again. Ted himself wanted a ninety-day delay, and the defense team wanted a psychiatric exam to see if he was sane in the legal sense-that is, that he had sufficient mental and psychological competence to participate in his own defense. This latter request angered him as much as anything had angered him before. Ted may have joked in his letter to me about an insanity defense, but he would not go that route seriously, now that he was up and confident again.

Judge Cowart was not about to stand for endless trial delays. He agreed to the psychiatric examinations and ordered that they be done forthwith. He had 132 prospective jurors on hold. It had already been eighteen months since the stranger crept into the Chi Omega mansion, since the man had beaten Cheryl Thomas at Dunwoody Street, and Cowart felt it was time for the trial to begin.

Two psychiatrists examined Ted during that first week of June, 1979: Dr. Hervé Cleckly of Augusta, Georgia, and Dr. Emanuel Tanay, a professor at Wayne State University in Michigan. They agreed with Ted that he was not incompetent, but said he demonstrated certain antisocial behavior. Tanay said that Ted's personality disorder was such that it could affect his relationship with his attorneys and thus, in that way, hinder his ability to defend himself.

"He has an extensive history of self-defeating, unadaptable, antisocial behavior," Tanay said.

On June llth, Judge Cowart ruled that Ted Bundy was competent to stand trial and said that he would delay his decision on granting a change of venue until he had seen some responses from prospective veniremen in the Leon County area. He denied the defense request for an extension and refused to let Ted fire his attorneys. Temporarily, Bundy had a new attorney: Bi|an T. Hayes, a respected north Florida criminal defense attorney, but also a man who came with unsettling references at the time: he had been John Spenkelink's attorney.

I had written to Ted to tell him that I would be attending his trial, to see if I would be able to visit him, and to warn 346

him that I would probably be wearing a press badge. It was the only way I could be sure of getting into the courtroom; the gallery would be jammed, and there would be long lines of curious court-goers. With Ted's growing hatred for reporters, I didn't want him to see me among a sea of media people and think I had defected completely to the fourth estate.

I had reservations to Tallahassee, but I would never see that city; Judge Cowart granted a change of venue on June

12th when four of the first five prospective jurors said they knew so much about the Chi Omega murders that they could not sit on the jury and be considered unbiased.

Cowart ordered the trial moved to Miami, and said jury selection would begin there on June 25th. Mike Minerva would not be joining the defense team; relations between himself and Bundy had become so abrasive that they probably could not hide their antagonism from a jury. Minerva also felt that he might bear Ted some unconscious resentment since Ted had cast so much doubt about his ability.

The defense team would be Leon County assistant public defenders, Lynn Thompson, Ed Harvey, and Margaret Good. They were all young, all determined to do their best, and all woefully inexperienced. A Miami attorney, Robert Haggard, not much older than the rest of the team, volunteered to help. In my opinion, Haggard was the least apt of any of the team members. He seemed ill-prepared, and his manner--even his haircut-appeared to grate on Judge Cowart's nerves. Peggy Good may have been the most effective of all Bundy's latest team of attorneys. Ms. Good, in her late twenties, impressed the jury simply because she was a woman standing beside a man accused of brutal attacks on other women. Slender, blonde, bespectacled, she chose loose, almost baggy, clothing that did nothing for her basic attractiveness. Her voice would remain flat and serious. Only when she was tired, would she slip into the drawl of a true, down-home southern girl. Cowart liked her, and she would receive many of his "Bless your hearts." Ted was pleased with her too. He was enthusiastic in his phone call to me on the evening of June 28th-a call placed from the Dade County Jail in Miami. Ted sounded confident again and exhilarated. He admitted that he was exhausted, however. "They flew me down here in a single-engine plane,

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rushed me into jail, and we began jury selection the next morning. I lost a little of my momentum. Cowart's hurrying us through. We work

'til 10:30 every other night, and we're going to have Saturday sessions." Breakfast in the Dade County Jail was, and God knows why, at 4:30 A.M., and Ted was tired, but elated over his defense team and his budget.

"The sky's the limit. The state has given us $100,000 for our defense. I'm glad I don't have Mike Minerva anymore. I like my defense team, especially the fact that I have a woman on my side. I have an expert on jury selection who's helping me pick my jury. He can tell by their eyes, their facial expressions, their body language what they're thinking. For instance, one prospective juror today raised his hand to his heart, and that means something to my expert." Even in Miami, however, most of those in the jury pool had heard of Ted Bundy. One juror selected, Estela Suarez, had never heard of him.

"She only reads Spanish language papers," Ted said enthusiastically.

"She kept smiling at me . . . she didn't realize / was the defendant!" There was one young woman Ted had felt ill at ease about, a girl he described as "a perfect candidate for a sorority . . . a nice, fresh-faced, rosy-cheeked, pretty young girl. I was afraid she'd identify with the victims."

Ted extolled Carole An$ Boone's loyalty. "She's thrown in her lot with me, moved down here, given up her job. She has all my files, and I've given her my permission to talk to the news media. In order for her to survive, I told her to ask for ,$100-a-day and board-and-room in payment for interviews."

Ted was eager to see me when I got to Miami. He suggested that I contact Sergeant Marty Kratz, the jailer on his floor, to arrange for a visit.

"He's a pretty good guy."

He seemed to understand that I would have to be in the courtroom sitting in the press section, and he assured me he would do everything he could to see I got into the trial. "If you have any troilble, you come to me. I'm the 'Golden Boy.' I'll see that you gel in." He was confident that we would be able to talk too during court recesses and before evening sessions. He was insistent that I try to get in to see him in jail as soon as I got to Miami. I fully expected that I would get to see him, but things would not work out that way. 348

Ted felt that he was going to have a fair trial; he even spoke well of Judge Cowart and said, "I'll never have an appeal based on the inadequacy of my defense team, because they're good."

"Are you able to sleep?" I asked.

"I sleep like a baby."

The only matter that was really rankling Ted at this point .was Dr. Tanay's testimony. "I only agreed to talk to him because it was my understanding the session was to be taperecorded for the benefit of the defense. Spenkelink's lawyer, Brian Hayes, told me to do that. I was appalled and shocked when Tanay got up in open court and said I was dangerous to myself and others, a sociopath, an antisocial personality, that I shouldn't be allowed to go free. That was when I realized, and only then, that the court had ordered the examination, not the defense."

"Are you still not smoking?" I asked.

"I wasn't, but I bought a pack just before that flight down here at night in that single-engine plane. I just finished it, and it's been several days, so that's not so bad."

He commented that the vast majority of the jurors picked at that point were black or blue collar workers and that seemed good. I asked if he didn't feel that the very intelligent potential juror-someone who might weigh all sides of a question-might not also be the assiduous newspaper reader.

"No, that doesn't necessarily follow. A lot of the professionals are so caught up in their careers that they don't read anything but professional journals. Many of them don't seem to have heard about me."

"Are you at all afraid for your personal safety?"

"Not at all. I'm too well known-a cause célèbre. They won't let anything happen to me. They want to get me into court safely." He sounded completely in control; there was none of the vagueness, the slipping-away, that I'd noticed in his phone call of nine months earlier. He explained how the trial would run, the pretrial period where all the 150 witnesses would give brief testimony to see if it could be allowed into trial itself or would be suppressed. He explained the trial phase, and the penalty phase, and said that the prosecution was allowing jurors to be seated who were against the death penalty. Ted was clearly a captain in charge of his own ship.