The Alligator Man (20 page)

T
he courthouse in Verona was a modern-day, whitewashed, soulless structure with plenty of parking and places for the press to congregate. Kevin had stayed in a hotel nearby. He’d thought about staying at his condo in Miami, but it was a long commute and he could use those hours for trial preparation. He walked the few blocks to the courthouse, carrying his files on one of those modern-day business hand trucks.

The old courthouse had real character with gargoyles on the corners and nooks and crannies and ghosts. Everything creaked in the old courthouse—the benches, the floors. You were never alone. The souls of slaves and murderers and innocents were everywhere. You could hear and even feel them if you had a mind to pay attention. All that had been bulldozed away, replaced by wide sanitary halls and straight lines.

Kevin arrived early because he had to see Billy before the proceedings began and give him a suit to wear. The presumption of innocence was a true illusion if the defendant walked into the courtroom in prison garb.

The parking lot was fairly empty at that hour and there were few people milling about in front of the courthouse. Kevin knew that would change. The barrage of publicity this case had received in the past week would bring out the gawkers—those who wanted to see or be seen and those who were curious. Probably some death penalty protesters would be there as well, although nobody believed Billy would ever get the death penalty. Even if the jury eventually determined that Billy killed Roy Johnson in cold blood, he had a damn good reason.

Kevin noticed the kiosks across the street as he walked toward the courthouse steps. Every major network was represented with its own little tent, cameras, lights, dozens of minions, and of course, the talking head. This was not a place for network anchors, although they might show up if things got really exciting. This was for the young up-and-comers—beautiful and handsome and smart in a myopic sort of way. They were at the top of their class and knew how to deliver their lines, but couldn’t see that they were nothing more than an intricate part of a seamy entertainment show.

Kevin saw it quite clearly. They were here because Roy Johnson had been a captain of industry. They were here because the Alligator Man story had created its own buzz. People killed each other in the inner cities of America every day and it didn’t bring out the beautiful people to report on the outcome. There was no titillation there. The networks didn’t really give a shit about Billy or his kids or the human tragedy that Roy Johnson had inflicted. They cared about drama and ratings.

Kevin chuckled to himself as he watched them. It was only eight o’clock in the morning but it was already stifling hot—summer in Florida. Some of them were standing in front of their camera, lights blazing, sweating like pigs, as minions wiped their brows every five seconds.

One thing did bother him as he walked up the steps of the courthouse—there was a pool of microphones set up at the top stair in the center.
Why am I so relaxed? Why am I even looking at these idiots? I’ve got a murder trial that’s about to start.

Maybe it was a carryover from his Sunday morning breakfast with his father and Kate. Maybe it was because Carlisle had come through and both Bobby Joe Sellers and Randy Winters had been served with subpoenas for trial. He’d subpoenaed Bernie too. He wasn’t sure what he was going to get out of them, but he had them squirming and that was good enough for now.

He was as serene as he had ever been on an opening day as he walked right past the microphones into the courthouse with his files in tow.

He had prearranged to meet with Billy in a room adjacent to courtroom C, where the trial was going to be held. The guards brought Billy in late as usual. The prison system was run in a military fashion. Everything was on a time clock except when a prisoner had to meet his or her lawyer in court. Then there were always delays.

“How are you doing?” Kevin asked Billy when he finally arrived. The dark patches under Billy’s eyes already told him part of the answer.

“Okay, I guess. How about yourself?”

“I’m fine,” Kevin told him. “I’ve got some clothes here for you to put on. We want to look good in front of these prospective jurors.” Kevin explained to Billy that the next two or three days were going to be rather boring with individual jurors being brought into the courtroom one at a time and asked pretty much the same questions. “They’re all going to be looking at you at some point, Billy, and you’ll never know when that is. Consequently, you have to appear interested and focused at all times, understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” Billy replied.

Kevin had brought him a black suit, a white shirt, and a blue striped tie. It was Billy’s suit and he fit it well.

Jeanette was already in the courtroom when they entered. She had a black suit on as well. She gave Kevin a cold stare. Kevin turned his head away and focused his attention on Billy.

Judge Thorpe walked in a few minutes later. There was no fanfare since the courtroom was empty, although he did have his robes on.

“Good morning, people. Are we ready to begin this ordeal?”

“The State is ready, Your Honor,” Jeanette replied.

“The defendant is ready, Your Honor,” Kevin said.

The judge turned to the bailiff. “Is the jury panel ready?”

“Yes, sir,” the bailiff answered.

“How many do we have?”

“Fifty to start.”

“That will get us going at least. Make sure we have another fifty in reserve.”

“Yes, sir.”

The judge turned back to the lawyers. “How do you want to handle the questioning?”

“I’d prefer questioning individual jurors,” Jeanette told him, which was no surprise to any of them, considering the press coverage of the last week.

The judge looked at Kevin, who had no basis to object.

“I have no objection, Your Honor.”

“All right, we’ll question jurors one at a time. I’ve also decided I’m going to sequester this jury. Considering the press coverage already, I don’t think they can avoid the media saturation. If you have any objections, state them on the record now.”

Neither Jeanette nor Kevin had an objection.

“Last thing before we start bringing jurors in. There’s a three-ring circus about to start out there in the street. You folks are seasoned trial lawyers. I don’t need to tell you what your ethical obligations are, and I don’t think I need to impress upon either of you that this is the proper forum to try your case, not the court of public opinion out there.”

Both lawyers assured him that they understood.

“All right, have you had an opportunity to look at the first twenty juror questionnaires?” Each juror had filled out a questionnaire stating their occupation, marital status, whether they’d been a juror before or a participant in a lawsuit—preliminary information for the lawyers.

“Yes, Your Honor,” they both answered.

“All right, we’ll take a break after the first twenty. Let’s bring in our first juror.”

Nathan Smith, a middle-aged black man, was the first prospective juror. He was brought in and seated by the bailiff in the juror’s box. There was nobody else in the courtroom but Mr. Smith, the lawyers, Billy, the court clerk, the court reporter, the bailiff, two sheriff’s deputies standing close enough to Billy that they could grab him if he attempted to escape, and Judge Thorpe.

Jeanette was going to question Mr. Smith first.

Although he agreed in general with his father’s opinion that they just needed working people, Kevin had separated those working people into categories. They were stereotypes, he knew, but stereotypes were a good way to begin jury selection. He didn’t necessarily want retirees. They tended to be conservative and supportive of the State no matter what the circumstances. Since they were out of the workforce, they didn’t identify as strongly with the working person. Women tended to be more emotional, which was good, while men could identify more with the urge to shoot a guy like Roy Johnson, which was better. Blacks had always been screwed by the system so they were more likely to be sympathetic toward Billy. Kevin had that thought in mind as he listened to the answers to Jeanette’s questions.

Jeanette had one primary goal during jury selection—tell the jurors Roy Johnson was a bad man and get a commitment from each of them that they would convict the murderer of a bad man, no matter how bad that man was. Nathan Smith was the first test.

“Have you heard about this case, Mr. Smith?”

“Yes, I have.”

“And what did you hear?”

“I heard this fellow made a lot of money—millions—and then he left his company, and all those working people lost their jobs and their pensions.”

“And what do you know about the defendant?”

“Just that he was one of those working people.”

“Knowing what you know, Mr. Smith, do you think you could be a fair and impartial juror in this case?”

“Hell, no,” Nathan Smith replied.

“And why is that, Mr. Smith?”

“Because if I was one of those employees, I’d have wanted to shoot the bastard myself. Excuse my language, Your Honor.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Smith,” the judge replied.

It went on like that all day with Jeanette searching for the few who said they could be impartial and then testing that statement.

With Eleanor Brown she asked, “You say you can be fair and impartial even if the deceased victim was a bad man—a person who caused people to lose their livelihood and their life savings—why do you say that?”

“Because we have a system of justice. We have courts and judges. If everybody took the law into their own hands, what would we have? Chaos.”

For Jeanette, Eleanor Brown was a keeper.

When it was Kevin’s turn, he asked the questions he needed the answers to.

“Ms. Brown, you obviously believe in our system of justice, correct?”

“I most certainly do.”

“And you believe in our laws?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“And if the law says that the State of Florida has the burden of proof in a criminal case—and that burden of proof is to the exclusion of every reasonable doubt—will you follow that law?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Will you hold the State to its burden?”

“Yes.”

“Do you understand that the defendant does not even have to put on a witness to testify?”

“I didn’t know that.”

“If the State has not met its burden—guilt beyond a reasonable doubt—the defendant does not have to put on a witness. Can you follow the law and find for the defendant, even if he does not put on a single witness?”

“Yes, I can.” Eleanor was getting a little fired up.

“Now, the defense anticipates at this point that we may put on some witnesses but the defendant is not going to testify. Did you know, Ms. Brown, that a defendant has a constitutional right not to testify?”

“I think I did. Yes.”

“And if the law says that you cannot hold that against him—the fact that he does not take the stand and testify—can you do that?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Will you do that?”

“Yes, I will.”

Eleanor Brown was a juror Kevin could live with.

As Kevin figured, it took three days. But at the end of the third day, they had twelve jurors and two alternates. Of the twelve, eight were men, four were women. The two alternates were a man and a woman.

The fireworks were about to begin.

Kevin called his father every evening to give him a rundown of the day’s events and the jurors that had been selected that day.

“She’s really good,” he told his father about Jeanette at the end of the first day. “Very thorough. She paints Roy Johnson as the Boston Strangler and then asks each juror if they can convict the person who killed him. When somebody says yes, she tests them to make sure they have a valid reason for their answer.”

“I’m sure you’re working them over just as thoroughly,” Tom said.

T
he crowd outside the courthouse on Thursday morning was much larger than it had been on the previous three days for one important reason: The courtroom was going to be open to spectators that day. They started lining up well before eight. It was a madhouse outside with the crowds and the talking heads and the microphone platform on the courthouse steps.

To her credit, Jeanette avoided the media as much as possible, just like Kevin. Every morning and every evening she appeared before the microphones and gave a terse statement. She avoided answering all but the simplest questions that could be answered with a yes or a no.

Kevin only showed up at the end of the day to say it was a good day, no matter what happened inside. He didn’t need to say anything. The newspaper and television reporters had dug up as much dirt on Roy Johnson as could be found and saturated the airwaves and print with the information.

Today, Jeanette wore a wheat-colored linen suit with a tailored white shirt. She softened the no-nonsense look with a colorful silk scarf. Not too bright but pretty enough so the jury would like her. Kevin tried not to notice what she wore and how the soft lines and curves of her body contrasted with the rigid, painful architecture of the courtroom itself. He had to concentrate on what she said and how she said it and the witnesses she called and when she called them. Somewhere there was going to be a weakness—an opening—that he could exploit.

It was the full show inside the packed courtroom on Thursday morning. At the appropriate moment when the doors were closed and everybody was getting a little antsy, the bailiff yelled, “All rise,” and everybody stood at attention as Judge Thorpe, dressed in his black robe, lumbered in and took his place at the throne.

“Be seated,” he said as he himself sat. He had a thick, meaty voice that befitted his countenance. “Counsel, are we ready to proceed?” he asked the lawyers.

“The State is ready, Your Honor.”

“The defendant is ready, Your Honor.”

“Before we bring in the jury let me say a few words to our gallery. This is a court of law. It is not a television studio or a sports event. You are allowed to be here because as observers you are an important participant in our judicial process. However, you must remain silent at all times. You must not react in any way to the testimony of witnesses because that could influence the jury. You must not talk among yourselves. If any one of you cannot do this, your privilege to be here will be revoked and you will be removed from the courtroom by a court officer. If you as a group do not follow the rules, you will all be removed. Does everybody understand?”

The gallery nodded almost in unison.

The judge looked at the bailiff. “Bring in the jury,” he told him.

A minute later the twelve jurors and two alternates filed into the courtroom and sat at their previously assigned seats in the jury box. When they were all seated, the judge addressed them.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are now going to begin the formal phase of the trial. In a moment the lawyers are going to address you in opening statements, where they are going to tell you what they intend to prove or what the evidence will show or not show. After opening statements are made, you will hear from witnesses who will testify under oath from this chair.” The judge took a moment to point at a leather chair, immediately to his left but a few feet lower than his dais.

“It is important that you understand that what the lawyers say is not evidence. The only evidence that you can consider is the testimony from the witnesses who appear here and the documentary material that is admitted into evidence. The lawyers may try and put this evidence together for you, but you are the decision makers as to the facts. You are free to accept what they say or not.

“Ms. Truluc, are you ready to proceed?”

Jeanette stood up. “Yes, Your Honor.”

She then walked to the podium, which faced the jury, and addressed them. “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. You all know me from our previous discussions over the last few days. My name is Jeanette Truluc and I represent the people of the State of Florida in this proceeding.

“What I’m going to do this morning in my opening statement is give you an outline and a timeline of what we intend to prove, and I’m going to tell you who the witnesses are and what I expect they will say.

“As you know, the defendant, William Fuller, stands accused of the murder of Roy Johnson on April tenth of this year. You will hear evidence supporting this accusation from a variety of independent sources.

“You will hear sworn testimony from Sylvia Johnson, the victim Roy Johnson’s wife, that her husband did not come to bed on the evening of April tenth of this year. He had a habit in the evening of taking a walk down Gladestown Road, which was adjacent to their home. She was usually asleep when he came to bed.

“When she awoke on the morning of April eleventh, he wasn’t in bed and it was apparent he had not slept in the bed that night. This had never happened before. She immediately reported his disappearance to Carlisle Buchanan, the sheriff department’s auxiliary police officer stationed in Gladestown. She told Officer Buchanan that her husband was wearing black shorts and a white silk shirt on the night he disappeared.

“On April twelfth, Auxiliary Officer Buchanan inspected the waters on both sides of Gladestown Road. He found a large piece of black cloth and the front quarter of a white silk shirt with the pocket still intact, hanging on some mangrove trees in the swamp on the east side of Gladestown Road. Mrs. Johnson identified those two items as similar to the material in her husband’s shorts and shirt. On April fifteenth, Officer Buchanan returned to the same area where they had found the clothing, this time with homicide Detective Vern Fleming, and found the deceased victim’s wallet with his driver’s license and credit cards intact.”

It was good strategy on Jeanette’s part, Kevin thought, to use a timeline. It gave substance to a circumstantial evidence case and made it appear stronger at the outset. As she continued, Jeanette moved gracefully away from the podium and closer to the jury panel. Kevin saw the eight men’s eyes go with her.
Damn! Eight men—what the hell was I thinking?
he said to himself.

“On April twenty-fifth,” Jeanette continued with her timeline, “Officer Buchanan learned from a local restaurant owner, Rose Maddon, that a high school boy, Frederick Jenkins, had witnessed a hit-and-run accident on Gladestown Road the night of April tenth. Prior to this time, the assumption was that Johnson may have been the victim of an alligator that snatched him off the road. That same day, Officer Buchanan interviewed Frederick Jenkins, and he confirmed that he had indeed witnessed a hit-and-run on Gladestown Road on the night of April tenth at approximately eleven thirty and he added additional details. The victim was walking on the opposite side of the road back toward town. His back was to the car. The car crossed the road to strike him. Young Mr. Jenkins described the car as an old gray Honda.”

Jeanette kept at her timeline.

“On the morning of May second, which was a Monday, George Russo, a bartender at a bar called the Last Stop, which is adjacent to the Verona Inn in Verona, came into the sheriff’s office in Gladestown and reported to Officer Buchanan that a man left his bar on the evening of April tenth at approximately eleven in the evening after drinking heavily all night, saying he was going to, quote, ‘kill him tonight.’ The man drove an old gray Toyota. He had been coming into the bar for a week.

“That same day, homicide Detective Vern Fleming went to the Verona Inn and looked through the registrations for the second week in April. He was looking for anyone who had paid in cash. If you don’t have false identification, the only way you can register with a false name is to pay in cash and not show identification. He found a man named Tom Jones. When he looked up Tom Jones’s registration card, there was no address or driver’s license number on it. Tom Jones was registered at the hotel from April seventh to April eleventh. However, the hotel had a policy of hand recording the license plates of the cars in the parking lot on a daily basis. Detective Fleming got those records for the second week in April and found that an old gray Toyota registered to the defendant, William Fuller, was in the parking lot at the Verona Inn from April seventh through April eleventh. Mr. Fuller was not registered at the hotel.”

Jeanette stood to the right of the jurors with her hand on the bar that separated them. She knew exactly what she was doing. Taking them through a timeline was a little tedious. By moving around, she forced them to follow her with their eyes. It was a tactic to keep them focused, although the men didn’t need any prodding.

“On May third, Detective Fleming got a copy of William Fuller’s picture from the state driver’s license bureau, put it in a photo pack with ten other pictures, and presented the photo pack to Mr. Russo the next day, May fourth. Mr. Russo immediately identified Fuller as the man who left his bar on the evening of April tenth and who had been in his bar all week.

“Detective Fleming then proceeded to find out who William Fuller was. Mr. Fuller lived in St. Albans, Florida, a city in northwest Florida, for those who are unfamiliar with it. For twenty years he worked for a company called Dynatron. The deceased victim, Roy Johnson, had been the founder and CEO of Dynatron for twenty years. In 2002, Mr. Johnson left the company, cashing in his stock and receiving a payout exceeding one hundred million dollars. In 2003, the company went bankrupt. Mr. Fuller lost his $750,000 pension plan, his health insurance, and his job. A year later his wife died of leukemia and his best friend, also an employee of Dynatron who lost everything, committed suicide.

“On April first, nine days before Mr. Johnson was murdered, the defendant, William Fuller, and his two children were forced to leave the family home, where he had lived with his wife and where his children had been born, due to foreclosure.”

She was back at the podium now.

“I have described to you the State’s case. William Fuller had a motive to kill Roy Johnson and the opportunity, and the evidence will show that he did so beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Kevin watched the jurors follow her back to her chair with their eyes. It was not a good omen.

Statistically, studies showed that many jurors decide about guilt or innocence early in a case, despite the admonitions of the court to keep an open mind until the conclusion of all the evidence. Jeanette had set out to convince as many jurors as possible to make up their minds before she finished her opening statement and before Kevin had an opportunity to say a word.

Billy leaned over and whispered in Kevin’s ear, “Jesus, she’s good.”

“Yeah,” Kevin replied, trying to get his thoughts together.

“Mr. Wylie?” the judge said to Kevin, who immediately stood up.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” he said as he approached the podium.

Kevin was a little over six feet tall with blue-gray eyes and thick brown hair. He was dressed in a blue suit that fit his athletic frame well. Like Jeanette, he was not hard on the eyes and he had an easygoing, affable manner in the courtroom. However, he knew affability was not going to cut it today. He had to give this jury something of substance to get their minds back open.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As you know, I represent Mr. William Fuller, the defendant in this case.”

At that moment, as prearranged, Kevin turned to look at Billy and had Billy stand up and look at the jury.
“Try to make eye contact with each juror,”
Kevin had told him earlier. Billy did his best and then sat down as Kevin turned his attention back to the jurors.

“That was a very impressive opening by the prosecutor—so straight and narrow, with times and dates. Very convincing. Unfortunately, this case, as most things in life, does not slip easily into an airtight package of dates and times and names. For instance, Ms. Truluc told you about William Fuller and his motive. It’s the same motive as the twenty thousand other employees of Dynatron who lost everything—not to mention the shareholders, some of whom lost millions—might have had. How many of them drive gray cars that weren’t bought last year and might, therefore, be considered old? Where were those twenty thousand other people on the night of April tenth?”

At that moment Jeanette stood up as he hoped she would. It was a weak argument he was making and he needed her help. He needed the jury to think she was trying to stop him from giving them information.

“Objection, Your Honor,” Jeanette said. “This is not relevant. Twenty thousand other people are not on trial. Mr. Fuller is.”

“Sustained,” Judge Thorpe said, as Kevin knew he would.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” he said to the judge as if he had won the point. He turned back to the jurors and smiled. It was time to bring up Randy Winters and Bobby Joe Sellers and their connection to Roy Johnson. He had to be very careful since he wasn’t sure what that connection was.

“You already heard from counsel for the prosecution that Roy Johnson left his company, Dynatron, a year before it folded and took a hundred million dollars with him. You are also going to hear testimony that Roy Johnson left another place just before the curtain came down, so to speak. In 1982, Roy Johnson lived in Gladestown, Florida. He abruptly left one month before a massive drug bust that netted fifty percent of the male population of that town. The drug bust happened because of a tip from a confidential informant.”

Jeanette was on her feet again as Kevin knew she would be.

“Objection, Your Honor. Relevancy.”

“Approach,” the judge said to the two lawyers who approached the bench out of hearing distance from the jury. The judge went right after Kevin.

“Tell me again what this drug bust in 1982 has to do with this case, Mr. Wylie?” he asked.

“The kingpin of that drug ring, Randy Winters, got out of jail April fourth of this year, less than a week before Roy Johnson was killed. We believe Roy Johnson may have been the confidential informant who caused the drug bust to occur, giving Winters a huge motive for revenge. I have Winters and his attorney, Bernie Stang, and Bobby Joe Sellers, who also received a significant prison sentence in that bust, under subpoena.”