When Neil finally arrived that afternoon, Nolan tried to fight his way out of a hole with the ex-con in the sweatshirt. Now Neil remembered not one, but three conversations about the extortion and killing.
Assistant Medical Examiner Marilee Frazer was an odd contrast to the imposing homicide cops she followed on the witness stand. The young examiner stood hardly five feet, wore pop-bottle glasses, and spoke in a high-pitched voice. Courthouse regulars had nicknamed her The Giggling Pathologist because of the way her enthusiasm for her grisly work sometimes appeared as delight in open court.
Monday afternoon, Dr. Frazer described in rich detail the effect of the blows to Canty’s head. The ten intersecting fracture lines, she said, were “like the shell of an egg cracking.”
With a look of bewilderment, she discussed in detail what instrument might have been used in the mutilation. It cut cleanly like a knife, she said, but had also severed the bone.
“There are very few basic knives that will cut through this entire tissue,” she said. “It would have to be more like a saw.”
The jury was motionless, except for the repeated blinking of several sets of eyes.
After further discussion of the bruises and blows to Al Canty’s face, Jay Nolan tried to lessen the impact on crossexamination.
“He was dead at the time of the amputation?” he asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Frazer said.
Jay Nolan had been impressed that Fry’s story had never varied from their first meeting, and he personally remained convinced Fry had not killed Canty in cold blood. He thought Gary Neil had lied to save himself from charges related to Canty’s Buick and a check-kiting scheme. Nolan had been publicly critical of the homicide section’s ability to extract statements from a witness by detention, while a murder suspect was protected by Miranda warnings and rights.
Over the past week the jury had heard an unfolding narrative filled with profanity, street slang, prostitution, and drug addiction, not to mention the more gruesome aspects of the case. The panel had been shuffled in and out of the courtroom more than a dozen times as testimony on Dawn’s charges as heard from the same witnesses who had implicated Fry.
Now it was Nolan’s turn. On Tuesday, seven days after the trial began, John Carl Fry took the stand as the only witness for his defense.
Many of the twelve women readjusted themselves in their seats, straightening their postures as the central character was sworn at the stand.
“What is your name, please?” Nolan began.
“John Fry.”
“You are the defendant in this case?”
“Yes, I am.”
“You killed Dr. Canty?”
“Yes, I did.”
“You dismembered his body?”
“Yes.”
Fry was frank about his past criminal record, telling the jury that he lived “off the proceeds of a prostitute.” He said he was, essentially, everything everyone said he was—a pimp, a junkie, a thief—but he was not a cold-blooded killer.
Then the defendant and his attorney put W. Alan Canty on trial before the twelve women.
Fry told of Dawn meeting Canty and their growing dependence on Al for money for drugs. He told of Al’s own purchases of heroin and his visits to Dawn in the hospital. He told of his own attempt to get clean in Alanson, and of Canty sabotaging Dawn’s effort to stay straight. He explained the five-thousand-dollar payoff and the stickup that brought him back in the picture. Fry said he himself was dependent on the doctor for his habit. Fry was emotionless, but articulate in his description of drug withdrawal while waiting for Canty’s money. Often he mixed street jive with the precise words of an English major.
“Were you in pain?” Nolan asked.
“Yes, I was.”
“Was Dawn in pain?”
“Yes, she was.”
“When you said something like ‘I’m going to kick his ass, I’m going to kill him,’ were you laying plans to kill the goose that laid the golden egg, were you going to kill him?”
“No.”
“What did you mean by those words?”
“I was pissed. It was a street vernacular, you know. Over a period of years I probably said I would do something to four, five people, you know, maybe twenty people, but I never did.”
“A figure of speech?”
“Right.”
Later the story moved to the period when Canty was giving them rides to the methadone clinic.
“Did he have any comments as you were going to the methadone clinic?”
“He thought we were wasting our time. Once a dope fiend, always a dope fiend.”
“Dr. Miller told you that?”
“Yes.”
Then Fry said Dr. Al Miller introduced them to cocaine to combat the sleepy effects of the methadone. He claimed Al one day brought them a gram of pharmaceutical cocaine. By July, Fry said, he and Dawn had quit the methadone clinic but were addicted to coke. They made plans to move to California, where Fry said he had a job waiting for him in a bar. The “big score” that weekend of the murder was not an extortion attempt, but a stolen-truck scam.
Then Nolan introduced his client’s version of the fatal argument. Fry said he and Dawn had made an agreement not to do any more coke that Saturday of the murder. When he returned and found Al had bought her drugs during his evening visit, he was angry.
“He proceeded to tell me point-blank, ‘Fuck you, I don’t have to justify anything I do to you.’ He shoved me like he was walking out.”
“What did you do at that moment?”
“I really went out …”
Fry said he told Dawn to leave the house while he cut and packaged the body. Nolan asked him why he dismembered Alan Canty. He said he saw no other way to get him out, and he feared returning to prison. He feared police would never believe him about the argument.
“I am an ex-con,” Fry explained. “I recognized I am a dope fiend, you know … He is established; he is a doctor.”
“Is that what seemed like a good idea at the time?” Nolan asked concerning the dissection.
“Yeah, it seemed.”
“Does it now?”
“No, sir.”
Prosecutor Agacinski went for the enamel with his first question on crossexamination.
“Mr. Fry, why did you call Dr. Canty a pinhead when he wasn’t around?” he asked.
“It was a nickname that was given to him.”
“Who gave him the nickname?”
“Dawn.”
“Why did you adopt the nickname?”
“I don’t know. No specific reason.”
Now Agacinski had the witness in a combative mood, right where he wanted him.
“… Why did you tell Tammy Becker that Dr. Canty was a pain in the ass?”
“Evidently, Mr. Agacinski, you never dealt with tricks. Most tricks are pains in the ass. They interrupt your life.”
“How was he a pain to you?”
“Just by being around at times when it would be inconvenient.”
Agacinski moved in on Fry’s conversations with Canty about California. Fry stuttered, the only time he would during his entire testimony. He admitted Al was supposed to give him money for the trip, but he said Al didn’t want him to go.
Agacinski posed his questions in a bemused tone, gesturing with his expressive hands, looking as though he was trying to understand. He took Fry through everyone else’s testimony.
“Tamara Becker is mistaken about the amount involved?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“… You told Dorothy Wilson you killed a man because he didn’t pay Dawn, is that correct?”
“Yes, I did.”
“That’s why you killed Dr. Canty—he didn’t pay Dawn?”
“No.”
“So you lied to your cousin?”
“Yes.”
Then, later:
“Let me ask you specifically then … did you tell John Bumstead that the money was funny and you wanted to take him out …”
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“The statement was made.”
“By whom?”
“There was no ‘I wanted to take him out.’ That statement wasn’t made.”
“The money was funny, and if [you] didn’t get it straightened out, you had to take him out; that’s what you said to John Bumstead?”
“Possibly.”
“And you told Dorothy Wilson that he didn’t pay Dawn the money?”
“Right.”
“… And do you remember telling Keith Bjerke at other times that if the money didn’t come in, that the shit was going to hit the fan?”
“The shit was always hitting the fan.”
“Tell me what you mean by that.”
“When you live in that environment, there is always some shit hitting the fan. That can mean a million different things.”
“It could mean killing somebody, couldn’t it?”
“I never consider it that way. I suppose it could.”
“But did you say that to Keith Bjerke?”
“I possibly did.”
“Before Dr. Canty died, do you remember sitting at a picnic table outside of Mike Oliver’s kitchen table and telling somebody you were going to kill the fucking doctor?”
“No.”
“John Bumstead was wrong when he heard you say that?”
“Yes.”
“And Michael Oliver is wrong?”
“Yes.”
“He is wrong too, Michael Oliver is wrong?”
“I didn’t say that. If that makes him wrong, he is wrong.”
“Who else did you complain to that the doctor didn’t provide enough money?”
“Half of the dope fiends in the Vernor-Clark area.”
Then, Agacinski asked about Gary Neil and lowered the cap on his handiwork.
“He was probably wrong when he heard you say that you were going to kill the doctor and cut the body up?”
“He is definitely wrong.”
“The way Oliver … is wrong?”
“No.”
“The way Tammy Becker is wrong?”
“No.”
“They are wrong in different ways?”
“Yes. There are degrees of wrongness,” John Fry said.
“There certainly is …” Agacinski said.
When Fry was done, everyone broke for lunch.
When everyone returned, Agacinski pled to the jury in his closing argument that Fry’s admission of the killing and mutilation was a ploy to get them to believe his other statements. Agacinski apologized for the foul language that had been evoked in the testimony. He talked of Alan Canty.
“Dr. Canty is not a sympathetic figure,” Agacinski said. “He did not do right. He shouldn’t be in this world, but we could shed tears. He didn’t deserve to die.”
Jay Nolan had crafted an eloquent final argument, and his heart literally was pumping. Every morning of the trial the sixty-one-yearold former distance runner scurried up the twelve flights of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice “to get the blood flowing.” On a wall at the top of the courthouse stairwell were dozens of Nolan’s pencil marks noting his times for the many previous trips during many previous trials.
Nolan had already run up the stairs Tuesday morning. He took a second trip up during a 3 P.M. recess, right before his closing argument.
The defense attorney began with a backhand at the prosecutor for his remarks about the victim.
“There is not a person in this courtroom who is not in sympathy with Dr. Canty and what happened to him. He certainly did not deserve to die and did not deserve the ignominy of his burial, and we grieve for his family, we all do.”
Then Nolan himself portrayed the psychologist as a modern-day Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
“He wrote a book on therapeutic peers, which means your equals,” he said at one point. “He comes in from Grosse Pointe, and he descends to these wretched people and becomes a part of their lives … I suggest he was playing with them as guinea pigs. He is a trained psychologist, and he has control.”
Building resentments caused John Fry’s hot blood that led to the killing, Nolan argued.
“I don’t think John Fry realized, when he was on the witness stand today, what was being done to him by this skillful doctor of psychology. I don’t think John Fry realizes he was being manipulated … Dr. Jekyll knew what he was doing. He was manipulating these people.”
Nolan hammered at the book Therapeutic Peers, turning it into an indictment of W. Alan Canty.
“John Fry is not his peer. Dawn Spens is not his peer. Frank McMasters is not his peer. Cheryl Krizanovic is not his peer.” He went on for a minute, naming every southside witness with the same phrase.
It was a rousing argument with a rousing climax.
“[Canty] raises to full height and says, ‘I don’t have to justify anything.’ He pushed him aside and dismissed him as if he is not human.
“Finally here is the end. He has treated these people as toys and twisted and twisted and twisted that spring, and the twisted spring broke. It broke Fry …
“This is the type of situation which is manslaughter, and I ask you to return a verdict of manslaughter and guilty of dissecting a human body.”
The next day, after less than three hours of deliberation, the jury found John Carl Fry guilty of first-degree murder. Fry never blinked as the verdict was read.
95
None of the jurors lingered for a courthouse lunch. One sprinted on the toes of her high heels out the front doors of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice, trying to escape reporters. Some feared recrimination from the man in the tweed suit.
One year later, a juror would write a letter, sending it to a journalist who wrote a magazine article on the case. It read in part:
“You probably would never have heard from me if it wasn’t for your article yesterday … I didn’t read it, but I began shaking again. I didn’t sleep well again last night. After the trial was over I pushed it away. I found out yesterday that isn’t the solution. I do not want you to interview me … but I want you to hear my story.
“I am a person who tends to trust people too much. That’s probably why God kept me on that jury. When [we] were chosen we were surprised to see no men among us.
“As each person testified I could hardly believe my ears. As a group we, the jury, became more scared. Waiting for the elevators, going into the bathrooms, in the cafeteria, etc. The only place we felt secure was in the jury room.
“Let me tell you about after Frank McMasters testified. We went to lunch in the cafeteria. We were talking about our families, jobs, the weather—anything but the trial—when Frank McMasters walked in with some other witnesses. It was as if we rehearsed it … All the jurors who were there stood up, leaving our lunches, and headed toward the elevators. My heart was pounding … All through the trial we had the hope of being the two [alternates] who would be excused at the end.
“I guess you’d like to know what happened while we were in deliberation … I know the whole courtroom thought we were going to rely on what Gary Neil said, but no—there was more … We had a short open forum and took a vote. It came up ten guilty murder one, two murder two … We pieced together the evidence a little slower. The money is getting funny. I’m going to take The Doc out. The bat was always in the living room. Now it was in the bedroom. Several blows to the head. Use this credit card for gas. The Doc’s on an extended vacation. And then the plan in the basement. There was kind of an eerie silence as we took our second vote … The room was silent except for: ‘Murder one.’ ‘Murder one.’ ‘Murder one.’ …
“We looked around at each other. Some women lit cigarettes, some used the rest room, others just sat quietly … I came to the reality that I’d been sitting not fifteen feet from a man who actually planned the death of another person. We didn’t even let the judge know we were ready for another fifteen or twenty minutes.
“Later a television reporter tried to talk to several of us. When he approached us I began to cry again. He aske
d if it was because I was scared. I said no … I lied. You see, the whole thing occurred in a place very familiar to me. As each witness testified, more streets were named and as I went home each night, I passed through that area … The house where he was murdered I pass each time I visit my grandmother. My parents shop at the [grocery store] behind that house …
“I guess I’m getting better … This hit too close to home, I think.
“All I can conclude for you is that John Fry had the most fair jury as possible. Thanks for listening—and now, I can begin again.”
96
Do you know what the first thing is I want to do when we can be together again? Give up? Well I’ll tell you. I want to have your baby.
—Letter from Dawn Spens to John Fry,
August 27, 1985
Sheriff’s deputies put away their metal detectors as the defense of Dawn Spens began the day after John Fry’s verdict. There were a lot of empty seats, and one TV crew instead of three trying to snag witnesses in the courtroom lobby.
It was as though Dawn Spens was left to tidy up the drama with a few short lines, even though the hooker was the catalyst that brought killer and victim together on that bloody night.
Ray Danford remained for the final act. He sat quietly on a back bench through most of the trial. Another onlooker was Roy Spens, who now stood out among a sparse courtroom audience. He’d avoided reporters and friends of his daughter. Frank McMasters approached him earlier in the trial, asking if he could bring clothes and paperwork Dawn had left at his house while she was on the run.
“I don’t give a shit what you do with it,” Spens said. “You can burn it for all I care. I don’t want anything to do with this.”
In appointing a new defender for Dawn Spens, Sapala wanted a lawyer he considered a worthy opponent for a tough prosecutor like Robert Agacinski. The judge wanted a fair fight over the charges in the Canty case that would be his alone to decide.
Twenty years ago, defense attorney Robert Ziolkowski was an offensive tackle for the University of Iowa and a Green Bay Packers draft choice. Like a good lineman, “Z” still went about his job without drawing much attention. A lesson often learned by new young prosecutors was the faultiness of the assumption that Ziolkowski’s size and slow movements related in any way to his mental agility. He’d learned his trade well in the trenches of Recorder’s Court.
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