When he took over the case, Jim Heusdens was pessimistic. He felt Hope had not been a vigorous witness for the prosecution, and he was afraid that Walker’s insinuating charm was mesmerizing the jury. “When you’re around Walker, you really don’t feel you’re dealing with a vicious man,” Heusdens explained to his law partner. “I think that’s why he escaped, and got away with so much, all along the line. People just do not realize what an evil man he is.” Although Heusdens and Tom Breslin had never discussed it, their views on Walker meshed; they knew that evil cloaked in everyday dress was far more deadly than evil undisguised. And Jim Heusdens could see that Walker was beautifully cloaked. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to turn this thing around,” he told his partner.
But he was determined to give it his best shot, which, for Jim Heusdens, usually meant the most flamboyant shot. Thus, in court, he brandished two pairs of women’s underpants, which he said had been enclosed with two of Walker’s letters.
When Jay Powell objected, Heusdens turned to him with a sly grin. “I am allowing you to examine them before I show them to the court, Mr. Powell.”
Jay winced. “I will let my co-counsel examine them while I am reading something,” he said shortly.
The panties were apparently for effect, but the letters, Heusdens maintained, were crucial to the case, along with the testimony of the woman who had received them and who now sat on the witness stand, summoned from two thousand miles away by subpoena—Marcy Purmal.
One juror, whose husband was an army officer, thought Marcy had a military look: wearing a suit, no makeup, strong-looking, businesslike. Marcy did not speak to Walker in the courtroom, nor did he speak to her; Jay Powell cross-examined. But as they watched Marcy watching Walker, some of the jurors felt sure of her feelings toward the man who had courted her, teased her, played with her in the cruel game for which he made all the rules. Marcy typified what Bob Swalwell had always considered Walker’s deadliest powers, his ability to manipulate people, especially women. Marcy Purmal and Hope Masters were as unlike in background, in appearance, in style of life as two women could ever be, yet they had things in common. Marcy had met Walker, she said, on November 30, 1972, just about the time Hope met Bill Ashlock. Each woman had known each man for just under three months, before the men were gone from their lives. Then Walker had loomed above them both, the mastermind who did not need to kill in order to damage.
The jury had only a brief look at Marcy before they were sent out while both sides argued the admissability of her testimony. Marcy explained that she’d been assigned by a federal judge to represent Walker in two Illinois lawsuits, one involving prison conditions, one protesting his proposed transfer from Joliet. Marcy’s testimony came in shreds, constantly interrupted by Jay Powell’s objections on the basis of attorney-client privilege.
“What do you contend in those letters is covered by the attorney-client privilege, Mr. Powell?” Ginsburg asked. When Jay said that to answer that question would in itself violate the privilege, Ginsburg’s patience gave out.
“We are not going to play games,” he declared. “I am not just going to rule out evidence, Mr. Powell, because you choose to say it is inadmissible. Before I ever came into this case, we had sixty written petitions and innumerable motions, almost all of which were denied. We have had objections to every bit of evidence that has come in, on every possible legal theory, and on inspection, many of the objections are sham, they are irrelevant, and I feel not made in good faith. I have no desire, you may be sure, to impinge on the attorney-client relationship, but I cannot see any grounds at all on which the relationship could be sustained to keep out this evidence at this point.” Ginsburg ruled that because the letters did not deal with legal matters on which an attorney was representing a client, no privilege was involved.
Only two letters were under scrutiny—the letter of March 1, telling of Ashlock’s murder, and a letter dated February 6, referring to a jewelry salesman. When the jury filed back in, Jim Heusdens exhibited the earlier letter. “Do you recognize this letter?” he asked the witness.
“Yes, I do recognize it,” Marcy replied.
“Did it come through the regular course of the mail?”
“Yes, as far as I know.”
“Did you give that letter to anyone?”
“Yes,” Marcy said. “Through the law enforcement officials in Illinois, through the State’s Attorney’s office.”
Walker’s eyes were fixed on Marcy—cold, frightening.
“Who wrote the letter?” Heusdens continued.
“G. Daniel Walker.”
In his cross-examination, Powell pointed out that the letter was typed, not handwritten. “Is there something about this letter other than the typing that you can identify as coming from Mr. Walker?” he asked.
“A matter of style,” Marcy said. “And certain statements made in the letter that would cause me to know it was written by G. Daniel Walker.”
Jay Powell raised a disdainful eyebrow. “Do you have any training or background in literary styles and literature, Miss Purmal?”
“I do a tremendous amount of reading,” Marcy replied. “Books.”
“Have you independently studied literary styles and compared them?”
“Not making a science of it, certainly,” Marcy said coolly.
“Miss Purmal, isn’t it true that you receive lots of letters each day?”
“Yes,” Marcy agreed. “If you are including matters concerning my cases and office affairs and that sort of thing.”
“Do you receive typed letters frequently?”
“I have never counted them,” Marcy said.
“I didn’t ask you if you had counted them, thank you,” Jay Powell said, in elaborate annoyance. “With regard to these typewritten letters that you receive, do you make a study of the literary style of these letters?”
“Well, most of them are not as long as this one,” Marcy said evenly. “They are usually very brief, which differentiates them from a letter such as this.”
“So, if I understand it,” Jay Powell continued, “some letters you receive are long and some are short, is that your testimony?”
“Some letters are longer than others, and some are shorter than others,” Marcy said.
For once, Jay Powell’s dispassionate composure cracked. He glared at her. “Miss Purmal, isn’t it true that you are biased and prejudiced against Mr. Walker?”
Jim Heusdens jumped up. “Your Honor, this could open up a very big problem,” he warned. “If she says ‘yes,’ then the People would go into why she is prejudiced.” The question was withdrawn. But when Jay Powell said he would not excuse the witness and wanted her to remain on call, Judge Ginsburg sent the jury out and asked Mr. Powell the reason.
Before Jay answered, Jim Heusdens intervened again. “For the benefit of Miss Purmal, I would ask that the courtroom be cleared,” he suggested. The spectators were shooed out, and Jay Powell asked that Marcy, too, be excluded.
“I object, Your Honor,” Marcy said angrily. “I’d like to know what’s being said. I don’t think it’s fair to impugn my reputation.”
Ginsburg looked at the young woman. “I think Miss Purmal has a right to stay, under the circumstances,” he said.
Jay Powell explained that the defense needed Marcy subject to recall because he had seen, on the prosecution’s list of witnesses, a man named Swalwell and a man named Pietrusiak. “If Mr. Pietrusiak were called, he would testify that he was in the hospital at the same time Mr. Walker was, that Miss Purmal would come to Mr. Walker’s room at night and visit him almost every night, that she was having an affair with Mr. Walker, that Mr. Walker told her he was having another girl visit him in the daytime and that he liked the other girl better, and Miss Purmal got angry at him, and they had a fight over it.”
“Your Honor, I object to all of this,” Marcy said furiously.
“Just a moment, Miss Purmal, please,” Ginsburg said.
“And Swalwell would te
stify,” Powell went on, “or, I would propose to ask him, that Miss Purmal was taken into custody when she attempted to deliver a large sum of money to Mr. Walker at an airport.”
Jim Heusdens could hardly believe what he was hearing, and he was afraid that later no one else would believe it, either. “Your Honor, could I make one comment for the record?” he asked. “I would just like to indicate for the record that this is the defense doing this. I think he said any communication with Miss Purmal was privileged, attorney-client privilege.”
“I recognize that, Mr. Heusdens,” Ginsburg said. He looked at Marcy for a moment. One of Judge Ginsburg’s daughters was about to enter law school. “I am not going to permit Miss Purmal to be smeared in this court,” Ginsburg said quietly. “This would be a collateral issue, and I’m not going to require her to remain on call for this, Mr. Powell.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” Jay said stiffly.
Ginsburg was still looking at Marcy. “You are excused, Miss Purmal. If you feel that you wish to make any kind of a statement, you may do so. I realize you have been under some pressure. But you don’t have to. It’s up to you.”
Jay Powell cut in. “Apparently she’s upset by this,” he said sarcastically, “and I am sure that she would now apparently deny anything like this.”
“All right. The matter is closed,” Ginsburg said firmly. So that, ever after, only Marcy knew whether she wished to make a statement because only Marcy knew what there was to say.
Neither Swalwell nor Pietrusiak was called, then, because Walker’s status as a prisoner in Illinois, and an escaped prisoner at that, would then be disclosed to the jury. Evidence of a prior conviction was likely to prejudice the jury, Ginsburg ruled. So, with one exception, Jim Heusdens was limited in his witnesses to people who could testify only in connection with the California crime. But that one exception was important to the prosecution, and so was the piece of evidence brought out in connection with his appearance.
Taylor Wright had tentatively identified Walker from a mug shot before any evidence was ordered suppressed, and his credit cards had been used long before March 11, too. He had even identified a voice on a tape, played for him by Parker and Brown, on their spring trip to Chicago, as being the voice of the man who had beaten him and robbed him in a room at the Marriott in Ann Arbor. Nearly everything of Taylor Wright’s that had been stolen, that later turned up when Walker was arrested, had been suppressed—the cards, the shaving gear, the clothing. But one piece of evidence had not been suppressed.
The tiny object glittered in Jim Heusdens’s upraised hand. He swung it back and forth, for more effect.
“Can you identify that?” Heusdens asked.
“It’s mine,” Taylor Wright said. “It was given to me for high school graduation.”
“Can you tell us what T.O.W. stands for?”
“Taylor Ortho Wright.”
The shiny little gold medallion and chain was allowed into evidence, then. Its importance lay, not in its size—it was small enough to nestle at the bottom of a teacup—but in its location. It had been planted far from the poisoned tree.
Tom Masters said he did not know a Gerald Daniel Walker and had never met him.
“Do you see anybody here in the courtroom that you recognize having any business dealings with?” Heusdens asked.
“Not offhand,” Tom said.
“Mr. Masters, have you ever hired anyone to kill Bill Ashlock?”
“No, I did not.”
“Have you ever hired anybody to kill Hope Masters?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Have you ever hired anyone to kill both, or either one of the children of Hope Masters?”
“No, certainly not,” Tom said.
Jay Powell questioned for the defense. “Mr. Masters, did you ever borrow money from something called the Mafia or the organization?”
“No,” Tom said. “If I did, it wasn’t to my knowledge.”
“Are you connected with the Mafia or the underworld?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Tom said he had been involved in a business deal with his neighbor and another man in which he had sold them “interest in my business for five thousand dollars and other considerations.”
“All right,” Powell said. “Is it true that you called your wife ‘the second Sharon Tate’ and you were obsessed with this?”
“Not that I can recall.”
Tom said that on the weekend Hope went to the ranch, he’d arranged to take K.C. on both Saturday and Sunday, at her request. “She didn’t want him to stay home alone with the maid both days. I said, ‘Fine.’” He said he knew of the pills Hope took, and that the combination of pills and liquor made her “very belligerent, very aloof, very flippy.”
“Mr. Masters, what is Hope’s reputation for honesty and veracity and truthfulness?” Jay Powell asked sternly.
“Well, I have always found—yes, I think she is basically—or, at least up until the time of that weekend, basically an honest person. Her problem, at least from my standpoint, was always the way she interpreted other people’s answers and interpreted events and seemed to amplify situations. You could tell her something one day and three days later she said no, you told her something else. That was the only way it was bothersome to me.”
“If the jury doesn’t like the way I look, the hell with them,” Hope decided. K.C. was sick with an ear infection, and she felt reasonably crummy herself, so when she was recalled to Visalia as a defense witness on December 20, she wore a black body stocking with a very short skirt, black tights, and a rabbit’s-fur coat.
When Walker questioned her, it was clear that the tapes she’d made with Tom Breslin, in the early days of the investigation, shortly after she was released on bail, had made the rounds.
“Mrs. Masters, do you recall telling us that in your home on February twenty-sixth that you went into your son’s bedroom, you got into one bed, and later the defendant Walker got into the second bed?”
“Yes,” Hope replied.
“Do you recall telling us that at no time you entered the second bed with the defendant Walker?”
“Yes, but now I realize I was wrong when I said that, because—”
“You did get into the second bed and cuddle the defendant Walker, isn’t that true?”
“If I said that on the tape, I guess I did get into the second bed, but I somehow just lost it,” Hope answered. “But I hadn’t slept for three days, either.”
“But you got into the bed and you cuddled Walker, is that correct?”
“That’s what I said on the tape,” Hope retorted.
“Did you and Walker have sexual intercourse while you were in that bed?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Did you and Walker embrace or kiss?”
“I think I said on the tape that he handled me a lot.”
“Do you recall?”
“I don’t recall at all.”
Walker nodded. “So you wouldn’t be able to tell, having been in bed with Walker and having been in bed with the intruder, whether the intruder and Walker were the same person?”
“No,” Hope said.
“Isn’t it a fact that when you were in bed cuddling with Walker, that he was tender while the intruder was violent?”
“I honestly don’t recall it, but I believe that it’s true because I heard myself on the tape.”
“Do you recall telling Mr. Breslin on the tape that the intruder and Walker were two different people?”
“I don’t recall saying that, but if you have a transcript, I will look at it.”
Walker asked to play portions of the tapes, but Judge Ginsburg was losing patience. “Ask her whether she made the statements,” Ginsburg directed. “If she doesn’t remember or if she denies it, then you can play the tapes.”
“Mrs. Masters,” Walker said, “do you recall telling your attorney on these tapes that when Taylor entered the bedroom at the ranch after you had been raped and after yo
u found Mr. Ashlock’s body, that he was definitely different than the man who had raped you and had been the intruder?”
“I may have said something like that, but I can’t remember the exact words.”
“Was Walker entirely different than the man who raped you?”
“Yes, he seemed to be very different.”
“Mrs. Masters, you also told your attorney that you could pinpoint the time you were raped, didn’t you?”
“No, I don’t believe I did.”
“Do you recall telling him that you are a very sound sleeper, it was in the first hour after you had been asleep?”
“I probably said something like that. Since I was so sound asleep, I would have guessed it was during the first part of my sleep, which is when I sleep most deeply.”
“Didn’t you tell your attorney that when you woke up at six o’clock in the morning, you were in bed with the defendant Walker and that Ashlock’s body was in the living room?”
“Probably something like that, yes.”
“And isn’t it a fact you told your attorney that Walker had gotten in bed with you, wrapped his arms and legs around you, and went to sleep?”
“Yes, maybe not those words, but that’s what happened.”
“Now, when Walker was in bed with you with his arms and legs wrapped around you, you were both asleep, you both went to sleep, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I kind of blacked out there for a while.”
“Isn’t it a fact that you also told your attorney that Walker didn’t arrive back at the ranch until Sunday morning?”
“I don’t believe I told my attorney that. I may have said that’s what you said.”
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