Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle

by Michael Benson

  Hebert promised that he wasn’t going to let Joshua Camacho off easy, and he was going to grill him about his role in this case, that he was the focus of the drama and eventually the violence.

  Reminding the jury once again that the defense had no burden whatsoever to prove anything, Hebert announced that the last witness he planned to call was Rachel Wade herself. “This is her day in court,” Hebert announced.

  At the prosecution table, Lisset Hanewicz slumped back in her seat and made a show of rolling her eyes as Hebert said this. In the spectator section, there were many scornful expressions. While Charlie Ludemann’s face remained inscrutable, Gay couldn’t hide her disdain.

  Rachel was going to talk about the reasons why she felt it was necessary to arm herself on the night of the tragic incident, such as the threats that Sarah made to her, threats that went unrecorded on any cell phones.

  “‘I will beat your f’n ass,’” Hebert quoted Sarah as saying. “‘Stay the “eff” away from my man. Watch your f’n back. I will hurt you. You’ve got something coming to you, just wait. I will find you. If I were you, I’d watch my back because I know where you live.’”

  Hebert said it was unfortunate that his client didn’t save any of those messages.

  Rachel was going to testify about Joshua’s gun. She was in fear of that gun. Joshua had pointed that gun at her when they were alone together, and he used that gun to prevent her from leaving on one occasion. She feared Janet Camacho; she feared Sarah Ludemann; she had no idea where that gun was that night. She feared that gun might come into play.

  Unfortunately for his client, there was no official record of Joshua’s gun threat. The police were not called, and Joshua wasn’t going to admit it. Joshua said Sarah knew about the gun, but that Rachel did not.

  So the jurors would have to listen to Rachel. She would tell the truth about that gun. She not only knew about it, but she had been threatened with it. She was in fear of it—that night—as the drama came to a head.

  “All of those issues go to Rachel’s state of mind, that heightened alert that was going on,” Hebert said. “She will tell you how she felt that night, that she was in a panic at her house because Sarah’s van drove by her apartment and she heard a voice.”

  Hebert made it seem like the most reasonable thing in the world. She felt as if she was about to be ambushed, so she went to a kitchen drawer and grabbed a knife. Then she called her friend Javier and went to his house.

  “She took the knife for her protection,” he said. “You’ve seen the knife. It is a very common kitchen knife. She will tell you that her hope was that she would show the knife and it would never need to be used.” Her game plan was sound. The threat of the knife, the sight of the knife, would frighten those who were out to get her. The knife would defuse the violence. Rachel’s attackers would turn around and go away.

  Rachel’s plan, however, didn’t work out. She hadn’t counted on being startled by the suddenness of the attack. The van raced around the corner, screeched to a halt, and all three girls piled out and came at her.

  As he described the fight itself, Hebert moved from behind his lectern so he was standing very close to the jury box. The fight began quickly, and quickly it was over. Five seconds, tops.

  Rachel couldn’t see what she was doing during the fight because her hair was being pulled and her head was down. She was punched two or three times in the head by Sarah, so she flailed her hands to defend herself.

  “She doesn’t even remember. She doesn’t even remember stabbing Sarah,” Hebert said. “It wasn’t until she saw the blood that she freaked out. She saw the blood on the knife, and then, instantaneously, Janet was upon her.”

  The sight of the blood was what made Rachel quit fighting. She didn’t fight back as Janet beat her down. And she didn’t know that Sarah was seriously hurt, or that Sarah had died. She did not know until police told her hours later.

  Rachel would explain the voice mails she sent to Sarah. Hebert knew how the jury felt when they heard them. “They’re just awful,” he said. But he asked the jurors to place those recordings in context. Rachel was speaking that way because she was responding to threats that had come at her, and that was the way teenagers talked. There was a generational difference in what was acceptable speech. What might seem to them to be the words of a monster was—to the younger generation—just a girl talking smack.

  “Make no mistake. You have to look at the whole puzzle before you can see the picture, and we ask you to look at that picture, and to wait until the very end before you make your decision,” Hebert said.

  There were two families in the courtroom that would never be the same because of what had happened. If they could turn back the hands of time, they would, of course. But they couldn’t. His goal was that justice be carried out, and justice meant in this case that Rachel was acting in self-defense. She was not guilty of second-degree murder.

  Hebert thanked the jurors for their attention and sat down.

  Judge Bulone said, “Call your first witness.”

  Hebert said, “The defense calls Javier Laboy.”

  The young man who took the oath and sat down wore a maroon shirt and black tie, no jacket. Javier Laboy introduced himself to the jury and explained he was a bookkeeper for a car dealership. Jay Hebert began by asking the witness to define his relationship with the defendant. He said they “used to date,” that they dated between four and six months, remained friends after they broke up, and then “lost contact.” They were not dating at the time of the incident.

  Yes, he knew Joshua Camacho. They’d gone to Pinellas Park High School together. He and Joshua, in fact, had “a few problems for a few years.” He knew Janet Camacho slightly. He’d only met her once or twice. He’d known Erin Slothower since middle school, and they had dated for a time. He didn’t know Sarah Ludemann at all, but he had been aware of the Rachel/Sarah feud. During the evening of April 14, 2009, he’d been at his mom’s home. At some point, he’d received a call from Rachel Wade.

  “What was Miss Wade’s demeanor when she made that call?” Hebert asked.

  The witness turned toward the jury and spoke with solemn sincerity: “She was upset and terrified.”

  “As a result of that phone call, what did you encourage Miss Wade to do?” Hebert asked.

  “I encouraged her to come over to my mom’s house.”

  “It had been four or five months since you had had regular contact with Miss Wade?”

  “Yes.” Long enough for his house to be “off the radar” of anyone who was looking for her. He told no one she was coming over or that she was there.

  At some point, Dustin Grimes, a friend of his, also came over. When Rachel arrived, she was in tears, shaking, scared, unable to keep herself together. She said she’d been threatened and felt his house provided her safe haven. They didn’t go inside. They sat out front, just hanging out. They tried to calm her down, made plans to go to Starbucks, to have fun, forget about everything else that was going on. But she didn’t calm down. She was on her cell phone, rattled, crying, arguing, pacing back and forth, shaking.

  In the gallery, the Ludemanns watched, doing nothing to hide their skepticism. Every once in a while, Charlie would shake his head from side to side, not persuaded.

  “At some point in time, did something happen that drew your attention to the street?” Hebert asked.

  “Yes, we were talking to Rachel. She was on the phone arguing. Dustin and I figured if she never gets off the phone, we’re never going to leave. So, as I was walking up to her to take the phone, we saw a car coming down the street. At first it was creeping, really slowly, and then, all of a sudden, it sped up and swerved toward us. I reached up and pulled Rachel out of the way. We were right behind Rachel’s car, and it was a good thing. If the car hadn’t been there, me pulling her out of the way wouldn’t have done any good. The car would have hit all of us.”

  “That car was traveling at a great rate of speed when it got to you.”
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  “Correct.” And yes, he was certain the car swerved—toward them. The car came within four or five feet of them. The incident altered Rachel’s demeanor: “She was in shock.” The incident “escalated” the situation. “I thought we should get out of there. I told them, ‘I’m getting my keys. We’re leaving now.’” He headed back toward his house. Things happened quickly. He made it almost to the front of his house when something drew his attention back to the street: tires screeching, coming around the corner, a van.

  Again, in the audience, Charlie Ludemann sat all the way back in his pew and shook his head in disbelief.

  “How was that van driving when it came around the corner?”

  “Like a street racer, drifting around the corner.” It might have been up on two wheels. If the van had been going any faster, it could have tipped. At the time, Rachel was leaning on the hood of her car, “kind of in the middle.”

  “It was just a couple of minutes after the car swerved that the van arrived?”

  “Yes.”

  Hebert set up an easel and the witness was allowed to step down from the stand to ID and testify regarding photos. As Jay Hebert was setting up, Lisset Hanewicz got up from behind the prosecution table and circled Hebert and the easel once. She eyed the defense attorney suspiciously. She let the jury know through her actions that she wasn’t going to allow any funny business, although what funny business she had in mind was unclear. Hebert proceeded as if he didn’t notice her.

  The first photo was an aerial shot of Javier Laboy’s neighborhood, upon which he identified his mother’s house. Laboy then showed which direction the swerving car had come from, and around which corner the van had drifted.

  Javier pointed out the location of Rachel’s car. Hebert showed the witness two photos of the crime scene, one that was taken with the flash and one without. He asked which one best depicted the way things looked on the night of the incident, which occurred around midnight. Javier said the photo without the flash was most accurate. Because of the position of the streetlight, it was darkest-looking in the direction from which the van came tearing around the corner.

  Javier said he and Dustin were up on the lawn in front of his mother’s house when the van arrived, not in a position to stop either Sarah or Rachel. “When we saw the van, we ran, but it was too late by the time we got there. The van came to a very quick stop.”

  All three girls got out almost at the same time. Sarah came around straight for Rachel. Sarah grabbed Rachel by the hair and started punching. Using his own arms to pantomime the action, Javier indicated that Sarah grabbed with her right and punched with her left.

  “Rachel began to flail up with her arms.”

  Again he mimicked the action, and his limp-wristed impression of Rachel’s flailing appeared defensive and harmless. Nowhere in his motions was there anything that resembled the stabbing of a knife twice into Sarah’s chest.

  “Meanwhile, Dustin and me ran up. The other two girls were standing to the side.”

  “When Sarah got out of the vehicle, who was the aggressor?”

  “Sarah.”

  “Who was the first one to throw a punch?”

  “Sarah.”

  “How many punches did you see Sarah throw?”

  “She threw a lot, but I think she landed two or three.”

  “Punches to the head?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know if Sarah had a weapon?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Immediately following the five-second confrontation, Rachel took two steps back. Sarah got back into her car and Janet began hitting Rachel in the back of her head with her shoe. Yes, immediately. Between the altercations, no more than half a second had passed. They were “continuous events.”

  Like Sarah before her, Janet Camacho was the clear aggressor. Javier saw no knife, not during the Rachel/Sarah fight or the Rachel/Janet fight. He didn’t, at that point, know Sarah had been seriously injured. No one did. There did come a time when he realized it, but that wasn’t until after Janet had already started beating down Rachel.

  “And, if you will, please be very specific. Please show me where the confrontation took place.”

  On the photo, Laboy pointed to a spot between the vehicles, about midway between the van’s headlights. Since, according to his testimony, Rachel had been leaning against the front of her car when the van pulled up, it was clear that Sarah had to travel farther than Rachel to reach the spot.

  Janet had been furious, cursing, first in English, then in Spanish. She was hitting Rachel with her shoe the whole time. At no time did Javier see Jilica Smith pulling Janet back.

  “Did you see Rachel’s shirt get torn off?”

  “Her shirt got torn later.”

  “There was a second fight with Janet a little bit later?”

  “Yes, there was.”

  “There was an interval when the fighting stopped?”

  “Yes, the fighting stopped when we realized that Sarah had been hurt. After two, three seconds it started up again.”

  “When it started up again, who was the aggressor?”

  “Janet.”

  Hebert asked the witness to describe what had happened.

  “When we realized that Sarah was hurt, Janet went to check. Then me and Dustin went to check. Janet ran back, so I never made it to her. I took my shirt off, and when I turned around, I saw Rachel on the floor and Janet was dragging her across my mom’s lawn by her hair.”

  “Rachel had been hit, struck, beaten down?”

  “I guess so. I’m not sure. It was chaos.”

  “Don’t guess. The only thing you saw was the hair pulling and the dragging across the lawn?”

  “Yes.”

  He never saw Rachel laughing or smirking. She just had a blank look on her face.

  At some point in time, the police arrived. Javier and Dustin were separated by the police, put on opposite sides of the street, and were instructed not to talk to each other, not to touch their phones, and to wait for further instructions.

  “Since this incident happened, you have visited Rachel Wade?”

  Javier said he had. He’d talked to her on the phone and sent her letters. Everything he’d said on the stand was the truth. He was not there to lie on Rachel Wade’s behalf.

  “You are merely telling the jury what you saw on April fifteenth?”

  “I am.”

  “No further questions.”

  On cross-examination, Lisset Hanewicz smiled as she said to Javier Laboy, “Good afternoon.”

  “Hi, how ya doin’?” Javier replied.

  That would be it for the niceties.

  Javier testified that he had dated the defendant from some time in November 2008 until maybe the first couple weeks of January 2009, and then for a couple of months, but that Javier and Rachel were not boyfriend and girlfriend at the time of the incident. Then they had a relationship once again after the fatal Ludemann encounter.

  “You were planning to marry her, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Are you still planning to marry her?”

  “No.”

  “You were planning to have kids, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “You had the names of the kids picked out?”

  Hebert interrupted and asked for a sidebar.

  While the attorneys gathered near Judge Bulone’s bench, Javier looked down, and his chest heaved with a deep sigh.

  When the sidebar concluded, Hanewicz asked Javier if he remembered giving a deposition on October 21, 2009, during the time when he and the defendant were boyfriend and girlfriend. Javier said he remembered.

  “And you were asked a question at that deposition about your relationship with Rachel. Isn’t that true?”

  “Yes.” Javier already looked beaten down by the prosecutor’s questions.

  “You were there. I was there. And you took an oath that day, just as you did today, and that day you denied having a relationship with her, correc
t?”

  “Correct.”

  “So why should we believe that you don’t have a relationship with her anymore?”

  “We stopped talking, broke things off a couple of months ago. Now I’m in a new relationship, and we plan, after this is all over, on moving away from here.”

  “You made this decision after a hearing at which I confronted you with the same issue, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  Javier had now admitted twice to lying about his relationship with Rachel during the preliminary hearing. That was enough for Hanewicz, so she moved on to her next point.

  “Let’s talk a little bit about what happened that evening. On direct you talked about how you did not see a knife. But you did see the knife before the fight, correct?”

  “No.”

  “You never saw the knife, and told Rachel to put the knife away?”

  “She told me about it. I didn’t see it,” Javier said, wiping his palm across his brow and then placing it over his mouth. He grimaced, as if his stomach hurt.

  “You knew she had a knife?”

  “I knew she had a knife.”

  “But you never saw it at any time that evening?”

  “Not until the police found it.”

  “And at the hearing, you said the same thing, that you never saw the knife, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you listened to the tape of your 911 call?”

  “No.”

  “Would it surprise you that you talk about the knife you saw in her hand during the 911 call?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, well let’s play it.”

  After a brief pause for the audio equipment to be set up, the court listened to Javier’s 911 call, the one in which he said, “We have someone on the floor who has been stabbed. We need an ambulance. Please help.”

  Further on in the tape, the dispatcher asked the caller where the knife was. He replied, “It’s in her hand. You better hurry up and get here quick.”

  Despite the fact that the point the prosecutor was trying to make was specific—had or had not the witness seen the knife—the entire tape was played. So the jury also got to hear Javier say, “They tried to jump her” and “She pulled out her pocketknife trying to defend herself.”