by Burl Barer
If all that wasn’t enough, the exception the prosecution was attempting to invoke required the state to provide proof that the witness was unavailable, and that the unavailability was not the state’s fault. “The state is responsible for the failure of Andrew Webb to testify,” said Ladenburg, “and therefore cannot claim his unavailability.”
David Murdach, Paul St. Pierre’s attorney, opposed the admission of Webb’s out-of-court statement for similar reasons. “Mr. Webb has confessed to slashing the throat of Mr. Wells. Mr. Webb has pled guilty to that crime. Mr. Webb is being punished for that crime. The prosecutor now wants to attempt to show that Mr. Paul St. Pierre slashed Mr. Wells’s throat. That is unethical and should not be allowed.”
“The jury should only be exposed to evidence that, on its face, is credible,” asserted Murdach. “I am not suggesting the court second-guess what the truth is. But we know that he has recanted his testimony, and changed his testimony. If we allow the statement to come in, I can’t cross-examine, and the jurors can’t judge the witness’s credibility because he is not going to take the stand. It’s not right; it’s not fair. Obviously, what happened in this case was that there was a mistake made by the prosecution a long time ago as how they approached the case. The prosecutor elected to choose one man’s position over another. They chose not only the wrong person, but their deal is burning up in their face. If the court allows Mr. Webb’s statement, it will not be seeking fairness and it will not be seeking the truth.”
“Mr. Webb told two people that his statement was inaccurate,” continued Murdach, “and I will call those two people as witnesses for the defense.” The two people were Webb’s attorney, Larry Nichols, and prosecutor Carl Hultman.
“I don’t know how to handle it,” admitted Murdach. “I don’t know if it disqualifies Mr. Hultman, as a witness, from prosecuting this case.” The defense then launched into a recitation and interpretation of various previous legal decisions that contradicted those provided by the prosecution. In turn, Hultman did much the same, advising the court why he believed the rulings cited by Murdach did not apply.
When all the attorneys completed their impassioned and often sophisticated arguments, the judge offered personal commentary prior to announcing his decision. “The cases of Paul St. Pierre, Christopher St. Pierre, and perhaps Andrew Webb are unique. There may never be another case like it. There has never been another case like it. The court today makes an evidentiary ruling only. The ultimate justice of the case for Paul and Chris will be determined by the jurors and not this judge and not by the attorneys out front. And in this proceeding,” continued Judge Stone, “we are not trying the prosecutor. He may or may not have handled this thing the way he should, but the prosecutor did not create the crime, and the prosecutor has a responsibility to prosecute crime.
“The particular statement which the court is asked to rule admissible is hardly a statement designed to curry the favor of law enforcement, or the police, the only purpose of it to implicate somebody else, so I will get off the hook. Mr. Webb says, ‘I cut his throat with a knife.’ That certainly is no currying of favor when he alleged he is the person who slit a throat.
“The question here: is there sufficient indication of reliability to admit this statement, or is there not? No one denies that Damon Wells is dead. Nobody denies that a homicide occurred. No one denies that there was a party at [house number] Pacific Avenue and Wells was beaten up in the bathroom.” Judge Stone enumerated other areas in which the statements of all three participants agreed. “The total picture has indicia of reliability. The court will rule that the statement is admissible. I am ruling that it does not run afoul of the evidentiary ruling, and I am ruling that it, in effect, fits with the hearsay exception.”
“Is the court ruling that the unsigned and the signed sworn statements are admissible?” asked Ladenburg.
“I have my own marks and indications,” answered Stone, “of where the statement should start and where it should end, and one place where a deletion should occur.”
The out-of-court statement Andrew Webb made as part of his plea-bargain agreement, despite his new assertion that it was inaccurate, would be admitted as evidence for the prosecution against Paul and Christopher St. Pierre.
“The court would also observe that Andrew Webb has changed his mind at least twice, perhaps more than twice. It is entirely possible that he may change his mind on the third or fourth time. The court will specifically direct the prosecutor to take all necessary steps to see that Mr. Webb is retained here in the Pierce County Jail so that he can be available for testimony if he changes his mind one more time.”
The court then inquired about other motions on behalf of the defendants. As a matter of law, defendants are required to renew their motions at the beginning of trial. Judge Stone denied each of the renewed motions made by Ladenburg on behalf of Christopher St. Pierre, and reminded all three attorneys that there must be no mention of the Achord case to the jury. “Any lack of care could very well cause a mistrial,” said Stone, “which certainly the judge does not want.”
Murdach’s motions, for the most part, were also denied. The court did rule that the prosecution could make no reference to Paul St. Pierre’s shoot-out with Kevin Robinson at the IGA. Stone also ruled that the full file on Andrew Webb’s criminal history and psychological evaluations be available to the St. Pierres’ attorneys.
The first day of testimony in the trial of Paul and Christopher St. Pierre for the assault, kidnapping, and murder of Damon Wells would begin the following morning, April 18, 1985.
Twelve
April 18, 1985
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen from King County,” said Judge Stone as the jury entered the courtroom, “perhaps the first thing you noticed when you came through the door was that there is a television camera here. Yes, there is media coverage today. The television cameraman is ordered to take no pictures whatsoever of any of the jurors. There will be television coverage during opening statements, and that is all. We will now proceed with opening statements. Mr. Hultman?”
“Thank you, Your Honor.” The assistant deputy prosecutor for Pierce County stood and addressed the jury. “Now is when you really begin the work that you were sworn to undertake—the part where you sit and listen to the evidence. I think to go through the evidence in this case, you will need to know what we are talking about.”
Hultman was talking about Paul and Christopher St. Pierre being guilty of premeditated murder, a murder committed for one or both of two reasons. Reason #1: to conceal assault and kidnapping. Reason #2: to conceal the identity of the persons committing assault and kidnapping.
“In other words,” said Hultman, “this murder was committed to hide two crimes that occurred before. The evidence we are going to produce on those charges, and that we are satisfied will convince you beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendants’ guilt, is going to consist of a succession of witnesses. Initially, we will call several young men who lived at the same house where the St. Pierre brothers lived, and where they resided with a third man, Andrew Webb.”
First the prosecution set the scene at the house on Pacific Avenue the night Steve Wood and Damon Wells dropped by the St. Pierres’ “beer bust.” He covered the violence between Webb and Wood, and told the jury that after Steve Wood fled the house, Damon Wells accompanied Andrew Webb into the bathroom to help tend his injuries.
“The evidence will show that while Damon Wells was in the bathroom, Paul St. Pierre, the gentleman in the blue suit,” Hultman explained, gesturing toward the defense table, “came into the bathroom. And then Christopher St. Pierre, the other defendant, came into the bathroom. I will not go through the details. I will let the evidence do that. But you will assume a brutal beating of Damon Wells occurred in that bathroom. It occurred because he happened to be a friend of the man who beat up Andrew Webb, and he was still there.”
Hultman advised the jury that Donald Marshall, one of the St. Pierres’ roommates, woul
d testify that he had to wait a half hour before Paul St. Pierre allowed him in the bathroom. Marshall had access to the toilet, asserted Hultman, only after the badly beaten Damon Wells was spirited out of the house.
“Donald Marshall and Mark Perez were told that Andrew Webb was being taken to the doctor for treatment of his nose injury,” said Hultman. “Paul St. Pierre asked Marshall and Perez to clean up the blood in the bathroom while Chris and he took Andrew Webb to the doctor. The evidence will show, from the statements of the defendants themselves, that they didn’t go to a doctor. The took semiconscious, five-foot, one-hundred-ten-pound Damon Wells out to Salmon Beach to ‘teach him a lesson.’ I’m tempted to argue for what that would mean, but that is for you to decide.”
The jury heard how Wells was transported to the isolated darkness of Salmon Beach and how the defendants took his shoes, threw them in the bushes, and told him to walk home. Damon Wells, angry and upset, vowed to “get even.” Worst of all, Wells threatened to call the cops. The defendants’ response was to give chase. Damon Wells ran for his life.
“He was tackled, his throat was slashed, and he was stabbed twice in the back,” said Hultman. “And then the defendants, by their own statements, indicate that they stood there for five to ten minutes and watched him bleed to death. Then they threw his body in the bushes. You will hear that from their own statements—Chris’s statement and Paul’s statement—they apparently tried to remove any blood they could from their clothes. They couldn’t remove all the blood, so they built a big fire in the fireplace and burned up their clothes.”
The jury sat spellbound, morbidly fascinated by the prosecution’s description of the defendants’ alleged behavior. “The next night, they took a sleeping bag and drove back to where the body had been thrown in the bushes, and they stuffed Damon Wells into that sleeping bag, took him up to an area near Elbe, and buried him in a shallow grave.”
The jury would hear testimony from Damon Wells’s mother about her efforts to file a Missing Persons report on her son, followed by Detective Price of the Missing Persons Bureau detailing his investigation into Wells’s disappearance. “The testimony of Detective Price will take us into about the thirteenth or fourteenth of June,” said Hultman, “when people began contacting the Tacoma Police Department. Based on information from Donald Marshall, Mark Perez, James Fuller, and Roy Kissler, the police got a search warrant and went to the house at [house number] Pacific Avenue.”
Brief mentions of the thorough search for evidence at the Pacific Avenue house, and the subsequent arrest of Christopher St. Pierre, were preludes to the detailed description of Christopher St. Pierre’s voluntary statement to Detectives Yerbury and Price. The prosecution acknowledged Christopher St. Pierre’s assistance in recovering Damon Wells’s body, and explained the complexity of legal jurisdiction—the burial site was in Lewis County; the homicide occurred in Pierce County.
“As soon as the grave had been identified, and the body determined to be there, Detectives Yerbury and Price took Christopher St. Pierre back to Tacoma. On the way, he pointed out the location where he believed they could find—because he and Anthony Youso had thrown it—the Gerber knife used to kill Damon Wells, the Gerber knife belonging to Paul St. Pierre. The knife was found one day later, June twenty-sixth, exactly where Christopher St. Pierre said it would be. That knife will be introduced as evidence by Officer Lindamann, an identification officer with the Tacoma Police Department.”
The prosecution list of forthcoming evidence and significant testimony included the autopsy report by Dr. Lacsina of the medical examiner’s office. “The autopsy revealed that Mr. Wells died of three wounds, and Dr. Lacsina will testify that any one of those injuries could have caused his death, particularly given the fact that he was allowed to lay there and bleed to death.”
The jurors were allowed a moment to absorb this before Hultman enhanced the disturbing imagery with further gruesome details. “He was slashed once, and maybe as many as two or three or four times in the throat. He was stabbed twice in the back, both wounds extremely deep—four inches or more in depth, with actual injury to the internal organs. He bled from all of the wounds, meaning he was alive when inflicted, and any one of those wounds could have been an independent cause of death, as Dr. Lacsina will tell you.”
This would all lead up to the testimony of Andrew Webb. Carl Hultman tackled Webb’s new, uncooperative attitude head-on. “And finally, the state will call Andrew Webb, the third participant in this crime. Andrew Webb, who was allegedly slicing Damon Wells’s throat. I don’t suppose there is anything wrong in telling you up front that there is an indication that he is going to refuse to testify. If he does so when he is called to the witness stand, the court will permit the state to introduce a statement he gave concerning his involvement. We will introduce it like the other statements from Detective Yerbury. He heard this evidence, and you won’t have any questions in your mind that these defendants are guilty of the crime charged. Thank you.”
Carl Hultman sat down, several jurors audibly exhaled, and Judge Stone prompted John Ladenburg, defense attorney for Christopher St. Pierre, to make his opening statement. “I would first like to speak about the order and presentation of the trial,” he began. “I think one of the key things for you to remember is that there are certain elements you should look for in order to see any kind of a crime, or whether it has taken place at all, or implicates any particular individual at all.”
Ladenburg, much as a teacher in a classroom, drew illustrations on a dry-erase board. “There are three different things that are essential. First, a person has to have the means to commit the crime. Second is the motive to commit the crime, and third is the opportunity to commit the crime. The most important thing about criminal trials,” said Ladenburg, “is for the jury to keep an open mind, and wait for all of the evidence. Don’t jump to conclusions. Let’s gather all the evidence first, and then make a decision.”
The jury, for neither the first nor the last time, heard about the Wood-Webb slugfest. “During the course of the fight, Christopher St. Pierre got upset because they were destroying the house and the furniture,” said Ladenburg. “He told them to move outside, which gave Mr. Wood the opportunity to escape. He ran up the block and disappeared. We expect the evidence to show that Chris then went back into the house, and was drinking with Donald Marshall and Mr. Perez. At some point, he went into the bathroom and found a fight taking place with his brother Paul, Andrew Webb, and Damon Wells.”
In Ladenburg’s version, the fight erupted because Webb and the St. Pierre brothers suspected Damon Wells of being a rip-off artist. They imagined he was in the house to “case the joint” for a later burglary. Wells, according to Ladenburg, was continually saying, “I am not a rip-off artist; I am not with Wood. I don’t know him that well.”
“Paul St. Pierre, or Andrew Webb, suggested that they take Mr. Wells across town and make him walk home to teach him a lesson, and Mr. Wells said, ‘that’s fine. You can do that. I agree to go along with you and show you that I’m not a rip-off artist, and leave me alone.’ The evidence will show that there was no intent to kidnap him, and he was not held for ransom. They were only going to take his shoes and make him walk barefoot as some sort of punishment because they thought he was a criminal attempting to set them up.”
According to Ladenburg, this was the turning point in the case. “After the trip to Salmon Beach, as much mentioned by Mr. Hultman, Damon Wells became angry, upset, and threatened the three individuals who had driven him out there saying, ‘I will get back at you. I will go to the police and tell them what you did to me, beat me up’ et cetera, et cetera. Then Mr. Wells begins to run away from the three, and the evidence will show that it was Andrew Webb who suddenly began chasing down Mr. Wells, knocked him to the ground, facedown, and pulled his head back up by the hair, and slices his throat. It happened as fast as I told you while Chris and Paul stood there.”
Months later, when police came to his house with a sea
rch warrant, the attorney informed the jury, Christopher St. Pierre was more than cooperative. “You will find from the police officers that Chris spent the entire day of June nineteenth telling them everything that happened. Chris explained that Mr. Webb chased down Damon Wells, slit his throat, then stood there watching him bleed to death, and took the knife and threw it into his back two times. Mr. Webb did that. Christopher St. Pierre spent all day with the police, and took them to where the body was buried. Mr. Webb was then arrested and taken to jail. He didn’t make a statement the day he was arrested, he did not give police any evidence, and he did not cooperate with them at any time during his arrest.”
Ladenburg then related the undisputed details of Andrew Webb’s “deal” with the prosecutor’s office. “He gave a statement to the police on July seventeenth that said both St. Pierre brothers helped in the murder, and that the knife wounds in the back were caused by the St. Pierre brothers. By including the St. Pierre brothers, Andrew Webb then became the key witness for the prosecution against the defendants.
“Mr. Webb now admits that he made his original statements out of convenience,” Ladenburg said emphatically, “and I believe evidence will show that his statement, given to the police in turn for the bargain, was a lie. Christopher St. Pierre made his statement to the police on June nineteenth, immediately and without reflection, or fabrication. Mr. Webb made his statements on July eighteenth, after being in jail almost a month—after plenty of time for thinking of how he was going to avoid the death penalty.”
The defense counsel’s next remark had Carl Hultman bolting from his chair. “The evidence will show you only one man that dark night at Salmon Beach had a motive to commit that crime. You will find out during the course of this trial that Mr. Webb—”
