Cruel Death

by M. William Phelps

  Wilson’s testimony could fit into either argument.

  The jury was not going to hear from Erika. The major concern for Erika’s camp was that if she sat on the witness stand and supported the main theory Tuminelli and Ceraso had been laying out for the jury—that Erika had assisted BJ after the murders—there was the great potential the statement Erika had made to Carri Campbell was going to be introduced. In order for that statement not to become part of the case, Erika would have to, essentially, lie on the witness stand. And once she perjured herself, and the state knew it and could prove it, the statement was up for grabs.

  There was no way Erika’s camp could take that chance. But what hurt them even more, perhaps, was not being able to explain to the jury why Erika wasn’t going to testify. Because, in the end, most juries want to hear from a defendant.

  It had worked for BJ.

  With Erika’s defense finished, the judge released everyone for the weekend and announced that closing arguments would begin promptly on Monday morning.

  Without saying anything, Erika looked at her parents and was handcuffed and led back to her holding cell for the weekend.

  100

  “Miss Scrapbook”

  Before closing arguments began on Monday, June 9, Detective Brett Case was called back to the witness stand to answer a few questions Tuminelli had most likely thought about over the weekend. And yet, nothing new came out of the exchange.

  All Joel Todd had to do in his closing was simply point out the fact that there was no evidence supporting a theory that the murders had been all BJ’s doing. If anything, the evidence pointed directly at Erika—and the jury’s decision in BJ’s trial supported that theory. So, like any good trial attorney, Todd keyed on this single issue as he began explaining to the jury how he had proved the state’s case. “The gun which you’ve seen in the box here,” Todd said, “the gun which was passed around and you had a chance to hold. That gun, we know, killed Joshua Ford.”

  It wasn’t just a trial prop anymore. That gun, that weapon that started this nightmare. It was hers. That woman. The one sitting there. She owned it. She had it on her when she was arrested. She threatened a bouncer with it. She bragged to people about owning it.

  It was the gun that had killed Geney and Joshua.

  Todd reminded jurors that Erika’s own father had testified and “admitted” that BJ “had told him that he, Benjamin, was buying a gun for Erika. . . .” There could be no confusion over whose gun it was that killed those two people.

  All told, however, this was pure circumstantial evidence. The truth of the matter was, it was Erika’s gun. That fact went undisputed. But that in itself had not proved she pulled the trigger; it only proved that her gun had been used in the homicides.

  “What if,” Mitch Grace remarked later, “BJ set it all up this way? What if BJ made sure his gun wasn’t around because he wanted to frame Erika for this crime?”

  As he found his rhythm, Todd focused on Erika’s habit of collecting things, including Joshua’s ring and what were the last photographs taken of Joshua and Geney, which Erika had snapped herself with her own camera. Interestingly enough, Todd said, Erika and BJ had met plenty of other couples that week, and yet the only “couples” photographs police found were of Geney and Joshua, who ended up dead, as if Erika and BJ had chosen them and Erika was documenting their final days as some sort of reminder or souvenir from that week.

  Todd called Erika “Miss Scrapbook,” who took “photographs of the ones (couples) that gave her a rush, the ones that gave her the excitement.”

  Geney and Joshua.

  Another factor that Todd saw as significant became how there were only two bullets found on the kitchen table in the Rainbow condo suite where Erika and BJ were staying. Why was this? Todd wondered aloud. “We know there were more than two bullets fired, but there’s only two bullets saved.... The state would submit, ladies and gentlemen, that it would have been easy to take that bullet . . . after the head was chopped off. That bullet was visible with the naked eye. But that bullet wasn’t recovered. There was another bullet in the chest area, right under the arm. That bullet wasn’t recovered. Two bullets were kept because the souvenir hunter only fired two of the shots! She had to keep her two bullets,” Todd snapped, getting louder as he continued. “She’s the collector . She’s got to have the trophy.” He paused and looked toward Erika. “She’s got to have the souvenir.”

  As the gallery sat and listened attentively, that comment drew a collective breath. Todd had framed the motive and the thrill of the kill around Erika’s own business and her desire to collect things. And, whether true or not, he had done a superb job of it.

  In a second vein of the same accusation, Todd spoke of Erika having the IDs of the victims and Joshua’s ring on her when she was arrested. What more evidence did anybody need to prove she was the collector? BJ had nothing on him. He didn’t care about collecting things. In many ways, it was implied—not through actual words but subtle pronouncements—that BJ had lost everything when he got himself discharged from the navy and had little reason left to feel good about life. He was perhpas just going along with whatever thrill-seeking adventure his crazy wife wanted to do next.

  “Isn’t it ironic,” Mitch Grace said later, playing devil’s advocate, making some great points, “that all of those items were found on Erika? Isn’t it a bit suspicious that BJ didn’t have any of it on him?”

  The one piece of evidence that didn’t get much play during the trial, but certainly meant a lot in the scope of Erika’s collecting habits, was Joshua and Geney’s room key. That key was found on a table in the condo.

  There was also the implication that only a novice shooter could have shot that .357 and missed, which a bullet found in the grout of the tile floor proved. Thus, looking at it from the perspective of BJ being the mastermind, the main shooter, how could a navy SEAL, who was an expert marksman, miss a shot at such close range? Todd asked. No, only an inexperienced shooter could have done that—which meant, yes, ladies and gentlemen, Erika Sifrit had fired that round.

  Which made her a murderer.

  Todd next focused on the 911 call Erika had made from the Rainbow at 3:01 A.M., after she and BJ met Geney and Joshua, explaining to the jury, “The state would submit . . . that a reasonable inference in the facts in this case is that at the time this call was made, Joshua and Geney were already dead.”

  Then it was on to the dragon ring. Erika had photographed Joshua wearing the ring at Seacrets; film developed from her own camera proved this.

  But then Todd projected a photograph taken by the ME of Joshua’s dismembered arm sitting on a metal table. “That’s Josh’s left hand . . . and it didn’t have a ring on it on that table, but there’s the ring there, at Seacrets nightclub, just an hour or so before he was killed.”

  It was powerful imagery.

  Todd talked about all the evidence collected from the Jeep Cherokee.

  Then he talked about all the blood—much of it mixed—found in the Rainbow bathroom.

  Then Todd recounted how his medical examiner testified that the bodies were chopped up with a serrated knife—the same knife recovered from Erika’s front pocket on the night she was arrested.

  The state’s attorney talked about the photographs taken of Erika after the murders, asking the jury, “Have you seen [a photo] yet where she’s not smiling, where she’s not having a good time?”

  Regarding Karen Wilson and Todd Wright, Todd wanted to know how a person could be totally innocent of the two murders a few days before and still invite Todd and Karen up to the condo—knowing what her husband was supposedly capable of doing?

  It was a fair judgment.

  After describing the charges against Erika, one by one, Joel Todd concluded with a final thought: “The defendant and Benjamin Sifrit are a team. Hooters burglary was teamwork. Each had knives. Each had ski masks. Remember, there were two ski masks, not just one! The flex cuffs. Each had guns.... They were in this tog
ether. They were working together. The defendant is guilty of all the charges against her.”

  He paused.

  “Please find her so. Thank you.”

  101

  Circumstances

  After a lunch break, at 1:53 P.M., Arcky Tuminelli got right to work on what he believed to be Joel Todd’s ridiculous theories, which Tuminelli thought relied heavily on speculation and jumping to conclusions, but was light on actual hard evidence.

  Facts.

  Wearing his trademark shiny, double-breasted, expensive-looking suit, Tuminelli stood and walked toward the jury, thanking each of them for their astute attention and determination to sit, listen, and watch the proceedings, and for taking “copious notes.” It was good to see that people still cared about justice, he suggested.

  “Something . . . happened that’s very odd in the last two months,” Tuminelli began, “and what happened was the state—Mr. Collins and Mr. Todd—somehow forgot”—he looked over toward both men—“about four witnesses. This case, as you know, was tried in Montgomery County approximately sixty days ago, and between Montgomery County and this courtroom—this week—they forgot about [Charles Atwood] and they forgot about [Karen Wilson]. . . . You have never heard of any of those people until Mr. Ceraso got up and mentioned to you that we were compelled, because they wouldn’t present these witnesses to you, and you have to ask yourself . . . exactly what is going on here, because . . . the truth is the truth is the truth. They knew what the truth was sixty days ago, but somehow those witnesses who were—”

  Joel Todd stood and objected.

  It was a good thing, too, because jurors looked to be bored and confused by the comments.

  The judge sustained the objection.

  When Tuminelli continued along the same path, Todd asked if he could approach.

  When he began again a few moments later, Tuminelli kept his focus on what the state had left out of the trial more than what he and Ceraso had presented as evidence to exculpate Erika. Sure, on paper, the defense didn’t need to prove innocence and the state needed to prove guilt; but in the reality of jurors and what they want to hear and see, Tuminelli and Ceraso could offer little evidence to prove Erika was not involved in those two murders. In fact, the available evidence—albeit most of which was circumstantial—pointed to the contrary.

  Still, Arcky Tuminelli did his best with what he had, continuing along the metaphoric lines of talking in parables, saying, “Now, it’s sort of like a jigsaw puzzle. If you know what the picture is on the front, it’s a lot easier to assimilate the pieces and know where you’re going. But if you don’t have a picture, as we did, then it’s a little harder, so it’s our opportunity to get up and talk about the evidence, and what we believe the evidence proved.”

  It sure sounded good.

  But also confusing.

  Collins and Todd listened, smiled, and, at times, took notes. Trials can sometimes be a war of words, and Tuminelli was getting into that aspect of his closing.

  “I need to address the evidence in this case,” he said after apologizing to jurors if his closing was going on too long, “and what it showed because we’re talking about this”—and he pointed to Erika, who sat stoic, motionless, and emotionless—“young lady’s life. Now, I know that Mr. Todd doesn’t want to hear that, because to him she is ‘Little Miss Scrapbook,’ and I submit to Mr. Todd that these proceedings are much too serious to be so flip. She’s a lot more than ‘Little Miss Scrapbook.’”

  Tuminelli’s main point was that the state was trying to have it both ways. You couldn’t “pin the crime” on BJ during his trial, and then turn around and pin it on Erika during hers because you wanted a double conviction.

  The law didn’t work that way.

  “The state blames Erika Sifrit every bit as much as it had Benjamin Sifrit, even though the state knows Benjamin Sifrit was the killer,” Tuminelli raged.

  Then he added that Erika was nothing more than a “fragile, psychologically weak young woman” who assisted BJ in this gruesome horror, “only because she craved his affection.”

  Lulling the jury into what could only be described as a meditative coma, Arcky Tuminelli broke into a long and tedious discussion regarding the charges, breaking them down into lawyer speak he believed the average Joe could comprehend. It got so monotonous and repetitious that by the end there was no way to tell one charge from the other.

  After that, Arcky Tuminelli went through every situation Todd had brought up during trial and explained it away as if Erika had simply gotten mixed up with the wrong guy. And yet, looking at the case in retrospect, what did Tuminelli truly have to defend? What did the guy have at his disposal to go to the jury with? Erika had not only made things difficult for her lawyers, but in her hubristic sense of self, she kept things back that might have even helped her cause.

  The judge gave the jury instructions after Joel Todd’s rebuttal.

  Then the jury was off to deliberate the rest of Erika Grace Sifrit’s life.

  102

  Judgment Day

  In the scope of high-profile murder trials, four days of testimony is not a lot. But that’s what Erika’s trial had amounted to, when all was said and done. On June 10, the jury indicated it had reached a verdict. After what had happened during BJ’s trial, many family members of the victims were nervous that “Miss Scrapbook” might also walk away with a slap on the wrist and a few decades behind bars.

  Saving family members of Joshua and Geney from any more anguish and trauma than they had already gone through, and would forever have to deal with, the jury found Erika guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Geney and first-degree murder in the death of Joshua. She was found innocent—some consolation—of all the other charges against her. What swayed many jurors was the fact that there were scores of photographs of Erika after the murders living it up on the boardwalk and eating chicken wings at Hooters and drinking beers and playing miniature golf. How could a woman be shattered by such horrible crimes one day, scared for her life, living under the violent reign of a controlling whack job, but then run around town having fun, too?

  “It was hard to get around that,” one person close to Erika later said.

  103

  The Butcher

  With Erika’s case out of the way, BJ was cleared to be brought back into court for sentencing. It was July 7, 2003. What would the judge do? some wondered. How would the judge react to what the jury found in BJ’s case? Essentially, the jury had collectively said with its verdict that BJ had little to do with the actual murders—and it would appear that the jury in Erika’s case backed this up, placing the burden of the blame on her.

  BJ sat with a sullen look about his pale face as the judge cleared his throat and started proceedings. It was obvious in the judge’s tone that it wasn’t going to be a good morning for the former SEAL.

  Joel Todd spoke first. “Mr. Sifrit is a wicked, evil, rotten human being.” There was some movement in the room. Many who knew him expected no less from Joel Todd.

  Montgomery County circuit judge Paul Weinstein was firm, suggesting that he wanted to give BJ more prison time than the maximum, but he was confined by the laws of the state and the jury’s recommendations.

  “This was nothing more than a thrill killing that you and your wife committed,” the judge said sternly, sounding frustrated and a bit uncomfortable that he had to stay within the sentencing guidelines set before him—and even a little upset by the jury’s decision.

  Long sighs could be heard throughout the room as the judge continued to speak. There was a bit of redemption in this case. After all, with a second-degree murder charge, and no prior criminal record, BJ could be walking the streets in as little as a decade if the judge was lenient.

  To that, Judge Weinstein added, “This is one of the few instances in my twenty years in which I have disagreed with the jury’s verdict in a case.” He shook his head, looking up from the paperwork in front of him.

  Then, staring di
rectly at BJ, Weinstein lashed out, comparing the dismemberment of Geney and Joshua that BJ admittedly took part in to the Holocaust. “You’re a butcher—a butcher!” Weinstein shouted. “You cut these people up for no reason.... If not for the masterful job by your defense team of William Brennan and Burton Anderson, you would probably be facing a life sentence.”

  When Weinstein laid down the thirty-eight years (the maximum he could give), BJ looked up at him without emotion and seemed unmoved. Giving BJ the maximum made it impossible for BJ to sit in front of the parole board for at least nineteen years. Then he added that if he’s still alive when BJ is up for parole, he wanted to be notified, so he could walk in and tell the board how cruel and vicious these crimes were.

  “Would you like to make a statement?” Weinstein asked.

  BJ shook his head, indicating no.

  104

  The End of Her Humanity

  A little over a month later, Erika and her team were back in court to face sentencing. Erika was looking at some serious time. Luckily for her, Arcky Tuminelli had gotten the death penalty taken off the table that first night he had met her. The most Erika could receive was life.

  Before sentencing, several of the victims’ family members stood and spoke. It was emotional and gut-wrenching to sit and listen to the pain and loss in the words of family members who had gone through hell over the past year, and here they all were back once again for more of the same.

  Would it ever end?

  After Joel Todd introduced her as being “raised almost as a sister to him,” Joshua Ford’s cousin spoke first.

  “Josh was more than a cousin to me,” the woman said, her voice broken and lethargic with pain. “He was my very best friend. We shared all of our hopes and dreams together. We had many plans for our future. We even used to talk about retiring together. I think of him constantly. Every day. Every hour. When I heard he was missing, I was terrified. When I heard he was murdered, I thought I would stop breathing.” The death had been so tough on Joshua’s cousin that, she added, “for the first nine months after losing [him], I had to pretend he was still alive because I couldn’t face the truth.”