Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (50 page)

She knew what was coming next and steeled herself. She'd heard how the Mormon women hated to discuss sex. Well, it wasn't one of her favorite subjects, either. She tried to smile pleasantly and act as though she were happy to chat about the most intimate parts of her life in front of a courtroom full of strangers.

Q What type of relationship have you had with your husband in respect to the thirty-two years that you have been married?

A We have had a very excellent marriage.

Q You have observed your husband in his relationship with women, have you not?

A Yes. ... He is very—he is very much a gentleman. He respects women. He respects their privacy. He is kind and compassionate and sympathetic. . . . Our girls have a wonderful relationship with their father. They respect him and love him a great deal. They admire him. . . .

Q Now, referring your attention to a more specific part of your relationship with your husband and particularly the sexual relationship you have had over these years, can you describe to the jury what type of a relationship you have had in that area?

A We have had a very satisfying and normal, happy relationship.

Q Has your husband ever indicated a desire for what you would consider any unusual activities in that area?

A Never.

Q Have you ever observed him bringing home or even viewing or reading anything which you would consider of a pornographic nature?

A No. Just the opposite.

Q Has he ever asked you to attend any movies that you consider of a questionable nature?

A Absolutely not.

Q In your opinion . . . would you consider him abnormal in any respect concerning his sexual drive?

A No, I wouldn't.

Q How about off-color jokes or anything like that. Have you ever heard him tell them?

A No. He never speaks that way.

She was glad when the questioning turned to John's office practices. She testified that she'd interrupted him "many times" during examinations. "I would go and knock on the door and wait for him to come to the door or say yes."

She would have liked to say that she often barged right in, but it wouldn't have been true. John had a strong belief in his patients' right of privacy. As she testified, "Whenever I was in any examination room in another doctor's office, I would not like to be in that position and have anyone stick their head in." She smiled, and several of the jurors smiled back.

They kept smiling as she described one of her husband's main problems. "He is the type of person that time doesn't mean too much to him. I think he kind of loses track of time. Patients would start talking to him about their troubles and it seems like a lot of times they would come in for supposedly one thing and they would end up asking him lots of other things and more or less counseling with him." She was thinking of Arden McArthur and Aletha Durtsche. "He spent a lot of time like that."

Wayne's direct examination ended on a key subject:

Q ... Were you ever privy to any discussions with him relative to having a third person in the examination room while pelvic examination was being performed?

A No. We never talked about it.

Q Was that ever a concern of yours?

A No. Never entered my mind.

Q Has any female patient ever complained to you during those

"DOC"

twenty-six years concerning the fact that he did not have a nurse during the pelvic exam? A No.

She'd expected the skinny prosecutor to sound nasty or surly, or, at the least, to patronize her, but he seemed almost friendly. He was interested in the patriotic way she and John started the office day:

Q You hang a flag up, you say? A Yes. Every day.

The rest of his questions were about procedures, her own duties, the daily schedule, and her husband's tendency to fall behind. She'd just begun to relax, happy to be of assistance, when the judge said, "All right, Mrs. Story, you may step down."

They drove back to Lovell together; John had a few patients to see. Before going to bed, she wrote in her journal, "My testimony was easy to give—it isn't difficult when you have nothing to hide."

77

THE DEFENSE

After Marilyn Story, Wayne Aarestad put on fourteen straight character witnesses, half of them nurses in starched white uniforms.

Hospital Manager Joe Brown testified that in "all my twenty years he has probably one of the finest behavioral records that I have seen in any physician." Brown denied that he'd taken an ad in the Lovell
Chronicle
—"To Doc and Marilyn, the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him and delivereth them" —but admitted that his wife might have placed it.

Nurse Kathy Gifford observed that she'd worked for the doctor for seven years and never noticed him running toward the bathroom with red ears. She said he used Phisohex as a lubricant for pelvic examinations and that it could be mistaken for sperm. Did anyone leave his examining rooms "crying or tearful or in shock of any kind"?

"Maybe the babies," she answered.

Story's current nurse, Judy GifiFord, the previous witness's sister-in-law, testified that he'd delivered her two daughters and had given her many pelvics and Pap smears. She'd frequently been in the examining room during other patients' pelvics and had noticed nothing unusual.

She described the typical examination in as much detail as the state's expert witness, the gynecologist Dr. Flory. She said the patient might be on the table for twenty to forty-five minutes, but the actual examination would take less than five.

Q ... Has [Dr. Story] ever performed any pelvic examinations on patients who have come in complaining of headaches?

A Yes, that's quite common . . . because many times, in a menopause age type of lady, forty on up, headaches can be caused by their hormone levels, deficiencies in them . . . And by doing a pelvic exam he can note the amount of secretions and conditions that the vaginal wall is.

Q That doesn't strike you as unusual?

A No.

Q ... During the course of these pelvic exams have you ever heard Dr. Story use the phrase "Can you take any more?"

A Yes. He is very conscious of the woman's pain . . . And if it is getting so painful that the lady can't tolerate it, he quits the exam. . . .

Q Have you ever heard him use the phrase "Can I go any deeper?"

A Yes. . . . Some uteruses are easy to palpate ahd some are very difficult.

On cross-examination, Terry Tharp asked if she'd discussed her testimony with anyone. "With Wayne," she answered. Then:

Q Are you familiar with or acquainted with the nine women who have testified here previously?

A I actually think that I really only know one of them.

Q You weren't in the room with any of them on the day they were assaulted, were you?

A Not that I am aware of.

Q So you don't know what happened or what didn't happen to them?

A Yes, I do. In my heart.

As she left the witness stand, Nurse GifFord seemed to be fighting back tears. She was known to be especially devoted to the Storys. Her daughter was a Down's syndrome victim and he'd always treated the child with extra care, including free drugs and medication.

When a hospital nurse, Jacqui Lynn Bischoff, testified that she'd noticed no difference between Story's pelvic exams and other doctors', Tharp stood up and objected that the defense testimony was becoming repetitious and irrelevant. At a bench conference, Aarestad's cocounsel, R. Scott Kath, explained, "The relevance is, Your Honor, to show that there is more than just one or two patients who have had a normal, uneventful pelvic, that there are numerous other patients out there who have no complaints. There is nothing else."

Judge Hartman said, "I hope you don't intend to draw every one of them into this courtroom."

M
r.
K
ath
N
o
, we are not going to do that.

T
he
C
ourt
Where are you going to draw the line on this?

M
r.
K
ath
. . . Possibly half a dozen.

T
he
C
ourt
The jury and everybody else has heard the same thing.

M
r.
K
ath
We have heard from nine victims that there was something out of the ordinary going on. I think we have got to show that there is a number of people where this did not go on. That's the relevance. The State has paraded in front of this jury nine victims and I think it is very relevant to show that there is another story to this. . . .

M
r.
T
harp
. . . We are not contending he raped every woman in town. It is self-serving. It is like saying because there are more banks in town and he didn't rob all of them, he only robbed one, he is not guilty of robbing that one.

T
he
C
ourt
I think we are getting into a cumulative situation. I will allow you to finish with this witness, but let's move on to something else.

Nurse Bischoff characterized Dr. Story as "very much a Christian." On cross-examination, she admitted that she'd talked to

Story's lawyer about her testimony "last night and then two or three nights before that." She said her opinion of Dr. Story wouldn't change even if he were convicted. The judge ordered the remark stricken from the record.

Kaye Meeker, a family friend, testified that Dr. Story was "a very high principled, high moraled man," but she was silenced by more prosecution objections when she started to testify about her own experiences on the examining table.

The bearded Rex Nebel sketched in his police background and described the defendant as "the best."

Q Do you know what his reputation in the community of Lovell is concerning morality, integrity?

A Well, I believe that Dr. Story is one of the few people in Lovell that walks his beliefs and not just talks them. I believe he is of the utmost integrity.

Q During the period of years that you were in law enforcement, did you ever receive any complaints concerning any improprieties on his behalf?

A No, I did not.

Over renewed objections by Terry Tharp, substitute rural mail carrier Peggy Rasmussen described Story as "a very moral man who loves his family and always had good moral reputation."

Lynn Strom, a Lovell bank teller, said that she'd noticed nothing suspicious during her eight or nine months as Dr. Story's receptionist.

Wes Meeker, prominent Lovell realtor and Story neighbor, testified that there'd "just never been any doubt at all in Dr. Story's morality."

Barbara Shumway, another family friend and personnel director at the hospital, agreed.

Jane Keil, former Lovell hospital nurse, told the court that she'd never observed Dr. Story do anything improper. She denied writing a letter of support to the Lovell
Chronicle.
Shown the letter ("Dr. Story, we appreciate the many years of service and look

THE DEFENSE

forward to many more. Walt and Jane Keil"), she explained, "I think Walt wrote it."

Robyn Winland, a schoolteacher's wife, testified that Dr. Story had given her twenty pelvic exams in eighteen years, and that she'd sometimes felt him brush against her inner thighs but thought nothing of it.

Verda Croft, director of nursing services at the Lovell hospital, observed that Dr. Story had a communications problem—"He is a very intelligent man. But he tries to explain to the patient and he will talk a long time. And then when he is through he realizes and the patient realizes that a lot of times they don't know what he has said."

Another Lovell hospital R.N., Nina Elaine Strong, described Dr. Story as "much too trusting."

Story's onetime office nurse, Imogene Hansen, said that from 1965 to 1969 she'd never found his examination rooms locked or heard him tell off-color jokes.

m

JOHN STORY

Look at the way it thrashes around. The denial—so stubborn.

—John Hersey,
Blues

At
10
a
.m
. on April
11, 1985,
the eighth day of trial, the defendant walked with slow dignity toward the witness stand. A low hum of support rose from the right side of the courtroom but subsided at the judge's frown. The defendant wore a conservatively cut gray suit, a white shirt, a burnt orange tie and a light smile. As he was sworn in, his voice was mild and respectful.

"State your name," Wayne Aarestad began.

"John H. Story."

Spectators in the back strained to listen as the doctor told how he'd set up practice in Lovell because "they had a real need and I liked the country. . . ."