by Burl Barer
Defense attorney Ladenburg, dismayed at Hultman’s attempt to charge Chris St. Pierre with John Achord’s murder, strongly opposed the amended charges with a barrage of solid legal arguments. He insisted that the state’s “evidence” regarding the nonfatal nature of John Achord’s head wound was “cumulative and superfluous to the argument of whether or not they had probable cause—not whether or not they had a great case or the best case, but whether they had a probable case.”
Ladenburg further argued that Hultman based his entire justification for the new charge on Andrew Webb’s statement: “Chris stopped me and said he didn’t think it was a good idea [to call the police] because Paul was high on acid, and the police might not believe him. And if the police came snooping around, they might find out about Damon Wells, so we should bury the body in the mountains like Damon and no one will find out.”
“Where is the probable cause that Chris ever encouraged or asked Paul to kill him?” asked Ladenburg. “After the gentleman is pointed out to be alive, it is not Chris that is alleged to take any action, or to say anything at that point. Neither statement from Andrew Webb make any such allegation, that Chris encouraged or asked or did anything to indicate that this gentleman should be killed.”
Carl Hultman interpreted the matter differently. “The words of Chris St. Pierre, ‘We got to get rid of this person so they won’t find out about Damon Wells; we’re going to take him and bury him,’ suggests nothing more than this man has to be killed, that man has to be dead before we can bury him. It is clear,” insisted Hultman, “that the idea for finishing off John Achord came from Chris St. Pierre.”
The two attorneys argued back and forth until their words and reasoning became repetitive. At that point, the judge interrupted them. “I’m ready to rule,” he announced. “I’m going to permit the amended complaint. I’m going to find that there was probable cause.”
The official charges against Christopher St. Pierre were then read aloud in the courtroom. “I’ll ask you, Mr. St. Pierre,” intoned Judge Peterson, “how do you plead, guilty or not guilty?”
“Not guilty,” replied Christopher St. Pierre.
“All right,” responded Peterson.
Christopher St. Pierre was now under the same oppressive legal cloud as his brother. On that same day, Paul St. Pierre, in a self-described show of power, fired his lawyer.
“Paul charges that he has no confidence in counsel,” Connelly said to Judge Waldo F. Stone, “he believes that counsel lied to him, and he says that because of my background in the prosecutor’s office, I was ‘a sellout artist.’ ”
“I fired him because he was lyin’ to me about things,” said Paul St. Pierre, “tellin’ me I didn’t have a right to this or that.” St. Pierre could not actually fire his lawyers; he could only officially request that they be replaced.
“This is a transparent effort to disrupt the start of the trial,” Carl Hultman insisted, objecting to St. Pierre’s demand for new legal counsel. Fred Weedon, director of Assigned Counsel, bemoaned the fact that a new attorney “would have to start from scratch to prepare a defense for Paul St. Pierre. The defense of the St. Pierre brothers has already cost taxpayers ten thousand dollars, and it will cost much more if a new attorney is appointed.”
Judge Stone asked Ellsworth Connelly and Jeffery Gross how they felt about being replaced. The two defense lawyers told Stone that they were “perfectly comfortable” with the situation. In light of the seriousness of the case, said Connelly and Gross, dismissing them now would eventually be “less trouble.”
The court had to rule on the matter, and Carl Hultman insisted that Paul St. Pierre was simply angry at Connelly for suggesting he accept a plea-bargain deal with the prosecution. “There is no fuckin’ way,” insisted Paul St. Pierre. Andrew Webb had made a deal like that, and Paul St. Pierre despised Webb.
With reluctance, the court granted Paul St. Pierre’s request for new counsel. “There will be only one shift of attorneys,” Stone told St. Pierre. “Whoever the new attorney is, that will be it. Period.” Weedon’s task was to find a new attorney for St. Pierre as quickly as possible.
“I also wish to change my plea,” blurted out the defendant. Judge Stone was unimpressed. “I heard that loud and clear. But as I indicated to you, and I indicate again, the court will be dealing with a new attorney, and you will bring that information to his attention if and when appropriate. He will make the proper motion. I don’t wish in any way to be rude, but I want to be crystal clear. I am dealing with your attorney and not with you, sir.”
The only available qualified attorney with previous homicide trial experience was David Murdach. He introduced himself during a fifteen-minute meeting at the Pierce County Jail. Paul St. Pierre asked one question of David Murdach: “Did you ever work for the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office?”
The honest response was received with marked irritation. Murdach had previously worked in the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office at the same time as the recently dismissed Ellsworth Connelly. Paul St. Pierre was not pleased.
“I would choose not to represent Mr. St. Pierre,” Murdach told Judge Stone on the afternoon of November 16. “Obviously, he does not want me because of my background. I think an attorney should be appointed that either did not work at the prosecutor’s office,” he suggested, “or an attorney who has his offices outside of this county.”
David Murdach then turned to his potential client, saying, “I will simply turn it over to Mr. St. Pierre and he can tell the court what he wants.” Judge Stone told the defendant to go ahead and speak up.
“I object to be represented by Mr. Murdach on the grounds that he being an ex-prosecuting attorney of the County of Pierce, and that is all I have to say, Your Honor,” St. Pierre stated.
“If Mr. St. Pierre is going to be hostile toward me,” commented Murdach, “and does not want me to represent him, I don’t know if I can provide effective representation. I will need his cooperation in working with him.”
Carl Hultman sympathized with David Murdach, called him “an excellent attorney,” and insisted that St. Pierre had no right to refuse Murdach’s services. “Mr. St. Pierre seems confused about who runs these cases and who runs the courtroom. There has not been any history of performance or basis upon which to discharge Mr. Murdach, and I ask the court to approve the appointment.”
David Murdach did his best to get out of it, citing St. Pierre’s negative attitude, potential lack of cooperation, possibility of appeal due to the unique nature of the situation, and “from a personal standpoint,” he didn’t really feel up to it. Judge Stone appointed him anyway. Murdach, despite his best efforts and those of his reluctant client, was now defense counsel for Paul St. Pierre.
To allow Murdach time to prepare his client’s case, Chris St. Pierre agreed to a continuance. His brother, whom Murdach now represented, strongly objected. He wanted the trial to begin immediately. His objection was overruled and a new trial date was selected.
On November 16, a week prior to Thanksgiving, Judge Stone set February 13 as the new trial date. The attorneys, judges, and their respective families could set aside thoughts of the upcoming murder trial until the first of the new year. For the heartbroken families of Damon Wells and John Achord, there would be no happy holiday season.
“We’re having a holiday coming up—Christmas, without Damon,” said brother Brandon Wells. “We try to make it all nice and neat for Mom and Dad, and try not to mention his name so we don’t have to see the hurt in their faces. The night before Damon was murdered, he and I got in a fight, and I tried to call him the next night to apologize. I just never had the chance to tell him I’m sorry, and I loved him.”
“We got life with no parole, no nothing,” said younger brother Sean Wells. “Never, ever again will we ever have another Christmas, Thanksgiving, or anything with Damon. We’re all messed up in my family. I can only speak for my family. Nothing has ever been the same—not Christmas, nothing. Nothing’s the same.”
Christmas at the Webb household in 1984 was also not the same as previous years. The Webb family, although distraught at Andrew Webb’s homicidal behavior, saw him in a more positive light. He was being reinvented in the family’s eyes as a transformed and inspired agent of the Lord.
“No sooner was he in the Pierce County Jail,” recalled Anne Webb, “than he found God. Since God had forgiven him, everything was fine—maybe inconvenient, but basically OK. Besides, it couldn’t be Andrew’s fault because Andrew never did anything wrong.”
“Christmastime tended to be highly charged in the Webb household. Dolores really went all out to make it warm and wonderful,” said Marty Webb. According to her, any big Webb family get-together was when one of the Webbs would most likely reveal some shocking secret or inappropriate behavior. “With the Webbs,” she insisted, “no pleasant occasion transpired untouched, and the holiday season brought up more ghosts of Christmas past than Charles Dickens.”
Marty Webb, countered her ex-brother-in-law Ben, makes up negative exaggerations because she is bitter about the way his family treated her.
“They treated me like shit,” elaborated Marty, “and that was simply because I had some slight bit of backbone. Not enough, but just enough to piss ’em off.”
In Ben Webb’s memories, Christmas with his family was a Norman Rockwell painting come to life. Ben moved out in 1981, and only returned home for two Christmas celebrations. In his entire experience, he only recalled one unexpected confession, involving drugs.
Anne explained family members’ positive memories, “No matter what you or somebody else did, everyone could be forgiven if they were a good Christian, and simply prayed for forgiveness—forgiveness for themselves, or for someone else. Even Andrew Webb facing life in prison for murder was nothing that the power of prayer couldn’t overcome.”
Opal Bitney, mother of John Achord, was a good Christian woman who, no matter how hard she tried, could not overcome her inability to pray for her son’s murderers. She could not forgive; she could not plead with God on their behalf. She tried, but it was difficult. “In fact, I find it impossible,” she said. “I hate now. I’ve never hated before in my entire life. They’ve taken the compassion, the ability for me to have compassion for them. They have taken that away.”
Compassion for all concerned was a virtue best exemplified by Mark Ericson. “It was really a sad thing for everybody involved,” he commented several years later, “especially for the families of Damon Wells and John Achord. And imagine what it was like for Lowell and Dolores Webb, and George and Carmella St. Pierre. My God, how tragic it would be for them living with the sadness and shame of their little baby boy turning into a murderer. Another sad aspect of this whole tragic story was that Paul St. Pierre’s sister Mary was engaged to a Tacoma Police officer at the time. They already had their wedding plans and everything. He’s a policeman—he can’t just marry the sister of a killer and have Paul St. Pierre as his brother-in-law, that would be too much. Mary did end up marrying a really nice guy years later, but how devastating what these boys did—it was really horrible, sick, and crazy.”
PART TWO
Ten
Sick from solitary confinement in the Pierce County Jail, Paul St. Pierre began New Years, 1985, by almost going crazy. The lack of interaction with the jail’s general population was driving him mad.
David Murdach, realizing his client’s disturbed state of mind, seriously doubted St. Pierre’s competency to stand trial. Paul St. Pierre’s attorney wasn’t the only one cognizant of his client’s bizarre behavior. His family observed extreme suspiciousness and paranoia beginning the day Paul St. Pierre was taken into custody. “When he calls to talk to us on the phone,” explained his brother Charles St. Pierre, “he thinks people are listening to his conversations. When we go to visit him in jail, he believes that people are watching him. He’s always looking over his shoulder, and wondering who this is, or who that is.”
“He’s very distrustful of people,” added Mary St. Pierre, “and he’s really paranoid and thinks everybody is out to get him.” His mother, Carmella, noticed the same disturbing behavior. “We try to discuss things, and he says, ‘Mom, we don’t talk about that because somebody might be listening.’ Paul has been a little different,” said Mrs. St. Pierre, “he’s been sick.”
On January 4, David Murdach submitted a motion for complete psychiatric and psychological evaluations of his client by psychiatrist Dr. Charles P. Tappin and psychologist Kenneth Muscatel. Tappin had previously interviewed St. Pierre as a prudent matter of course in August 1984. Judge Stone granted the motion without delay. In the same court session, defense and prosecution wrestled over a seemingly mundane topic: the unpaid storage fee of over $600 for Paul St. Pierre’s car, which had been confiscated by authorities and towed away. St. Pierre was now expected to pay the overdue fee.
“If the car is still there,” said Murdach to the court, “Pierce County is holding it and there’s a storage fee owed by my client, who can’t pay it because he is in custody. Nor can he go out and claim it because he is in custody. There is no reason my client should be stuck with the storage fees when it was Pierce County that stored it.” Murdach wanted the county to pay the bill, but that was the least important issue. Due to Paul St. Pierre’s unavoidable failure to reclaim his vehicle from storage, the car—seized for possible evidentiary reasons—was designated “abandoned” and put up for sale. John Ladenburg joined in, asking that the record make it clear that, on behalf of his client, he objected “to the disappearance of any evidence in this case. They have not had our consent to release any evidence in this case.”
“I don’t know if the evidence has been destroyed,” said Murdach. “I got a notice that the vehicle is going to be sold. It may have already been sold. This notice did not come from the prosecutor’s office; it came from the towing yard. They arrested my client; he is charged with numerous claims and then incarcerated, shackled. And then to file a lawsuit to get this thing paid is not proper at all. He is in custody. He can’t march down to the towing yard and get the car, or pay the bill. He can’t even use the phone without calling collect. Either the county pay the storage fee and give us the car, or keep the evidence until after the trial is over so we know what we are dealing with.”
By 2:00 P.M., Carl Hultman determined that the car had been sold. What he could not determine, however, was the new owner’s name, address, or phone number. “The vehicle has gone, it is needed, and Mr. Ladenburg has a motion to compel its production,” said Murdach to the judge.
The car’s importance was in dispute. Was this car used to transport Damon Wells to Salmon Beach? If so, bloodstains would validate claims that Wells was beaten and bleeding during the drive. If Andrew Webb’s original statement that Wells went to Salmon Beach voluntarily was true, the car’s interior would be free of bloodstains. With this in mind, the kidnapping charges against the St. Pierres hinged upon a thorough examination of the automobile’s interior.
The vehicle was originally impounded on June 19, 1984, and searched on the following day. “At the time, we thought there were bloodstains below the trunk lid,” said Sergeant Parkhurst, “but that turned out to be negative. We searched the trunk, which was oil soiled and very dirty. We completely emptied it, and then vacuumed. There were no signs of blood in the 1967 Mercury, the Ford station wagon, or the 1971 Dodge Challenger.”
Carl Hultman rightly insisted that the car was examined, that there was no evidence of any kind found, and the defense had copies of the examination report. “I think there was a lack of diligence on Mr. Murdach’s part,” said Hultman, “when he knew the car was going to be unavailable, and he didn’t even ask me to do anything about it.” Hultman also insisted that he “was not aware that the car would be sold.”
“We are entitled,” said Murdach, “to have our own experts examine the car... .”
“Hoping to find blood,” interjected Hultman sarcastically.
“It’s not you
r turn, Mr. Hultman,” said Judge Stone sternly. Hultman apologized.
On January 25, John Ladenburg argued his motion for complete dismissal of all charges against the St. Pierres due to destruction of evidence by the prosecution. The arguments in support of dismissal were heated, elaborate, and extensive. Despite disturbing charges of evidence destruction, and numerous legal references, the result was Judge Stone intoning, “Motion denied.”
More disturbing than the defense’s allegations were the results of Paul St. Pierre’s medical and mental evaluations. Dr. Charles P. Tappin, diplomat of the American Board of Psychiatry, submitted his findings to David Murdach on February 8, 1985. Clinical psychologist Kenneth Muscatel examined St. Pierre three times in the month of January, administering the MMPI, Rorschach, Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test, Rotter Incomplete Sentences Test, and a structured psychiatric interview. He filed his evaluation the same day as Dr. Tappin. Both reports characterized Paul St. Pierre as a “deeply disturbed paranoid individual.”
“He is quite pathetic in terms of his social skills,” noted Muscatel, “and he relates to others with deep suspicion.” He was further described as “extremely paranoid most of the time, and he has threatened to kill other inmates. His understanding of his role in the legal proceedings is superficially intact, but his judgment is quite poor. The quality of his decisions, particularly with respect to helping his attorney in the development of his own defense, is suspect.”
St. Pierre’s unpredictable and possibly violent courtroom behavior—both previously and potentially—supported Muscatel’s opinion that St. Pierre could become more overtly psychotic during the trial. As for competency to stand trial, Muscatel found it “shaky” at best.
