Head Shot

by Burl Barer

  Judge Sauriol immediately granted the gag order silencing Bill Griffies and his staff, bringing the prosecution’s recent media career to a dead halt.

  “It is nothing short of amazing,” said Ladenburg, “the continual abuse of the rules and procedures in this case by the prosecuting attorney’s office.” The court viewed the TV interview of October 6 on videotape, and studied a verbatim transcript. After watching the video, John Ladenburg quoted directly from Bill Griffies’s comments about Webb’s plea-bargain deal, drawing attention to several incongruent statements, including “there is no deal.”

  “He’s saying on TV that there is no deal with Andrew Webb,” stated Ladenburg firmly. “Well, that’s hogwash! That is a blatant violation of disciplinary rules for attorneys in this state.”

  “Griffies also said that Andrew Webb was pleading guilty because ‘it was the right thing to do,’ and that was complete bullshit,” commented Anne Webb several years later. “Oh, yeah, sure. Andrew Webb: altruistic snitch and ace manipulator. He manipulated me for years, burying me under layer upon layer of fear, lies, and intimidation. He enjoyed burying those poor guys they killed, too,” she recalled. “Honest to God, he told me that when he was burying the bodies, the earth spoke to him—the ground opened up and spoke to him. Then he quoted something from the Bible about the ground speaking. There’s probably nothing in the Bible like that, and if there is, I’m sure whoever wrote the Holy Bible wasn’t talking about Andrew K. Webb.”

  “I have practiced law for eleven years here,” Ladenburg told the court. “I have never had to accuse a fellow attorney in court of violating the rules, but I can see no way around it. Frankly, I am appalled at the conduct of the prosecuting attorney of this county.”

  John Ladenburg presented a detailed legal argument, buttressed by extensive precedents and rulings. The prosecution’s reprehensible behavior, he insisted, equally violated ethics and law, including the right of his client to a fair trial.

  Carl Hultman, of course, did not agree with either Connelly or Ladenburg, and presented extensive arguments refuting their accusations. He also opined that Tacoma’s television broadcasts and newspaper stories have little or no impact on citizens of nearby King County, the county from which jurors for the new trial would be selected. Results of his own unofficial poll concluded that only one out of fifty-four people in the prosecutor’s office on the ninth floor knew about the television broadcast—hardly a major impact. Hultman did, however, agree that the so-called “gag order” was a fine idea.

  “We never asked for a gag order before,” Connelly later explained, “because it never occurred to anyone on the defense side that the prosecutor was going to go on television with his chief criminal deputy and talk about the case. We never thought that was going to happen because nobody has ever heard of anybody doing that sort of thing in a death penalty case.”

  Thomas Sauriol’s reaction to “the first one through the door gets the deal” was dismay and disgust. “I am very troubled by that undisputed and obviously undenied remark,” said the judge. Sauriol recalled previously reprimanding the prosecutor, and his declaration from the bench that there must be no more “flirting with disaster,” and absolutely no ulcer-inducing aggravation. By the time Connelly, Ladenburg, and Hultman exhausted their arguments, Judge Sauriol was exhausted as well. “Right now I have Excedrin Headache Number four-sixty,” he loudly declared. “It’s all generated by this case, and it’s fierce!”

  “Do you think for one minute that I don’t consider a felony, first-degree aggravated circumstances murder case serious?” the angry judge asked rhetorically. “I wasn’t on the bench five months when I had to impose the death penalty, and I choked it out. It hurts to say, ‘You shall be hanged by the neck until you’re dead.’ ”

  His Honor then aimed his piercing gaze at Pierce County’s chief prosecutor. “Do we have any more surprises now, Mr. Griffies?”

  “Not that I know of, Your Honor,” replied Griffies politely. During a moment of stressful silence, Judge Sauriol collected his thoughts and found them disturbing. From his years of experience, he knew that disgruntled lawyers, having lost a case, often blame “the guy in the black robes. He’s the reason we lost the case. I’m not going to take the blame for what’s happened in this case,” Sauriol strongly asserted. “Just in case anybody has any funny ideas to lay it on my shoulders, I’ve got news for you, I’m going to fight back this time. It won’t happen!”

  The judge made it clear that he placed no blame on Carl Hultman. “There is no way in which Carl Hultman, the deputy prosecutor who was assigned to try this case, is at fault for anything that occurred here.” Sauriol put the blame one hundred percent on Prosecutor Bill Griffies.

  Only steam shooting from his ears could have made Sauriol’s anger more apparent. “Does it seem like I’m angry? You better believe I’m angry!” He then addressed Hultman’s argument that the TV program had few viewers and little influence. “It’s known by practically everybody in this building what happened on channel eleven that night,” said the judge. “You can’t have Sauriol walk down these halls without somebody saying, ‘That’s the judge that got to hear about the prosecutor going on channel eleven.’ I’m not totally deaf. I hear these things.

  “I’ll tell you something about the code of professional responsibility,” Sauriol said to the prosecutor. “The disciplinary rules, unlike the ethical considerations, are mandatory in character. You don’t have a choice; you don’t have an option. The rules state the minimum, not maximum. I suggest you take a look at that. It’s not that hard to read. It’s stated in very simple language.”

  For his finale, Judge Sauriol announced that “considering what this is doing to my blood pressure, there’s no way in the world I can hear this case.” Judge Thomas Sauriol, for reasons of conflicting commitments, extended trial dates, and rapidly rising bile, stepped down from the case on October 15, the same day Dr. Lacsina, Pierce County medical examiner, performed an autopsy on the recently recovered severed head of John Achord.

  The police knew John Achord’s head was inside the orange five-gallon metal bucket filled with cement that Tony Youso tossed off the Lincoln Avenue Bridge into the Puyallup River. Tacoma Police Department divers had attempted retrieving the bucket on more than one occasion, but without success.

  “There had been two unsuccessful attempts by the Tacoma Police Department to recover the head from the Puyallup River,” confirmed Sergeant Parkhurst. “Due to unfavorable river conditions—the current being extremely strong, visibility zero, and the depth of the river quite high—recover y attempts were discontinued until river conditions improved.”

  On October 8, 1984, Lieutenant Moorhead and Sergeant Parkhurst requested Officer Donald E. Moore, SAR coordinator for Tacoma, to organize a comprehensive evidence search of the Puyallup River below the Lincoln Avenue Bridge. “Going through the chain of command,” recalled Parkhurst, “Officer Moore obtained permission from the Tacoma Police Department to obtain an evidence search number. Lieutenant Moorhead and I acted as police department liaison between the search and rescue operation and the Tacoma Police Department.”

  “The subject of the search,” Moore confirmed, “was an approximate five-gallon metal bucket containing the partial remains of a homicide victim. I had previously indicated to Lieutenant Moorhead that the use of volunteer search and rescue personnel should provide the expertise to allow for the recovery of the partial remains.”

  Granted permission to use voluntary emergency service personnel, Moore marshaled his resources. “I contacted Evergreen Search and Rescue, and the Pierce County unit of Explorer Search and Rescue. I then got hold of the Tacoma Citizens Band Radio Association, the Amateur Radio Emergency Service, and the Puget Sound Sea Rescue Association. In combination, these groups provided the necessary personnel to conduct a safe and detailed search of the Puyallup River below the upriver side of the Lincoln Avenue Bridge.”

  After several meetings with Denny Guy, the Pug
et Sound Sea Rescue (PSSR) Association’s diving expert, October 13 was selected as the target date for evidence recovery. As an additional safety measure, and at the urging of PSSR, a specific type of divers float was constructed at Moore’s home. The float would be attached to a span line, and positioned via hand lines to specific search grid areas.

  “The approximate center of the Lincoln Avenue Bridge was located with six-foot grids marked off on the upriver railing,” explained Moore. “The depth of the river was twenty-four feet, but the average river depth in the center span area was only eight feet.”

  The search effort, from conception to execution, was complex, elaborate, and demanding. Extensive preparation, coordination, and interagency cooperation were imperative.

  “We involved Puget Power, Tacoma City Light, Army Corps of Engineers, the National Weather Service, and the Tacoma Fire Department,” said Moore. “We also contacted Tacoma Public Works and requested forty traffic barricades, four Detour Ahead signs, and ten portable No Parking signs for the early morning of October thirteenth.”

  Moore also enlisted the command duty officer of the USS Implicit, whom he contacted at the Naval Reserve Training Center. The simple request of four 400-foot of “long line” (rope) was easily honored, and an additional offer of navy-trained divers was forthcoming from the USS Implicit watch officer.

  The coordination and cooperation among diverse state, local, and county agencies and associations was exemplary, as was the international teamwork. “We used eight different volunteer organizations for time handling, diving, and safety. There is a current problem on the river, plus tidal backwash and mud. The depth of the water varied from one side of the river to the other. Additional hazards were fishing nets in the river just prior to undertaking this search. Thankfully, that problem was resolved. The Puyallup Nation’s Tribal Council was contacted via Sergeant Evans of the Tribal Police,” said Moore, “and a letter of request was forwarded to the Tribal Council regarding the temporary closure of the Puyallup River to net fishing and boat traffic by tribal fisherman. The Tribal Council cooperated fully, closing the river for the duration of the search.”

  At noon, on October 13, 1984, the Lincoln Avenue Bridge was closed to all traffic, and the rigging of the span and in-hand lines, supplied by the USS Implicit, began. Everything was ready by 4:00 P.M. when the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office jet boat transported PSSR divers Peter Reese and Ronald Campbell to the divers’ float. “Deputy Dillon and Sergeant Schmidt piloted the boat,” stated Moore, “and the divers worked a grid search of the river bottom starting to the east of the center span and working westbound.”

  After fifty minutes underwater, Reese and Campbell’s search of the first grid neared completion. The river was extremely muddy with near-zero visibility at the river bottom. Then, in eleven feet of water, the two divers spotted the protruding bottom edge of a five-gallon orange bucket, lid end down, nearly covered by silt and sand.

  “The dive team first cited a possible metal five-gallon bucket at approximately fifteen-fifteen hours,” reported Parkhurst, “this was brought to the surface at fifteen-thirty hours.” Schmidt, Dillon, and Parkhurst lifted the bucket to the jet boat’s rear dive platform.

  Once ashore, the bucket was photographed several times by Identification Technician J. Dunatov. “Approximately twelve photos were taken,” the official report stated. “There were two of the bucket, two of a distant view of the bridge, three of the approximate location of the find, two of the concrete survey marker used to mark the site, and two photographs of Reese and Campbell.”

  “The bucket had a lid, and this was removed by Officer Keen,” said Parkhurst. “The reason for removing the lid was to ascertain if the bucket was, in fact, full of cement. There was about a half-inch layer of silt at the top of the bucket, and once this was rubbed away, the bucket was completely filled with cement. Then, as prearranged through the Pierce County medical examiner, the bucket was transported to the medical examiner’s office. The bucket was X-rayed, and the results revealed a skull encased in the cement. The bucket was released to Deputy Medical Examiner Jack Tropriano.”

  “Lists of all volunteer workers were obtained from each unit,” reported Officer Moore, “and there was a sketch drawn by Ronald Campbell of the bucket as it was found on the river bottom. The complete de-rigging and release of volunteer personnel was accomplished by seven-thirty P.M., and all involved were requested to not talk about the recovery until completion of any court trial.”

  The Tacoma Police Department quickly called a press conference where Dean R. Phillips, director of Tacoma Police Services, announced that important evidence in the Achord homicide case was recovered at 3:30 P.M. “A preliminary investigation by the Pierce County medical examiner’s office has confirmed that the container contains the evidence the Tacoma Police were searching for,” Phillips said. “However, police are awaiting a confirmation on the identity of the body part by the medical examiner.”

  Two days later, October 15, 1984, Dr. Lacsina and his staff peeled the bucket away from the cement and exposed the skull by chipping away at the cement casing. “The skull was found to be in remarkably good shape,” Parkhurst reported. “There was a bullet entrance to the mouth region on the front of the skull. However, there was no exit point noted by Dr. Lacsina. There also was no bullet found inside the skull.”

  Dr. Lacsina explained the absence of a bullet, despite no exit wound, as “resulting from the bullet having lodged in the area where the head was removed from the main body, and it may still be at the grave site. Lacsina also noted,” recalled Parkhurst, “that the skull had a hole on the right side of the head, just above the hairline, which also corresponded to an injury that the listed victim had suffered. Dr. Peter F. Hample, DDS, an expert in forensic odontology, charted the skull’s teeth and dental work.”

  “I arrived at the Pierce County Medical Examiner’s Office on October 15, 1984,” recalled Dr. Hample, “at which time I was shown the specimen of what appeared to be a human male head and neck in an advanced stage of decomposition. I was told that the head and neck had been in a five-gallon paint bucket filled with concrete and had been recovered from the Puyallup River. After my initial examination, I felt it would expedite matters and allow for a more complete forensic dental examination if I could resect the maxilla and the mandible from the remains.”

  Dr. Lacsina granted Hample permission to undertake the task, and after doing so, Hample reported that the maxilla and mandible were shattered into many pieces, and many teeth were severely fractured. A thorough examination of the specimen also revealed numerous tooth and bone fragments. After cleaning the fragments, the tedious task of reconstructing the maxilla and the mandible was performed using cyanoacrylate adhesive (superglue). Following this reconstruction, the postmortem dental charting was prepared, and postmortem dental X rays and photographs were obtained.

  On October 16, Dr. Hample received a photocopy of the most recent dental chart of John L. Achord from the office of Dr. Alan D. Brooks covering the period of November 8, 1974, through November 17, 1975. Hample also received from Dr. Brooks dental X rays of Achord taken during that same time period. From this material, Dr. Hample prepared the antemortem dental chart of John Achord.

  “The comparison of the postmortem dental chart and dental X rays ... with the antemortem dental chart and X rays stated to be John L. Achord show no inconsistencies. Therefore, I feel that within reasonable dental certainty that the specimen noted as Pierce County Medical Examiner case number ... and John L. Achord are one and the same.”

  On November 14, Carl Hultman used these confirmed autopsy results as his primary justification for launching a new charge against Christopher St. Pierre—first-degree aggravated murder.

  Nine

  Originally, only Paul St. Pierre was charged with the premeditated murder of John Achord; his younger brother had been charged with rendering criminal assistance. Hultman now requested superior court judge Robert H. Peterson to amend the ch
arges. Christopher St. Pierre would now be held equally responsible for John Achord’s death.

  “When Chris St. Pierre gave the police his statement describing the killing of John Achord, he did not mention the fact that John Achord was stabbed,” asserted Hultman. “He indicated that this man was lying there, apparently dead on the floor from gunshot wounds to the head, and then described how the body was disposed of. When he gave his statement to the police, he hid the fact that he was present and watched his brother stab John Achord twelve times or more in the back. He didn’t mention it at all.”

  The complete autopsy of John Achord, involving a thorough examination of the body and the head, revealed that Achord was very much alive after a gunshot wound to the jaw. According to Andrew Webb’s “official statement,” it was Christopher St. Pierre who objected to summoning aid for the injured Achord.

  “When Andrew Webb suggested that they call the police,” explained Carl Hultman, “Paul said it would be self-defense, and that he would be all right because this had happened before when he shot someone. Christopher St. Pierre said, ‘No, we can’t do that. They will never believe Paul. He’s high on acid,’ therefore suggesting that they had to hide the crime of shooting John Achord. Perhaps worse, he expressed concern that the police, looking into John Achord’s shooting, might discover something about Damon Wells, who had been murdered in February.”

  “I would urge the court,” said Hultman, “that reading the words of Chris St. Pierre suggests nothing more than this man has to be killed; this man has to be dead before we can bury him. Webb’s statement said the man ‘is laying there making gurgling noises.’ There is no indication in this evidence that Chris St. Pierre is deaf, and accordingly, I think the court is entitled to believe he heard those same noises. I think there is probable cause to believe that he aided, abetted, urged, and, in fact, he was the inspiration for Paul St. Pierre stabbing John Achord in the back to hide evidence of him being shot, but more importantly, to hide the evidence of the murder of Damon Wells.”