Blood Games (59 page)

Norton handed him a color photograph of Lieth’s bloody body.

“I want you to look at that photograph. Did you do that?”

Tears came to Neal’s eyes. He choked on his answer.

“No, sir.”

“You participated in seeing that it was done though, did you not?”

“Yes, sir,” he said, still fighting to regain composure.

“Neal, why? Why did you get involved in the murder of Lieth Von Stein?”

Judge Watts overruled the objection.

“At that time, I really didn’t feel very good about myself and I needed friends,” Neal said. “James Upchurch and Christopher Pritchard were my friends. What they proposed to me, it seemed like an adventure, just to go off in the middle of the night and come back. Yeah, the plan was there for somebody to get hurt, but up until he actually got out of the car with the weapons, I really didn’t fully believe that he would do it. I kept telling myself, yeah, he’s just going to go in and come back out and it will all be a big joke and we would all go back and joke about it for years to come. Only he didn’t come back and say it was a big joke. He came back and said he had killed somebody.”

“Did the money have anything to do with you agreeing to participate in driving the car?”

“Not really.”

“If you didn’t do it for the money, Neal, why did you do it?”

“It’s like I said, my friends wanted me to help them out. I didn’t really think anybody would get hurt, so I helped them out.”

“Cross-examination?” asked the judge.

Just as Wayland Sermons had done with Chris, Frank Johnston began with gentle questions for Neal, asking about his years in school. But Neal had been warned about a sharp and a vigorous cross-examination, and he was braced for it. The hard questions were not long in coming. Johnston quickly zeroed in on the discrepancies in Neal’s and Chris’s testimony.

Johnston handed Neal a calendar for July 1988 along with a red pen and asked him to mark the day that Bart and Chris came to him with the plan.

“Objection, if Your Honor please,” Norton interjected. “He said he wasn’t sure of what the date was.”

“Overruled,” said Watts. “If you can do so, if you know.”

“I’m willing to try,” Neal said. “Looks like somewhere in the second week.”

He was only able to mark the week, though, not the day, but that served Johnston’s purpose. He mainly wanted to demonstrate to the jurors that Neal was right-handed.

After determining that it was sometime during the week before the murder that Neal met the second time with Bart, when Bart supposedly brought out the bat and gloves, Johnston questioned him about that.

“You indicated that you had seen James put shoe polish on these gloves—batting gloves, you call them?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you familiar with batting gloves?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’ve played baseball, used batting gloves?”

“No, sir. But James had had those gloves for a long time. I was with him when he got them”

“Now you’ve told us too that on this occasion you saw a knife.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And have you seen the knife that was burned?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Now, isn’t it true, Mr. Henderson, that there’s no way for you to say that the knife that you saw that was burned was the same knife that you say you saw in Mr. Upchurch’s room?”

“It looks like the knife that I saw in his room would look like if it had been burned.”

“Had you ever burned the knife that was in his room?”

“No, sir, but this was a burned knife and it looked about the same size and shape.”

“And when you observed the knife in his room, was it by itself?”

“No, sir. It had a sheath.”

“Have you seen that sheath since then?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Did you see that sheath on the night of July 24th?”

“I don’t remember seeing it.”

Later, Johnston returned to the fire scene, confirming that Neal had taken the officers there.

“And the reason that you were able to identify the area is because you drove there, isn’t it?”

“I had been to it before, yes.”

“And the reason you were able to identify what was burned in the fire and the sound of the fire is because you were there and you did it, isn’t that true?”

“No,” Neal said firmly. “I was there and I heard it. I did not do it.”

Johnston went on to bring out other discrepancies, that Neal had identified Chris’s car as black instead of white, that he originally told the police that he and Bart said little on the way back to Raleigh, that they just turned up the music on the radio and listened to it.

“Isn’t it true that Chris Pritchard’s car didn’t have a radio in it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it true that his radio had been stolen the weekend of July 4, 1988?”

“I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it true that when you made your statement to the officers on June 9th that you had been told that someone had told the officers that you were involved in this matter? And that it would be better for you to go ahead and tell what happened rather than to remain silent?”

“No, sir. That’s not what happened.”

“Now you have told us that you were accelerated through school, skipped several grades, that you were recommended to the School of Math and Science because of your academic abilities. Isn’t it true, Mr. Henderson, that you were termed by many as a genius?”

“Some might say that. Some might not. It depends on who you ask.”

“And isn’t it true that you had from the time that this incident occurred until June the 9th, approximately eleven months, before you ever made any statement to any officers that you now say is the truth about this matter?”

“Eleven months sounds about right.”

“And before you made that statement you, in fact, had several denials of any involvement in this matter.”

“No, sir. I said once that I did not recognize a bookbag.”

“And isn’t it true that there has been an additional period of six or seven months since you say you first came forward to the police with this information?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And during all this period you have certainly had ample opportunity to think about your situation and what would be in your best interest, have you not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“In recognition of your plea, is it not true that the state reduced charges against you and has agreed not to prosecute other charges?”

“That was the plea bargain, yes, sir.”

“And isn’t it true that by your plea, you are not facing the death penalty?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And how you did in court and what you said may have a significant impact on what type of sentence you might receive, isn’t that true?”

“I was told that it would be entirely up to Judge Watts.”

“Weren’t you told, Mr. Henderson, if you got on that stand and verified the facts that the state wanted you to verify that it may help you in sentencing?”

“No, sir. I was told to give truthful testimony. It says so on my piece of paper. And that’s all I am doing.”

“And isn’t it true that in order for you to testify in this case, that you came down to Elizabeth City on Monday and spent some time with the district attorney’s office going over your testimony and reviewing the maps and other pieces of evidence?”

“Yes, we have talked.”

“And you’ve talked for several hours, didn’t you?”

“A couple hours, probably.”

After receiving permission from the judge, Johnston rose from the defense table and handed Neal the photograph of Lieth’s bloody body that Norton had showed Neal earlier.

“Isn’t it true that the last time that you saw Mr. Von Stein was that you saw him in that condition, or put him in that condition on July 25, 1988?”

“No, sir. That is not true. I did not do that and I could not do that.”

“And isn’t it true that none of these occasions that you’ve testified to that James Upchurch was with you?”

“No, sir. That is not true. He was with me and he did do what I said he did.”

“I don’t have any further questions.”

Mitchell Norton did have more questions. Did Neal have any plea agreement when he made his statement to the police? A lawyer? No to both questions. Did he tell the truth? Yes. Was he concerned about the color of the car? Not at all. Had he described the bat to the police before they found it? “I think so. I can’t remember exactly.” Any doubt that it was Bart’s bat? None. Was the bathroom in Chris’s suite in Lee dorm where Neal put the car keys after returning to Raleigh actually in Chris’s room? No.

“That’s all I have,” Norton said.

“Anything else, Mr. Johnston?” asked the judge.

“Just one question. Mr. Henderson, isn’t it true that you had no reason to be in Lee dorm the morning of July 25th, 1988?”

“No, sir. I had to take the keys back up there.”

“Didn’t James have to go right up there within two floors of Chris’s room?”

“He told me to put the keys there. I put the keys there.”

“No further questions.”

Bart had grown increasingly upset as Johnston’s cross-examination had gone on. He had wanted Sermons to cross-examine Neal, but the lawyers had planned and prepared for Sermons to take Chris, Johnston to take Neal. Bart thought that he could have done a better job than Johnston. “Neal handled Frank more than Frank handled Neal,” he said later.

After Neal’s testimony, all in the courtroom were aware that the state had finished the essence of its case; the rest would be anticlimactic.

The big remaining question of the trial was whether Bart would take the stand to defend himself against his two former friends.

46

Jim Upchurch was the first witness in his son’s behalf on Friday morning. He testified that on Tuesday, July 19, 1988, the day before Chris, according to his testimony, first brought up the subject of murder with Bart at the Golden Corral, he picked his son up on Hillsborough Street at about 5:30 P.M and took him home to Caswell County. Joanne’s grandfather had died in Gaston County and Joanne wanted Bart to attend the funeral. Jim said that he and Bart drove to Gastonia Wednesday morning.

“And was your son present at the funeral?” Wayland Sermons asked.

“Yes. He was there with his sisters and brother and mother.”

Jim said that he attended a business meeting in Charlotte after the funeral, then drove back to his job in Raleigh, leaving Bart with his mother in Gastonia. Joanne dropped Bart off at Carolyn’s house on Thursday, and Jim said that he picked him up there after work and took him to the farm, where Bart spent the night with him. He dropped Bart off on the campus on his way into work Friday morning, Jim said. But from Tuesday night until Friday morning, the time during which Chris maintained they were planning the murder, Bart had not even been in Raleigh.

Sermons asked if Bart ever had a baseball bat.

“No,” Jim said.

“Did you ever see one around the house?”

“No, sir, not to my knowledge.”

“Did your son ever have a green knapsack?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you go by his room in Raleigh on occasions?”

“Yes, sir, a number of times.”

“Did you ever see a wooden baseball bat in the room?”

“No, sir.”

Under cross-examination, Norton showed that Jim knew little about what Bart did in Raleigh. Jim had heard of Hank and Chuck but didn’t know their last names or anything about them. He’d never heard of Chris until after Bart was charged with murder. He hadn’t seen Bart much at all after dropping him off at the campus after the funeral.

“I talked to him on the telephone occasionally from my office. And I know he was home Thanksgiving. I don’t recall exact times that I may have seen him during that time.”

“Of course, you don’t know where he was or what he did on the weekend of the 24th, 25th, do you?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you know a person by the name of Christy Newsom?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you recall telling Mrs. Newsom that you didn’t know where your son was, didn’t know how to contact him or get up with him?”

“Yes, sir, I told her that.”

“In fact, Mrs. Newsom contacted you on several occasions, did she not?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Trying to locate your son, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“And do you recall over what period of time Mrs. Newsom or others were contacting you trying to find your son?”

“I spoke with Mrs. Newsom several times. I don’t recall the exact time frame, but it was in the spring of 1989.”

“How long a period of time was it that you lost track of your son?”

“I made contact with him by telephone from time to time, you know. I don’t recall the exact—I may have spoken with him one time and then it may have been several weeks before I spoke to him again, usually by telephone. Sometimes he would call me and ask to borrow five dollars, he was running short. His job, he didn’t pick up a paycheck or something. And I would drop off five dollars or ten dollars on Hillsborough Street. We would meet up there.”