by Burl Barer
Awaiting the jury’s return, Hultman advised the court that Damon Wells’s mother and Mrs. St. Pierre were both in the courtroom. None of the attorneys wanted these women excluded from testifying at the penalty phase on the grounds that they had attended the trial phase. As all attorneys were in agreement, Stone simply said, “Mrs. St. Pierre and Mrs. Wells are welcome here.”
Detective Robert Yerbury resumed his testimony. First he read aloud from Christopher St. Pierre’s statement, then from Paul St. Pierre’s. John Ladenburg had no difficulty on cross-examination establishing that Christopher St. Pierre was completely cooperative with Detectives Yerbury and Price, and that the information he provided was accurate and offered of his own free will.
In his opening remarks at the trial’s beginning, Ladenburg had told the jury that Damon Wells went to Salmon Beach willingly, without being coerced or forced. Ladenburg returned to this theme when questioning Detective Yerbury. “Did you ever ask Chris specifically if Mr. Damon Wells objected to going along or if he was forced?”
“Well, I didn’t see anything in the statement saying Damon Wells was taken at gunpoint,” answered Yerbury. “He was unconscious. I assumed he could not make any kind of statement one way or other. There was no reason to ask that question as he told me that Damon Wells was unconscious.”
The pace picked up, and the prosecution’s next witnesses testified free of incident, objections, or interruptions. Sergeant Parkhurst of the Tacoma Police Department described in full detail the recovery of Damon Wells’s body from the grave site in Elbe, the subsequent retrieval of the alleged murder weapon (Paul St. Pierre’s Gerber knife), and the search of Salmon Beach, where Damon Wells’s tennis shoes were eventually discovered.
Identification Technician John Penton then explained the nature of his employment, and presented several photographs.
“An identification technician is to respond to a crime scene and photograph as necessary the scene and also to recover the evidence at hand. The photographs I shot that day,” said Penton, “go from showing the roadway and entryway up to the actual grave and the sleeping bag with the body in it.” Penton also showed the court a photograph of Damon Wells’s tennis shoes recovered from Salmon Beach.
“We are ahead of schedule,” noted Judge Stone, “as far as the timing of the case is concerned. Today is Friday. The court appreciates your following meticulously the instructions of the court, and your ignoring of the media, and we will repeat that. No radio. No television. No newspaper.”
Witnesses in the trial were not bound by these instructions. “I remember the day after I testified, I got up and opened the morning newspaper,” Roy Kissler recalled, “and right there on the front page, they have my full name in there nine times. ‘Roy E. Kissler said this and that.’ I was thinking, ‘Why didn’t they just mail me a T-shirt with a target on it at the same time?’ Sure, Paul and Chris were locked up, but I wasn’t really sure what else, or who else, they were involved with other than this. I mean, those guys traveled in some different circles. Andrew Webb was sort of a different circle all on his own.”
Fourteen
April 22, 1985
“About Andrew Webb—is it the prosecutor’s intent,” asked Judge Stone on Monday morning, “to put Andrew Webb on the stand in the presence of the jury?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” replied Carl Hultman, “the reason for that is because unavailability is one of the critical requirements and I do not think that Andrew Webb is unavailable until he refuses to testify in front of the jury.”
“The obvious thing,” said Stone, “is that when we are dealing with Andrew Webb, we are dealing in a sensitive area. Are we ready for the jury? Or would you rather do the pictures before the jury?” The pictures to which Stone referred were graphic and disturbing autopsy photographs. The prosecution wanted them introduced as exhibits, explained Hultman, to show the exact injuries sustained by Damon Wells.
David Murdach thought Hultman’s reason was absolute nonsense. “Those photographs show a body in an extensive state of decomposition. It’s almost like a homicide case where an attempt is made to dig up the corpse and over a period of time, show the bullet wounds to the jury.”
“Your Honor,” pleaded Hultman, “I think the defendants have to bear the certain burden of this, of that being the condition of the body. They are directly responsible for it not being exhumed any sooner. They are in no position to complain.”
The prosecution described the photos and explained why these particular pictures were selected. “A couple show the throat wounds, back wounds, a photograph of a lung to show the jury what was done to that lung, a leg injury with heavy bruising, and there is one photograph that shows an arm with a tattoo on it.”
Judge Stone allowed five milder photos, but he did not want the jury viewing gruesome pictures of Damon Wells’s decomposed body. “I think the case can be handled without admitting those.”
Following brief appearances by identification technicians from the Tacoma Police Department presenting further exhibits, Medical Examiner Emanuel Lacsina took the stand. “I am a forensic pathologist, which means that I am a physician who specializes in the investigation of sudden, unexpected, unexplained, and violent death to determine the cause, as well as the manner, of death.”
“At the time I performed the autopsy,” testified Dr. Lacsina, “the cadaver was in quite an advanced degree of decomposition. Most of the soft tissue was pretty decomposed. There were no recognizable features of a face.”
Several jurors squirmed uncomfortably in their seats as Dr. Lacsina described the severe stab wounds inflicted on Damon Wells. “One of the stab wounds, the deeper wound, was five and a half inches from the skin surface and penetrated the posterior area wall of the heart.” Lacsina acknowledged that both the stab wounds and the throat wounds took place before Wells died. “Any of the three wounds would have caused death.”
“There is testimony,” said Hultman, “suggesting that at the time the body was ... attempted to be put in the grave, the individual had to jump up and down on the legs to loosen them and make them bend to fit in the grave. Could this be done?” Lacsina confirmed that it certainly could, and that Damon Wells experienced some sort of “strong blunt force” to his left calf muscles.
Under Ladenburg’s cross-examination, Lacsina described the slash wounds to Wells’s throat. “The wound was rather deep, quite deep,” he said, explaining how the blade sliced through Wells’s larynx, the carotid artery, and the left jugular vein. The wounds went all the way to the back of the spinal column. “In addition to that,” said Dr. Lacsina, “it also penetrated the underlying third cervical vertebrae of the neck. If the individual was left unattended with that kind of wound, he would have died in a matter of a few minutes.”
Judge Stone excused Dr. Lacsina, then asked Carl Hultman if he had any more witnesses. Hultman nodded, sighed, and said, “Andrew Webb. I think we need a recess.”
“I assumed that,” replied Stone dryly. “Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take the morning recess and there is no guarantee that it will be fifteen minutes. It may be longer than that. You heard only a portion of the case, you don’t start to deliberate or discuss or any way make up your mind.”
Court reconvened without the jury, and Hultman told the court that Andrew Webb was now available to testify or not testify as he chose. “My intention,” said Hultman, “is to ask Mr. Webb whether or not he participated in the beating and killing of Damon Wells on February 24th, 1984, and I expect his answer will be: I am not going to answer. And then I will ask Your Honor to direct him to answer and he probably will refuse. Then I’ll ask him if it is his intention to not answer any questions, and then I’ll ask you to direct him to answer.”
Ladenburg interjected a simplified approach. “The question I propose is: Is it your intention to answer all questions, not for you, but for all attorneys, concerning the death of Damon Wells? If he refuses, or answers no, I would ask the court to order him to answer. If he persists
in not answering, he should be excused as a witness and no one should be permitted to ask him any questions at all.”
“I agree with Ladenburg,” said Murdach. Andrew Webb’s attorney, Larry Nichols, rather liked Ladenburg’s suggestion as well. Hultman explained why his proposed scenario was of vital importance—in order for Andrew Webb’s statement to be admissible, it must first have been determined that Andrew Webb was unavailable to testify.
“In this instance, he is refusing to testify,” said Hultman, “and I think it is a better approach to have him refuse to answer a direct question about the crime than to keep asking him: do you intend to testify? It won’t delay the proceedings and embarrass Mr. Webb, or hardly cause any hardships to the defendants.”
“We are all speculating,” stated Judge Stone, “as [to] what the scenario is going to be. Until he enters and actually takes the witness stand, we do not know what it will be. Let’s get Andrew Webb on and off the stand.”
Called as a witness by the plaintiff, being duly sworn, Andrew Webb testified as follows: “I refuse to testify to that.” The court directed Webb to answer whether or not he was involved in the beating of Damon Wells, and Webb refused to answer.
“Mr. Webb,” asked Judge Stone, “is it your intention to refuse to answer all the questions put to you by all attorneys concerning the death of Damon Wells?” Andrew Webb confirmed that he had no intention of answering any questions from any attorney. As his lawyer, Larry Nichols, previously made clear, Andrew Webb wanted nothing to do with the proceedings at all.
If the prosecution couldn’t have their star witness, they’d settle for his plea-bargaining statement. Using the argument that Webb’s refusal equaled his unavailability, the official statement was the next best thing.
At this juncture, Stone excused the jury and set about the tiresome task of wrangling an agreement from all three lawyers regarding which portions of Webb’s statement would be read aloud in court. In the process, Murdach asked Stone to read aloud a certain significant portion.
“ ‘Now Paul did not care because he wanted me to kill him anyway,’ ” intoned Stone from Webb’s statement. “Then it starts out, ‘He handed me a knife and then I realized Paul wanted me to cut his throat and I started shaking my head and said no way, and Paul started at me with the knife and said do it.’ ”
Judge Stone immediately perceived a glaring error in Webb’s statement. Murdach gave voice to Stone’s observation. “That’s impossible. The statement is inaccurate. There is no way that he could have handed him the knife, and then a moment later come at him with the knife,” said Murdach, arguing that the court should not allow the jury to hear statements against his client that were blatantly untrue.
Stone sympathized with Murdach, but refused to disallow the troublesome segment. The judge characterized Paul St. Pierre’s defense counsel as having “a double whammy working against him. We are all under a double whammy in this case. That is just a fact of life. As for the court allowing something that is totally inaccurate or totally impossible, the court would simply answer that none of us know exactly what happened out there at Salmon Beach on February 24, 1984. I don’t expect to ever know exactly what happened.”
With those summary comments, Judge Stone let the evidence go in, leaving it up to the jurors to determine what happened. “I will decline any further editing,” declared Stone, “and I decline any further removals. Mr. Hultman, you may call your next witness.
“The state calls Detective Yerbury back to the stand,” said Hultman. Previously sworn, Yerbur y was still under oath. “In the course of this investigation,” asked the prosecutor, “did you have occasion to take a statement from Andrew Webb on July 17, 1984?” After receiving an affirmative reply, Carl Hultman said, “Read to us from his statement concerning the death of Damon Wells.”
“ ‘One night in February,’ ” began Yerbury, “ ‘Chris and I had been drinking till late at Ray and Gene’s Tavern.’ ” Andrew Webb’s plea-bargain version was read aloud in almost its entirety, ending with, “ ‘Paul told me not to tell anyone, not even a priest, and he said that if I did, he would kill me. He said I had a family to think about, so I better not tell.’ ”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Stone when Yerbury stepped down, “we are not going to cheat you out of your lunch. You are instructed to ignore the newspaper, the television, and the radio. I won’t see you again until tomorrow morning.”
“I have a number of exhibits,” began John Ladenburg when court reconvened, and all the exhibits were certified copies of documents that began “The State of Washington vs. Andrew Webb.”
“There were three things Ladenburg wanted to impress upon the jury,” recalled Marty Webb. “First, he wanted them to know that Andrew was already convicted on three assault charges, made a plea-bargain deal on those, and was facing sentencing at the time Wells was murdered. Second, he wanted them to understand that the killing of Damon Wells was essentially identical to the three previous assaults—all of them were about him getting ripped off, real or imagined, he was rip-roaring drunk, and he couldn’t control his anger. Third, and most important, he wanted them to know that my brother-in-law, Mr. Andrew Webb, was out of his fucking mind.”
“This jury should know that before this crime was committed,” said Ladenburg to Judge Stone, “Andrew Webb was facing two ten-year sentences with a mandatory y minimum five-year term.” Ladenburg wanted jurors to fully comprehend the time line of Webb’s assault charges and sentencing. Damon Wells was murdered one month before Andrew Webb’s sentencing on the assault charges, and charges were reduced because he plea-bargained. “He was in fact given a deferred sentence and was released on probation with certain conditions.”
Ladenburg also submitted the presentence report filed with the court after Webb’s conviction. “This report is important for a number of reasons,” he insisted. Not only did the report offer a detailed summary of the assault charges, it clearly showed the consistent similarities between Webb’s assaults and the murder of Damon Wells. “Mere suspicion on Webb’s part is, according to this report, sufficient justification for outburst of anger, physical beatings, and threats against life and property.”
“ ‘I feel if the apparent anger is not dealt with,’ ” quoted Ladenburg from the probation officer’s report, “ ‘Webb has the capability of more serious offenses in the future.’ ”
The next submission was, in John Ladenburg’s opinion, exceptionally significant. “I can’t think of a more important thing for a jury to know.” It was the court-ordered psychological evaluation of Andrew Webb, including the diagnostic impressions by Comte and Associates.
Ladenburg, acknowledging the document’s length, turned immediately to page 8—“Conclusions and Diagnostic Impressions.” The observations and analyses of Michael Comte, and his associate, Dr. Peterson, were summarized as follows: “Andrew Webb has a very low frustration tolerance, an immediate need for gratification, and a hostile capacity to act out his feelings without regard for the consequences in an impulsive fashion.” Dr. Peterson also noted that “Mr. Webb is unlikely to experience true remorse or guilt for his behavior.”
“The obvious implication Ladenburg was going for,” said Marty Webb later, “was that Andrew got drunk, pissed, angry, and didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He didn’t want to go to prison, so he killed Damon Wells. Then, to make sure he didn’t get the death penalty for Wells’s murder, he makes this weird deal with Carl Hultman, or Bill Griffies more likely, where he blames Chris and Paul, and promises to testify against them. Then, once he’s sure he’s not gonna get hanged, he admits it was BS. Probably, in his heart of hearts, if he has one, he really didn’t want those two guys to die on account of his statement.”
David Murdach supported Ladenburg’s efforts to have all the documents accepted. “When Mr. Webb was sentenced in those assault cases, a requirement of Judge Thompson was that Mr. Webb obtain a neurological screening and psychiatric mental status exam.”
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nbsp; “When Andrew Webb gets under pressure,” declared David Murdach to the court, “he breaks into people’s homes, puts a firearm in a person’s face threatening to shoot their head off, and slices people’s throats because he fears they are going to rip him off.”
John Ladenburg mildly interrupted Murdach to inform the court that he had another document for submission—an excerpt from Andrew Webb’s previous uncooperative testimony before Judge Stone. “Under oath, he says that he intended to testify against these defendants out of vengeance” and for “selfish reasons.” The attorney contended that Andrew Webb implicated Chris St. Pierre in the murder of Damon Wells purely out of anger and vengeance. Webb, Ladenburg theorized, was angry at both St. Pierre brothers, and took revenge against them in his plea-bargain statement.
“First of all, he gets shot in the gut by Paul. He almost dies, but survives only to find out that Chris has spilled the beans to Yerbury and Price,” recounted Marty Webb, who agreed completely with Ladenburg’s theory, “and the biggest bean spilled was that Andrew Webb, and Andrew Webb alone, according to both Chris and Paul, killed Damon Wells.”
“I intend to call as witnesses,” announced Ladenburg, “Officer Bahr and Detective Yerbury about the assault incidents in addition to having these documents admitted.” Hultman, having reached a point beyond saturation, and near the edge of civility, finally spoke up. “Your Honor, virtually all those documents are inadmissible. The reasons are relevancy and hearsay. The defendants are trying to pull up as much evidence as they can that Andrew Webb is such a violent man, and focus all the attention on his past record, and divert the jury’s attention from what the defendants did in this case.”
