Final Analysis

by Catherine Crier

  Gabriel’s stay was intended to be temporary, but as time passed, the Briners invited him to remain on a permanent basis. He fit in well with the family and was flourishing in their care. When he arrived, Marjorie noted that he was “the most angry boy I’ve ever met.” He wanted nothing to do with his mother, tearing up some of her letters and leaving them in shreds in the trash. At first, Marjorie taped them back together. But after Gabe threatened to leave if she continued to repair them, she just left the remaining letters in a pile unopened for him to read when he was ready.

  Despite the initial setbacks, Gabriel was soon able to form a bond with the family, and the Briners were among the few family friends invited a few days after the funeral to accompany Gabe and his siblings—Adam, Eli, Andrew, and Jennifer—to their father’s cremation and the somber hike that followed. Felix once told Adam that he wanted to be cremated, like his father. Eric and the other children intended to honor that wish, deciding to pay homage to Felix’s love of the outdoors by releasing his ashes at the end of a lengthy trek to the top of Mount Tamalpais. Located just north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, it was one of Felix’s favorite hiking spots with more than fifty miles of trails, towering redwoods and oaks, and a serpentine road to the top of the park’s summit. After the long walk, the siblings and the Briners released his ashes into the breeze as the dust of Felix hovered in the air, drifting down on the San Francisco Bay.

  Initially, Susan had no objections to her son’s placement with the Briners and even seemed to be fairing well in jail. She sent out homemade holiday cards at Christmas time 2002, and in the months after her incarceration, she wrote furiously to her sons, receiving responses from Eli and Adam, but not from Gabriel. Instead, she learned how he was doing through letters from Dan and Marjorie.

  In one letter, dated March 12, 2003, Dan praised Gabriel’s progress. “His studies are really quite good,” Dan wrote. “He is improving on his study skills, reluctantly, like most teenagers that I know and he is beginning to be willing to recognize those areas that he needs to work on.”

  Keeping the imprisoned mother apprised of every detail, Dan informed Susan that her son was now a member of the De La Salle rugby team and the junior varsity football team and that he “was getting along well with our family.”

  “We have had no problem with him breaking primary rules such as smoking, drinking, or significant defiance,” Dan noted. “And we communicate openly and frankly so that he knows he has both commitment and support. He continues to work with his counselor twice a week…. He is still not reading your letters. We always tell him when they arrive and we keep them unopened for him for a later time. We recognize that they are very important to him…. Gabe sees more and more that he has a lot of opportunity and a lot of potential and Marjorie and I think he will excel.”

  These letters to Susan continued until July or August of 2003, when Susan and Marjorie Briner had a verbal confrontation over the telephone. The altercation, which came after months of angry letters and phone calls from Susan, prompted Marjorie to cut off all communication with Gabe’s mother. At first, the couple obliged Susan’s myriad requests, including shopping for Christmas and birthday gifts for her sons for which she promised to reimburse the couple. However, this arrangement soured after Susan raged at Marjorie for refusing to buy Adam a DVD that he insisted he didn’t want.

  Susan’s pattern was to blow up, rant and rave, and then follow up with a kind letter as if the angry incident never took place. It was a difficult routine for a family that was just trying to help a young teenager get back on his feet, and by August of 2003, Marjorie Briner could not bear any more confrontations. In addition to her verbal abuse, Susan was now claiming the Briners were conspiring with others to rob the Polk estate, accusing the family of brainwashing her sons against her in order to get their hands on the family money.

  This conspiracy theory was further complicated by the fact that Susan was convinced the Briners were in cahoots with Felix’s twin brother, John, and John’s attorney, Bud Mackenzie, who was representing John in the Polk estate proceedings. She even went so far as to blame the couple for pocketing Gabriel’s monthly social security check of twelve hundred dollars to spend on personal indulgences, a check that Gabe’s half sister, Jennifer, had arranged for him to receive after their father’s death.

  In reality, Gabriel was turning over his check each month to help offset the couple’s expenses. Although they both held good jobs, the Briners were not rich. Dan Briner was hoping to teach Gabriel how to manage his finances, and in the early days, he was giving the teen a four hundred dollar monthly allowance, which he increased as the boy showed he could handle his own financial affairs.

  The success that the family experienced with Gabriel eventually led them to take responsibility for Eli after he was released from Byron Boys’ Ranch in the summer of 2003. The arrangement did not last long, and Eli stayed just two weeks, claiming the couple tried to sour him on his mother.

  “He was essentially living out of his car, but sleeping at the house,” Dan Briner said of Eli’s brief stay. “He had his girlfriend downstairs. We were trying to help him. The plan was to send him out to a school in Colorado that would take him. He liked rugby and we thought that the estate would cover the tickets.

  “His Aunt Evelyn helped with the planning,” Dan said of Felix’s older sister, who had gone on to become a concert pianist. She was also one of Eli’s biggest supporters, offering to help in any way she could, but there didn’t seem to be anything that Evelyn could do.

  “It was all set up and then Susan called [Eli] and said ‘It’s a trap, they’re manipulating you.’ Then, just like that, it stopped,” Dan Briner said. “Then there was this falling out with Marjorie and I asked him [Eli] to leave because he wasn’t following directions. Once you put any pressure on Eli, Susan just goes off.”

  After the situation at the Briners eroded, Eli moved to Los Angeles to live in the university frat house with Adam, but that arrangement, too, quickly turned unmanageable. Susan grew furious when she learned that Eli was burning through his trust fund, spending in excess of twenty thousand dollars in just a few months on food and entertainment. Eli explained that he had no choice: he had to eat out because the frat house had no kitchen.

  Eventually, Eli ended up back at the Orinda house. He was living there only a short time when he was arrested and charged with reckless driving after leading police on a high-speed chase, reaching speeds as high as 130 mph on Interstate 680.

  It was around midnight on October 14, 2003—the one-year anniversary of Felix’s death—that a sheriff’s deputy from the City of San Ramon Police Department initially spotted Eli’s Camaro passing by with expired registration tags. After radioing his dispatcher, Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Johnson flicked on his red and blue police lights to make a traffic stop, causing the Camaro to accelerate to speeds of between 40 to 50 mph in the 35 mph zone. Johnson turned on his siren and sped after the Camaro.

  As the car approached I-680, Johnson watched it fishtail before entering the highway. Flooring his accelerator, the trooper muttered under his breath as the Camaro pulled away. At one point, he glanced down at his odometer and noted that he was traveling at 130 mph—twice the legal limit—and quickly terminated the pursuit because of the danger to himself and other motorists.

  He watched in frustration as the Camaro sped off, weaving through traffic before exiting the Interstate on Bollinger Canyon Road, where a second trooper, Deputy Sheriff Jeffrey Schraeder, picked up the chase. Shraeder observed the Camaro skid sideways with tires screeching across three lanes of traffic before its driver regained control of the vehicle. Seconds later, he saw the car turn off the road into an empty parking lot and come to a stop, its engine smoking and right front tire flat. Shraeder followed the Camaro into the darkened lot, with Trooper Johnson pulling in a short time later to make the arrest.

  Striding to the car, Johnson observed that the driver had “red eyes” and “smelled strongl
y of marijuana.” He demanded that Eli open his mouth and stick out his tongue. Using a flashlight, Johnson observed that the back of Eli’s mouth was “green,” suggesting he had swallowed some marijuana. Eli was arrested and charged with reckless evasion of a police officer and several other traffic infractions. During cross-examination at his trial, he later admitted that he had a bag of marijuana in his possession and had smoked marijuana earlier that day.

  In the end, Eli was found guilty of reckless endangerment of a police officer and in February of 2005 was placed on three years probation, conditioned on ninety days in the county jail or electronic home monitoring.

  Susan, meanwhile, was behind bars in August of 2003 when a Grand Jury was convened to determine whether to indict her on charges of first-degree murder. Panelists heard from police officers, investigators, and forensic experts during three closed-door sessions. One criminalist testified that hairs found in Felix’s clenched fist were “consistent” with those of his wife, Susan, and that several of the hairs had roots, indicating they had been ripped from her scalp, probably during a violent struggle. Meanwhile, another forensic expert presented evidence that a bloody footprint found near the body was a match to Susan’s right foot.

  “I think there seems to be a reasonable conference [agreement] here that the crime was committed, that there was some clean-up within the pool house bathroom, and that for whatever reason, Susan Polk came around the back side of the crime scene, perhaps Felix was still struggling, and then exits the house,” the expert told the Grand Jurors. “I make that argument because of the evidence at the scene, as well as that pool house bathroom, the towels on the ground that are bloody, the blood on the counter, and for the simple fact, no bloody shoes are found, no bloody female clothing is recovered.”

  With regard to the lack of injuries found on Susan’s body, ADA Tom O’Connor pointed to the testimony of Brian Peterson, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Felix Polk.

  “It wouldn’t be unusual that the attacker in this situation wouldn’t have significant injuries,” Dr. Peterson told jurors.

  In late August, the panel indicted Susan Polk on charges of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of her husband.

  Eli was furious when he learned that the judge presiding over the case of the People v. Susan Mae Polk continued his mother’s no bail status, and in January 2004 he sent a letter to the court objecting to the ruling.

  “What has happened to my mom is unbelievable,” the teen wrote in a letter, dated January 27, to the judge presiding over his mother’s case:

  My mom has been charged with a crime she didn’t commit. And now she has been unjustly incarcerated for over 15 months with no sign of the court’s undoing the injustice that has been done.

  From what I see, the prosecutor’s theory of what occurred is impossible. I know without question that if there were a physical struggle between my mom and dad, my father would be the instigator, as he always was….

  As I began to grow in my mind and body, I consciously and unconsciously searched for ways to figure out who was telling the truth and who was telling lies…. I studied everything about both my mom and my dad… to seek what a normal kid my age could never even begin to imagine…. My father’s façade was well created… and if you’re around it long enough… you start to break through it as you mature. So when I was roughly around the age of 15, I finally began to no longer see the poor, weak, aging man who was losing his family to a crazy, troubled wife.

  If there was one thing my dad had never acted like, it was weak. My father definitely wasn’t weak when he was beating me up or slapping my mom. He never acted powerless when he used to take my two brothers and I into the office, one at a time, and hypnotize us.

  One of the few documents to provide a window into Eli’s thoughts, the letter demonstrated the close connection between Eli and his mother. In the months ahead, Eli remained the only son to defend her account of his father’s death. To many, his vows of support bordered on obsessive, and there was speculation that Eli and Susan’s relationship was odd. Not only was Eli taking her side, but often he even used the same language that she did, and his letters to her were filled with professions of undying love—even expressing his willingness to take his own life for her. “I love you enough to burn all I am and meet you in the after life,” he wrote to Susan while she was incarcerated at the West County Detention Facility. There was also speculation among members of the media that Eli and Susan could have entered into a suicide pact—in the event that Susan was sentenced to life in prison for Felix’s murder, the two would kill themselves.

  “You are everything to me,” Eli wrote in one letter to his mother. “I will be there for you for the rest of your life. You are the strongest, smartest and most loving person I know. I will always be proud to have you as my mom. Most importantly, don’t ever forget, or force out, the perfect person you are. Never again will I be as happy as I could with you in jail…. You dying is a part of me dead as well.”

  Chapter Twenty

  BUCKING AUTHORITY

  Since her arrest on that October night, Susan was convinced that authorities had targeted her unfairly because of actions she took during her divorce proceedings with Felix. In her mind, the judges were part of a conspiracy and did not want to help her in any way.

  “I believe the reason for this animosity is political,” Susan wrote in a letter she later sent to the court:

  In October 2002, shortly before my husband’s death, I sent a letter containing an excerpt from my diary to 7 (seven) judges in Contra Costa County accusing Judge Kolin of taking a bribe in a juvenile case involving one of my sons. There were other political statements in my diary, excerpts, which may have given rise to prejudice. I believe Judge [Laurel] Brady received a copy of this letter.

  Judge Kolin was called as a prosecution witness at a bail hearing in 2004. He is a friend of Bud McKenzie, my brother-in-law’s attorney, and so testified. Mr. McKenzie, according to Judge Kolin, asked him to help prevent me from getting bail. Judge Dan O’Malley essentially recused himself in October of 2004, stating he had been contacted by a number of De la Salle parents. The Briners, friends of Bud McKenzie with whom my son Gabriel lives, are De la Salle parents. Mr. McKenzie was a De la Salle parent. The O’Malleys are Carondolet parents, the sister school of De la Salle.

  It seems apparent that there has been a great amount of discussion and influence among these parties, which has also prejudiced the bench. It should also be noted that De la Salle raised money for my sons following their father’s death. The Psychology teacher at De la Salle, Mr. Otterstadt, was a former patient and trainee of my husband. I am informed and believe it to be true that Mr. Otterstadt organized the De la Salle community in relation to my husband’s death and the case against me.

  Susan went on to describe being “attacked” by an officer of the court in August 2003, the day she attempted to file a Faretta motion—a preliminary step to representing herself. The motion is based on a 1975 decision that permitted a defendant to represent himself in a California murder case.

  “I was attacked by Deputy Carin, and my arm was broken by him. He hit my elbow with a ‘blackjack,’ a metal rod,” Susan wrote.

  Susan went on to claim that the officer assigned to investigate the incident “appears to be related to Judge [Laurel] Brady’s clerk.”

  “He refused to take my statement, angrily declaring: ‘I’m not taking anything from you,’ betraying prejudice and animosity,” Susan wrote.

  “This beating is relevant to the homicide case in that I intend to show that the investigation was tainted, exculpatory evidence including my diary was destroyed by law enforcement officers. Other examples of tampering with evidence exist. The beating was an attempt to silence me. In fact, Deputy Carin said just before he broke my arm, ‘I told you not to speak in court,’ a major obstacle to a pro per defendant.”

  Regardless of Susan’s conspiracy theories, these early bail hearings made it clear tha
t her contempt for authority in the court of law was a much larger problem, one that would prove highly ineffective if carried into the trial. Any progress she made would be reduced when she lashed out at the judges and their subordinates. Her paranoia became increasingly harmful to her case when coupled with her adamant refusal to obey the will of the court. When faced with the choice between controlling herself and lashing out at the bench, she always chose the latter, ensuring that she received no respect from the judges that controlled her fate.

  It was a risky path for anyone to take, but for a woman accused of first-degree murder, it appeared almost suicidal.

  More than two years of arguing over Susan’s bail status (or lack thereof) did little to improve her situation. Finally, in the fall of 2004, Judge Mary Ann O’Malley conducted a review of Susan’s no-bail status. Prosecutor Tom O’Connor called Adam to the stand on September 10 to clarify a letter he wrote to the court with regard to bail for his mother, a letter which had ended with Adam saying that it was right for the court to release Susan.

  “You know, I love my mom. She’s always known that,” Adam said to O’Connor. “I don’t think that she’s a person who belongs in prison. I don’t think she fits into the general public of a prison. However, that being said, I don’t think she belongs in the general public right now either.”

  “And why is that, sir?”

  “I think that my mom has psychological issues that need to be dealt with that could be detrimental to other people around her…and herself,” Adam said.

  “Was it your opinion that prior to what occurred with your father that your mother was delusional?”