Kiss of the She-Devil (37 page)

OCSD sheriff ’s deputy Guy Hubble was next. Hubble, a fourteen-year veteran of the police force, walked jurors through the crime scene as he came upon it. The most damaging piece of testimony here was, again, those images of a dying woman. However, Hubble brought something else to the table before stepping down: that videotape of the murder and scores of photographs depicting Gail dead in the parking lot, a pool of blood the size of a garbage can lid around her head.

Then OCSD sergeant Alan Whitefield took the stand. Whitefield talked the jury through the phone conversation he’d had with Donna early the next morning.

On cross-examination Lawrence Kaluzny questioned Alan Whitefield about the call, not adding anything to the “facts” of the case other than belaboring an issue that was truly not something the prosecutor had put all that much thought in, to begin with.

End result: Whitefield had called Donna and she never asked why; she never wondered what might bring the OCSD to phone her in the middle of the night; she had not asked if anything had happened to George.

Why? Whitefield’s testimony made clear: Donna
knew.
There, in that subliminal part of her brain, she knew. Donna never asked certain questions to the investigator because she already
knew
the answers.

Donna’s lawyer got into a Q&A with Whitefield regarding personal checks and the
fact
that the OCSD had not found a paper trail linking Donna to paying off Kevin, Sybil, or Patrick.

No, they did not. Because Donna had made sure to cover her tracks in that regard by having others cash the checks and also paying Kevin with cash she had pilfered from her company.

Sybil Padgett’s lawyer, Raymond Correll, took a crack at Alan Whitefield by harping on how long that phone call he’d had with Donna lasted. Correll, however, realized he was getting nowhere, and sat down.

It was closing in on the end of the day, so the judge suspended proceedings until the following morning, giving jurors the usual don’t-listen-to-radio-or-TV speech and don’t-talk-among-yourselves dictum.

Gavel.

68

T
HE NEXT DAY,
November 28, everyone was back in court, now ready to hear from one of the state’s chief witnesses.

George Fulton.

Mostly, Paul Walton had George stick to the same testimony he gave during the preliminary examination. Here, though, George was asked to go into greater detail regarding certain matters, and Walton introduced several tape-recorded voice mail messages that Donna and Sybil had left on George’s voice mail. One depicted the rage and hatred Donna had for Gail; jurors heard Donna call Gail a “bitch” several times during the message, warning George not to bring her down to Florida. It was that same “Florida is my state, Michigan is her state” voice mail that Donna had left after she heard Gail had insisted on going to Florida with George if he went for business. The jury heard straight from Donna’s mouth how nasty, vile, and vulgar she could get when she felt the least bit slighted.

George did not hold back, although his answers border-lined on being snobbish and intentionally patronizing at times. For example, after being asked when his and Donna’s relationship “changed” between the first night they had met and the second, when they ended up inside Donna’s Lincoln Town Car necking like teenagers, George said, “We engaged in sexual intercourse.” Leaving it there.

Hour after hour went by as George talked about every aspect of his life with Donna while he was in Florida and his world slowly crumbling back home in Michigan. Time and again, Paul Walton asked if Gail knew what was going on, and George Fulton said no, “not then,” meaning the first year he and Donna were together. What became clear was that George was living two separate lives for a long period of time, and it didn’t seem to matter to him (morally speaking). It was stressful. Sure. It was wrong. Most definitely. But George had no qualms about continuing for as long as he could get away with it. Not until Donna started acting a little wacky and possessive did George take a step back and review the relationship. The more Donna pushed George into making a choice, the more he backed off. This was something Donna never realized: All she had to do to keep George was, essentially, cut him off sexually and tell him not to call until he left Gail. Yet, by the time that lightbulb went off for Donna, George had been emotionally cooked and had made the call to leave Donna already.

Walking away, according to George’s testimony, had made Donna furious. She grew angrier by the day.

What was respectable about Walton’s questioning of George early on was how the prosecutor asked questions about Gail and her life, in effect, humanizing her. Having George talk about Gail—her dreams and loves and dislikes—drew a connection between Gail and the jury. She became a person, not just a murder victim or a headline. This was smart trial lawyering on Walton’s part and explained the type of person Paul Walton was inside a courtroom. Giving jurors a reason to love Gail would help them to draw the same conclusion as Walton had: Gail Fulton, truly, was an innocent victim, who had been killed by a lying and conniving female obsessed with the idea of doing whatever it took to get back her man.

For a time Walton had George describe the relationship between Donna and Sybil, and how George had gotten to know Sybil. He talked about the problems Sybil often got herself into at work, and how Donna covered for and gave Sybil second chances, even when the integrity of the business was at stake.

Another important
fact
George brought out was how Donna had not made it common practice at CCHH to rent Enterprise rental cars for employees other than Sybil. The way Donna made it sound to police was that she had rented cars routinely for her employees because they traveled so much for care visits.

Interestingly enough, George told jurors, when he first received that letter from Donna’s doctor indicating she was pregnant and dying of stage-four lymphoma, he had a sense he recognized the handwriting on the envelope as Donna’s.

“I thought it was hers,” he said.

Lawrence Kaluzny objected.

A brief argument ensued.

But again, a bell had been rung. It didn’t matter now.

When asked why George thought it would be a good idea for his mistress to come up to Michigan to meet his wife, George responded, “At that time I thought, if my wife met her, she would see she was a person like she was. If, in fact, she was dying, and if, in fact, she was pregnant, what would happen to the baby and what would happen to her?”

“Did you discuss with your wife some plans about this?”

“Yeah . . . we had talked about it, what to do. And I was not sure what to do.”

Walton had George talk about the maps he and Donna had purchased while she was in town. George had unknowingly helped Donna plot his wife’s murder. He felt disgusted by the thought of it.

He talked about his life with Donna, how Gail found out George was planning a trip to Florida, how Donna began to badger George (after the breakup) about work, and how he had gotten to a point where he didn’t want to work for her any longer.

As the noon hour approached, the judge stopped the questioning, explaining that the court had “things” (unrelated to the case) to do, and recessed until Thursday, November 30, 2000.

Emily Fulton sat and listened to her father testify, not really hearing what he was saying. “I don’t remember what my dad said as much as his tone of voice and how he looked,” she recalled. “My dad has been more of an emotional person over the years . . . but at this time he was not, and so his voice was more monotone and devoid of emotion. . . .”

George alternated crosses he wore during his days in the courtroom.

“The cross,” Emily said, “was honking huge. My dad wore white shirts with some sort of tie and then the huge wooden cross on a leather strap thingy that hung down to the middle of his chest, almost down to his stomach. I believe that someone from church gave that cross to my dad, as it was not something he purchased himself. See, my dad has always felt as if he was being persecuted and that he was the one on trial, since he had to tell so many personal details.... He always said the media persecuted him, tarnished his character, and made him into this bad person. So, in my opinion, he wore the cross to show he was religious and to symbolize he was almost being persecuted like Jesus. Now, of course, there is no comparison between Jesus and my dad and this comparison is just [from] me, but that is how I remember seeing it.... [He] could never see what he did wrong and the pain he caused to his family.”

When they returned two days later, Paul Walton made a point to enter into the record several documents, giving the jury an idea of how Donna Trapani could have gotten hold of Gail Fulton’s schedule. Certain work documents Donna had asked George to fill out for CCHH were revealing in that regard. It seemed no matter what Paul Walton and George Fulton talked about, the pendulum swung toward Donna Trapani and her desire to erase Gail out of their lives.

There was no indication how Lawrence Kaluzny was going to treat George Fulton. Arguably, George was Kaluzny’s biggest obstacle to overcome. If Donna Trapani was going to argue that Sybil Padgett and the others acted on their own behalf, was it really necessary to contest George Fulton’s direct testimony?

Kaluzny got right to the point: How was your marriage with Gail before you met Donna?

George said it was okay. He and Gail had “disagreements” and there were “small things.” In no way was the marriage in trouble.

Then they talked about CCHH and the dynamics of how the company ran.

Then, after saying it was not his intention to embarrass George or smear his reputation, Kaluzny made a point to have George tell the jury he had been lying to Gail for quite some time. That every day he spent with Donna was a lie.

George was asked about all the traveling he did.

Then he was questioned about “opening up to Donna” and if that was what attracted him to her.

George agreed.

Kaluzny asked George if he was thinking of divorcing Gail.

He said he was, back then.

After that, Kaluzny started in about Gail’s schedule and how it might have been George who had inadvertently given it to
other
employees at CCHH.

Sure, that was possible, George agreed.

Sybil Padgett became a hot topic. During his questioning Kaluzny was able to paint Sybil as a derelict employee whom Donna felt sorry for and had given chances to because of Sybil’s children. Donna felt sorry for her, the questions suggested.

“Was there any resentment detected toward you,” Kaluzny asked, trying to drum up a motive on Sybil’s part, “because of the salary you were earning, the position you were taking in the company?” George had already made it clear to the court that he and Donna were the highest-paid employees. Could this have sparked enough hatred on Sybil’s part, along with George coming into the fold and taking Donna away, to want to go and kill George’s wife on her own?

69

T
HERE CAME A
time during George Fulton’s cross-examination when jurors and trial observers developed a look of fatigue. Not that anyone was particularly tired. But George’s answers to what seemed to be baseless questions were beating on an issue that could be beat no more. It was almost as though the more George talked, the more jurors despised Donna Trapani and her weak attempt at blaming someone else for a crime she had planned, plotted, facilitated, paid for, and, clearly, enjoyed seeing played out. Alienating a jury is not hard to do during a murder trial. And once a juror crossed that threshold of scratching reasonable doubt off the table, he or she was finished.

“At some point you decided,” Larry Kaluzny asked George, “that Gail had to know about what was going on between you and Donna, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell Gail, or did she find out about it?”

“She found out.”

“What time period are we talking here?”

And this was how it went: rehashing regurgitated information that meant absolutely nothing to Donna Trapani’s or Sybil Padgett’s end result.

Donna’s lawyer then brought his line of questioning back to Gail threatening suicide, as if her state of mind had anything to do with Donna’s guilt or innocence.

George opened up; he said he cheated on his wife. Deceived her. Lied to her. Treated her like garbage. What else did the attorney want to know? There was an indication that maybe George did not have any feelings about how he had treated Gail. That he was perhaps cold. So he turned the tables and questioned Kaluzny, asking sharply, “How do you
think
you would feel, Mr. Kaluzny?
Tell
me.”

“I think we would all understand she might be suicidal.”

“She
wasn’t
suicidal. She just
mentioned
it, Mr. Kaluzny. My wife had great faith. She wouldn’t do that, because she had the children. Also, if she did that, she would hurt the children, and she knew that was
not
the right thing to do!”