A Mother's Trial (35 page)

“You’ve written a cookbook, I believe, have you not?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the name of that?”

“Lucretia Borgia Cookbook.”

“What kind of cooking is that, Doctor?”

“Very rich cooking,” Blinder answered, drawing a laugh.

 “And you play the piano?”

“After a fashion.”

“And you in fact had professional engagements as a pianist locally?”

“Yes.”

“Dr. Blinder, as we know, Munchausen’s Syndrome was named after a famous teller of tall tales. Have you ever been described by any of your colleagues as having some of the same attributes as Baron Munchausen?”

“No.”

“I ask that that question and answer be stricken,” Josh broke in angrily.

“It may go out,” the judge ruled.

“Now, Doctor, if I understand correctly, the conclusion that you reached both in the preliminary hearing and today is that in the absence of a clinical examination of Mrs. Phillips, you cannot say whether she is or isn’t the subject of this disorder?”

“Not in a court of law.”

“And there had been no clinical examination of Mrs. Phillips?”

“There has been none.”

“Thank you. Your Honor, I would ask that the entire testimony of Dr. Blinder be struck and that the court admonish the jury to disregard it.”

“The objection is overruled. Motion denied,” returned the judge.

* * *

It had been an exhausting day for both sides. Josh was particularly pleased because he had prevailed on the admissibility of Blinder’s testimony, but he was to lose an important admissibility argument the next morning.

Ted Lindquist had prepared extensive charts designed to show the correlation between Priscilla Phillips’s presence at the hospital and the illnesses of her children. He had gathered his data from the nurses’ notes in their progress reports. But Judge Burke disallowed the introduction of the charts because Lindquist had made some assumptions that the court felt were unjustified. If a nurse had noted the presence of the defendant during a particular shift, Ted’s chart showed her as present during the entire shift. And this, the judge ruled, was an unwarranted conclusion, and could possibly deceive the jury. It was a significant victory for the defense.

As his last witness, Josh Thomas called Dr. Betty Shreiner, a pathologist on the staff of Kaiser-San Rafael. Josh felt he needed to bolster up the reputation of the San Rafael lab, which had suffered under the cross-examination of several of the prosecution’s witnesses.

On the question of the accreditation by the American Society of Clinical Pathology (ASCP), Dr. Shreiner testified that her lab did not have such accreditation because it was expensive.  “Lack of that accreditation does not reflect on the quality of the lab or its people. We are accredited by the state and by the Joint Hospital Commission,” she said.

“Isn’t it true that your lab is trying to get ASCP accreditation?” Collins asked on cross-examination.

“Not to my knowledge. We are not attempting to get ASCP accreditation for the lab as a whole,” she answered.

“Thank you,” Collins said.

“Your Honor,” Josh Thomas pushed himself to his feet. “The People rest.”

ii

After his
pro forma
motion for acquittal was denied, Ed Caldwell opened his case with Pat Wrigley. She was a surprise witness, and one with whom Ed hoped to win the case.

Catholic Social Service had been very secretive about Mindy’s whereabouts after she left the Phillipses’, but Mindy’s new adoptive mother had called the Marin County courthouse a few weeks before and asked to speak to Priscilla Phillips’s attorney.

“I’m Mindy’s new mother—Mindy is Sarah Wrigley now—and I’ve been reading a lot of lies in the paper about Sarah being well now. She isn’t,” Pat Wrigley had said in introducing herself on the phone.

Ed lost no time in going across the bay to Vallejo to meet Pat and her husband, Harry. Pat had been impressive. She was small and overweight, but she struck him as warm, motherly, homespun. In addition she was extremely knowledgeable medically, particularly because there were problems with her first adopted child, a Vietnamese orphan named Joey.

Pat began her testimony by describing her family and her background.

“When did you receive custody of Mindy Phillips—now Sarah Wrigley?” Ed asked.

“July 19, 1978.”

“And since that time, has she experienced any diarrhea?”

“There have been thirty cases of severe diarrhea in the past nine months,” she answered as the courtroom audience stirred in astonishment.

“Can you define diarrhea for us?”

“It’s primarily liquid bowel movements that occur more than twice a day.”

“Now, Mrs. Wrigley, can you describe what happened when Sarah had one of these bouts of diarrhea?”

“Well, typically they came very suddenly. She’d be sitting in a high chair and then suddenly it would pour out of her diaper, through her rubber pants and her clothes, down the chair, and onto the floor in a puddle.”

“And how long would these bouts last?”

“The explosive part about an hour. It could go on for the rest of the day or even a week.”

“Were there any prior indications of when Sarah was about to have an attack of diarrhea?”

“No. And we tried to plot it out, link it to allergies and so forth.”

“Mrs. Wrigley, what did you do to deal with these bouts of explosive diarrhea?”

“Well, to control the convulsive motion of the bowels, we put her in warm water, and if that didn’t work, we gave her some Donnatal elixir, which calms the bowel,” she answered.

“And how much fluid would Sarah typically lose during one of these explosive bouts?”

“Typically one pint during each explosive incident,” Pat answered firmly. “She would lose maybe a quart an hour.” In his chair, Josh Thomas wrote himself a note. Then he looked over at Ted, who was shaking his head in sick disbelief. His case was unraveling before his eyes.

“Do you remember the dates of these explosive bouts, Mrs. Wrigley?” Ed went on.

“There was one right after Thanksgiving. I remember because I lost sick leave staying home with Sarah. Also on St. Patrick’s Day we had an incident, and one about the time of Joey’s birthday, which would be February twelfth.”

“Now, can you tell us a little about your experiences with Joey, Mrs. Wrigley?”

“Yes. Joey arrived from Vietnam at the age of six weeks, very sick. He was critically ill in three different hospitals. The longest hospitalization was at Mount Zion.”

“You learned about diarrhea because of Joey’s numerous bouts?”

“Yes. I always kept Pedialyte with me because Mount Zion told me to do so. We had one and a half years of severe diarrhea with Joseph.”

“Is that why you didn’t go to Dr. Eaton each time that Sarah had diarrhea?”

“Yes, definitely.”

“Does Sarah still have cyanosis—blue coloration—Mrs. Wrigley?”

“Yes. She had it yesterday. She also had severe seizures. Three days after we got her she had her first major seizure—a full convulsion—seven minutes long. We took her right to Dr. Eaton. Sarah has been a very sick child. Up till last month you would almost have to say she’d never had a well day. She is gradually getting better.”

“Now, tell me a little about your educational background, Mrs. Wrigley.”

“Certainly. I have a Master’s in the education of the physically handicapped and a teaching credential for teaching the physically handicapped and health-impaired. The children I teach are afflicted with such conditions as cerebral palsy, osteogenesis imperfecta, and severe asthma.”

“Would you be able to determine that Sarah has cerebral palsy?”

“Yes. Sarah has ataxic CP. It is characterized by imbalance, which is commonly called the drunken sailor’s gait. Sarah is ataxic and falls frequently. She wears a helmet to protect her from those falls.”

“Now, about those bouts of diarrhea that were not of the explosive type—that is, the other twenty-six times. What were their characteristics?”

“There was a sudden onset and no known cause. They might go on for several hours or even several days.”

“Has Sarah ever had this type of diarrhea while she’s having breakfast and still goes to school?” Ed asked. It was a question he was subsequently to regret.

“Yes. This is very typical. If she’s not dehydrated and is acting normal, we send her to school. My husband, Harry, is a custodian at the school Sarah attends and he can watch over her.”

“And you say that during Sarah’s explosive episodes, she can lose up to a quart an hour?” Ed repeated.

“Yes.”

“Now, you say that Sarah had an attack of cyanosis yesterday?”

“Yes. And yesterday evening she went into a severe otitis media problem—her teeth were chattering and she was running a fever of a hundred four degrees—so we took her to Dr. Eaton for penicillin. Through the night her temperature stayed down and this morning she was ready to go, fit as a fiddle, and we put her on the bus to go to school.”

“Going back to the severe attack around Thanksgiving, Mrs. Wrigley, can you describe that for us?”

“Yes. We had to put Sarah in the bathtub. She was losing about a pint at that time, and maybe in an hour altogether she lost a quart. She became very lethargic, wouldn’t even crawl. She started to become dehydrated and we called Dr. Eaton. Her skin was parched and dry but she was not feveral. She vomited a few times and we couldn’t get her to drink. Finally we got her to take some Coke.”

“Now, moving back in time a little, Mrs. Wrigley. What was Sarah’s condition when you first got her last July?”

“She was not walking; she was drooling some, unable to drink from a cup. She had a tremor on her left side and paresis—that’s a weakened muscle condition—on the left side of her face. She spoke about three words.”

“And she was how old?”

“Sarah was eighteen months old.”

“Do you have any photographs of Sarah when she was Mindy Phillips?”

“Yes—they’re in my briefcase.”  She handed her case to Ed Caldwell, who struggled with it for a moment.

“I can’t open it.”

“It takes a Master’s degree,” Pat answered lightly. The audience laughed and even the judge smiled.

“How does Sarah relate to you as daughter to mother?”

“We have a very close relationship. She’s very affectionate to other women. She has had only two strange reactions: one to a woman at her school, and the other to medical personnel—she has an hysterical reaction to them.”

“Mrs. Wrigley, have you ever talked to Mrs. Phillips prior to recess in this courtroom?” Ed shifted emphasis.

“Never.”

“Now, has it been your practice to stay with your children when they’re hospitalized?”

“Yes. They’ve been hospitalized five times and I’ve moved in each time.”

“And do you keep detailed records of these hospitalizations?”

“Oh, yes. In their baby books, of course, and I have kept diaries of their hospitalizations day by day. These reflect in some cases the medical care or very often their emotional reactions.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Wrigley.” Ed Caldwell was finished with direct.

In his chair, Josh Thomas collected the pages of notes he had made. This whole ruse involving Pat Wrigley—and Josh was convinced it had been a ruse—infuriated him. Both Dr. Eaton and Mary Vetter had insisted that the district attorney examine all of Dr. Eaton’s records prior to giving them to the defense and painstakingly delete each reference to Mindy Phillips’s new name. Josh was sure that that exercise had been a ploy to keep him away from the Wrigleys so that Caldwell could spring this witness on him. Because now it turned out that Ed Caldwell not only knew her name, but he was using Pat Wrigley as his star witness.

And what a damaging witness. The parallels between Pat Wrigley and Priscilla Phillips were astonishing. The defense could not have found a better witness had they invented her, Josh thought. Yet these very similarities that would work for Priscilla Phillips might be turned around to the detriment of Pat Wrigley, and Josh realized this almost immediately. If he could suggest this to the jury, and at the same time convince them that at the very least Pat Wrigley was not an impartial witness, he could undercut the effectiveness of her testimony. During recess he had noticed Pat throw her arms around Priscilla Phillips, hugging her like a long-lost sister. He wondered if some of the jurors had seen it, too. Just to be sure, Josh planned to point it out to them.

But he would begin by airing his suspicions about the fortuitous arrival of Pat Wrigley at the trial. Josh was not sure about who had contacted whom in this little scenario he believed the defense had worked out, and he wanted the jury to share his doubts.

“Mrs. Wrigley, you testified that you contacted Ed Caldwell on April fourth?” he began.

“Yes. After nine months of trying to keep Sarah in hiding, I thought it was time to bring the truth out into the open.”

“You’re certain you called Mr. Caldwell and not the other way around?”

“Definitely. I called Ed.”

“Ed—you mean Mr. Caldwell?”

“Yes.”

“Did you have any conversation with Dr. Eaton after she testified in this case?”

“I saw her last night. Sarah was sick,” Pat snapped.

“But you advised her, prior to her testifying, that you were going to be a witness, didn’t you?”

“I told her I had called Mr. Caldwell.”

“When your adopted son Joey was in Mount Zion, Mrs. Wrigley, what was the matter with him?”

“He had scabies, Salmonella, diarrhea, and malabsorption.”

“Did you move in with Joe at Mount Zion?”

“Not permanently. I spent every day with him.”

“At the time he left the hospital, was he well or still sick?”

“Still critically ill.”

“And you removed him from Mount Zion against the wishes of the doctor?”

“Yes.”

“How was he critically ill?” Josh had the witness on his line now, and very carefully he began to reel her in.

“He had severe diarrhea. He still had active Salmonella. At that point his prognosis was very poor.”

“How many doctors advised against taking Joey home?”