Cruel Death (42 page)

I wrote to BJ Sifrit twice. I received a two-word response from him:

Not interested.

Mitch Grace and I went back and forth and spoke at length about his daughter’s case, Erika’s life before and after her arrest, his son-in-law, and a father’s desperate love for his only child—a daughter beyond the reach of his comforting arms. There is a pain in Mitch’s voice as he speaks—one that words on a page cannot convey. There is a part of his nature that screams of a father constantly questioning himself. Constantly wondering what tomorrow will bring. Constantly hoping that by some swipe of a magic wand, he will wake up one day and be told that his life for the past six-plus years has been a terrible nightmare.

Mitch asked me once, “What if this happened to your daughter, Mr. Phelps? Would you be doing anything different?”

I could not answer no.

During one conversation, I asked Mitch to please consider the idea that his daughter could be responsible for these heinous crimes, of which there is no plausible explanation. No
why
. No purpose.

I raised this person
?
I don’t know this person. Who are you?

Although he steadfastly believes that BJ is fully responsible, and Erika was set up (but not totally innocent, either), Mitch Grace told me it wouldn’t matter if Erika committed these crimes. She is all that he and Cookie have, and they will stand behind her until they leave this planet.

Erika should count her blessings that she has parents as loving and caring as Mitch and Cookie. She needs to stop lying to these people who raised her and tell them the truth so they can all move on from this and begin to heal.

They have time. Why waste it in a chasm of lies?

Mitch and Cookie deserve the truth.

Mitch has had a lawyer “on my payroll,” he said half jokingly, for the past six years. As expected, Erika is exhausting every possible appeal and opportunity at her disposal to get out of prison. The Maryland Supreme Court rejected a 2005 appeal of her conviction and sentence.

As of this writing, Erika awaits a court date on a hearing regarding that seemingly open-ended agreement she signed with the state’s attorney’s office, and the possibility that she had inadequate counsel, which also includes a filing that she couldn’t live without BJ and was abused by him and felt trapped into doing what he said—or else. Erika is claiming now that BJ had total control over her actions (the wizard behind the curtain). I’m told that the argument Erika will present in court is that she cannot be held “criminally responsible” for the murders and was incapable of conforming her own conduct because of the power BJ wielded—i.e., routine and constant spousal abuse.

When I called one of Erika’s former supporters and told him about this development, he said, “You’re kidding, right? This is a joke! Has to be.”

It is clear in the information I uncovered and presented in this book that the polar opposite of that very weak argument is true.

Erika has new lawyers. Tom Ceraso and Arcky Tuminelli are out.

In November 2007, BJ and his lawyers requested a new trial. When I heard this, I thought,
Does this guy really want to roll the dice again with a jury?
Seems to me, he hit the jackpot last time around and should maybe just let sleeping dogs lie.

As Joel Todd told reporters back when BJ filed a motion for a new trial, this case is ongoing and seems to have no end. Just when you think you’ve learned something new about it, another bombshell regarding what happened is dropped.

Then, in September 2008, BJ and his camp made another move. BJ dropped his bid for a new trial and asked a federal court to throw out his conviction. The argument, legal experts note, is a pretty good one. BJ’s new claim is that the state “violated his right to a fair trial by presenting a contradictory theory of how the crime occurred when it prosecuted his wife for the same slaying.”

During BJ’s trial, in other words, the state argued that he was the primary killer, the man with the gun in his hand. At Erika’s trial, the same state prosecutors proposed the idea that Erika was the principal killer, bearing full responsibility for both deaths. In legal mumbo jumbo they call this a “federal habeas corpus petition.” On the street, however, we call it a smart way to kick out the back door and find an easier way out of prison.

We shall see.

Law enforcement close to this case that I spoke to are convinced BJ and/or Erika are responsible for a murder outside Ocean City with certain earmarks and signatures shared by the two of them, but another man now serves prison time for that crime—maybe wrongly so. I was never given a name, state, town, or any details about the case that would help me begin to look into it myself.

I also spoke to one person who believes Erika and BJ could have killed in other states.

Who knows?

Once someone is convicted of a crime this evil, this gruesome, and this monstrous, the floodgates open and cold cases become hot.

What remains clear to me is that the horror Erika and BJ perpetrated against two wonderful, kind, caring, and loving human beings in Ocean City on that Saturday night before Memorial Day is, at its core, an immorality of such gargantuan proportions that the true nature behind these crimes can
never
be fully explained, understood, or accessed emotionally. It’s hard to really wrap our minds around what happened in that bathroom after Geney and Joshua were so viciously murdered and, equally important, during the subsequent days when Erika and BJ were running around Ocean City seemingly celebrating what they had done.

Erika has her supporters. Indeed, they will always be there to cheer her on. They stand behind her. Friends and inmates she’s met in prison. They claim the “real” Erika would never do something this despicable. That it “had to be” all BJ’s doing. That he brainwashed her. That he abused her. That he put so much fear into her, she would do anything for him—including murder and dismemberment. I heard Stockholm syndrome mentioned. Patty Hearst.

But it must be understood that this is the story Erika promulgates behind those prison walls. I won’t deny her the right to survive that environment the way in which she sees fit.

But it doesn’t make any of it true.

The evidence, on the other hand, if
truly
looked at objectively, points directly to Erika’s culpability, responsibility, and involvement. And if you look really hard, staying in between the lines of reality, you might even take a stab—no pun intended—at saying Erika could have played a larger role in this entire crime than BJ, and that two juries returned just verdicts.

Lastly, lives were ruined over this case. That much is a fact. But I want to point out that for the detectives involved—one of whom, entirely because of this case, no longer works for the OCPD detective squad—this case had an emotional impact on them the likes of which they will never be able to comprehend.

In closing, I’d like to speak directly to my readers. This is my tenth true crime book. I am entirely grateful for your support throughout the years, along with the opportunity you’ve given me to write these books. I want all of you to know that I read
every
e-mail and letter I receive. Even if I cannot answer each correspondence personally, I am indebted to have such wonderful, intelligent, dedicated readers.

I listen to your advice. I take into account the cases you suggest. And I always take the time to consider your thoughts.

I am a lucky author to have such dedicated, loyal fans.

I never take any of this for granted.

If anyone wishes to contact me, please visit my Web site,
www.mwilliamphelps.com
, or write me at:

PO BOX 3215

Vernon, CT 06066

Update 2014

It’s been over ten years now since Erika and BJ Sifrit were convicted of the horribly brutal crimes I covered in this book. Since that time, BJ has stayed true to his SEAL code of silence and has not said a word—at least not to anyone willing to talk about it. Erika, on the other hand, has been mouthing off in prison, saying some rather bizarre, although unsurprising, things about her life and crimes (more about that in a moment).

Reader response to this book after it was first published has ranged from outrage to disbelief to just about every emotion in between. The fact that human beings could do what Erika and BJ did to other human beings seems unfathomable to many. More than that, readers are angry that BJ was given a slap on the wrist for his unspeakable crimes.

Many have asked why a door was never brought into the courtroom and BJ asked to try and kick it in. That’s a bit dramatic, and over-the-top, even for a courtroom. But the point is well taken. Obviously, a guy with BJ’s rage and strength could have easily kicked that bathroom door in, while a petite, frail woman like Erika would not have the strength to do it—thus making BJ the aggressor and mastermind of the murders.

I don’t know why BJ escaped justice with only a second-degree murder charge. His jury and that court have to live with those decisions and results. Sometimes justice has a strange way of working—or, in this case, not working. We can second-guess Joel Todd’s prosecution of BJ, as many have; but in the end, the charges and verdict stand.

I’m told BJ is a model prisoner. Of course, he knows that if he is a good boy, he will be out with arguably still plenty of life left to live.

If and when he is released, society should watch out.

After exhausting just about all of her state appeals, in 2012, Erika Sifrit asked a federal court through her lawyer for a new trial. Again, beating the same drum she has for years now, Erika claimed that her trial attorney failed to seek or present evidence of “long-standing severe mental illness.”

In his Maryland U.S. District Court filing, Erika’s new attorney, Robert Biddle, made the claim that Erika’s trial lawyer, Arcangelo Tuminelli, “inexplicably conducted next-to-no pretrial investigation” into what Mr. Biddle termed as—get this—“long-standing and severe” borderline and dependent personality disorders.

Biddle said in his brief that Mr. Tuminelli (a man who, in my opinion, did a stand-up job for Erika, working with the best he could) did not call mental-health witnesses at Erika’s trial. According to Biddle, this was a major blunder on Tuminelli’s part—and one of the reasons Erika deserved a new trial.

In that Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, Biddle made an additional claim, in part, accusing Tuminelli of not showing how BJ “manipulated and controlled” Ms. Sifrit, “abusing her psychologically to the point that she lacked the capacity of a rational adult.” Over time, Erika became “extremely dependent” on BJ, so much so that “she would do anything he requested, regardless of the harm it caused.”

I guess that included dismembering people, but not eating them!

The problem with this, of course, is there’s a good chance Erika came up with the idea of the purse snatch game and subsequent murders all by herself. Erika and BJ, predictably, are thrill killers who thrived on that adrenaline rush of committing revolting acts of horror, and even smaller acts of crime that escalated over the years.

It is a ridiculous waste of the court’s time, in my opinion, to ask for a new trial based on more of Erika’s lies and manipulations.

In his response to my book, Erika’s former attorney, Arcangelo “Arcky” Tuminelli, wrote this:
You made only one . . . factual mistake of significance. You stated I protected Erika from the state using the results of the polygraph, but she was not protected from her statements during the pretest interview.

Tuminelli went on to say I was “wrong.” Erika did not need “to be protected” from those polygraph results. It was “the law” that actually protected her.

Polygraph results, anyone knows, are not admissible in court.

The agreement I insisted upon with Joel Todd was that no matter what she said during the pretest interview,
Tuminelli wrote to me,
that information could not be disclosed
—
period
—
without my consent.

Furthermore, Erika’s statements to Carrie Campbell, the FBI agent who conducted the polygraph, were not admitted at her trial. Joel Todd had even asked the judge, Tuminelli explained, “to admit her statements” and was told that Todd’s agreement with Tuminelli “would not allow” it to happen.

Tuminelli also claimed Joel Todd was greatly upset by this decision. And as he and Todd left the judge’s chambers, Tuminelli barked at Todd, saying the other attorney “had trouble honoring his agreements.”

To that, according to Tuminelli, Joel Told barked back, saying he was not pleased with Arcky’s comment.

Concluding his thoughts, Arcky Tuminelli said “overall” I treated him “fairly” and he had zero “complaints” with regard to the book as a whole.

Now let’s look at the real Erika Sifrit and what she’s been up to while incarcerated—none of which, I might say, should surprise anyone who has read this book.