Deadly Goals

by Wilt Browning

  “How big a pile of powder would it be?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “How many times have you taken cocaine?”

  Savin did not respond.

  “You don’t know, do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” Savin confessed.

  “You’ve taken cocaine so many times you can’t remember?”

  “That’s right.”

  “If we piled up each hit of acid, how big a pile would that make?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t tell us,” Benjamin said with a hint of disgust. “Would you agree that you have a little bit more experience in cocaine and acid than maybe the rest of us in the courtroom just by virtue of your experience?”

  “I don’t know what experience anybody else in this courtroom has with the drugs.”

  “What effect did the cocaine have on you that night?”

  “By the time I got to Virginia Beach, there was no effects left from the cocaine.”

  “When did the LSD wear off, sir?”

  “Sometime Saturday morning.”

  “That’s when you stopped hallucinating?”

  “I didn’t hallucinate the whole time. It, basically, just keeps you awake and aware.”

  After Savin left the stand, Joey St. Augustine was called. He hesitated when he was asked to state his name and new address.

  “I’d prefer not to give my address,” he said.

  “Would you tell these ladies and gentlemen of the jury why you would prefer not to do so?” Stark asked, but before St. Augustine could answer, Benjamin had stormed to his feet.

  “Objection, judge. This is totally improper, inflammatory, irrelevant…”

  “Well, if it has any basis…” Stark said, interrupting.

  “Immaterial,” cried Benjamin, raising his voice over Stark’s.

  “I think it is very material,” Stark put in.

  “Well, only if it has something that relates to the defendant,” the judge said.

  “If it does,” Stark said, “then he might say so. And if it doesn’t, then I assume he’ll not say so.”

  “Well, you know, Mr. Stark,” the judge said, “you’ve talked to him, and I just don’t want something off the wall. I’m not requiring that he give his address and it’s no big deal whether he gives his address or not. Now, if it’s some sort of threat that’s been directed to him from the defendant, then that’s one thing. But if it’s just some…”

  “I make no…” Stark started to say.

  “…feeling that he has…” the judge continued.

  “I make no representation to the court that any threat has come to him direct from the defendant in person,” Stark said, and the judge allowed St. Augustine to keep his address to himself.

  “Do you know Mr. Jefferson?” Stark asked him.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “How do you know him?”

  “When I was working at a company called Remco, he came to work there.”

  “You and he worked together?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long was that?”

  “Approximately six months. Six, seven months.”

  “And how did you all get along?”

  “For the first couple of months, we didn’t get along. After that, the remaining four or five months, we got along pretty good.”

  “You all were good friends?”

  “No. We were friends.”

  “Did he ever discuss with you girlfriends or girlfriend problems if there were any?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Any in particular?”

  “Yeah. There was a girl in the Virginia Beach area. He referred to her as Jeannie…She’d broken up with him and he just didn’t like that. He was mad about that.”

  “Did he suggest to you or discuss with you taking any action against her?”

  St. Augustine had appeared nervous from the beginning. Now he seemed to become even more uneasy. He paused before answering and seemed uncertain of what he was going to say.

  “He did say that—when she broke the thing—broke it off, that, ah, if—that is—this is what he said to me—if he can’t have her, nobody else can. And not in those exact words but…” His voice tailed off.

  “Let me hear it again,” Stark said.

  More clearly now, St. Augustine said, “If he can’t have her, no one else can.”

  “All right, did there come a time in March of 1989 that he broke into her home and abducted her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he tell you about that?”

  “Yes, he did. He said that he went down there and his main reason to go down there was to kill her. And when he’d told me about it, it was afterwards, after he’d gone down there. And he said that after he’d—after he’d broken into the house that at that point he just couldn’t do it. They just—they talked and they drove around and talked. He took her back home and that was it.”

  “Now, did he discuss with you a later incident occurring in early May of 1989?”

  “He did. He did ask me to be an alibi for a Friday night.”

  St. Augustine went on to testify that he had gotten a predawn call from Pernell on Saturday morning, May 6, seeking help in hiding Jeannie’s car, and that he later drove Pernell to Remco in time for work that Saturday.

  “Did he tell you how he happened to be in possession of Jeannie’s car?”

  “Yeah. He told me that they’d went—he had went down to where she lived in the Virginia Beach area. They’d broken into her house—”

  “Did he tell you who ‘they’ was?” Stark interrupted.

  “No.”

  “He did not?”

  “He did not.”

  “Okay. Go ahead.”

  “And he told me that they went down there and broke in and they got into her car and they were driving—”

  Again Stark interrupted. “Who is ‘they’?”

  “Pernell and Jeannie.”

  “All right. Go ahead.”

  “And, well, he said they were driving back, they had a conversation. First they had started talking about Jeannie’s financial problems, how she was in debt and he’d said that Jeannie knew why he was there and what he was doing.”

  “And why—what was that?”

  “The reason?” St. Augustine asked.

  “Yes.”

  “She knew that he was there to kill her.”

  “How did that come out?” Stark asked.

  “Well, he just—these aren’t exact words, I’m not sure of the exact words, but he said she told him that she knew why they were there or why he’d come down and knew that Pernell was going to kill her at that time. And after that, she asked how he was going to do it. And Pernell said, ‘With a gun.’ And she asked to see it…He said that he had handed her the gun and she looked at it and handed it back…Then he said they were driving, he shot her.”

  “He shot her where?”

  “He said he shot her in the head.”

  “How many times?”

  “Ah, he never said how many. I was assuming once because he said after he shot her, he kind of described what happened, how she froze up and said blood came out of her mouth and—”

  Once more, Stark interrupted. “Jefferson is telling you all of this?”

  “Yes.”

  St. Augustine testified that he and Pernell worked together for part of the day on Saturday, May 6, 1989, and that evening Pernell appeared at his apartment.

  “He came by and told me that I had to go with him to where he had dumped her body. He needed someone to drive because he didn’t want his car to be parked off the side of the road.”

  “And did you do that?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you have a shovel?”

  “Yes, he had one.”

  “Where did he get that from, do you know?”

  “He said he’d gotten it from one of Remco’s customers.”

  “And so you went to this place in Chesterfield
and then what?”

  “He gave me directions. I was driving. And told me to stop. At first, we drove by, he threw the shovel out, and we turned around and came back and he got out. And he said to drive around about fifteen minutes and—”

  Stark asked if he could remember what Pernell said when he returned to pick him up.

  “He said he couldn’t dig a hole because there were too many roots. Because it was in a kind of wooded area.”

  “Then what did you all do?”

  “Went back to my apartment and I got out and he drove off.”

  “Do you recall seeing her purse at any point?”

  “Ah, yes,” St. Augustine said. “It was that same night, and we had driven to the apartment complex next to mine. It’s called Newport Manor. And we went there and he got out in front of the trash can or dumpster and got the purse out from there. I think that was the same night.”

  “He gets the purse out of the dumpster and what does he do with it?”

  “He hands it over to me and says I have to burn it, I have to get rid of it, and so that’s what I do with it is burn it.”

  “What about the contents of the purse?”

  “It had all her personal belongings, her wallet, driver’s license, credit card—”

  “Any cash?” Stark broke in.

  “—business cards. Ah, yeah. It had some cash.”

  “What became of the cash?”

  “He’d taken the cash out. He handed me twenty dollars and he kept the rest and that was it for the cash.”

  “Did you see a ring on that occasion?”

  “He showed me a ring Saturday at work.”

  “Can you describe that ring for us?”

  “I can’t really describe it. I know it wasn’t an ordinary looking ring.”

  “It was or was not?”

  “It was not.”

  “Did it have any stones?”

  “Ahh, if I remember, I think it had like about three diamonds in it.”

  Stark then placed Commonwealth exhibit number six, a picture of a ring, in front of St. Augustine and asked him if it resembled the ring Pernell had shown him that Saturday morning.

  “Yes,” he answered, “that was the ring.”

  “Did he say anything about the ring?”

  “He said that it was a one-of-a-kind ring. He had it especially made for her.”

  Stark had finished his questions, and Judge Warren ordered a brief recess before cross examination began. During the recess, Stark realized that he had failed to ask some important questions, and when court reconvened Judge Warren allowed him to renew direct examination.

  “Mr. St. Augustine,” he began, “when you were told by Pernell on Saturday, the sixth of May, that he had killed Regina, did you tell anybody? Did you call anybody?”

  “Saturday?”

  “Well, I understand you were told on Saturday. I don’t know whether you called on Saturday or some other day, but did you, in fact, tell anybody?”

  “I called Jeannie’s apartment that—I think it was a Wednesday.”

  “How did you happen to know her number?”

  Pernell had once called Jeannie from his apartment, he said, and he searched back through old phone bills until he found the number.

  “Who did you talk with, do you recall?”

  “I think I talked to a detective. I don’t really know who I talked to at first, but then I started talking to, I think, a detective.”

  “Did you identify yourself, give your name?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Did you seek to make the call an anonymous call?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What did you tell the people that you called and talked with?”

  “I told them that Pernell had killed Jeannie.”

  “Did you tell them everything you knew?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You did not? You held back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why was that?”

  “At the time, I didn’t want to be involved. I wanted to try to give enough to help the case but I did not want to be involved. I didn’t want to do what I’m doing here now.”

  “Were you frightened?”

  “Yes, I was.”

  In cross examination, Benjamin got St. Augustine to admit that he’d had a conversation with Stark before the trial about not revealing his new address.

  “What instructions did he give you about testifying today?” Benjamin asked.

  “Instructions?”

  “Yeah. Did he tell you what to say, what not to say, what to emphasize, what not to emphasize?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me any of that.”

  “Did he tell you that you had to tell the truth?”

  “Ahhh, yes.”

  “He did?”

  “I think he did,” St. Augustine said, speaking softly. “I don’t know if it was today. I think it was probably around the preliminary hearings.”

  Judge Warren told St. Augustine he would have to talk louder.

  “Okay,” Benjamin continued, “around the last hearing, he told you to tell the truth?”

  “You know, that I’d be under oath, yes,” St. Augustine said, speaking louder.

  “Why do you think he picked you out to tell you to tell the truth?”

  “I didn’t think that he’d picked me out.”

  “You hadn’t been truthful up until that point, had you?”

  “Up until what point?”

  “Up until the hearing.”

  “Ahhh, no,” St. Augustine said, now pausing as he spoke. “I told Chief Deputy Terry when I met with him—”

  Benjamin interrupted. “Isn’t it true, sir, that you told so many different versions of the events surrounding May fifth prior to your hearing next door that you can’t remember what you did tell and what you didn’t tell? Isn’t that an accurate statement?”

  Stark quickly objected, causing Benjamin to withdraw the question, but he continued pressing St. Augustine, his questions implying at one point that St. Augustine might have participated in moving Jeannie’s body into Amelia County as early as Saturday night, May 6, the night after her murder.

  “Had you ever before been asked to drive someone out to bury a body?” Benjamin asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “Describe this shovel. Was it a long-handled shovel?”

  “Yes, it was very long.”

  “And it’s not the kind that’s got a handle on top, it’s one of those long-handled things, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “With a pointed blade?”

  “Ahh, I don’t remember the blade.”

  “Okay, y’all took his car?”

  “Yes.”

  “A Fiero?”

  “Yes.”

  “A two-door Fiero?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “No back seat in the Fiero?”

  “None.”

  “The back windshield is right up against the back of the two seats, right?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “And the trunk is very, very small on that, isn’t it?”

  “I think it is.”

  “Tell us where that long-handled shovel was in that Fiero.”

  “The blade part was on the floor and he had to have the window rolled down for it to stick out.”

  “So the blade is on the floor and he’s got the handle coming across him and sticking out his driver’s side window?”

  “No. I was driving. He was in the passenger…” He demonstrated the positions.

  “Why didn’t you take your car?”

  “Because I didn’t want to take my car.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I didn’t want it being seen.”

  “Because you knew you were going to go drop him off to bury a body?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He told you that ahead of time?”

  “He told me that then, yes.”

  Benjamin continued grilling St. August
ine, trying to show that he couldn’t be believed, and by the time St. Augustine stepped down, the trial was effectively over.

  Stark called only three more witnesses: Michael Thomas, who had been Pernell’s and St. Augustine’s boss at the Remco store in Richmond; and Detectives Michael Slezak of Chesapeake and Ray Williams of Richmond, who described their experiences with St. Augustine.

  The state had taken less than two days to present its case, offering only 16 witnesses. Later, Stark would say that he didn’t use half the evidence that had been accumulated, but he was confident of winning a conviction.

  “We had the right man,” he said.

  The defense took even less time. Benjamin called only one witness, Dr. Marcella Fierro, the deputy chief medical examiner for the Central District of Virginia, who had written the autopsy report on Jeannie’s remains.

  Throughout her testimony, Fierro, who would later become the district’s chief medical examiner, referred to her report.

  “You did determine, did you not, that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to the left temple region?’

  “Yes.”

  “And you retrieved that bullet and gave it to Ann Jones, a forensic ballistic examiner?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “You show on your page three diagram two holes in the skull which you have described as an entrance wound and an exit wound?”

  “Yes.”

  “So that no one will wonder how there can be an exit and an entrance and yet the bullet be recovered inside the skull, could you give us an explanation?”

  “Yes,” Fierro answered. “When bullets go through the skull, they often make it through. In this case, it went through on the left side. It came out the bony part of the head on the right side but it didn’t make it through the skin. It pushed a plug of bone out and then the skin sort of tented out and then came back in so that the bullet didn’t exit. Under those circumstances, the bullet is pushed right back into the skull where it remains then until the brain decomposes or whatever. So it exited the skull but not the scalp.”

  “On page two of your report, you used the word ‘articulated’ when describing the condition of the spine. So that the jury reading the autopsy later understands, ‘articulated’ means what?”

  “Still together,” she answered. “When referring to the spine, when I say the spine is articulated, it means the vertebra are still together and held together by remnants of ligaments. If the body were completely decomposed for years, then those small ligaments would break down and the vertebra would separate. But if they’re together, it’s call ‘articulated.’”