To Die For (35 page)

TUESDAY, MARCH 22, 1994, 2 P.M.

By this time, Dana had just about had it with the same questions from the mental health counselor every day. Although there were different counselors on different days, the questions were the same. Dana was getting to the point where she was answering questions before they were asked. RN, accused of murder, history of alcohol abuse and depression, divorce, foreclosure, bankruptcy, miscarriages. She claimed to be eating and sleeping well, didn't want any medication and wanted to get out of the fish tank, get away from the video trained on her every movement, twenty-four hours a day.

The counselor recommended that she stay in the observation unit.

In a letter to Jim laced liberally with Biblical references, Dana tried to wrap the apron strings of her family around Jim and Jason, including having her parents pay for Jason's kindergarten tuition. She groused about the horrors of jail life, playing the part of the wrongly accused inmate ingenue terrified at being housed with real criminals. Dana said she was finding solace in God from reading the New Testament—which she'd first picked up the day before. Although it was the only reading material she had access to as a prisoner at that point, she asked Jim not to be negative about her “getting religion in prison.” Dana demonstrated her overnight spiritual awakening by explaining what drove her to “do what she did,” although Dana steadfastly maintained she was not a murderer.

“Negativity and self-pity take a lot of energy. I know, I spent a lot of time there lately.” While Dana said she had done some soul-searching, she divulged no real insight. Dana admitted that she “held a lot in” before her arrest and had spent hours talking with her father in his visits to the jail. While she said she was not blaming anyone, she pointed the finger at Tom Gray for messing her up and saying she was “too weak to see what I was letting happen to myself. I see how it helped get me here.”

3:30 P.M.

Tom stood in line at the police impound yard. He'd gotten the phone call to pick up the Cadillac, but he was scared shitless about going down there. As the co-owner of the Cadillac on the DMV records, he got the call from the police to retrieve it. He thought he was going to be questioned. When it was his turn, he showed them his driver's license and they made a photocopy of it, checked the paperwork, and handed him the keys. He couldn't help but ask a few questions about what was going to happen to Dana.

It's in the hands of the courts, the clerk told him, handing him a form to sign.

When he went to get the car, he saw that a big hole had been cut out of the driver's side seat and the floor mats. No big deal. He got in, kicked on the engine and drove away. It had been painful for him to come in, but now he felt good.

7:30 P.M.

“I'm OK. I don't have anything to say.”

Another day, another mental health interview. Dana had very short answers for the jail's mental health counselor.

“I feel good. Can I get out of observation status now?”

Dana said her depression was gone, she had no suicidal thoughts and didn't want to see a psychological counselor in jail anymore.

“I have my own who will see me,” she told the counselor.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 23, 1994

Dana not only wrote one or two letters to Jim each day, she also phoned him every night. Her emotions swung wildly from hope to despair. When the previous night's phone call yielded a cold shoulder from Jim, Dana used a mixed bag of anger, religion, self-pity and outright emotional manipulation to win reassurance from Jim to stand by her. She claimed to be fearful of his “chills and coldness” and anger that she found so “violent in tone” that it made her “quake in [her] boots,” and said she was afraid of losing him—then attacked him for not figuring out what was wrong with her.

“You always said you couldn't tell me what to do, but you could! And you still can. You just always expected me to figure it out for myself and I couldn't…! I was weak and mixed up and trying desperately to be in control and appear normal …

“We both have much mental healing ahead of us. I hope we can lighten each other's load and do it together.

“I LOVE YOU right through your fucking COLD ASSED ARMOUR. DEAL WITH IT!”

8 P.M.

While Dana wrestled with her relationship with Jim, Antoniadas was building a picture of Dana from her sky-diving friends Jeff and Lynn Fogleman, brother and sister, who had watched her grow up as a young teenager. With his partner, Mark Cordova, Antoniadas talked to the Foglemans separately. Jeff wholeheartedly agreed that Dana was an intense and vindictive person who wanted things done her way and would embarrass people in public. Their relationship sank when it appeared that friendship worked one way with Dana—her way.

“My wife and Dana were supposed to be friends, but then my wife would tell me how, you know, she was only a friend when she wanted to be and when it was convenient for her, but if my wife needed something, or help or support or somebody to talk to, [Dana] didn't really concern herself much about it.”

Even though they were still friends, Lynn called Dana a bitch.

If Dana was angry, “she'll get right back in their face … She'd make sure that you knew she was upset about something.”

SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 1994, 3 P.M.

Dana's mood toward Jim turned conciliatory as she experienced the long days and lonely nights without her live-in companion, expressing an intense desire to become pregnant with his child: “My hormones are wiggin' big time. If I was home and feeling like I do now—you'd never leave that bedroom til I was pregnant—that's how overwhelming this drive is.”

Ever the organizer, Dana compiled numerous “to do” lists for Jim, including the dispersal of her belongings, ordering books to be delivered to the jail, and maintaining a web of support that she expected would become useful in her defense. As details of her crimes reached the newspaper, Dana countered by accusing the district attorney's office of sensationalizing her case because it was an election year, and attacked the press: “…as we know, the paper is 99% bullshit.…”

In the next breath, she leaned on the Holy Spirit to lend a hand in her defense and closed with a hope that Jim can “feel the love I'm sending you every moment. It's alot Babe. I love you. God Bless.”

Dana was moved out of the observation tank and into protective custody, a wing of the county jail, separating certain inmates from the rest of the general population. Protective custody (PC) was reserved for inmates whose release into the general jail population could cause a disruption because of their notoriety, like police officers accused of crimes, or the type of offense, such as baby killing or child molestation. Being accused of killing helpless, elderly ladies in a high-profile serial murder case more than qualified Dana for PC status.

As she sought to regain control of her surroundings, Dana mounted an intensive campaign to establish a network of friends on the outside, convincing her supporters to believe in her innocence and directing her parents to collect and dispose of her belongings as she liked. Unable to shop, drive or phone, and without direct contact with family or friends, Dana was desperate to have her needs met. Not only did she ask for books and crossword puzzles to stave off boredom, she tried to fill the constant, aching emptiness within her. In the same way that she had continually badgered Tom to say he loved her, Dana solicited visits, phone calls and letters, attempting to whip up enthusiasm for what amounted to a “Support Dana” committee. She dispersed phone numbers and addresses to her friends and relatives, all with the focus on keeping her spirits up, and helping with whatever errands she needed, including being character witnesses at her trial.

Nursing buddy Lisa Sloan took charge of dog duties, bringing “Penny,” Dana's white, black and brown Queensland Healer, home to live with her. She acted as Dana's spiritual compass, visiting and providing Bibles and religious passages to assist Dana, who insisted to Lisa that she was no “jailhouse convert … Pray for me Lisa to get out and get on with my life.”

She asked another nursing buddy to call Jim, gave her his phone number and his work schedule, and described her life behind bars in contrast to the wretched conditions she was moaning about to Jim and her parents.

“Tonite was a real up nite! I got to exercise in the exercise rm! I smelled real nite air and got to see the beautiful full moon. I went on the exercise bike, used the weights … played basketball and had a great time. On the way out the door I made 3 one handed basketball dunks in a row! Then got to hang out for 3 hrs with the girls watching TV, taking showers, and getting to know some of them better.

“The one girl I've been wanting to know was extra sweet to me and 3 of us held hands and did a prayer out loud (It was super special.)…”

Despite her hatred of Tom Gray, Dana kept in touch with his father, tried to enlist his support and supplied him with a phone list. “I have always loved you DAD, you've been the best to me … Just one letter from you, from your heart, would mean the most to me…”

At the same time, Rick was also mounting a campaign to get his things back. He wrote a seven-page letter to Russell on March 29 apologizing for “blowing up” at him when Rick called him to enlist his assistance in getting the furniture and other items returned. Rick recounted how he had loaned Dana his possessions all the way up to Dana's ugly phone call on January 30.

Rick told Russell he was not shocked at her arrest and, with insight, honesty, and a stunning lack of sensitivity, offered him some insight as to why his only daughter was a killer. “I had warned her on many occasions in the last seven years that her behavior was not going to get her where she wanted to be. But she never listened, she just became more set in her ways. I still never dreamed it would come to this…”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 1994, 3:30 P.M.

After two weeks in custody, Dana, still adjusting to the routine of jail life, was starting to discuss her actions with friends. Jail breakfast was served at an eye-opening 5:30 a.m., lunch at 10:30 a.m. and dinner at 3:30 p.m. She was in a cell with cream-colored concrete cinderblocks with a small, mesh-covered window. There were two bunks, each adorned with a gray blanket and white sheets. Every Saturday, the inmates got clean jumpsuits and a change of bedding. Fresh underwear came twice a week. Vending machines supplied snacks, candy bars, chips and instant noodle soups as well as some personal hygiene items. Inmates could also fill out a commissary slip to purchase shampoo, tampons and pads, and deodorant. The commissary didn't sell make-up, hair spray or perfume. A book cart, functioning like a library on wheels containing primarily paperback fiction, circulated occasionally. No inmate carried cash. Any money furnished by relatives was recorded under their names and booking numbers. The amount of money in the account, along with name and booking information, was placed on an ID card bearing the prisoner's booking photo. If the prisoner wanted to purchase something, the card was either swiped at the vending machine or the guards could swipe it for commissary items.

The jail building was tall enough for fourteen floors, but the jail actually had seven fully contained, two-tiered floors. All female inmates were on the sixth floor. The seventh floor was for inmates requiring medical care. Each two-tiered floor contained bank of cells, a day room with a TV set, a rec room with minimal exercise equipment and a “pod,” a bulletproof, glass-walled booth from which one deputy—the “pod officer”—electronically controlled the doors and gates within that two-tiered section. None of the elevators had buttons to push. If an inmate needed to be moved, a guard made a hand signal, holding up four fingers for the fourth floor. The pod officer opened and closed the elevator doors and the inmate rode alone. Within each two-tiered section was a set of stairs the inmates could use to go from one's cell to the day room or the rec room. Each of the sections contained a bank of phones where inmates could make collect calls. No other types of phone calls were allowed: no toll-free calls, no phone cards, and no incoming calls.

Rules and discipline were enforced by granting and removing privileges. If an inmate misbehaved, a guard would verbally warn her or write a “marker,” a written complaint against her for a rule violation. A serious assault on a guard could be handled either by placing the inmate responsible in solitary confinement or by sending an incident report to the DA's office so they could consider filing charges. For inmates accused of extremely serious offenses, jail authorities knew the DA's office would brush aside a relatively minor assault, so they handled the discipline themselves. Inmates usually got an opportunity to explain their behavior to an upper-level jail authority before punishment was administered or privileges were removed.

To pass the time, inmates read, wrote letters, chatted, played games, watched TV and exercised, though time in the recreation room was limited. Verbal spats were common and erupted over something as minor as a snide remark, hogging a phone or removing a favorite section of the newspaper.

The contents of Dana's letters show a growing hysteria over Tom picking up her Cadillac from the impound yard, a major blow to Dana's ironfisted control over her possessions. Two strange themes emerged: Despite her denials that she was a jailhouse convert to Christianity, she plunged into Bible study. True to form, Dana kept the focus on herself, arriving at the conclusion that her confinement was a blessing in disguise that would allow her to strengthen her relationship with Jim and give her a chance to straighten out her life. Dana still seemed to think that if she could only get someone to sit down and listen to her rather than the corrupt DA or the sensational newspapers, she could explain everything and walk out of jail. Instead of taking the time to do some serious soul-searching, Dana was consumed with retaliating against Tom, mustering support from her friends and mastering jailhouse beauty tricks.