Body Dump (24 page)

Francois stood at his place at the defense table and shuffled forward with his lawyers. Knowing that he would be doing just that at the hearing had made the court take certain precautions.

Three armed sheriff’s deputies from the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office bunched in so tightly around him, they were touching. Four more armed deputies stood guard at the door leading into Judge Dolan’s courtroom. Dolan sat on the bench and looked down at Francois, the hulking defendant at the bar. Dolan himself had three court officers armed with automatics at the waist stationed around him.

Shuffling up to the bar was the object of all this attention, Kendall L. Francois, bogeyman incarnate. Once again he was shackled and dressed in prison orange. Only this time, Francois had a few things to say, though Grady had made the right decision to avoid details.

When defendants take a plea in a major felony, they are usually required to go through a public recitation of the details of the crime so that, on one hand, the court record shows that the defendant gave details of the crime he has pled to and, on the other, that the families of the decedents get the satisfaction of seeing their loved ones’ killer take responsibility for his crime in a court of law.

For Francois, it was really a coming-out party of sorts. He had worked hard in Richard Reitano’s government studies course at Dutchess County Community College. He was now getting an opportunity to see how things worked in the real world, not the safe, clean academic one.

Francois knew going into court that he was going to jail for the rest of his life. He knew that everyone looked at him as some kind of animal. How could he not? He read the same papers in prison that people read outside, including the
New York Times
. He saw the same shows on CNN. He knew that any hearings from now on would be reported nationally. And he acted accordingly and, strangely, with dignity.

Francois fell back on the one thing in his life that had given him discipline—his training as a soldier in the army. When he responded to the judge’s questions, it was like a soldier taking responsibility for his actions.

“Did you kill Wendy Meyers?” Judge Dolan began.

“Yes, sir,” Francois answered.

“Did you kill Gina Barone?”

“Guilty.”

“Did you kill Sandra French?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Did you kill Audrey Pugliese?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you kill Kathleen Hurley?”

“Guilty.”

“Did you kill Catina Newmaster?”

“Yes, sir.”

A woman in the family section behind the district attorney’s side of the courtroom began to cry. Her name was Barbara Perry. Held tight to her bosom was an eight-by-ten photograph of her daughter. Barbara was Catina Newmaster’s mother. She remembered the little Catina, whom Bill Siegrist had befriended.

“Did you kill Mary Healey Giaccone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you kill Catherine Marsh?”

“Guilty.”

“Did you assault Diane Franco at your home?”

“Guilty.”

There was a pause and then the judge turned to Bill Grady. The district attorney himself was in the courtroom representing his county.

“I understand that the state wishes to inquire?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Grady had a question.

“Did anyone else help you commit these murders?”

Francois knew it was coming.

“No, sir. My family had nothing to do with any of this.”

In a way, it was a gift from Grady to the Francois family. In one fell swoop, he had alleviated any public doubt that might exist, and there was a lot of it, that they had had some complicity in the crimes. In open court, Grady absolved them of any legal responsibility in the deaths of the eight.

The homicide survivors, the friends and relatives of the slain women, had listened in their section of the courtroom. To them, it was like attending a funeral. Some sobbed more quietly than Perry had. Others remained impassive, and still others looked toward the ceiling, as if to heaven, to see the deceased once again, or perhaps to let out a silent prayer that justice was finally being done and they could rest in peace.

Before the proceedings finished, Mark Harris, of the Capital Defender Office, told the court that Francois was HIV positive. His illegal activities had resulted in his contracting a disease for which there was no known cure.

After the hearing, Grady told reporters:

“How the victims’ families felt about the disposition, although not controlling, was an important factor in deciding to accept this plea.… We were absolutely convinced that we could obtain a guilty verdict … but we were of the opinion we could not overcome [the psychiatric issues]. This disposition represents the only realistic way to hold the defendant fully accountable for his heinous crimes and ensure closure for the families.”

For his part, Capital Defender Harris stated that life imprisonment was “a just resolution” and that while Francois would live, “his life will be spared, but he will answer for his actions.”

Paulette Francois publicly became the family spokesperson. Through her attorney, Marco Caviglia, she released a statement that said she had the “greatest sympathy” for the families of the victims. “We know their sorrow firsthand as this ordeal has caused us to lose our beloved McKinley, husband and father, whose broken heart finally yielded,” she said in the statement.

It was … interesting. Paulette Francois was comparing the loss of her husband, by the seemingly natural cause of a broken heart, to families who had lost their loved ones due to her son’s murderous rages.

One of the homicide victims’ survivors felt for the Francois family. It was Heidi Cramer. Cramer recalled when her mother had shot a man when she was twelve years old. She remembered the stigma involved with that crime that she had to endure. It was the same type of stigma the Francoises would now have to live with as the family of a serial killer.

August 8, 2000

Another trend in jurisprudence is victim impact statements. Before a defendant is sentenced, the families of the victims are allowed to address the defendant directly, in open court, and tell the defendant how his actions have affected their lives. That would happen on a summer day, a sweltering one in Judge Dolan’s courtroom.

The armed officers were there, ten in all, three around Francois. Francois was seated at the defense table, once again shackled and in his orange jail clothing. He wore glasses and his hair was close cropped. Judge Dolan turned the proceedings over to the families. Throughout the testimonies, Francois would keep looking down, never up, never meeting the survivors’ eyes, no matter what they said. He was acting as though he had a conscience.

One by one, they walked to the lectern directly opposite Francois and were allowed to directly address him. One by one, the victims’ family members came to the lectern. It made no difference who said what. The pain was the same.

“I never fully understood the impact of wakes until today because she was a skeleton when they found her.”

“You deserve to die, Kendall. There is no way I believe your family didn’t have something to do with what happened.”

“Those of you who knew her well surely will agree that he killed her and took her away from us. We will never have the chance to hear her laugh or see her girlish smile. When she was a child, she used to ask, ‘Will the monsters get me?’ What you did to her and the other women was unspeakable and unforgettable. These terrible acts of murder will never be forgiven. I hope he suffers to the last breath. AIDS will certainly kill him if prison doesn’t.”

“He should be executed eight times, once for each life he took. If anyone must refer to them in any way, refer to them as women,” a clear allusion to the constant dehumanization of the victims in the press, which always referred to them as the “eight prostitutes,” not eight women.

“At any point, did any of them beg for mercy? It breaks our heart knowing you were the last person she ever saw.”

The relatives, sitting in eight rows on the side of the courtroom behind the DA, applauded.

“We know someday you’ll die from this [AIDS]. It seems like poetic justice, isn’t it, Kendall? It will kill the man who killed our mother. You took away a very wonderful woman. Our family hopes you rot in hell.”

“She was born March 3, 1967. It often felt like she was our only child. She was well adjusted. She was raised in a loving, Christian home. Her father died of a heart attack at the age of ten. She played softball, basketball and started using alcohol and cocaine to numb her feelings. She was at Geneseo for one month [before she started] experimenting with drugs. Her disease raged on [as she] became a cocaine addict.

“[She] loved her daughters. She entered [a rehab facility] in Saranac Lake and while she was there worked hard for sobriety. [Then] she entered the halfway house in Poughkeepsie. She was attending Dutchess County Community College. She was going to get a degree in human services. But the only housing she could get was in the heart of the drug district.

“She struggled to attend school. She wanted to get her kids back and then relapsed. She [had] lost her children, her car, clothes. By November 1996, she was back on the street. [Still] she had made plans to come home and go into rehabilitation [again]. She died before her thirtieth birthday.

“She was the victim of a terrible disease that Mr. Francois preyed on. To you, Mr. Francois, in one brief instance, you snuffed out a life and desecrated her body. You took the life of the child she was carrying within her. I will never again be able to kneel next to her at Mass. I will never again be able to play backgammon or Scrabble with her. There will always be an empty chair, someone missing at dinners. Mr. Francois, you took all that away in one split second.

“I will not pass judgment on you. ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’”

When it was over, the judge looked down and addressed the courtroom.

“All of you have been affected by this tragedy,” he said sympathetically. “Mr. Harris, come forward.”

Francois and his attorney, Mark Harris, came before the bar for sentencing.

“Mr. Francois wishes to tell the court that he is deeply sorry and regrets the pain and sorrow he caused,” said Harris.

“Yes, sir,” Francois added.

“At the time the plea was entered,” said the judge, “I commended both sides for [seeing] the utter futility of a trial. This result is just.”

Dolan turned his steely gaze on the serial murderer.

“Mr. Francois, there is very little I can say here. Their anger and loss is so real. It is felt in this courtroom and community. You and you alone are responsible for this vicious and unspeakable violence. [These] acts recoil through the community in horror and anger.” While Francois killed, the community “didn’t have freedom from fear.” Dolan was hopeful that his sentencing would be a “final resolution to this case.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Audrey Pugliese, the sentence is twenty-five years to life.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Sandra French, the sentence is twenty-five years to life.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Mary Giaccone, the sentence is twenty-five years to life.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Kathleen Hurley, the sentence is twenty-five years to life.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Catherine Marsh, the sentence is twenty-five years to life.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Gina Barone, the sentence is twenty-five years to life.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Wendy Meyers, the sentence is twenty-five years to life.

“On the charge of murder in the first degree of Catina Newmaster, the sentence is twenty-five years to life. The intention of the court is for the sentences to be served consecutively.”

In other words, Kendall Francois would have to serve a minimum of two hundred years in prison before he could even be considered rehabilitated.

“On the charge of the attempted second-degree assault of Diane Franco, the sentence is one and a half to three years.”

That sentence, of course, didn’t matter. It was a simple matter of justice for Franco. However, in any sentencing, even of a serial killer, there is a certain formality to the hearing that requires the judge to ask the defendant several questions.

“Has the clerk advised you of your right to appeal?”

“Yes, sir,” Francois answered.

Francois also acknowledged in court that as part of his plea agreement, he had given up his right to appeal his sentence.

“Yes, sir,” Francois answered again, though in actuality there was one automatic appeal that had to be sent in. In capital cases, the defense lawyers always file a motion that they themselves did not provide adequate counsel to the defendant, hoping for the long shot that the court of appeals will buy that argument and give them a new trial. That remote possibility could then result in a further lessening of the sentence.

The court would reject that subsequent appeal. Francois’s sentence would, of course, stand.

“Mr. Francois, you are remanded to the state correctional system.”

He was marched away by the deputies, one husky one on each arm. They hustled him out of the well of the courtroom and through a side door. For just a second, while the deputies cleared the path down an interior corridor, Francois stood in the doorway alone.

His back was massive. The baby fat that covered him was, like everything else about him, deceiving. It was mostly muscle, converted into strength that gave him a cruel weapon against everyone who had ever made fun of him because of his size. The doorway seemed to grow smaller with him standing there.

At last, the deputies pulled him inside the corridor and Kendall Francois, for the last time, vanished from view.

EPILOGUE

Neither police nor prosecutor ever gave a reason for why Kendall L. Francois killed the eight women. They didn’t have to, nor were they obligated to under the law.

When police have as strong a case as Siegrist and company did against Francois, there is no necessity to probe for motive. They probe for motive when they need it for a conviction, which in this case was never really in doubt.