Innocent Victims

by Whisnant, Scott;

  He poked fun at Beaver and his theories on how the murders were committed. “Now, I’m not going to do what Mr. Beaver has done. I’m not going to tell you exactly what happened in that house, because I don’t believe I can do it. There’s only one man in this courtroom who knows that, and he’s sitting over there at the table with his two lawyers.”

  Don’t assume a burden you don’t have. Richardson could clearly hear Beaver saying it over and over during the arguments they had before trial.

  VanStory apologized for Patrick Cone, saying the pressure put on him by the defense caused him to get confused. “The courtroom was about as foreign to Patrick Cone as the deserts of Saudi Arabia are to me,” he said.

  He waved the blown-up color photograph of Kara’s stomach for the jury. He reminded the jury of all the people who had seen the white car by the fence. He brought up Gloria Mims, the woman who had seen a man heading toward the Eastburns’ at 11:30 P.M.

  He questioned why Hennis didn’t rant and rave when officers came to his house to arrest him. He marveled at the meticulous cleanup of the Eastburns’ home and said it was worthy of a parachute rigger, someone who has to be precise or risk soldiers jumping to their deaths.

  Then he started what is known among lawyers as the circle argument. “If you started off—if you took every male person in the Continental United States and started off with a group of suspects that big, then you start working downwards according to the various descriptions given by the various witnesses, you immediately eliminate all but white males. You immediately eliminate any males who were not in Cumberland County in May of 1985, then you’ve got it down to all blond, white males in Cumberland County. That blond hair is another one. That knocks out all the redheads, knocks out all the dark-haired people. Blond hair is the next prerequisite.

  “Work it down farther. Out of the blond-haired male people here in Cumberland County back in May of ’85, how many of them had a military haircut in this community? That would still be a right good crowd of people.

  “Let’s work it down farther. How many of them had a mustache? How many of them were six-foot tall or over—or in the words of Lucille Cook, unusually tall?

  “This big group of people is gradually working down at this point. How many had the military haircut, the blond hair, six-foot tall, mustache, owned toboggans? Toboggans isn’t knocking out too many because most military people have them. But still it will knock a few people out.

  “How many of those own a black Member’s Only jacket? That’s going to knock a few more out.

  “Out of those, how many have thin, fine hair that falls over their eyebrows? Anybody with thick hair or shorter hair is then knocked out.

  “How many of those have what is referred to as ‘sleepy eyes’ by the witness Patrick Cone who saw him? How many of those drive a white Chevette? The number is decreasing with each factor that’s thrown in.

  “How many, according to Cook, look like this defendant? He’s a fairly distinctive-looking individual.

  “How many put a jacket in the cleaners six and a half hours after the homicide, a jacket described by a witness walking down the street?

  “How many wouldn’t ask questions about being stopped on the expressway after they were asked personal questions such as he was? We’re starting to get it down to a real low number now, folks. It’s getting near one, if we’re not there already.

  “How many burned or rather destroyed cloth matching the description of that missing from the Eastburn home the day after the homicides? How many had an opportunity—their wife was out of town? How many had a motive—just been rejected by an old girlfriend? How many received a phone call from Kathryn Eastburn that night? How many had an ‘in’ to the Eastburn home, such as the man she thought was a nice man who had taken the dog home? How many have been positively identified in a court of law by Patrick Cone and Margaret Tillison? You’ve got one, and he’s your baby killer.”

  VanStory was gathering speed. Marylou Hennis wished she could throw a rotten tomato.

  “There’s a point where it quits being just a bunch of coincidences, where the coincidences mount and mount and mount to where proof beyond a reasonable doubt is established. And that’s what you’ve got in this case.

  “There’s your baby killer!” VanStory shouted in Hennis’s face, wagging his finger at him. “He’s the one responsible for the deaths of these kids and their mother. Two of the cutest kids you’ve ever seen in your life.”

  Hennis shook his head. He wished he could reach across the table, grab VanStory, and kick him in the balls.

  VanStory held up pictures of Kara and Erin, still alive and cute. “What you’ve got is before Hennis, and after,” he said, holding up one of the more gruesome autopsy pictures.

  VanStory’s voice broke to a whisper. “And they can talk with you all they want to about ‘this man’s life was … put in my hands a year ago.’ Folks, those two kids’ and their mother’s souls were put in my hands a year ago. And the man responsible for taking their lives is sitting in this courtroom breathing the same air you are. And hopefully, it won’t be for much longer.”

  VanStory raised his voice, chugging to a conclusion. “And it’s a terrible thing that happened in this case. And you read about things in the newspaper and you hear about things on television and you say to yourself, ‘That’s terrible. Those people—those people down at the courthouse, they ought to do something about that—’”

  Beaver screamed an objection, trying to make it stop. Even Judge Johnson agreed, advising the jurors they were not the “ombudsmen for justice in the county.”

  VanStory continued, above Beaver’s howls of objection. “With all these circumstances pointing toward the defendant, are you going to turn him loose in the streets? I certainly hope you aren’t.”

  From a lawyer’s point of view, Beaver considered VanStory’s argument sophomoric and overdramatic, criticizing the prosecutor’s finger-pointing and name-calling. But not everyone agreed. VanStory’s words terrified Bob Hennis. “Tim, if you still think this guy’s a dummy,” he said, “now you better be listening.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  The first vote was 9 to 3 in favor of guilt. Within a couple of votes, one of the three gave in.

  Odell Autry, the youngest juror at twenty-six, was one of the two holdouts. The machine operator at Black & Decker wanted to be sure. The jurors knew even then that a guilty verdict might as well be a death verdict. No one convicted of those murders would get anything less.

  Autry was having a problem with the death sentence.

  “We’ve got to get this over with because I’ve got a trip I want to go on,” one woman said. Autry continued to hold out.

  “If you can’t make a decision, you shouldn’t be on this jury,” she told Autry, now near tears.

  “I know the decision I’ve got to make, but you’re not going to rush me into it. I’ll have to live with myself the rest of my life.”

  The jury voted a couple of times. Odell Autry and one other held on.

  “I can’t make a decision to please you,” he told the woman who had somewhere to go. “I’ve got to make a decision, and I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know if I can do it.”

  “Well, we should go get the judge now and tell him it’s going to be a hung jury. I’m sure he’s guilty, and if you can’t make a decision, you shouldn’t be on the jury.”

  They deliberated 45 minutes that day until Judge Johnson sent them home at 5:15.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you selected one of your number to act as your foreman or forelady?” Judge Johnson asked. Juror number 11 spoke up. Alexander Thomas, the prison hospital guard who Beaver and Richardson kept despite his connections to law enforcement, had been elected.

  The jurors returned the next day, as did about 60 spectators. Thomas took a vote; it was still 10 to 2. He had his fellow jurors write down everything they could remember about the case. When they finished, they settled in for what was beginnin
g to look like a long deliberation.

  Hennis and his family retired to an empty room in the courthouse. No one had much to say. Beaver paced up and down the hallway outside. No one dared bring up the case.

  Tim didn’t want to think about it. “I went to sleep several times. I took my shoes and jacket off and curled up on the floor,” he said, relieved he hadn’t lost his childhood knack for napping. “I was bored and tired and worn out. I couldn’t stand it anymore. The best way to get through waiting was to blank my mind and not think about it.”

  Gary Eastburn waited in an empty courtroom with the prosecutors and his mother. His friends in the hall took turns drawing nooses and talking about how Tim Hennis’s head belonged in one. From time to time, Gary went outside to chat. He approached Conrad Rensch, the ID technician who had taken the autopsy photos of his wife and children. “After this verdict, if he’s found guilty, I’ve decided we’re going to have a party,” Eastburn said, ready for one after 13 months of hell. “Guess what, Conrad. Your wife says we can have it at your house.”

  When 5 o’clock approached, Beaver begged Judge Johnson to let the jury have Friday, July Fourth, off and return Monday. He feared that a jury cooped inside a room on a holiday would cave in to the majority, which Beaver surmised was the prosecution.

  Judge Johnson said no. He had a trip to Europe coming up and he wanted to go on time. The deliberation would continue on July Fourth.

  That night Bob Hennis took his family out to Darryl’s, a favorite restaurant during the trial. Everyone tried to make it as normal as possible, not a farewell supper. But there was so little to talk about. Tim looked across the table and noticed his parents had aged. He wondered about the agony they went through at night when the motel room door closed behind them.

  Kristina bailed them out. The baby, now 17 months, was a subject for everyone to talk about and fuss over. When Bob had taken the family to a Chinese restaurant earlier in the trial, Kristina whined for a pickle until her daddy went to a restaurant next door and got her one. From then on, she was the “Pickle Lady,” a subject of teasing at every meal.

  “And what will the Pickle Lady have tonight?”

  They chased their food around with a fork until Tim stood up and said it was time to go home. It was past the Pickle Lady’s bedtime.

  The next morning, Marylou awoke around 6 and, as she did every morning during the trial, then left the $33-a-day motel room on I-95 to walk to Hardee’s for a biscuit.

  She valued these moments alone, a chance to get out of that room and reflect on the trial, her son, and their life as a family. What did we do to cause this? she asked. She and Bob had wanted so badly to adopt those children. They did everything they could for them, everything they knew to do. They were good kids. Nothing had gone wrong as far as she could tell. All she’d asked was to live to see them grow up and see her grandchildren. But Andy was gone, and the state of North Carolina was doing its best to take Tim.

  For the first time since Tim was arrested, she began to feel embarrassed. The desk clerk hadn’t said anything when they checked in under the name “Hennis,” but everyone at the motel knew. They got strange looks in restaurants. “Hennis, party of five.”

  What did we do to deserve this?

  During the three weeks of testimony, she and Bob just took it, powerless to do anything. What were these witnesses talking about? Tim sitting in his car with his head out the window? Walking down the street in the middle of the night? No. They moved around in a trance. They got up, got dressed, went through the motions and went to bed.

  “We’re okay,” Marylou told herself on those morning walks. “We’re going to win.”

  Her walk on July Fourth started the same. How ironic, she thought. A day of liberty—the day my son is liberated.

  Then she thought about it some more. It wasn’t going well. She began to sense the worst, something she hadn’t considered since the wretched episode began with Tim’s call early on May 16, 1985.

  We’re going to lose, she thought. She ate her biscuit and vowed not to say a word to anyone.

  Throughout that day, Billy Richardson prayed for 5 o’clock. If those jurors could just hold until then, the judge would have to send them home. There’d be talk of a hung jury. There’d be a chance that Hennis would make it.

  They made it until 4, when Beaver started begging Judge Johnson to let the jury go home and enjoy what was left of July Fourth. “Don’t force them into a verdict,” he said.

  The judge said they would continue. At 4:19 P.M., the jury knocked, ending 12½ hours of deliberation over three days.

  Tim’s stomach was in knots. His head pounded as the jurors came into the courtroom. They refused to look at the defendant, always a bad sign. The juror who’d been in a hurry two days before was crying.

  The court clerk asked the jury foreman to stand. “Mr. Foreman, in the case of State of North Carolina versus Timothy Bailey Hennis, 85CRS22175, the jury has unanimously returned as its verdict that the Defendant is guilty of first-degree murder as to Kara Sue Eastburn. Is that the verdict of the jury?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  The clerk’s face lit up and she enthusiastically read three more verdicts. The first one was enough for Hennis. He tugged at his left hand, slipping off his wedding ring. “Give this to Angela and tell her I love her,” he told Richardson.

  “I promise you,” Richardson said, “I’ll get this ring back to you.”

  Hennis waited for someone to wake him, to tell him it was a dream. But it was real. He shook his head. His wife, mother, and sister were sobbing behind him. There was a sob that sounded like his mother-in-law. Then he heard his father crying with them.

  “You knew you were crying,” Bob Hennis said, “and you were trying to get it under some control. But at the beginning you didn’t care. It’s just ‘No, no, no, it can’t be right.’”

  Beaver asked that the jury be “polled,” which meant all 12 had to stand up individually and repeat their verdicts. Mr. Thomas handed a tissue to the woman next to him, who cried her way through it.

  Autry and his holdout friend had caved in because of Lucille Cook. Her describing Hennis’s hair falling over his face resolved the final doubts. The fire in the barrel was another strong reason. A third was Hennis’s failure to testify.

  “There was just a large amount of circumstantial evidence,” juror Frederick Powell said. “He had to have done it, or he was the most unlucky man in the world.”

  Judge Johnson took a 15-minute recess and a bailiff led Tim Hennis away in handcuffs. Beaver and Richardson stepped into a back hallway, where they found VanStory and Carlin giving each other high-fives. Spectators congratulated Gary Eastburn, who was glad the ordeal was over. But the celebration was pierced by the loud sobs of Marylou Hennis, who had gone into the hallway to cry alone.

  After the recess, the judge sent everyone home until Monday, when the “death” phase would begin. VanStory met with reporters outside and told them he’d prayed from day one for justice. “I didn’t pray for a conviction, just that justice would be done,” he said. “And I feel my prayers have been answered.”

  Beaver and Richardson drove aimlessly through Fayetteville, trying to figure out what they would say to a jury in defense of Tim Hennis’s life. But they couldn’t help but think of what had gone wrong. They comforted each other, saying the case was beyond their control, that the prosecutor had bent the rules, the judge had sided against them, and the community had turned against their client. But they knew there had been some mistakes. Second-guessers would question the decision not to put Hennis on the stand. Others would wonder why the trial wasn’t moved from Fayetteville. The lawyers didn’t need anyone to tell them they had picked the wrong jury, or that they had let the state off the hook with Patrick Cone.

  Richardson finally left Beaver and went to a Fourth of July hamburger cookout at his in-laws’. “You should have put him on the stand,” someone said. He left before his first bite.

  The c
ity of Fayetteville put on a fireworks show that night. Angela and Kristina watched from their apartment, with Beth along to keep Angela company. The two women wept into the night. Kristina thought the “pop” of the rockets and the trails of embers through the sky was pretty neat.

  Bob and Marylou watched a fireworks show on television in their motel room, quietly crying together.

  Tim Hennis saw no fireworks. Jail guards led him to a suicide prevention cell, an open area where guards could watch from two sides. A camera was on him at all times.

  “Why am I here?” he asked guards.

  “Because they think you’re a threat to do something.”

  “Can’t I at least go to a cell block and watch TV?”

  No, he was told. He would spend the weekend in the suicide cell and return to the courtroom Monday to find out if the jury wanted him dead.

  At Conrad Rensch’s house across town, the state’s investigators and ID techs celebrated into the night. Rensch barbecued a pig and Gary Eastburn brought the beer. Rensch played spoons and danced with Gary’s mom. Everyone gathered in the kitchen for group photos.

  “We laughed until we cried,” Gary’s mother said.

  The sentencing hearing was brief and anticlimactic. Bob Hennis, the only witness, talked about losing his son, Andy. When he described how his and Angela’s family put up property to get Tim out on bond, he broke down. “You see that he’s always been here very promptly,” he said. “I’ve never even attempted to monitor the situation. I knew he would do it. I could count on him.”

  Bob brought an 8 x 10 photo of Tim and Kristina, his and Marylou’s favorite picture of their son and granddaughter. Beaver and Richardson decided not to pass it to the jury. Too obvious a sympathy ploy, they said. Bob and Marylou never saw the photo again.

  VanStory whipped out another batch of gory pictures for his sentencing argument.