Chapter 57 – Sisters, Only by Name
Friday morning June 13, 2008 – 10:12 AM
While Cam Miller may have been preoccupied with uncensored thoughts of exacting his own form of justice on Mr. John Breslin, his silent tidings did nothing to prevent DA Lyons, who was quite busy in her own right, from calling the next witness to the stand; namely Tracy Stone’s sister, Ms. Beth Oakely.
Oakely was shivering like a child who had just emerged from an ocean-dip in the chilly waters of northern Maine, and it was inherently apparent to the jurors that she was a bundle of nerves as she took her oath of sincerity, all the while wondering how the hell she had come to get herself caught up in the middle of such an improbable tale.
Newlan astutely recognized the resemblance between Oakely and Stone even before Lyons had her state for the record that she was Tracy’s sister. And furthermore, he perceptively sensed almost immediately that Oakely’s personality would prove to be the total opposite of her sister’s, and this was before she ever spoke a single word.
“Ms. Oakely do you recall a conversation that you had with your sister sometime early in the month of June 2005?” began Lyons, while at the same time the ebb and flow of the proceeding had the spectators in the gallery curiously hypothesizing as to what might be about to go down next.
“Yes, it was right around that time that Tracy informed me that she was going to file for divorce again, but this time she was adamant that she intended to go through with it,” softly replied Oakely.
“And what happened as a result of that conversation?” wondered Lyons.
“After Tracy made her decision known to me, I arranged for her children to stay with my husband Tim and me for a few days. We took care of the kids while Tracy made several appointments to see her lawyer so that she could get the process moving forward again,” politely explained Oakely.
“And Ms. Oakely do you recall a particularly troubling incident which occurred during the month of August 2005?”
“Yes, I got a phone call from Tracy’s husband Johnny one night asking me to come over to their house. He said it was urgent. I asked him where Tracy was, and he said that she was working. I thought that maybe something was wrong with one of the kids so I rushed right over, but when I got there Johnny told me that he had just gotten off the phone with a private investigator who confirmed that Tracy had been seen kissing Fred Miller in public,” reluctantly answered Oakely.
“And did this news upset you?” inquired Lyons.
“Yes…I guess you could say that I didn’t approve of the situation, and to be honest, Tracy and I had a bit of a falling out over her relationship with Fred, because she thought I was taking Johnny’s side,” candidly explained Oakely.
“Ms. Oakely, were you acquainted with Fred Miller?” continued Lyons.
“Yes, I knew Fred from our younger days, but I hadn’t seen him in ages, probably since around the mid 90’s. And truth be told, I didn’t care for him very much, God rest his soul,” replied a now emotional Oakely, as Lyons, who wasn’t prepared for such negative response, promptly moved on.
“Ms. Oakely wasn’t there also an incident during the month of October 2005 at the Marlborough Hospital while your niece was a patient there?”
“Yes, we were visiting Tracy’s daughter Rebecca, who was suffering from a urinary tract infection, and after a couple of hours, Fred stopped by to say hello…and then a few minutes later, the phone rang and it was Johnny. And before you know it, Tracy was screaming into the receiver at the top of her lung, which in turn got me all upset, and I pleaded with her to stop it for the sake of her children. Tracy cooled down to some degree after my outburst, and she calmly asked Fred to leave. Fred replied that it was ‘no problem’ and he left willingly, but then Johnny and the boys showed up, and he proceeded to get into another heated argument with Tracy,” vividly recalled Oakely.
The jurors had already heard this exact same story, pretty much verbatim, from the mouth of Tracy Stone, and Newlan for one wondered why they had to have the details of the incident regurgitated upon them again. However, for whatever reason, DA Lyons deemed that this specific episode needed to be reinforced in their minds…and so she muddled on.
Lyons then held up a printed copy of an email that Breslin had sent to Oakely, a few days after the hospital incident, and she submitted it as the next exhibit. Additionally, she requested that Oakely read the email, as follows, in open court:
From the Eyes of a Juror Page 66
