Disturbed Ground (30 page)

Clymo pressed on, asking how many thirty-milligram capsules of Dalmane it would take to kill.

"That has not been established," Dr. Anthony admitted.

"Do you have an opinion as to whether or not it would take thousands of capsules?"

"I believe it would take a significant number of capsules to successfully lead to an overdose."

"Hundreds?"

"Yes."

"Maybe even a thousand?"

"Possibly."

Clymo continued, "I believe you testified that flurazepam is soluble in either alcohol or water, correct?"

"Yes, sir."

"The capsules of Dalmane, or generic flurazepam, also contain other material other than the raw drug, don't they?"

"That's correct."

"Well, can you give us an idea of how much powder you would end up with if you dumped out, oh, say, five hundred or a thousand capsules onto a piece of paper?"

"You'd have a significant pile of powder, probably the size of a softball."

Visions of toxic cocktails vanished. Who could possibly ingest such a quantity? (Clymo's colleagues at the public defender's office were so impressed with his gem that they created a "sculpture" of paper
wadded up to the size of a softball, then presented it to him as a trophy.)

George Williamson may have inwardly cringed at the doctor's testimony, but this didn't show. The prosecutor, who seemed always in motion, was standing at the side of the courtroom. Typically, he paced, rarely sitting down even during cross-examinations, and he was always fidgeting with pens or paper clips. Intentionally or not, he distracted from Clymo's cross-examination by flipping a pen in the air and catching it.

But Clymo didn't seem to notice. He was busy making the point that such a large amount of powder would be virtually impossible to disguise in a glass of liquid.

Over and over, Clymo emphasized that the cause of death for each case was "undetermined." Then he ran through various possibilities for the cause of each person's death: Could the person have died from heart failure? From liver disease? From high blood pressure? Even, in one case, from syphilis?

Dr. Anthony had to repeatedly admit that there was no evidence that the person either had, or had not.

And so went the testimony of Dr. Gary Stuart, who next took the stand to testify about the rest of the autopsies, his testimony closely paralleling the first forensic pathologist's.

Through the month of May, Williamson called a parade of doctors to the stand to testify about the health of the various victims.

Again and again, Clymo asked the doctors whether it was "unusual" to see a person of this age and condition die a "sudden, unexpected death." And the doctors had to admit that, certainly, "it happens." Indeed, to the intense frustration of the prosecution, there was still no way to prove the cause of eight of the nine deaths.

Meanwhile, Dorothea Puente watched silently, sitting very still, looking remarkably like a kind grandmother and not a bit like a serial killer.

Throughout the prelim, Williamson raced through his questions and battered the defense's cross-examinations with objections. Soon he was on to the forensic toxicologists: James Beede, of the coroner's office, and William Phillips, of the Department of Justice. They explained their work and testified about the levels of drugs found in the bodies. But finally, they had to face that vexing yet unavoidable topic: the cocaine contamination.

Cocaine, which is highly unstable and cannot conceivably last in human tissues several hours—much less several months—was nonetheless found in Ben Fink's specimens. Yes, it seemed inexplicable. All their precautions, their careful procedures, had somehow been thwarted, and the tissue samples consequently had to be retested.

Clymo gleefully grilled these two witnesses, dragging each through a laborious analysis of the whole process, ostensibly searching for the possible source of contamination, yet hinting broadly at incompetence. The placid judge overruled Williamson's heated objections, and the toxicologists struggled to give cool, professional answers.

Would this prove to be the prosecution's Achilles' heel? During a cigarette break Williamson claimed unconcern, calling the whole cocaine contamination issue "a smoke screen."

In the end, the toxicology reports, while interesting, could hardly be called conclusive. Still, nothing could neutralize the coincidence that
all
of the bodies exhumed from 1426 F Street contained traces of Dalmane. And Dorothea, it turned out, had filled a surprising number of prescriptions for this particular sedative.*

[*See Appendix II.]

Williamson put pharmacists on the stand to testify that, from late 1985 until just before her arrest in November 1988, Dorothea had endlessly refilled Dalmane prescriptions—thirty pills at a time—so that more than a thousand pills had passed through her hands.

CHAPTER 32

Ironically, after having made a big stink about the extraordinary media coverage, Clymo and Vlautin often lingered to answer reporters' questions and endure bright TV lights, while Williamson's policy was to bolt from the courtroom, giving no comment. Clymo took these opportunities to publicly stress the fact that older people metabolize drugs more slowly, and that some of these tenants had been taking "sleepers" for years. Vlautin meanwhile intoned his misgivings about the "quality of the evidence," and made sure to point out, "We don't have the burden of proof."

Indeed, if you believed that Dorothea was a murderer, it was no great leap to believe that all these people had died by her hand. But if you couldn't make this initial assumption, it was a huge jump from forgery and illegal burial to murder. As Clymo cheerfully pointed out, no one could state under oath exactly what had killed the seven people buried in Puente's yard. Even top forensic scientists using the nation's most advanced technology had failed to produce a single unequivocal link between their deaths and Dorothea Puente.

But George "the Bulldog" Williamson was nothing if not tenacious. He just kept on calling witnesses. And he was about to liven things up.

A rather matronly woman wearing a blue dress entered with a humorous glint in her eyes: Dr. Ruth Lawrence. Presently with the U.C. Davis Medical School, the doctor stated that she'd been practicing at the VA clinic back in 1988.

Williamson asked, "On September 21, 1988, did you see a patient by the name of Dorothy Miller?"

She answered, "Yes," adding that the woman requested thyroid medication, a female hormone, and Dalmane.

September 1988. This was perplexing. Wasn't that about the same time Bert Montoya had disappeared? And hadn't Dorothy Miller’s body been "markedly decomposed" when it was discovered in November 1988? How was it possible that she could have been buried
after
Bert?

Williamson continued, "You remember this patient fairly well, don't you?"

"Yes, because it's unusual to get female World War Two veterans."

"And is the woman you treated as Dorothy Miller here today in this courtroom?"

Clymo leapt to his feet in objection, but Williamson was allowed to ask again, "Is the person who requested Dalmane and other drugs here in court today?"

The doctor replied, "Yes," then nodded toward Dorothea Puente and described what the defendant was wearing.

Williamson pressed on: "When this woman came to you as a patient, did you observe any scars on her neck?"

"Yes, the result of thyroid surgery."

Williamson asked Dr. Lawrence to approach the defendant to see whether she had such a scar.

With Clymo’s objections thwarted, the doctor walked over to Puente, gently tugged on her collar, and affirmed, "There's a very fine scar that runs across the lower neck."

It was a shining moment for the prosecution. But if the case went to trial, the defense wouldn't let it happen again.

Williamson's "cumulative" approach had gained him some headway, but the defense had punched holes in the testimony of some of his witnesses. The prosecutor still hadn't tied Puente directly to murder, but he was circling, getting closer.

Williamson unexpectedly received word that Michelle Crowl was ready to talk, and he rushed over to the jail during his lunch break, surprised to be scrambling for the testimony of a "snitch." Informers are eminently impeachable under cross-examination, being criminals themselves, but this one seemed worth the risk.

Recently released from custody, Crowl had been free to keep her secrets to herself, but by the sheerest luck, she'd been rearrested and arraigned earlier in the day for felony drug possession. Her attorney sent word that she wanted to cut a deal: Crowl didn't want to go back to prison, so she would testify against Puente if, in exchange, she got released on probation.

Williamson deemed her testimony important enough to agree. The papers were drawn up, and he hurried back to the courthouse.

Still slightly flushed, he called Michelle Crowl to the stand. She came in wearing a Sacramento County Prisoner T-shirt, yet managing to look more like an ex-cheerleader than an ex-con. With her abundance of curly red hair, she appeared girlish and naive—a long way from criminal stereotypes—the freshest face and youngest person yet to take the stand.

Williamson quickly established that a deal had been made. The straightforward approach. Then he got Crowl to explain how, as a low-security inmate, she'd had extra freedom to socialize and sometimes watched television with Dorothea. Williamson asked whether she and Dorothea had watched a newscast about a body that had been found in a box next to the Sacramento River in January 1986.

Crowl confirmed this. "She told me that that was the first body that was killed."

Astonishment buzzed through the courtroom.

Under questioning, Crowl clarified, "She said she killed him, but Mr. Florez helped her." Dorothea was upset "that Florez was getting a deal."

The defense was reeling, but this was just the beginning. Crowl said she couldn't help overhearing bits of conversation between Puente and the inmate with the "loud voice" who was housed between them, Paulina Pinson.

She said she’d heard that Dorothea had dispensed meds to her tenants, who were alcoholics. Sometimes she gave them "a little bit extra," not just Dalmane, but also amitriptyline, Crowl said.

"Did she explain why?"

"When she received them into the boarding home, they were already frail. She was the beneficiary of their Social Security checks. They relied on her," Crowl explained. "She was like a mom to them… They trusted her."

"Did she tell you how they died?" Williamson asked.

"She said she'd give them meds with alcohol."

"What did she say about meds and alcohol?"

"She said it suppressed their breathing."

"Do you know what words she used?"

"Yes, 'cuz I never heard it before that: suppressed."

Williamson asked about Bert Montoya, and Crowl said she was positive she'd heard Dorothea tell Paulina that "Bert helped her bury the bodies."

Spectators gasped. Here was the chilling confirmation of Judy Moise's worst fear.

"She said he was retarded and he didn't know any better," Crowl continued, adding that Dorothea had admitted that she'd gotten "a little greedy."

Each word from her little cupid-bow mouth torpedoed the defense. But Williamson knew that an ex-con who recanted her story and then cut a deal could be torn apart like perforated paper.