A CLOCKWORK MURDER: The Night A Twisted Fantasy Became A Demented Reality

by Steve Jackson

  Indeed, the defense attorneys sought out a variety of experts to overwhelm the jury, even though these experts would all say essentially the same thing but in different ways. Of course, that meant that the prosecution had to find experts of its own, from either the state mental institutions or private practice, to counter the defense theorists.

  Another time-consuming practice was for the defense attorneys to overwhelm the prosecution team with paperwork. The attorneys for both defendants filed more than three hundred motions each, many times the number in non-death-penalty murder cases, and many of them repetitive. All of them had to be answered by the district attorney’s office, mostly by Gordon Denison. The prosecution filed one hundred of its own, mostly to counter the defense attacks. Then there had to be hearings on the motions, and even those were often delayed when the defense lawyers would come to court and say they had not had enough time to prepare.

  Some of the defense motions were fairly standard, such as demanding that the defendants be allowed to wear civilian clothes at their trials so as not to influence the jury by appearing in jail jumpsuits. Some were just silly, such as squabbling about what side of the courtroom the prosecution and defense would sit on, or demanding that the deputies who would provide security in the courtroom wear civilian clothes—otherwise, the defense attorneys argued, their armed, uniformed presence would give the impression that the defendants were dangerous. On occasion, the motions were aimed at the other defendant, such as when Salmon’s attorney Lauren Cleaver asked for confidential records about Woldt and his wife, Bonnie, that might contain information about his having sexually molested a neighbor.

  Others motions seemed to the Luiszers designed only to batter them into submission. For instance, the defense attorneys insisted, and Judge Parrish had agreed, that the prosecution not refer to Jacine by her first name during the trials. It was too personal, they said, and might cause the jury to react emotionally. Instead, she was to be referred to as “Ms. Gielinski.”

  The defense attorneys also won a motion requiring that the prosecutors only show the jury a single photograph of Jacine before she was murdered, and even that was to be limited to less than a minute during opening and closing statements.

  Peggy was stunned by the judge’s decision. She thought that a photograph of her daughter, happy and smiling, should have been set on the prosecution table to remind everyone—the jury, the lawyers, the judge, and the spectators—what the trials were really about: the senseless murder of a twenty-two-year-old woman. But it wasn’t. Again, it was all about the defendants, about their rights, and about what they were going through.

  Actually, the defense would have preferred to keep all of the photographs of Jacine, living or dead, out of the courtroom. In August 1998, the defense attorneys for Salmon had tried to prevent the “gruesome” photographs from being shown to the jury.

  Cleaver was now the lead counsel for Salmon because his first attorney, Ed Farry, had asked to be removed from the case in December 1997. (He’d filed a motion stating that he and his client had agreed that he should step down “in the interest of justice.”) Her new co-counsel, Mike Enwall, had argued that autopsy photographs, which are normally shown during murder trials, were a “ploy” to make the jurors react emotionally. How Jacine Gielinski died was not in question, he said; nor did the photographs prove who inflicted which wounds.

  “The photographs are upsetting and outrageous,” prosecutor Zook had agreed. “That’s what this crime is… . upsetting and outrageous. These photographs depict the injuries this defendant inflicted on the victim.” The judge had agreed that the photographs were relevant to the prosecution’s case.

  Cleaver even asked Parrish to move Salmon to a jail in Boulder County, which is where she lived. She told the judge that Salmon, who was segregated from the rest of the prison population, was being “harassed mercilessly” by other inmates in the El Paso County Jail. They would walk by and bang on his cell door, and let him know what was going to happen to him if he ever got into the prison population. Rapists were only a step above child molesters in the hierarchy of inmates. Salmon was “going crazy” as a result, his lawyer complained.

  Of course, that would have meant moving him back and forth for hearings and eventually his trial, more than two hundred miles for each round-trip. The judge denied her request after the El Paso County Sheriff complained about the additional costs and problems with security. But to Peggy and Bob Luiszer, it was just one more example of how the whole affair was geared toward poor little Lucas Salmon: his rights, his comfort, and his sanity.

  Meanwhile, it seemed to them that Jacine had been reduced from a beautiful young woman to a case number, a legal theory for the lawyers to debate, citing statutes and Supreme Court decisions. Such machinations did nothing to endear Cleaver to Peggy Luiszer, so she was surprised in April 1998 to receive a letter from the defense attorney.

  “I have tossed and turned for some time trying to write you this letter,” the lawyer began. “I am profoundly saddened by the loss of your wonderful daughter and extend my heartfelt sympathy to you and your family and friends.

  “Lucas Salmon’s family is devastated as well and would do anything in this world to bring your daughter back to life. While you may doubt these words or be so full of feelings, be they anger, disgust, sadness, or some other feelings, that my message cannot be heard, it is said with complete honesty and sincerity.”

  Cleaver went on to say that she had a small practice with her husband and a family of her own. “I have never lost someone as you have, and thus do not presume to ‘know how you feel.’ I can imagine such feelings, but I believe that the depth of such feelings are incomprehensible to those who have not experienced them,” she wrote. “Thus I hope that my message does not further increase the pain or in some other way make things worse for you.”

  The lawyer said she would be willing to share whatever information she might have that would be “useful,” except of course what was considered confidential between herself and her client. She also offered to set up a meeting with Salmon’s parents so that they could “convey their deepest sympathies and apologies.”

  “I can tell you that his mother, father, brothers, sister, grandparents, and family friends cannot fathom why this terrible thing has occurred. I believe there is an explanation and am more than willing to sit down with you and talk to you about that.”

  Peggy wondered why the lawyer would be writing to her. She had received dozens of letters from Bob Salmon and had answered him once, but she had no desire to speak to him further or to his son’s lawyer.

  Then Cleaver got around to the real reason for her letter. If the death penalty would be dropped, Lucas Salmon was willing to plead guilty to first-degree murder, “which would automatically guarantee that he would never be released from prison,” Cleaver wrote.

  “Lucas would die in prison. I have conveyed this information to the district attorney, and I presumed they had conveyed it to you. However, after the other day in court, I was less sure of that fact.”

  Cleaver tried to persuade her that Salmon’s death would not serve society’s interest. She wanted to assure her that any perceptions that prison inmates “play tennis and have a great time” was wrong. “There have been many times when the question of whether this existence is not harsher than death itself is asked, and I think that is a question each of us must decide for ourselves.”

  Peggy ignored the letter; in fact, she couldn’t believe that the woman had the gall to write it. She and Bob had indeed been told by the district attorney’s office that Salmon would plead guilty in exchange for life in prison.

  If asked before Jacine’s murder how they felt about the death penalty, both would have said that in certain cases they were for it, but otherwise had no real strong feelings. However, when Peggy Luiszer learned more about the murder of Virginia May by Gary Davis, she thought that his death by lethal injection in October 1997 was appropriate.

  As they’d been warned, t
he defense had stopped at nothing to wear them down. But if anything, the defense’s insensitivity and the way they toyed with the system had only hardened the Luiszers’ resolve to see Salmon and Woldt receive the “ultimate punishment.”

  As the proceedings dragged on, the Luiszers grew close to the prosecution team. The prosecuting lawyers genuinely cared about them and invited them over for dinner or to watch their children play soccer. When the deputy district attorneys came to court, they dressed professionally and lent a certain dignity to the proceedings.

  Barbara Buchman, the victim’s advocate in the district attorney’s office, was there to answer their questions about the legal proceedings and be a shoulder to cry on when the going was especially rough. As she’d said when they met, she made herself available any time of the day or night, and Peggy in particular had leaned on her.

  Meanwhile, the Luiszers thought the defense lawyers seemed to have no shame. A few months before the trial, Cleaver followed up on her letter by calling Peggy, who had no idea why this woman who had done her best—along with Doug Wilson and Terri Brake, whom the Luiszers despised—to make the proceedings more traumatic would call.

  Cleaver was always asking for more time to prepare. She would complain about the amount of work (though she filed hundreds of motions) and to the Luiszers, she seemed to either act like a little girl or flirt with the judge when making her requests or explaining why she wasn’t ready. The judge would invariably grant her requests for more time, but the next hearing day would arrive and she still wouldn’t be prepared. Instead, she’d repeat her routine with the judge.

  Peggy found the act offensive and was angry that the judge never reprimanded the lawyer, though he had no such compunctions if the prosecutors had not met some deadline. Curious why Cleaver thought she could call like an old friend, Peggy talked to her.

  In fact, they spent forty-five minutes chatting, learning that they’d both had hysterectomies in the same year and that the attorney had a daughter and two sons. But with the small talk out of the way, Cleaver again got around to the reason for her call. She wanted Peggy to ask the district attorney to drop pursuing the death penalty.

  “If Salmon and Woldt had done that to your daughter, what would your answer be?” Peggy asked.

  Cleaver paused. “Probably the same as yours,” she admitted. There was nothing more to say, and they hung up.

  However, any chance of Peggy at least now viewing Cleaver as someone just doing her job, or even someone who was morally opposed to the death penalty, soon disappeared. After the telephone call, the lawyer picked up where she left off with her delaying tactics and efforts that seemed designed to cause the Luiszers more pain.

  Both trials had originally been set for June 1998, but when the date approached the defense attorneys had asked for a delays to better prepare. One issue was what order the defendants would be tried, whichever team went second would have the advantage of seeing the prosecution’s case beforehand. This time, the defense attorneys fought with each other rather than the prosecution.

  Parrish decided, with the prosecution in agreement, that Woldt would go first, in August 1998. But a week before the trial was to begin, Woldt’s attorneys announced that they would be presenting expert testimony that a small growth in his brain affected his thought process the night Jacine was murdered. The prosecutors had to ask for more time so that they could find an expert to look into the defense assertions. The judge granted the continuance and decided that Salmon would got first and set his trial for January 1999.

  “Let us put our lives on hold for another four months,” a tearful Peggy Luiszer told the press outside the courtroom that afternoon. “This is ridiculous.”

  Meanwhile, Cleaver complained that making her go first violated an agreement she had with the district attorney’s office. Because of the broken promise, she said, the charges against Salmon should be dismissed. Of course, she didn’t mention that in the beginning, her client wanted to plead guilty to first-degree murder and accept the death penalty as his just deserts. However, she and her co-counsels had refused to “let him die,” though she had gone to the district attorney to offer his guilty plea in exchange for life without parole.

  The Luiszers couldn’t believe that the lawyer believed that a killer should escape justice because of an argument over which defendant should go first. It only increased their contempt for her, which turned to outright hatred the morning of the trial after they arrived at the courthouse all over a pin Peggy had given to the prosecutors to wear.

  Back in June 1997, more than five hundred people got together at a fund-raiser for the scholarship in Jacine’s name at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs. For the event, her friends had made hundreds of small purple ribbons. Purple was Jacine’s favorite color and her high school’s color. The family had then found a vendor to make metal replicas of the ribbons, which were about an inch wide.

  The Luiszers had given several of the metal ribbons to the prosecution team, who wore them on their lapels for the trial. But Cleaver noticed and complained to the judge that the ribbons might unduly influence the jury, even though the jurors wouldn’t have known what they were. The judge then told the prosecutors to remove the ribbons, but allowed the family to wear theirs. Peggy seethed with anger, perceiving the look on Cleaver’s face as simply smug that she had won.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “A case about darkness”

  February 8, 1999

  Colorado Springs, Colorado

  “I, Lucas Salmon, am guilty of the crimes of kidnapping, sexual assault and murder.”

  Nearly two years after the murder of Jacine Gielinski, Deputy District Attorney Dave Young finally opened the prosecution case against Lucas Salmon in front of a jury by reading the now-twenty-three-year-old’s confession. The courtroom was packed, mostly with Jacine’s family and friends, although Salmon’s family sat in the pews behind the defense team’s table.

  A jury of seven men and five women had been picked from a pool of more than five hundred prospects, an unusually high number to call but necessary because of the intense publicity the case had received. If they found Salmon guilty of first-degree murder after deliberation, he would face a death-penalty hearing; but because of the new law three judges would be asked to make the decision, the jurors would not have to vote whether he lived or died.

  With the execution of Gary Davis in October 1997, the “ultimate punishment” was no longer just an illusion. When Salmon’s trial began, there were four men on death row. All of them had been condemned by juries prior to the new three-judge panels. If Salmon was convicted, a three-judge panel would face a new test. And DDA Young was doing his best to see that they got the chance as he read from Salmon’s statement to the police:

  “The roots of this incident date back to approximately one month ago. My friend, George Woldt, and I viewed a film called ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ The film depicted graphic scenes of violence, betrayal and rape. It was then that we first became interested in the act of sexual assault. We had only joked about it first, but as time went by, we both agreed that it was something we would like to do.”

  When Young first heard about the reference to A Clockwork Orange, he went out and rented the film. He vaguely recalled having seen it when he was in high school, but didn’t remember much about it. While he was at the video store, he also rented some of the other films that Woldt was supposed to have liked, such as Faces of Death.

  Young wanted to watch the movies in case the prosecution team had to counter any defense assertions that the film had caused Salmon to act out. He had not spent much time thinking about the issue that jumped into the public arena whenever a violent crime was linked to some type of media—films, video games, music—whether media caused impressionable young people to become violent. But after reading Salmon’s confession, Young, too, had wondered if there might be some correlation.

  Lucas Salmon in court. (Photo courtesy of the Colorado Springs Gazette).

 
; However, after watching the movies, Young was convinced that it made no sense to blame a film, or a video game, or even violent rap music for criminal acts. Millions of people had seen A Clockwork Orange, including himself, without being induced to rape and murder anyone.

  At most, he thought, the movie had added another log on the fire already ignited in Salmon’s mind by Woldt’s constant diet of violent pornography, teasing about his virginity, and his own twisted desires. But that didn’t take away from the fact that the two killers knew that what their actions were wrong and also knew the difference between the fantasy of a movie and the reality of what they were doing to Jacine Gielinski.

  It was just another excuse, like the one the prosecutors expected Salmon’s lawyers to use, claiming that their client was defenseless against the manipulations of George Woldt. Yet, the film was important to the prosecution case because it demonstrated how long the pair had planned— deliberated—their crimes, and the length of time they had to reflect and stop themselves.

  Young had stayed on with the district attorney’s office rather than follow his plan to go into private practice to make more money. He felt he owed it to the Luiszers, to Jacine, and in a way to his hometown.

  Colorado Springs was just not the same since the murder of Jacine Gielinski. It wasn’t so much the brutality of the murder, although the virulent calls for retribution against the killers had surprised even the prosecutors. Woldt’s lawyer, Doug Wilson, who in July 1997 complained to the Rocky Mountain News in Denver that “I have not been involved in many cases where the atmosphere against the defendants is as bad as it is,” and was still contending that a change of venue was necessary for his client to get a fair trial.

  However, it was more the randomness of the crime that affected people so much—that someone, especially a young woman, could be driving in her car or jogging in a park, and that would be enough to be singled out for a violent death. The crime changed how citizens in Colorado Springs lived and thought. Women said they were afraid to drive anywhere at night alone. Without Young even asking, his wife, Denise, had stopped running by herself, and her fears were echoed by many others.