“I’m disappointed in you,” Gabe wrote in another correspondence. “Get your shit together. You’re siding with a person who murdered our dad.”
Gabriel was not the only brother sending e-mails to Eli. In January 2005, Adam sent one saying he would entertain his mother’s request to write a letter to the court, pronouncing, “I don’t believe my mother killed my father in cold blood, but in self-defense.”
In response to questions from Susan, Eli maintained that his elder brother had threatened to disinherit him if he did not join the wrongful death civil suit that Adam and Gabe filed against their mother.
“If I could just apologize for my language beforehand,” Eli asked jurors before reading Gabriel’s final e-mail correspondence aloud. “Eli, if you believe all that shit, you’re a fucking psycho, and I never want to see you again,” Eli read from the page his mother handed him. “I really should start calling you Susan. Grow the fuck up!”
Looking up from the paper, Eli accused Sequeira of “smiling at him.”
The accusation caught the judge off guard. Straightening herself in her chair, Brady glanced at the prosecutor. For the record, she noted that he was sitting at his table, resting his cheek and chin in his hand and gazing away from the witness box.
“I object!” Susan barked. “The district attorney is making faces at my son.”
Brady drew a breath and instructed Susan to move on with her questions.
“Was it like a smiling face?” Susan asked Eli with regard to Sequeira’s supposed grin.
“Mrs. Polk,” the judge interrupted, warning Susan to move on.
“It was like a smirk,” Eli replied.
Brady instructed Eli not to respond after she had ruled.
“I object!” Susan yelled out.
“Is there any way to take this show on the road?” Sequeira interjected, shaking his head in frustration.
“It is a show,” Eli agreed.
Banging her hand on the desk, Brady terminated the proceedings. “All right! We’re done for the day!”
Humorous though it was, the episode reflected Brady’s growing frustration. Whereas once the judge had been willing to tolerate Susan’s behavior, she was becoming much less lenient. Furthermore, Susan continued to bait Sequeira, and her efforts were clearly taking a toll on everyone involved.
On Tuesday, Susan directed her middle son to read letters he had written to her in jail. She was anxious to point out the sections in which Eli referred to his willingness to take the stand and “tell the truth” about Dad, but she didn’t anticipate the unsettling impact that many of the letters would have on the courtroom. As Eli spoke about his mother’s innocence, his voice sounded less and less like a son, and more like a lover. The impact was palpable, as the jurors shifted in their seats.
“I miss you so much it is driving me crazy,” Eli read aloud from one. “You are everything to me…. The truth about Dad needs to come out.”
“P.S. I wake up and see your face,” the note continued. “I love you enough to burn all I am and meet you in the afterlife.”
Susan cried aloud as her son recited the words to jurors. He had already told the court about the framed photo of his mother that he kept in his locker at Byron Boys’ Ranch. He had made the frame in wood shop and hung it in the locker so he could see her face every day.
The testimony that day was disquieting, and Sequeira recognized that Susan may have alienated the jurors with her son’s writings. Once again the prosecutor had uncovered a weak spot to probe, and the following morning he did just that, announcing his intent to introduce short stories that had allegedly been written by Susan about a wife who murders her husband and a mother who has a sexual relationship with her son.
According to Sequeira, he learned of the stories six weeks earlier during a phone call from Susan’s landlord in Montana, former Congressman Chris Harris, who claimed he and his wife came upon the writings while cleaning the cabin. Harris said the writings were tucked under a mattress in the cabin that Susan had rented from him in the fall of 2001, but he was unsure if his wife had kept them. From the handwriting, Harris’s wife had determined that a woman had written the stories.
Susan argued there was no basis to introduce the material into evidence, as the landlord did not even have them in his possession. “There’s speculation that I wrote the dirty story and that I wrote the murder story,” Susan barked. “That’s totally slander. He [Paul Sequeira] should be ashamed of himself! There isn’t anything they wouldn’t say or do to de-fame me!”
Judge Brady postponed a ruling on their admissibility, saying there were “some issues” that needed to be considered.
Angered at the judge’s response, Susan launched into an attack on Sequeira, at one point blurting out, “The man needs a spanking and the judge should give it to him.” Judge Brady did not respond. Instead, she instructed the deputies to return Eli to the courtroom to resume testimony. Eventually she would rule the stories inadmissible.
In response to questions, Eli portrayed himself as the only one of Susan’s three sons to come to court and “tell the truth,” claiming that his father had hypnotized all three boys during twice weekly therapy sessions at the house. He contended that Felix served them tea and put them in a trance. “I remember not remembering what had happened.” He also believed that Felix was behind the accusations regarding Adam’s sexual abuse by a satanic cult. “It seemed like it was definitely dad’s thing.” And he agreed with his mother that his two brothers were part of a conspiracy to “loot” the Polk estate.
During his final moments on the stand, Eli told jurors that he believed his father’s death could have been prevented if someone had simply reported his abuse to authorities.
“Isn’t it true your dad did try to prevent it and now he’s dead?” Sequeira asked. He reminded Eli that Felix had called authorities several times in the days before his death, saying he was afraid for his life.
“First of all, I believed he attacked her that night, and she defended herself,” Eli argued. It was his contention that Felix was simply trying to set his mother up; that he had “every opportunity” to fix his marriage and had failed miserably.
“Your father’s dead, isn’t he?” Sequeira asked.
“I’m not going to answer that question.”
By late afternoon, Judge Brady had had enough. Susan’s repeated objections and requests to interrupt her son’s testimony with other defense witnesses now seemed like an attempt to keep Eli on the stand—and out of jail—for as long as possible. Brady called an end to Susan’s examination just before 4:30 that Wednesday, directing her to pick up her case in the morning with testimony from Montana real estate agent, Janna Kuntz, and retired forensic pathologist, Dr. John Cooper.
The following morning, Susan’s first witness, Janna Kuntz, testified about conversations she had with Susan in September 2002 while the two were out viewing properties.
“It was not a good marriage,” Kuntz responded to a question from Susan. “You were very unhappy and you wanted to move away, get away.”
The realtor told the court that she was under the impression that Susan’s husband was “a very emotionally abusive human being.”
“Did I express rage?” she asked the realtor, referring to the day she learned Felix had won custody of their Orinda home and their minor son, as well as a significant cut in her support payments.
“I wouldn’t describe it as ‘rage.’ It was more like, ‘Can you believe this? He’s gone and done something again.’”
Under cross-examination, Kuntz agreed that her feelings about the Polks’ marriage were based solely on Susan’s statements. She had never met Felix Polk and could not speak to his character from personal experience. In spite of the one-sided nature of Kuntz’s testimony, her appearance was a relief, as she brought a sense of normalcy to the otherwise chaotic proceedings.
The harmony was short-lived. For her next witness, Susan called Dr. Cooper, a self-employed forensic pathologist
from Austin, Texas. Dr. Cooper had reviewed the autopsy report and was in court to dispute the medical examiner’s claims that Felix Polk died as a result of blunt force trauma and bleeding from his extensive injuries. Susan’s former defense attorney, Dan Horowitz, had considered hiring Dr. Cooper when he was in charge of the case, but he opted not to after deciding that the expert witness was a bit of a “kook.”
Susan seemed infatuated by her expert witness, smiling and batting her eyes at the fortyish Texan with the round cheeks, dark hair, and lispy Southern drawl as she stood at the podium. The doctor told jurors that he was an independent forensic expert who was often retained by prosecutors to provide expert testimony at trial. Though he claimed that defense attorneys with “wild theories” often contacted him, he said he usually denied the jobs because “I don’t want to look foolish.” During his career, he performed nearly two thousand autopsies and said he hoped to retire soon to pursue his interest in the medical practices of indigenous cultures.
Dr. Cooper contended that Felix’s heart problems were a “time bomb” and that heart disease, not multiple stab wounds, caused his death. He reached this conclusion after spending more than fifty hours reviewing materials related to the case, including the autopsy conducted by Dr. Brian Peterson, police crime scene photos, grand jury testimony, and letters from Susan that detailed her version of events the night Felix died.
“I believe Dr. Polk died of a coronary event while assaulting his wife,” he testified, noting that the autopsy found that two of Felix’s arteries were 75 percent blocked and his heart was swollen at the time of death.
Dr. Cooper characterized Felix’s stab wounds as “relatively trivial” and claimed they did not cause his death because the “severity of the injuries was really not that great.”
“In your opinion, was my husband killed?” Susan asked, reading from a list of prepared questions she had in front of her on the podium.
“No,” Dr. Cooper affirmed. “I came to the conclusion that the manner of death should be categorized as ‘natural.’
“The stab wounds were not enough for death without the coronary disease. He could have gotten medical attention and survived these injuries,” he concluded.
Rising from his seat in the witness box, the forensic expert strode to the front of the courtroom, his cowboy boots peeking out from beneath dark-colored slacks, and fell to his knees. He was about to provide jurors with a live reenactment of the events of October 13, 2002, as he believed they occurred based on his review of the evidence, and his interpretation was vastly different from that of Dr. Peterson.
Kneeling before the panel, he explained that in order to inflict wounds to Felix’s stomach in the direction they were made, Susan would have to be beneath him, and not standing, when she plunged the knife into his abdomen. Furthermore, Dr. Cooper was critical of Peterson’s findings, particularly his decision to list the exact number of injuries—twenty-seven stab wounds—found on Polk’s body on the autopsy report. It was his contention that Peterson was anxious to dramatize the findings in light of the media attention the Polk case was receiving.
“I would have just said ‘multiple stab wounds,’ because when we fill out these reports we know we’re going to be quoted…. I’ve read the stories in the press.”
“Objection!” Sequeira cut the witness off mid-sentence.
“I’ve read them!” Dr. Cooper shot back, to which the judge issued an admonishment.
Dr. Cooper testified that he found no evidence to support the prosecutor’s claim that Felix was rendered incapacitated early in the struggle by a blow to the head. Holding up a photo of Felix’s head injury, he showed jurors that there was no indication that blood had flowed from the injury to areas of Felix’s neck and back. Blood droplets would be present if Felix had stood up after he sustained the blow, he maintained.
“He hit his head on the tile floor after he fell back from his cardiac arrest,” he concluded.
He testified that Felix’s death was the result of coronary deficiency and that the stab wounds were a contributing factor. This, he asserted, was a clear example of self-defense. Sequeira immediately objected that the witness was not qualified to make a legal assessment. It was one of many objections made by the prosecutor that morning, but his objections never stopped Dr. Cooper from testifying. Ordinarily, a witness stops speaking when a lawyer interrupts; in this case, Dr. Cooper just kept talking. This odd behavior proved quite frustrating for both Sequeira and Judge Brady, who finally called for an early recess.
“I’ve been doing this for a very long time,” Brady told the witness out of earshot of jurors. “I’ve never had an expert witness respond to either party during an objection. Whether you agree with the objection or not, it is for me to deal with.”
“I’m sorry,” Cooper replied.
But Susan could not let the matter rest. Once again, she charged that Brady and Sequeira were conspiring, this time to “intimidate” her witness.
“I’m outta here,” the prosecutor announced, throwing his arms in the air.
“He’s playing chicken,” Susan accused.
“She’s right!” her mother, Helen Bolling, shouted from the gallery, an outburst that prompted a court bailiff to expel the elder woman from the courtroom. Once in the hallway, Bolling told reporters that she viewed her daughter’s murder trial as “unfair,” labeling it a “phony trial.”
That afternoon, Dr. Cooper continued his testimony, listing seven reasons why he believed that Dr. Peterson’s autopsy was not “objective.” There was the “physical improbability factor” with Felix standing five inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than his wife and “direct evidence” such as the injury on Susan’s face and strands of her hair in Felix’s death grip. According to Dr. Cooper, the “defensive wounds” on Felix’s body supported the theory that he was attacking Susan with his right hand while blocking the knife with his left. He noted that the wounds had a leftward slant and clumps of Susan’s hair were found in his right hand. Cooper insisted that the data indicated that Felix “didn’t turn and run.” The fact that Felix ripped out strands of his wife’s hair, punched her in the face, and bit her on the hand was proof that he was the party responsible for the assault, the expert argued. “To me, he did not try to avoid violence, he was trying to perpetuate it,” he said.
In addition, there was also the “distribution” and “multiplicity” of the stab wounds coupled with “the relative position of the two combatants.” Blood from Felix’s chest and upper thighs had flowed to his knees, but not his shins, supporting his claim that Susan was under Felix during the attack. Furthermore, Cooper pointed out that the county’s medical examiner would have found evidence of blood flowing down the back of Felix’s head and neck if he had been struck first on the head by Susan that night. He called the State’s theory that she had initiated the attack with an incapacitating blow to the head “a bogus suggestion,” noting that Felix’s head wound lacked bruising.
The pathologist agreed with Susan’s assertion that Felix’s body was moved after his death, evidenced by blood smudges found on the floor near the corpse. This comment drew objections from the prosecutor, who took issue with the scope of Dr. Cooper’s testimony. Sequeira argued that while Cooper was qualified to render medical findings, he was not an expert in criminal investigations and should not be espousing theories as to how the crime played out. Judge Brady agreed with Sequeira and sustained the objection.
In the minutes before court ended that Thursday, Dr. Cooper made a stunning admission: He did not write a report of his findings, nor did he have any notes to turn over to the prosecutor. Essentially, he had come to court without any of the supporting materials he had used to render his expert opinion in the first-degree murder case.
“Once one knows the truth of the case, one does not need to remain neutral,” he told Sequeira. “One goes with the truth.”
Sequeira’s frustrations, which he had previously directed only at Susan, came out, as his pati
ence with Dr. Cooper disappeared. The prosecutor retorted, “You don’t think it’s not good professional practice to write a report so people can review what your findings are in a murder case?”
Dr. Cooper challenged Sequeira to “subpoena” him, claiming he had not prepared a written report for fear that it would be used as a tool to prevent him from testifying. He also noted he had not been asked by the prosecutor to prepare one.
“I don’t consider it appropriate for you to know all of the details of what I’m going to testify to,” Cooper added.
The discussion was clearly becoming a problem. Sensing a number of issues with Dr. Cooper’s testimony, Judge Brady intervened, halting the cross-examination and clearing the jury and the witness from the courtroom. She informed Susan that protocol required expert witnesses to provide the other side with supporting documents used to render a decision in a case. Susan told Brady that she hadn’t made copies of her written correspondence and claimed there were no notes. When Brady appeared skeptical, Susan launched into a frenzied attack, repeatedly cutting the judge off mid-sentence and accused her of being “wrong.” Ultimately, Judge Brady sided with Sequeira on the matter and ordered Dr. Cooper to produce his report based on the evidence the next morning.
The following morning, Dr. Cooper failed to produce the discoverable materials he had used to prepare his testimony. Brady demanded an explanation. Initially Dr. Cooper claimed to have left them on the plane—after telling members of the court that he had driven up from Texas to testify on Susan’s behalf. He then suggested that a burglary may have occurred in his motel room. From the witness stand, he said that at one point during his stay, he returned to find the door to his room stuck shut, leading him to suspect a thief. Perhaps the documents were among the items taken, he put forward.
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