Head Shot

by Burl Barer

  “I will object to this, Your Honor,” declared Hultman. Judge Stone overruled the objection, and Ladenburg continued. “You will find from the public records of Pierce County that Mr. Webb was awaiting sentencing for a prior assault conviction.” The now enraptured jury learned that whether or not Andrew Webb went to prison for that previous conviction depended upon two very important conditions: First, Andrew Webb must have no further run-ins with the law. Second, Andrew Webb must refrain from alcohol and drugs.

  “When Mr. Wells threatened to go to the police, only one man had a reason to shut him up to avoid prison,” declared Ladenburg forcefully, “and that one man was Andrew Webb. It wouldn’t be a coincidence that Mr. Webb was the one that chased him down and slit his throat in a matter of seconds.”

  Ladenburg’s compelling narrative, solid reasoning, and appealing demeanor made a powerful courtroom impression. “Impressive may be an understatement,” Detective Yerbury later remarked. “John Ladenburg is an excellent attorney who distinguished himself as both a dedicated defender and also a top-notch prosecutor. In his opening remarks, he really got across his point that Andrew Webb was really the only guy, in my opinion, who had any kind of motive to kill Damon Wells.”

  Softening his tone and altering his theme, Ladenburg brought his opening remarks to conclusion. “This trial is the last chapter in this story, and in the death of Damon Wells. Yours will be the final decision of who shall bear the guilt. One man has already gone to prison, and perhaps we can argue that he did not receive enough punishment for what he did, but I am asking you to consider all of the evidence before making any decision that Chris and Paul should pay for this crime. Thank you.”

  David Murdach, counsel for Paul St. Pierre, decided against giving his opening remarks at that time. Some jurors seemed baffled by this departure from expected routine, so Judge Stone explained that defense counsel has the option of making an opening statement later if they so choose.

  The court then issued instructions concerning jurors’ personal notes and notepads. “Under no circumstances are the notes or notepads to leave the court or jury room. After you have reached a verdict,” Stone said, “your pad will be collected and the notes torn off and destroyed. You don’t discuss the case, and you don’t in any way start to deliberate or make up your mind on anything.”

  Court reconvened without the jury for another battle over intended testimony for the prosecution. Murdach and Ladenburg strongly objected to Hultman’s plan to put Roy Kissler on the stand. “He’s changed his story from what he originally told the Tacoma Police Department in his sworn statement,” complained Murdach, and Ladenburg agreed. “We also object to the admission of Roy Kissler’s testimony on the grounds of hearsay. He changed his testimony from the prior statement, and implicates Christopher St. Pierre by inference, saying, ‘they’ slit his throat.”

  “They were upset with me because I altered my story,” Roy Kissler later recalled. “Between when I gave that first sworn statement to the police, and when I went to court, I had plenty of time to think about all the things that were said to me by Paul when he went with me up to the cabin. In June, when I went to the cops, I was under a lot of pressure. These guys had already assaulted my brother, and I felt pretty threatened at the time. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen. I was nervous and shook-up. When Hultman brought me before the judge, and they argued about whether or not I could testify, the big deal was what they called inconsistency. The defense attorneys thought I was changing things to bring them in line with what the prosecution wanted me to say, but that wasn’t the case at all. I was doing the best I could at recollecting what really went down.”

  David Murdach offered the court an overview of the situation, explaining the problematic nature of Roy Kissler’s proposed testimony. “Mr. Andrew Webb recently told the prosecutor unequivocally that Mr. Paul St. Pierre did not cut Mr. Damon Wells’s throat, nor did he stab Mr. Damon Wells in the back. Those were statements made after the deal was made, after Mr. Webb returned here to testify. Mr. Kissler has now changed his story from the true and accurate statement he subscribed to before. Now he says that Mr. Paul St. Pierre on one occasion stabbed Damon Wells in the back, and we know that is not true.”

  “The court will rule that the taking of [the] testimony of Roy Kissler is appropriate,” said the judge. “I will overrule any objection based on inconsistency. That is a matter for the jury to deliberate. Now, Mr. Hultman, do you have a brief witness we could accommodate at this time?”

  “I certainly can put Steve Wood on the stand,” he replied. “I expect we’ll have to interrupt him just when his testimony is getting interesting.” When the jury returned, Carl Hultman called Steven Christopher Wood, age nineteen, as witness for the prosecution.

  “Did you attend a party in later February 1984 with Damon Wells at the residence of Paul and Christopher St. Pierre and Andrew Webb?”

  “If Andrew did live there, I didn’t know that,” answered Wood. “I knew the St. Pierre brothers resided there.” Hultman inquired how it was that Wells and Wood attended the party on Pacific Avenue.

  “That night, Damon had a bloody ear. I think an orange hit him in the ear.” The prosecutor didn’t request details of the ear and orange incident; Steve Wood continued his narrative uninterrupted. “We went to the emergency room at the hospital. He was wanting to get it checked out. The doctor said he couldn’t get it looked at until two or three hours from now because they were pretty busy. We decided to forget it and go on home. We walked up the street a ways, and I remembered that my friend Mark ... lived there and was a roommate of the St. Pierre brothers. We thought we would stop by and say ‘hi’ on the way back home. We went in there.”

  “Did at some point,” asked Hultman, “a fight break out between you and Andrew Webb?”

  “Yes, I guess he mistook me for someone else who had ripped him off, or ripped off a friend of his, because I had a black car and he just jumped on me and lunged at me and it turned into a fight. Damon Wells had nothing to do with the fight at all. He was a bystander and looking at it.”

  Pressed for details, Wood described the altercation as “a rumble-type thing involving lots of fighting and lots of pushing and banging of the furniture. I know I was getting punches from Andrew,” Wood testified, “but I was feeling kicks and stuff like that from behind. I didn’t know who was doing it, but it—”

  Murdach interjected a forceful objection, asking that the last bit of testimony be stricken. “The court overrules,” said Stone. “I don’t think I have to rule.”

  “You were being attacked,” asked Hultman, “by more people than you were looking at?” Murdach again objected, and Stone sustained the objection this time. “Disregard both the question and the answer,” Stone told the jury.

  “Fine,” said Hultman; then he asked Wood about Andrew Webb’s nose injury.

  “He had three fingers in my mouth trying to rip my jaw apart,” replied Wood. “He started biting on my fingers and wouldn’t let go, and I was on top of him and I told him I would bite his nose if he didn’t let go, so I bit his nose.”

  Wood confirmed that they were told to take the fight outside, and when Webb grabbed his arm at the doorway, Wood bolted and ran. “I ran in a quick hurry because I figured I was going to get ganged up on. I was worrying about my own skin at the time.”

  John Ladenburg had no questions for Steve Wood, but David Murdach inquired if Andrew Webb seemed in control of himself the night of the fight. “He seemed drunk to me,” said Wood. “Everybody was partying, but he was out of control.”

  Judge Stone called for the lunch break, and again admonished jurors to not discuss the case. Court reconvened at 1:38 P.M. The prosecution’s next witness was Donald Marshall, the St. Pierre brothers’ childhood chum and former roommate. Hultman had him list who was at the party, what it was like, and how he knew the various participants.

  “I came later after I had dinner at my brother’s house, and when I arrived, there was Chri
s, there was Paul, and Jim Fuller and Damon Wells and Steve Wood, Mark Perez, and some friend of Paul St. Pierre’s that I’d met once or twice, and Andrew Webb. I met Steve Wood about a week or so before, and when he arrived, Damon Wells was introduced to me as a friend of Steve Wood. Damon Wells had kind of long hair and he was shorter than I. About one hundred ten pounds or so, and he wore a leather coat—kind of a tannish leather coat—and he had a long nose, like mine, I thought. He was a pretty good guy.”

  Marshall testified that he showed up at [the house] between 6:00 and 7:00 P.M., everyone was drinking, and a beer was thrust into his hand immediately upon arrival. The other participants’ intoxication levels ranged from mild to obnoxious. Marshall’s recollection of Andrew Webb’s condition included neither sobriety nor serenity. According to Marshall’s testimony, Andrew Webb was edgy and argumentative.

  When Steve Wood mentioned in casual conversation that he had “borrowed some things from some guys who were being really kind of rotten,” Andrew Webb first tossed accusations, then threw punches. “Wood wasn’t even talking to Andrew,” Marshall told the jury, “but Webb just broke right in and stated that Wood was a thief, and he was the guy who ripped him off, and all that stuff, which was pretty far-fetched. Then Mr. Webb threw a physical punch toward Mr. Wood, who was trying to diplomatically get himself out of the situation. I would say that at this point, Wood had no choice but to fight back.”

  The inebriation-fueled fisticuffs proved unfavorable to Andrew Webb. “He had a bloodied mouth,” said Marshall, “and I believe he was bit across the nose. His eyes were scratched up. Andrew was getting the worst of the deal. When Steve Wood got on top of him in a hold, he couldn’t maneuver very well. At that time, Chris kicked Steve Wood in the spinal area, but he still held on. And then Paul St. Pierre gave him a couple blows to the back while Steve Wood still had hold of Mr. Webb.

  “I scurried across the room closer to the kitchen,” he continued. “Damon Wells and I were there, and a few other people in the house were pushing the guys away from the furniture, stereo and things, so that they weren’t damaged. Then the fight broke up in front of Damon Wells and me. As Steve Wood walked toward the front door, he was making remarks like ‘I thought you were my friends,’ and I told him he should just leave and get out of the house, and I opened the door and he went out.

  “Mark Perez had gone into his bedroom, Chris St. Pierre was standing by the bathroom doorway, and Paul St. Pierre was in the bathroom. As for Damon Wells, I was told he had left. I went back to my bedroom to get a fresh pack of cigarettes, dropped them in the hallway near the bathroom door, and I heard voices being raised—Andrew Webb’s voice, and Paul St. Pierre’s, and then I heard the scuffling and a fight. I heard some banging against the wall, and the sound of a toilet—like the plastic from the toilet—I heard it hit the floor, and then I heard the sputtering noise like nerves of a person connecting in pain.”

  “I object,” Murdach exclaimed. “He is obviously going far beyond what he heard.” Judge Stone overruled Murdach’s objection, reminding him that he’d have the opportunity to cross-examine the witness.

  “What did you do then?” Hultman inquired.

  “I got big-eyed,” admitted Marshall. “I said to myself Paul and Andrew might have a disagreement in the bathroom. I believed Paul was roughing up Andrew because he started a fight in his house and lost. Well, I went back from the hallway into the living room. Paul St. Pierre came out of the bathroom. He came upstairs with a bucket of soap and water and some rags and he said he was taking Andrew to the hospital, and asked me and Mark Perez to clean the bathroom up a little bit.”

  The floor plan at [the house] made it possible to leave the bathroom and exit the house without being seen by anyone in the living room. “All you have to do,” explained Marshall, “is close the hallway door and the kitchen door.” Perez and Marshall found the bathroom in significant disarray. “The toilet seat was broken; there was a little bit of blood on the floor in front of the bathroom sink. There was blood on the bathroom sink, a little bit to the left side of the toilet. I cleaned the sink in the bathroom. There was blood all over the sink.”

  Hultman prompted his witness to describe Andrew Webb’s appearance following his alleged visit to the doctor. Marshall said Andrew Webb didn’t look any different from when he had left the house. “He had no stitches or bandages and he was still bleeding slightly. When I asked Andrew Webb for an explanation of what was really going on, Webb got angry and said, ‘You Marshalls used to be someone. You are no one now. You don’t need to know anything. You just live here.’ ”

  Ladenburg read aloud from Marshall’s sworn statement to the Tacoma Police, primarily eliciting confirmation that it was Christopher St. Pierre who urged Steve Wood to take the fight outside. “He said that they were breaking up the furniture,” confirmed Marshall, “and he was addressing mainly Mr. Wood: ‘Look at you, start a fight in my house and break up the furniture.’ ”

  David Murdach sought even more details of the Webb-Wood altercation, asking, “How many blows were exchanged?” and “Can you tell me exactly what the words were spoken between Mr. Wood and Mr. Webb just before Andrew smacked him?”

  “Well, Mr. Wood goes: ‘I don’t fuck and rip you off. I never rip you guys off.’ And Andrew goes: ‘You’re nothing but a fucking thief and I hate thieves.’ There was a lot worser than that, but I can’t recall it. I do remember those sentences.”

  He also remembered Steve Wood sitting on the floor when Andrew Webb, standing above him, “unloaded a good one on him. I believe he did hit him in the face.” Wood, smaller but faster, immediately retaliated. He knocked Webb’s feet out from under him, pulled him to the floor, and the half-hour battle began in earnest.

  “It was your understanding that Damon Wells had left the house after the fight, right?” asked Murdach.

  “Chris said Wells went with Jim Fuller,” answered Marshall, “because they live in the same neighborhood, and they’re walking home.”

  Hultman, on redirect examination, handed his witness Plaintiff’s Exhibit #1—Marshall’s sworn statement to the Tacoma Police—and asked him to identify it. “Why don’t you look through it,” suggested Hultman, “and check the signature on the back.” Aside from the singular addition of Marshall’s new phone number written in blue ink, it was identical to the original.

  “Your Honor,” Hultman said to Judge Stone, “the state moves for admission of this statement. There is an evidence rule when one party reads from a statement—”

  Stone interrupted him, announcing that he would defer ruling until the recess. With the witness and the jury excused, Judge Stone addressed Hultman’s motion. “You stated that because portions of the statement were read or quoted in cross-examination, it should go to the jury. Tell me why I should accept your version rather than what I expect the opposition will be.”

  Hultman admitted that he never anticipated this issue coming up. However, he felt that Ladenburg reading aloud from Marshall’s statement would be an effort to discredit his testimony about how the fight began. Once a portion of a statement is used in that manner, argued Hultman, the opposing party may then move for admission of the entire statement. It wouldn’t be fair to allow one attorney to read aloud only part of a statement, using that isolated section to bolster or reinforce his client’s position. “The entire statement should become part of the record,” Hultman said. “Otherwise, the jury can’t tell if the portion read aloud was taken out of context or not.”

  “I don’t believe it would be proper,” countered Ladenburg. “The statement contains a number of items relevant to the case but not testified to by the witness. If the court admits those things—in effect admitting statements the witness did not testify to in court—I think all those statements are inadmissible, and should not be allowed in the course of this trial.”

  Murdach agreed completely. “You can’t allow the witness’s testimony to come in twice,” he told Stone. “It would be the same thing if Mr.
Hultman offered a police report from the policeman in addition to the policeman’s testimony. I don’t believe it should be admitted under any rule.”

  Judge Stone noted that the trial was becoming more and more about the admissibility of statements. “Yesterday the court made some rulings on the statements that will come in, and there are certain rules and special circumstances. Certainly, the court should consider admitting the statement, but I simply think it would do more harm than good in this case. It would tend to divert the jurors from their main task, and that is to evaluate the witness from the stand.”

  Stone declined to admit Plaintiff’s Exhibit #1, brought back the jury, and directed Hultman to call his next witness. Mark V. Perez, former roommate of Marshall and the St. Pierres. Perez’s testimony, virtually identical to Marshall’s, contained one significant addition and a potentially disastrous slip of the tongue. Carl Hultman elicited testimony about threatening phone calls to Perez from Chris St. Pierre, asking, “Did you receive numerous calls from Christopher St. Pierre concerning you talking to the police?” Perez answered in the affirmative, and Hultman asked Perez if he remembered what month the phone calls took place.

  “It was during sometime,” Perez said haltingly, as if searching for a reference point in time, “well, actually, it was after the second case.” Everything, and everyone, in the Pierce Country courtroom came to a sudden, silent standstill. Ladenburg, almost incredulous, was the first to speak. “I didn’t hear his answer,” he said, and requested Perez to say it again. Judge Stone jumped in immediately, saying, “I think it’s time for the afternoon recess.... The jury will be excused, and the court will remain in session momentarily.”

  “Tell me what I said,” offered Perez, and John Ladenburg addressed the issue. “What happened before the judge excused the jury was that the prosecutor asked about a phone call allegedly made by Christopher St. Pierre to this witness. At first, I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then the witness answered, I believe his answer was, ‘after the second case’—exactly what we are trying to prevent the jury from finding out about.”