By the end of August, Commonwealth’s Attorney Thomas Stark III had made a crucial decision about Pernell’s case. Stark was 59. He had grown up in Amelia and had been the commonwealth’s attorney of Amelia County for more than 30 years. A trim, gray-haired man of conservative dress and manner, he had tried many murder cases but never one in which it was uncertain even where, the murder had occurred. After reviewing the evidence, Stark saw that the case against Pernell was totally circumstantial. Although Weaver and Terry had produced a great deal of scientific evidence, they had not found the murder weapon, nor had they been able to locate Jeannie’s missing ring, physical evidence that might have been linked directly to Pernell.
Stark saw that he was going to have to depend on Wayne Scott and two other witnesses that Scott had led Weaver and Terry to, and although all three were in jail, two were soon to be released and might quickly disappear, making themselves unavailable to testify.
In Virginia, capital murder, with which Pernell had been charged, is a first degree felony, punishable upon conviction with only two sentences, death or life imprisonment. First degree murder is a second degree felony, punishable with a sentence of 20 years to life. A person convicted of first degree murder becomes eligible for parole in 12 years, but a person convicted of capital murder and given a life sentence does not become eligible for parole for 25 years.
Over the objections of Weaver, Terry and the Pricketts, Stark chose to try Pernell for capital murder but not to seek the death penalty. His reasons were twofold. First, he thought the evidence was not strong enough to support the death penalty on appeal, and he did not want that to be the reason that a conviction got overturned, giving Pernell a chance, perhaps, to go free. Second, Pernell’s lawyer, Steven Benjamin, had already requested a continuance. If it were granted, two of Stark’s primary witnesses would be out of jail and likely out of his reach by the time the trial began, leaving him only with Wayne Scott to get a conviction—one questionable character’s word against another. Stark knew that the judge who would be trying the case did not like to grant continuances, but if a person’s life were at stake, he was apt to do so. By foregoing the death penalty, he knew the judge likely would deny the continuance and preserve his witnesses. Far better to have Pernell in jail for 25 years, he thought, than to try him for his life and run the risk of letting him be set free.
Still, the trial was months away, giving Pernell plenty of time to work his charms and schemes. Jimmy Weaver would soon become well aware of just how manipulative Pernell could be. Efforts to shift suspicion for Jeannie’s murder to others began surfacing one after another, and every time Weaver saw Pernell’s hand behind them. At one point an unsigned letter purporting to be from a former girlfriend of Wayne Scott’s arrived, claiming that Scott and one of his “drug dealer friends” had killed Jeannie in her apartment. Weaver was never able to track down the letter writer, but he became convinced that Pernell had persuaded someone to write it. Later, two inmates came forward to claim that they had heard that Scott was boasting of having killed Jeannie, but when Weaver explained the implications of involving themselves in a murder case, both recanted and said that Pernell had put them up to it.
Weaver never ceased to be amazed at Pernell’s powers of persuasion. Before Pernell’s trial, a female guard at the correctional institute where he was being held would be fired for having sex with him.
25.
A Murder Trial In Walton Village
HISTORY HOVERS LIKE A SPECTRE OVER AMELIA, Virginia, and at first glance it seems like a town lost in time.
It was at Amelia that General Robert E. Lee’s retreating Confederate Army had expected to rendezvous with badly needed supplies near the end of the Civil War. Instead, the troops nearly starved at Amelia and Lee soon surrendered just down the road at Appomattox.
Since those dark days, little of note had occurred in the small farming town 40 miles south of Richmond. When Pernell Jefferson’s trial began on March 28, 1991, nobody could even recall when the last capital murder trial had been held in the town’s white-columned courthouse.
Few people attended the opening of the trial a day earlier, when the jury had been selected, but on the second day, with testimony scheduled to begin, the small courtroom was crowded. Two newspaper reporters and a television reporter, all from Richmond, sat together near the front of the spectator gallery. A dozen students on a field trip from a government class at Amelia County High School climbed with their teacher to the balcony, once reserved only for blacks.
Irene Demos, Susan’s mother, had made the trip from Winston-Salem, and she took a seat across the aisle from Pernell’s brother and sister, Willie and Blondie.
Ben and Sam took seats back of the table where Commonwealth’s Attorney Thomas Stark was already seated, organizing notes and papers. Soon, Sheriff Weaver, who had become like a brother to Ben, was there, leaning close to whisper something.
“Behave yourself,” he warned. Weaver had had long talks with Ben about his anger and his hatred for Pernell and he wanted no disruptive scenes.
“I will,” Ben promised, but Weaver took a strategic seat halfway between Ben and Pernell nonetheless, and for a time, he watched no one but Ben.
Ben glowered at Pernell when sheriff’s deputies led him into the courtroom, and he kept his eyes on him after he was seated. “I watched him sweat,” Ben said years later, venom still in his voice.
Pernell seemed unaware of Ben’s scrutiny.
Judge Thomas V. Warren, a tall, slender man with salt-and-pepper hair, entered the courtroom and took his seat at the bench. A man of great dignity, Warren was a native of nearby Fredericksburg and a graduate of Virginia Tech. At 51, he had served on the bench for nearly 14 years and had a reputation for being direct and tolerating no nonsense.
Pernell stood as the charges against him were read.
“How do you plead?” asked the clerk of court, R.E. Flippin.
“Not guilty, sir,” Pernell said in a strong voice.
After the judge questioned Pernell to make certain that he understood the charges against him, the jury was brought in and empaneled. It included seven women and five men, nine white and three black. They had been chosen in quick order the day before from a pool of only 20 citizens of Amelia County. Years later, Weaver would remember them as “the perfect jury.”
“No one in the county brought any baggage to the trial because no one in the county knew Jeannie and no one in the county knew Pernell,” he said. “In the history of jury trials in this country, there probably has never been a more perfect jury for making an impartial decision.”
Before testimony could begin, the jury was asked to leave the courtroom so that Benjamin could make the most important motion of the trial: to bar from evidence the tape mysteriously recorded by Jeannie’s and Denise’s answering machine.
“I have listened to the tape,” Benjamin told Judge Warren. “The Commonwealth would proffer that there are two voices on that tape and, indeed, there are two voices. The Commonwealth will tell you that one voice is the voice of the deceased in this case. The other voice, the Commonwealth proffers, and I do not concede, is the voice of the defendant.”
Benjamin paused to gather his thoughts and check his notes. “I represent that there is virtually nothing that the defendant, or the person alleged to be the defendant on that tape, says that is decipherable. Some of what the deceased says can be understood. Now, this is despite the best efforts of the FBI at enhancement.
“The voice that’s supposed to be Mr. Jefferson’s, although you can’t tell what it is, it sounds calm. The voice which is the deceased’s is…well, it will be argued that her voice sounds frightened, that she is at times sobbing, and that she makes statements to the effect of, ‘Please leave me alone.’”
Benjamin emphasized that the incident on the tape took place in March, while the abduction that led to Jeannie’s death happened in May.
His objections, Benjamin went on to point out, were several.
“Number one, hearsay. I obviously cannot cross examine the deceased as to what she meant when she made any of the statements on the tape. We’re left to speculate. Was she, for example, sincerely frightened or was this part of some aspect of their relationship? Was it some form of play-acting? We don’t know. We would have to speculate. We can’t know and I can’t ask her, ‘Were you seriously saying, “Let go of me?’” ‘Have you ever had this kind of conversation before?’ ‘Were you sincerely frightened or were you playing along?’
“I can’t confront this witness and that’s the basis for my objection.
“Number two, that this is evidence, no matter what we call it, and despite what theory of admissibility it will be cloaked in, it’s evidence of, if the Commonwealth is believed, prior misconduct by this man.
“I am certain that the Commonwealth will tell you that there is a specific purpose for which it is being introduced which is proper under Virginia law, but I submit to you that if it has any probative value, and we say it does not, then that whatever probative value it has is so far outweighed by the extreme prejudice of this jury hearing this tape as to amount to a complete denial of Mr. Jefferson’s right to a fair trial for what he’s been accused of.”
Benjamin said that if the tape recording were introduced into evidence, the jury “can’t help but understand that this is a reflection on his character and the at least subconscious message for this jury, the danger we want to avoid, is that we’re telling the jury, ‘Look here, he did the same thing in March and that makes it more likely, doesn’t it, that he did the thing in May?’
“Now, as logical as that might seem to us, the law says you’re not allowed to prove guilt that way and that is really why that tape would be coming in…
“I think the court understands that the specific legal grounds would be that this would be in violation of his right to a fair trial, his right to confrontation of witnesses, his right to effective assistance of counsel, and his due process rights under the several U.S. amendments.”
Stark was quick to defend the tape.
“There is, as Mr. Benjamin indicated, about seven minutes of extreme anguish on her part,” he told the judge. “She calls his name. The question of identification is not going to be that tough. Moreover, his voice is recognizable.
“It is not the tape alone that the Commonwealth would offer in evidence so that the bare tape and the question of hearsay should not stand or should not be an appropriate objection because the tape is corroborated, number one, by the witness who lived in the same home who discovered the tape, who played the tape on the very night it was made, who received a phone call from the victim who was at that time in the custody of the defendant who made it known to the victim through this phone conversation that she had Jefferson on tape and that no harm had better come to Regina Butkowski.
“Regina Butkowski called back within a very short time and said, ‘How do you mean on tape?’ The witness explained and Regina Butkowski was returned home, not unharmed.
“There is further corroborative evidence, pictures taken of her with abrasions, very substantial abrasions around her neck. A criminal complaint was filed with the Chesapeake Police Department. She did not follow through with the prosecution but this was no play-acting, as Mr. Benjamin would suggest.”
Stark said he understood the limited use to which the tape could be used, but cited three earlier Commonwealth cases in making his point. The exceptions, Stark contended, were as well-established as the general rule itself.
“Those exceptions are, number one, to identify the accused,” he said. “Number two, to show the relationship between the accused and the victim. Number three, to show motive. Number four, to show intent.”
Now Benjamin addressed the court again.
“Judge, what happened in March is too remote from what happened in May, and what I think I’m hearing is that, well, this shows their relationship and it leads up to the offense.
“Well, it does not do that. It doesn’t show anything. That’s the first problem with it having no probative value…What does it prove? That just invites speculation…”
“Might I just make one comment, if Your Honor please?” Stark said, rising to be heard. “There was an ongoing boyfriend-girlfriend relationship between these parties that predated both the March and, obviously, the May incidents so I don’t want the court to be misled that there was no relationship or prior relationship between these parties.”
“And all of that will be in evidence including identification of the voices on the tape?” Judge Warren asked.
“Yes, sir,” Stark responded.
“Well, clearly the evidence, if believed by the jury, would be prejudicial, just as much of the other Commonwealth’s evidence will likely be prejudicial,” Judge Warren said. “I don’t think the hearsay objection would in any way stand when this is a conversation between a victim that was, and this will be the Commonwealth’s theory, was murdered two months after this tape was taken, a tape of, if I’m understanding correctly, suggestive of rather violent behavior by the defendant toward the victim.
“I don’t think March, two months before the incident, is remote when the relationship between the parties is continuing,” the judge said.
“The Commonwealth’s evidence will show, according to what I’ve heard, the identification, the relationship, a motive, a pattern, the intent, all of which is relevant for the jury to hear. It is evidence that is admissible and that the jury is entitled to weigh, so I would overrule the objection, and your exception is noted.”
Benjamin and Pernell had suffered a major setback even before the first witness was called.
In his opening statement, Stark warned the jury that there would be some conflicting evidence before laying out the state’s case against Pernell.
Pernell’s lawyer told the jury that he might call no defense witnesses and warned that the state’s witnesses would not be credible. “I can’t promise that by Easter we’re going to have any miracle and the true killer is going to leap from the stand or from the courtroom and say, ‘I can’t take it any more. I did it,’” he said. “There is no question I can ask that will prompt that disclosure, but I can tell you that by the end of this trial, we will be much closer to knowing, all of us, the truth about who killed her if not the identity of the actual assailant.”
Testimony opened with Randy DuClau telling how he found Jeannie’s skull. Deputy Leonard Wiggins and Virginia State Police Special Agent B.I. Robertson followed to tell how Jeannie’s remains were recovered. Robertson said that Jeannie’s bones had been scattered, probably by animals.
Carrie Prickett was the fourth witness. She was clearly nervous as she raised her hand to be sworn, and was suffering from a severe headache. She wore a beige and black button-up dress with elbow-length sleeves, and she was resentful about having to testify.
“It was like going through something that was not necessary, it seemed to me,” she said in 1995. “Why do we have to prove things? We knew he did it.”
Unlike her husband, she wouldn’t allow herself to look at Pernell.
“Why would I?” she asked years later. “I had in mind that if I looked at him I would see nothing because I then considered him to be nothing.”
Guided by Stark, Carrie told about her last conversation with Jeannie and Jeannie’s failure to meet her as planned at the beauty shop. The memories clearly caused hear deep distress.
When Stark asked her to identify a photograph of Jeannie, Benjamin spoke up. “I’ll stipulate that that’s her daughter if it would be easier,” he said.
“Mrs. Prickett, did your daughter like jewelry?” Stark asked later.
“Yes, sir,” she said in a voice so soft that the judge had to ask her to speak up and repeat her answer.
“Did she like to wear rings and bracelets and necklaces and that sort of thing?” Stark continued.
“Yes, sir.”
Carrie’s chore was becoming no easier. Now spread before her was th
e jewelry law enforcement officers had dug from the soil near Nibbs Creek. “Can you identify those objects, ma’am?” Stark asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“And whose would they be?”
“They belonged to Regina,” she said softly.
“Did she have another ring?”
“She had six rings on her fingers.”
“Did she have one more prominent than the others?”
“Yes, sir. It was her wedding band.”
Stark brought a photograph to the stand and asked her to identify it. It was a photo of the ring Jeannie and Tony had designed for her.
Later, Carrie would remember that as the hardest moment of her testimony.
“It was like looking at Jeannie,” she remembered. “There it was, a picture of the ring on Jeannie’s hand. It was like it was confirmation that Jeannie had lived, and now she was dead.”
Denise had worn black for her testimony, a symbol of mourning for Jeannie. As soon as she took the stand, she fixed Pernell in her angry gaze and wouldn’t let her eyes wander from his. If looks could kill, she later said, Pernell would have toppled over dead right there.
Stark led Denise through her last evening with Jeannie, May 5, 1989, and her discovery the following day that Jeannie was missing.
“I take it you have not seen Regina since.”
“No, sir.”
“Did she have any enemies that you know of?” Stark asked.
“Yes, there was someone who was harassing her,” Denise answered. “I guess you would call that an enemy. I don’t know if you’d call him an enemy or not, but she was harassed constantly by someone.”
“And who would that be?”
Deadly Goals Page 22
