Gang Mom (22 page)

“How could you be hurt if Lisa had immunity?”

“We weren’t talking about immunity, we were talking about the polygraph.”

“She passed the polygraph because she told the truth about you.”

“She didn’t tell the truth.”

“Linda was only at your house a few times?” said Skelton, changing the subject to Linda Miller.

“The Friday prior to the death.”

“What activities were incriminating towards Linda?”

“None.”

Skelton went back to the prosecution table and, with a flourish, picked up the notebook that contained the wiretaps. It had already been marked off to a pre-assigned page.

“I call your attention to call Number six-forty-one, regarding the conversation between you and Linda. Wayde was called a snitch and you told her, ‘I kept you out of it.’ What did that mean?”

“I said I didn’t hear her, not that she wasn’t a part of it, so I kept her out of it.”

“In your EPD statement to Rainey, you admit to calling Aaron Iturra names?”

“Yes.”

Skelton flipped pages.

“Page three-forty-seven of the transcript.”

Mary eyed him intently. What kind of trap was he setting?

“What do you mean when you say, ‘I have to watch what I say, due to Crip nation. I am concerned for my son’s safety and my husband’s safety’?”

“They are all up and down the West Coast. Sonny from Portland was here, also TJ and Snoop.”

“And they had some responsibility for Aaron’s death?”

“They could have.”

“You knew Jim and Joe were convicted already and you still believed Portland was responsible?”

“In an indirect way. Jim and Joe did it to get the proper respect from Portland.”

“From people that don’t exist?”

“They do exist.”

“How would you incriminate Portland?”

“By talking in court like I am now.”

“They monitored your calls?” Skelton asked sarcastically.

“No, they read the papers.”

“Why worry if you have no gang connection?”

“I’m connected through my son.”

“Wasn’t your son in MacLaren at the time?”

“Yes.”

Skelton then reviewed the history of the Aaron Iturra/ Beau Flynn friendship, leading up to the incident at the Grocery Cart.

“If Aaron and Beau were friends, why retaliate, why not let Aaron Iturra tell the truth at Grand Jury about what really happened?”

“I hoped he would.”

“Your reaction was to get angry, et cetera.”

“Yes.”

“
In fact, he was gonna tell the truth about Beau and you wanted to eliminate him as a witness, isn’t that true
?”

“Objection! Argumentative,” Chez yelled.

“Objection sustained,” said the judge.

But Skelton had gotten the question in, directly implicating Mary in the plot to kill Aaron and the jury was not going to forget that.

“What negative things did you say to Wayde about Aaron Iturra?”

“I called him names, said ‘I wish he were dead,’ said ‘I can’t believe he hurt me,’ said ‘He couldn’t testify.’”

“When did you say those things?”

“After Aaron and Beau were arrested, the next day.”

But she later changed, realizing that her remarks could be misinterpreted when taken out of context, and told Wayde, “I said leave Aaron Iturra alone.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t remember anything. I may have called him a ‘buster.’”

“What was the context of the remark, ‘Leave Aaron Iturra alone?’”

“They were talking about beating him up.”

“The last message from you to Wayde was ‘Leave Aaron Iturra alone’?”

“Yes.”

“Did Wayde make negative statements against Aaron Iturra?”

“I don’t recall any statements Wayde made. I don’t believe he would have.”

“Wayde was a Seventy-four Crip?”

“I was told some of them had become Seventy-four Crips.”

Calling on Mary’s expertise, Skelton asked how many Seventy-four Crip sets there were in Eugene. Mary answered, “One that Beau formed in Eugene,” and that “there were other members in it.”

“Who?”

Mary thought for a few moments. “
Doug Edwards
.”

Mary wouldn’t respond further to the question. She seemed conflicted.

“Your Honor,” Mary asked politely, “can I speak to my attorney?”

“No,” the judge came back hard, “answer the question.”

“
Fred Johnson, Jace Turner, Lyle Bolander
and
Ted Carington
and some I know by their gang names only.”

“In your statement to police, you denied knowing anything [about a gang] or guys you thought were just wannabes. That’s not true, huh? There were actually members of the set?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Jim Elstad called and said he swore on his ’hood to kill Aaron Iturra. Did you take it seriously?”

“I didn’t believe him.”

“Would you take someone else seriously?”

“I took Beau seriously.”

“If these were members of Beau’s gang, why not take them seriously? What makes it serious?”

“The person saying it.”

“On October third, if you didn’t think Jim and Joe were serious, even though they came to your house after killing a boy, what harm was there in telling the police?”

Mary began to hedge and talk in circles.

“Would the court please instruct her to answer?”

“Mr. Skelton, please read the question again,” the judge ordered.

Skelton repeated his question.

“It would cause great harm to tell the police the truth. I was concerned for my son.”

“What harm could come to Beau in MacLaren if you told the truth?”

“I was trying to protect Beau.”

“From what?”

“Maybe Beau had told Jim and Joe to do it.”

“
Did you intend to lie to EPD when you told them Jim and Joe did it
?”

“I didn’t believe it.”

“Was the other part of the statement a lie too?”

“I diverted the police, but it was not intentional,” Mary said.

Michaud noticed that for the first time, Mary didn’t sound so confident. Her con was unraveling in front of her like a loose ball of thread. She had no place to turn but to, ironically, the truth.

“If you didn’t believe Jim and Joe did it, then why drive to the river?”

“He didn’t take the bullets out in my truck.”

“Did you tell him to throw it in the river?”

“I said to go do it,” Mary admitted.

That was something she hadn’t said before.
Now, she’s implicated herself consciously in the conspiracy
, Michaud thought.

“The gun was involved in the homicide?”

“True.”

“You insisted he throw out the gun?”

“Yes.”

“How often did Jim and Joe come to your house and admit they did the shooting?”

“Once.”

“
How often after you said to shoot Aaron Iturra
?”

“Once.”

Mary had goofed and didn’t realize it, just as she had when she admitted to setting the whole thing up to Janyce.

“You expect this jury to believe you didn’t believe them?”

“Yes.”

“Were you afraid for your own life, of Jim and Joe?”

“Yes.”

“Were you in fear at the river?”

“Not at that time, after EPD was at the house and I had a chance to think about it.”

“How come Joe called you ‘Moms’?”

“I knew him a lot of years, he just did it on his own.”

“The others?”

“They picked it up from Joe.”

“Out of affection for you?” voice dripping sarcasm.

“Yes.”

“
Did Jim and Joe say they did it for you
?”

“No!”

“So you didn’t have to worry anymore?”

“I don’t remember it.”

“What did they say?”

“‘We shot Aaron Iturra.’ I said, ‘Who?’ They said, ‘Jim did it.’ I said, ‘Did you really do this?’ They said, ‘Yeah.’ I didn’t believe them.”

“What techniques did you use of power and control?”

It was a rather sophisticated question. Skelton was getting to the heart of gang violence: the ability of the leader to control and manipulate those around her to do her bidding.

Mary answered, “I talked to them, I didn’t control. They did what they wanted to do. I tried to discourage them.”

“You didn’t do anything to control them?”

“I lied about the gun store alarm,” she said, referring to their plan to steal guns, and how she allegedly stopped them with her cock-and-bull story about the federal mandate that all gun stores have alarms hooked into the police department.

“You would lie to them?”

“Yes. I would tell them the truth too.”

“The kids would confide in you, and EPD would ask your opinion, just because you talked to them?”

“Yes.”

Skelton changed the subject. Mary was getting comfortable. He had to get her dancing again.

“How did Lisa become a Seventy-four? What would cause her to become a Seventy-four?”

“Involvement with people associated with the Seventy-four.”

“She was your friend?”

“Yes.”

“She was a fourteen-year-old female, all the rest were males?”

Mary nodded.

“If Lisa was your friend, how was she acquainted with the others?”

“Through Aaron Iturra.”

“You had no role in her Seventy-four membership?”

“No.”

“You have a history of drug use?”

“Yes.”

“Going back to the gun, you sent Beau to get it, right?”

“I did not send him.”

“You sent him to get a gun from Lisa.”

“It was Beau’s plan and I agreed.”

“You knew Beau wanted the gun to do a burglary?”

“No, I thought that once Beau got the gun it could be disposed of.”

“You thought the gun was safer with Larry than Joe?”

“Yes.”

“Under your direction,” Skelton’s voice rose, “you thought it was safe to put a gun into the hands of a seventeen-year-old drug user?” Skelton marshaled the most incredulous expression he could muster.

“Yes.”

“Instead of taking it or calling the police?”

“Lots went through my mind.”

“Do you feel it is proper for gang members to have a gun in your house?”

“Not normally, there was a lot going on.”

“On the reenactment tape, Joe said, ‘Mary wanted Aaron Iturra dead.’”

“I said leave him alone.”

Is that sweat I see on your forehead, Mary
?

“Part of the plan was to tell you after it was done. What part of the plan were you involved with?”

“No part of the plan.”

It was a weak rejoinder, and a denial that appeared to be much, much too late. But then again, you could never tell with juries. Look what happened with O.J. in L.A. Slam dunk case and Bam! the guy walks.

Skelton had finished. After a perfunctory redirect by the defense that went absolutely nowhere, the defense rested. Closing statements followed, then the judge charged the jury. After eight hours of deliberation, they came back with their verdict.

SIXTEEN

WEDNESDAY, JULY 17, 1996
8:58 p.m.

For a while, social scientists and others were looking to explain away the aberrant behavior of criminals by saying that they had lousy backgrounds. It worked for awhile, until the apologists started getting mugged themselves and suddenly, they weren’t apologists anymore.

The jury knew nothing of Mary Fockler’s background, that she had been the apple of her father’s eye, that she had had a mother who’d stroked out, another brother who tried to commit suicide and crippled himself, and that she herself had served in the military, albeit briefly. If they had, would they have considered that information in their verdict?

Even had the facts of her earlier gang life with the Hells Angels been known at the time, which they weren’t, they could not have been presented to the jury. Never mind that it established a pattern of gang activity going back twenty years. Jurors may only consider the evidence in front of them. What Mary Thompson or Fockler or whatever she wanted to call herself had done during her earlier life was totally irrelevant. Whatever problems she had that led to her criminal behavior were also irrelevant. At least legally.

As the jury filed back into the box, Mary looked over, trying to read the verdict on their faces. Good luck; she might just as well have been trying to read the faces on Mount Rushmore. The jury wasn’t giving it away by expression.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

“We have, Your Honor.”

“Would the defendant please rise?”

Mary Thompson rose to her feet with her attorney Steve Chez beside her.

“What say you on the matter before this court?”

“We, the jury, find the defendant, Mary Thompson,
guilty
of aggravated murder.”

They don’t believe me
!

Stunned, Mary dropped her head.

In the front row, Janyce Iturra breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then her thoughts turned heavenward. “Rest easy, my son.”

“Take the defendant into custody,” said the judge. “Sentencing on July twenty-third.”

Big, beefy bailiffs surrounded Mary and snapped on handcuffs and leg irons. Shuffling off, she looked back and saw Michaud. For a moment, their eyes locked. He nodded, the most emphatic, self-satisfied nod in the history of law enforcement.

Six days later, on July 23, 1996, Judge Lyle Velure was ready to pronounce sentence on Mary Thompson. Mary came shuffling back into the courtroom. One more time, it remained for Janyce Iturra to get in the next-to-last word in her victim’s impact statement to a hushed courtroom.

Relating for the last time the drama of her son’s death, the tragedy of the situation was lost for some in the repetition of events. But when Janyce looked at Mary and said quietly, “Who could hurt a child like this?” everyone, including the hardened court personnel, listened.

“We asked God, Why have you done this to us?” Janyce continued, “We’ve always done the right thing. Why us?” But the Almighty didn’t answer. His answer, she said, was Aaron’s death.

Mary looked down and shook her head.

Since their home was still a crime scene, returning there was not an option. Instead, “We went to a friend’s house and the first thing I did was call Mary Thompson to let her hear from me what had happened. I didn’t want her to hear of Aaron’s death on the TV or radio. She was Aaron’s friend. I needed to let her know. I must have tried ten times that day. She never called me back. By the next day I gave up, knowing by this time she already knew. I kept saying, ‘I’ll see her at Aaron’s funeral, she’ll be there, she’s our friend. She cared for Aaron.’ The defendant always talked about how Aaron was such a good kid and was going to make it.”