Victim

by Gary Kinder

  Cortney’s friends from childhood all are married, and a few already are parents. From the summer after his graduation in 1976 until the summer of 1981, Cortney lived at his father’s house, except for two short periods of time, one in a dorm at Weber State, the other in a halfway house for emotionally or mentally disturbed young people. Cortney did not fare well at either facility. He cannot handle stress as a normal adult, and the rigors of college life—the academic pressure and the responsibilities of independence—were more than he could cope with. At the halfway house, ironically, the relative mildness of his handicaps kept him from fitting in. Much of Cortney’s life during the five years in his father’s house was spent in front of a television or dawdling for endless hours with his home computer.

  In the summer of 1981 Cortney took a major step in weaning himself from his dependence on his father. He moved into a small tract house alone, miles from his father’s home. He has a job with the Department of Social Services in Ogden and makes enough money to pay for the low-interest government mortgage on his house. He washes his hair more frequently, talks less of computers, and is learning to cook for himself. He never complains of his handicaps. Each year he is capable of doing more things and shows a greater diversity of interests. He is alive and he is functional, and that alone makes his father very happy.

  I think his recovery’s been dramatic. I can’t believe that he’s alive and doing as well as he’s doing. I’m thankful for that. I watched that kid pretty closely for all those months, pretty closely. I always had that feeling in me, no matter what the hell happened, that he was going to make it. And I prayed for Cortney. Whether it’s an answer to a prayer or what, I don’t know. But that’s my feeling.

  He doesn’t remember anything. He can’t remember any of that intensive care over at the McKay until the end of August. Can’t remember any of the part where he was hyperalimented when his lungs were all full of crap and his belly was opened. He can’t remember any of that stuff. Fortunately. I hope he doesn’t remember. I hope he doesn’t have to relive that terror. Put yourself in that situation. Why hell, somebody terrorizing you and torturing you and making jokes and threatening to kill you. They were joking, having a big time there. You betcha. Made the jokes about the cocktails they were going to feed them. What happened in that basement was an absolutely malicious, animalistic activity. And that kind of thing should not be tolerated in our society. We allow it every damn day of our lives, and I think it is absolutely stupid that we do. No one should be allowed to treat another person that way, and get away with it. No one will ever be able, no one will ever be able to know what terror, what pain and what anguish and what torture went on down there that night. Those two guys have no conscience about that one bit. It was a game they were playing, and it shouldn’t be tolerated.

  I never said a word to anyone during the trial, I never called anyone, I never talked to anyone, I never read the papers, I stayed free and clear of that whole thing. Never had an opinion on it. Because until that trial was over, those boys were innocent. But now they’re guilty, now they’re guilty and they’re laughing, see. They’re not only laughing at me, they’re laughing at you, too. And people are going to get so tired of hearing about the Hi-Fi Murders and little Dale Pierre and all this ricky tick that by the time this gets settled they’re going to say, “For hell’s sakes, let’s get this done, turn those boys loose and let’s get this off our back!” And it’s foolhardy. That little Ansley girl, pumped full of that stuff and then raped, for God’s sakes, those guys ought to be … It’s foolish to tolerate it. And we’re still screwing around with them. They were found guilty by their peers and sentenced, and we’re not doing anything about that, and it just irritates people and angers people to think that this can happen and nothing ever gets done about it. Maybe this is due process of law, but I think they carry it too damn far.

  I was angry to think that someone would cause my wife any kind of trouble at all, and to go so far as murder her would be unthinkable. If anyone caused her any distress, it would anger me. What the hell, she’s my wife. And no one is going to cause her any distress as far as I’m concerned. Nobody. Not even for a day or a minute. She should have perfect freedom to come and go, think and do, whatever she wants to do. In perfect safety and perfect harmony, and anything that upsets that, upsets me.

  Cortney was upset about his own situation only one time. The thing that irritates him is that somebody killed his mother. He’s more concerned about that. He can’t understand why these guys aren’t dead. “Didn’t they get the death penalty?” “Yeah.” “Well, didn’t they get executed?” “No.” “Well, uh, why not? They executed my mother. And two other people. And they tried to do it to me. And Mr. Walker. Why are we any different than they are?”

  These guys know very well that there’s no punishment. If they sit it out long enough, somebody’s going to feel sorry for these poor little fellas down there. Their rights are always being infringed upon and nobody’s looking after them. Well, who the hell’s looking after Cort? I would like to have the same amount of dough it cost for that trial and the expense it’s going to take to keep those boys in prison or whatever happens to them put in a trust fund for my son. But see, no one ever figures he had any right to be able to walk up and down this town and feel comfortable and free, and have a nice, normal life, unmolested and unchanged by anyone else. That’s a right the Constitution theoretically guarantees him, but no one ever stops to think about that. They’re so interested in the other side of this thing. The state and the taxpayers are paying for these guys, and no one gives a damn about what’s happening to Cortney. But I do. And I know very well that in his later years, or forever, he’s going to have some medical problems, and I’m not sure how he’s going to be able to cope with those financially. But no one’s guaranteeing him anything. At least Pierre and old Whatsie down there have guaranteed hospitalization, food, shelter, clothing—for life. As the perpetrators. But no one guarantees Cortney anything like that. As the victim. Who was perfectly innocent. And didn’t ask for this kind of treatment, and certainly didn’t want it. No one guarantees him anything.

  I don’t know what the answer is, but I know that the perpetrators get taken care of, and the victims get ignored. And many of those victims can’t take care of themselves. Cortney is fortunate enough, hopefully, where he can get to the point he can take care of himself But some victims can’t take care of themselves. And I don’t know how they manage. If I hadn’t had medical insurance on Cortney, I would have had to sell a lot of stuff. But that bill would have been paid. It would have been paid if I had had to moonlight, or whatever I’d have had to do, it would have been paid. As it is, I’m out of pocket around twenty grand, and I can’t even remember what it’s for. But Cortney’s not back to a normal life yet. And whether he ever gets back to a normal life I don’t know. And as long as he’s not back to a normal life then it always worries me, see. How is he going to get along in society?

  I’m no attorney, I don’t know anything about the law, but I’ve been watching a little more carefully since this happened, and I see no real justice. For the victims. I don’t know. I think that everyone should have a fair trial, a good, honest, fair trial, and a chance to question that, to appeal it. After that I think that it’s stupid to keep on with this appeal, appeal, appeal. What the hell are they doing? What are they accomplishing? It’s been over eight years and we’re still screwing around, one court to the next, one court to the next. What the hell, why don’t they turn ‘em loose? If they’re going to do it, why the hell don’t they turn ‘em loose? I don’t care what the hell they do, but they ought to do something. I think it’s stupid to just sit. They were sentenced to die and they’re still sitting around, fooling around, after eight years. If they are going to let those guys go, they ought to let them go. There’s a point where a guy’s had all the fair trials he’s going to get. And just going on and on and on is just a damn stupid thing as far as I’m concerned. It’s just a mockery of
the damn law. If they don’t have guts enough to carry out the sentence, why don’t they turn them loose? See, it doesn’t make any difference to me. I wouldn’t give a damn if they turned Pierre loose this minute, forever. I’m not asking for them to kill him. I don’t care if they kill him or not. They can turn him loose, it’s not going to make one pinch in hell difference to me. But the law says that he should die as his penalty. And if that’s what the law says, then that bugger should die. It’s that simple. Otherwise, why in the hell have the law? If they don’t want to execute people, then don’t make the punishment. It’s just a travesty of the law, just ridicules the law, and it’s laughable. And that irritates the hell out of me. If it’s right, then it should be done. If it’s wrong, then it shouldn’t even be there at all. And if it’s for life then it should be for life, and not five or six years later say: “Oh, look how badly these people were treated. These people have been maligned here. Here they are down here and they really didn’t mean to do it. They’ve had second thoughts about it.” That’s a bunch of bullticky. I don’t give a damn how angry they are, no one has the right to take another person’s life. Or torture them or do anything to them to change their situation. That’s antisocial, and I don’t give a damn what the cause is. But nobody wants to do anything about punishment, and I don’t know why. They’re trying to find excuses to give people the leeway to do whatever the hell they want to do. And that’s stupid. No one forces anyone to do anything. And that’s the same with those boys. They went down there with an intent, and they went down there knowing full well what the deal was. No one forced them.

  I’m still irritated that the situation in this country is such that you can’t feel comfortable to come and go in freedom. We should be able to do whatever we want, go wherever we want. Be perfectly safe and comfortable. And until that day happens, we’re damn fools for tolerating things the way they are.

  EPILOGUE TO NEW EDITION

  September 1990

  Nine years have passed since I finished writing the words you have just read. In that time much has changed and just as much remains the same. Byron Naisbitt, who turns sixty-eight this year, continues to practice medicine and deliver babies, and has been made a grandfather another ten times by his own children and those of his wife Sue. Gary finally earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry, and he and Annette have added three little girls to their family. Claire and Scott have two sons to add to their own three girls, two of whom have recently won national dance titles. Brett is a stockbroker at Merrill Lynch, and Natalie, the baby he and Diane adopted just before Carol was killed, is now a cheerleader at Weber High.

  The most dramatic changes have occurred with Cortney and Pierre. In the many letters I have received from people who had read the book, I was always asked two questions: Has Pierre been executed? How is Cortney now? The answers are “Yes” and “Married, doin’ okay.”

  In 1987, after thirteen years on the case, Earl Dorius, of the Attorney General’s office in Utah—who argued every appeal on behalf of the state—finally resigned, turning over to his successor all of his files on Pierre and Andrews—seventeen archive boxes full of paper. When Dorius counts the victims in the case, he includes his own family and himself. “If you look at victims of the crime, in the periphery, I view each of my family as one of them, certainly, and me, in an indirect sense. My whole life changed, the whole direction of my law career changed, because of that guy. My oldest daughter is now twenty years old and married. She was born in 1969, so she was five years old when I got this case. It has gone to the U.S. Supreme Court, what, three times, on cert alone. I can remember working Christmas eve at the office until 10:00 P.M. one year, coming home, putting out the toys, and then the next day opening them in the morning and then going back to the office that afternoon, Christmas Day, to meet a deadline.”

  In 1987, Dorius spent 80 percent of his time on the Hi-Fi case. “I was also trying to run the division [of criminal appeals], and represent agencies and other appeals. It reached the point of absurdity.” That same year, I asked Dorius if, given the opportunity, he would witness Pierre’s execution. “I’m so jaundiced now I would love to see it,” he said. “Just to know it’s finally over and out of my life.”

  A few months later, on the night of August 27, 1987, Dorius drove by himself to the Corrections Training Center, which is across the freeway from the Utah State Prison at Point of the Mountain. From his office at the capitol he had just called each of the three families to tell them that Justice Byron R. White of the United States Supreme Court had denied the last of Pierre’s eleventh-hour petitions. Before the calls, Dorius had watched Pierre’s lawyers being interviewed on television as they stood outside the prison, so he knew that finally the appeals had ended.

  At the training center were gathered government officials, the media, and a few parishioners from Pierre’s church. In the main auditorium, Dorius gave a short press conference, then returned to a waiting room. “We waited until the appointed hour, which, as I recall, was either midnight or one o’clock in the morning. Seems like it might have been one o’clock. Then they put the Weber county attorney and myself in one vehicle with an escort and a driver and we went under the freeway over into the compound to this new maximum security warehouse building. I had not been advised of the route I was to take, and we got out of the vehicle and I went through one door and looked to my right and saw the holding cell where they had kept Pierre for the prior twenty-four hours. Continuing to walk forward I saw an acquaintance, who is now the warden at the prison. I had been the attorney for the prison years ago. He was in this room at the end of the hallway. The room was illuminated and I just thought he was in like an office or something, and that it was on my way to be taken somewhere else. So even before entering the room, I started to say, ‘Gerry, it’s good to see you .. .’ not realizing that he was standing in the execution chamber, and that Pierre was on my immediate left, maybe three or four feet away, strapped to the gurney, saying his prayers.”

  In the six years since I had finished the manuscript for Victim, the appeal for Pierre and Andrews had slowly worked its way through the federal courts. In 1981 the Federal District Court in Salt Lake City had set aside the appeal while the Utah Supreme Court considered the case in light of a recent decision in another case. Two years later, the court decided the two men should remain under a sentence of death. The case then went back to the Federal District Court to continue its way through the system.

  The Federal District Court denied the appeal and Pierre and Andrews moved one step closer to having their sentence carried out. In 1986 the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver, a three-judge panel, unanimously ruled against them both. But whereas Pierre’s lawyers then filed a standard petition for rehearing, counsel for Andrews entered a lengthy document, and the two cases split. The Circuit Court summarily denied Pierre’s petition, and his appeal went on to the United States Supreme Court for the third time, where his writ of certiorari and then his final, formal petition for rehearing were both denied, the latter in June of 1987. Except for the never-ending habeas corpus writs, Pierre had finally exhausted all judicial appeals. His only hope was clemency.

  In Utah, the power of clemency lies not with the governor but with the three-member Board of Pardons. In early August 1987, Pierre’s lawyers filed his final appeal with the board, which agreed to hear ten hours of testimony, five on Pierre’s behalf and five on behalf of the state.

  On the first day of the hearing, Pierre did something I never thought he would do: he confessed to the murders. Yes, he had killed three people, he told the panel, but he didn’t mean to; he had gone to the shop not intending to kill anyone. He had found the Drano in the basement and simply thought it might keep the people from talking. His explanation for the shootings was longer and more elaborate.

  With little emotion and referring to Cortney as “the Naisbitt kid,” Pierre unfolded a brittle story that began with the beatings he had received as a child, and progressed to the prejudice he h
ad endured after arriving in the United States. He said that in Trinidad, where he lived for the first seventeen years of his life, he had not known prejudice. Not until he arrived in New York City as a teenager did he begin to feel the pain, the frustration, and the anger it causes. For the next four years, American society had discriminated against him, and hatred began to fester inside. The discrimination did not stop when he joined the Air Force. With this hatred well entrenched the night of the robbery, said Pierre, his head also was spinning from a combination of Valium, beer, and marijuana, and he had a tremendous headache. He had intended only to rob the Hi-Fi Shop, tie everyone up, and leave them in the basement. But then Carol Naisbitt had entered the shop, and she began shouting at him and shouting at him, and then she called him a “godless nigger,” and with all of the pressure he had been feeling from the prejudice, combined with the pills, the dope, and the alcohol, that sudden outburst from Carol had caused him to whirl and shoot her and then rapidly shoot the others.

  When he heard Pierre say this, Cortney, who was sitting next to his wife in a chair a few rows behind Pierre, reflexively crushed a plastic cup in his left hand. About a year before, Cortney had started having flashbacks about the murders, sometimes nightmares in which his legs would run as fast as they could across the sheets, and he would scream, “No, no, not with a gun!” And when he awoke he now would remember them.

  Since I had married Cathy, I had begun to remember things. I remember Andrews had a carton opener and he would stroke it across our necks and say “How would you like to feel what it’s like to have your throat cut?” And before Mr. Walker came in, I remember Pierre kicked Stan in the face. Then Pierre got up there and so very coolly explained what he’d done that night, and more just came flooding back, like the expression on my mother’s face when she was shot. And she also had talked to me and I had talked to her. I said that I loved her and she said that she loved me, too, and that she would see to it that nothing happened to me, that I would get out of there alive. She also said that it was her time to go. He said that he shot my mother because she called him a “godless nigger.” She didn’t say that, I don’t think she could have said that even if she wanted to, it wasn’t her way. Everything he said about my mother and the way he played it up with her, that’s what really upset me, because nothing he was saying was true, except that he shot her in the head and gave her Drano.