When Cyberspace Comes Back to Bite

by Diane Dimond

How many times do we have to be told? When you write an e-mail or send a text message (or photo), it lives on in cyberspace and could easily come back to haunt you in a big, bad way.

I know that texting on your own cell phone or sitting at your personal computer, writing down your thoughts, then hitting the send button may feel like a private activity but it’s actually one of the most public activities you can do. Once your communication hits the digital super-highway it is full speed ahead into immortality.

This lesson was shoved in our face again this week with yet another disgorgement of classified U.S. documents at the Internet site WikiLeaks.

It began back in April when WikiLeaks’ leader, 39-year-old Australian Julian Assange (below, right), began a campaign to embarrass the U.S. regime by posting secret military video and diplomatic memos designed to show how wickedly America has conducted its War on Terror. It’s believed that a troubled 22-year-old U.S. Army Private named Bradley Manning (below left) was the source of much of the leaked information. Manning was an intelligence analyst deployed in Iraq who reportedly copied hundreds of thousands of classified items onto computer discs and then slipped them to WikiLeaks. Exactly why he had such unfettered access and why he felt compelled to reveal U.S. secrets will surely come up at his trial on charges of mishandling classified information and misuse of government computers. I believe Manning should be charged with treason.

So, if the government can’t keep computer messages safe what chance do we have with our own personal or business communications? The short answer is: not much. But there’s a new service called TigerText which offers important control over what we send out via the Internet.

Jeffery Evans, CEO of TigerText, says his is a breakthrough service that gives the sender of a message the peace of mind knowing it cannot be copied or forwarded to another. And with TigerText’s network you’ll be able to designate a life expectancy to each text you send. Like on the old Mission Impossible TV show, each communique will self destruct after a certain period of time--from one minute after it is opened to several days later, whatever time frame you choose. The text can never be retrieved--not even by court order--because it will no longer exist on TigerText’s server.

This is important stuff because traditional e-mail is quickly being replaced by the faster mobile phone texting. According to an industry estimate Americans send some six billion text messages each day, teens average 3,339 texts per month, with 740 billion text messages sent in the first half of this year. Because they are often written quickly, flippantly, in the heat of the moment or at a crucial time during a legal, labor or business negotiation they are even more susceptible to being used nefariously.

There are countless examples of texts being used against the author in court including those involving angry spouses arguing over divorce or child custody. A Texas bank teller was accused of texting a robber ahead of time to coordinate the crime, and Detroit’s Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was caught up in perjury charges after denying an affair with a staffer and being confronted with a multitude of steamy texts he’d written to her.

TigerText’s Evans says Hollywood celebrities and top-tier professional athletes--ever mindful of the paparazzo’s relentless efforts to tap into their private communications--have signed up for his new service. They’re thrilled that their communications can’t be sent on to others and within a minute of a recipient opening their message it disappears. If only Tiger Woods had known about TigerText, he might have avoided the sex-captured-on-text scandal with his multiple girlfriends.

Parents are discovering they can establish what is, in effect, a private texting network for their family which gives them the ability to monitor everything that flows in and out of their child’s account. “With TigerText, they can stop cyberbullying in its tracks,” Evans told me.

Julian Assange vows that his next target will be big business. He plans for WikiLeaks to reveal all sorts of proprietary business secrets in the months ahead. His supporters have attacked American credit card companies for refusing to do business with WikiLeaks. Last week Bank of America stock tumbled on fears that WikiLeaks was about to reveal its sub-prime housing loan practices and possibly incriminate B of A in a fraud scheme.

The potential monetary damage that could be done by divulging clandestine corporate communications is mind boggling. That’s why big business has also turned to TigerText for help to keep their maneuvers permanently private with no pesky paper or digital trail to worry about.

As technology developments bring us new ways to protect our communications it also brings new ways for the mischief-minded and the criminal to take advantage of us. We can sign up for TigerText and any other new system that comes along but in the end the best protection is within. If you wouldn’t want an outsider to read your words--or a court of law to use them against you--for goodness sakes don’t write them down in the first place!

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Full Circle

by Donna Pendergast

“Oh, my God, it was him,” I thought to myself as a cold shiver ran down my spine one afternoon at work in 2002.

The memories all flooded back in a rush. “Oh, my God, it was him.”

The time was the school year starting in the fall of 1980. The place was the University of Michigan campus located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The climate was one of tension and fear.

I was a senior at the university and lived at South Quad, one of the largest dormitories on campus. I was a resident advisor (RA) on the fifth floor of the dorm and got free room and board for acting as an advisor/mentor to all the students on my assigned hallway. Every one of them was an incoming freshman that fall semester. Their names, for the most part, have now long since faded from memory, but I’m sure that there is one memory we all still retain and that is the memory of being in fear. A killer who would be dubbed the “Sunday Morning Slasher” was killing women on and near campus and the campus was in a state of high alert.

As a Resident Advisor it was my job, amongst other things, to make sure that the girls on my hallway took safety seriously. That year the job was easy. There was a shadow over the campus, four women had been killed and everyone was scared.

We all went about our normal campus activities but there were signs of tension everywhere. I kept a sign up sheet outside my dorm to pair women up for night time excursions to the library and other campus events. The men in the dorm were volunteering to escort women to and from nighttime activities. Another volunteer service was posting a phone number all around campus that women could call for a free ride if they got caught out after dark. If you were a female and you lived in Ann Arbor that year, plain and simple, you didn’t walk alone at night. A killer of women was out there and although then nameless he was very real to everyone on campus.

I foolishly risked a nighttime walk only once that year and I still remember that walk like it was yesterday. Caught late at night at an athlete’s party that had degenerated into a rowdy free for all, I wanted to go home and my friends wanted to stay. They stayed behind and I left risking a mile long walk home at 2:00 am. I remember the fear and jitters as I looked over my shoulder every two steps as I walked home through a desolate area of campus on that dark night. I was lucky, I made it back to the dorm safely. I never knew how lucky until many years later.

Fast forward some twenty two years later. The former Resident Advisor is now a prosecutor working in the Wayne County, Michigan, Prosecutors office. I was the Principal Trial Lawyer and a supervisor in the Homicide Unit the day I got a fateful call that was about to bring all those long suppressed frightening memories rushing back in a flash.

A reporter from Texas called the prosecutors office wondering what the state of Michigan was doing about Coral Eugene Watts. Coral Eugene who? I thought as I began the research to find out what I could about this serial murderer who was allegedly going to be released from prison in Texas. What I was about to find out was far more frightening and horrific than any of us had ever dreamed of back in the school year of 1980 - 1981.

Some twenty two years later the Sunday Morning Slasher now had a name to me, Coral Eugene Watts, (pictured right) and what I was about to learn about Coral Eugene Watts was far scarier than the plot of any grade B horror movie. Coral Eugene Watts had been the nameless, faceless killer of my senior year. It had been him lurking in the campus shadows and he was a diabolical killing machine.

As it turns out, unbeknown to most of the students on campus, the Ann Arbor police had focused on Coral Eugene Watts at some point during that frightening school year after watching him follow a lone women walking on campus late one night. In fact, the subsequent dogged police surveillance of Watts caused him to leave Ann Arbor and head for Texas in March of 1981.

The Sunday Morning Slasher had left the University of Michigan campus but he wasn’t done with coeds and he wasn’t done killing. The trail that he left behind in Michigan was a bloody one. To this day we don’t know how many women were killed in Michigan but we know that there were many. After later being apprehended he admitted to one murder in Michigan but the police consider him to be the suspect in dozens more including the four women murdered in Ann Arbor. The trail that he was about to leave in Texas would become bloodier yet.

The police now believe that Coral Eugene Watts may have been the most prolific serial murderer in the history of the United States. This post would be pages and pages long if I were to attempt in any way to give you a taste of the monster that was Coral Eugene Watts. Suffice to say that his trail of murder and destruction almost defies comprehension.

After leaving Michigan, Watts surfaced in the Houston, Texas, area where he would begin a killing spree that would end only after he was apprehended in May of 1982. Between September of 1981 and May of 1982 Watts killed at least twelve women and probably many more than that. On the day of his apprehension Watts had already killed a 21 year old woman as she was returning home from her birthday celebration. A short time later he was in the process of killing two young women in their apartment when one of them dove off a second floor balcony to escape him. This caused Watts to flee right into the arms of police who were responding to calls about commotion in the apartment.

After Watts was apprehended the District Attorney in Houston and the police department made a plea bargain with him in an effort to resolve a number of open missing persons and murder cases that they couldn’t prove but believed were tied to Watts. After receiving full immunity Watts confessed to twelve Texas murders in great detail. He later led police to all the murder locations and to several undiscovered bodies as well.

Pursuant to the terms of the plea agreement Coral Eugene Watts pled guilty to Aggravated Burglary in the case of the two roommates. He was sentenced to sixty years in prison by a reluctant judge, the Honorable Douglas Shaver. The judge went along with the plea bargain because he understood the prosecution and police dilemma. Without Watts’ confession the crimes would have never been solved, but Watts wouldn’t give a statement without immunity for the murders. The sixty year sentence was a reassurance to everyone that Watts would spend the rest of his life in prison. Judge Shaver said at sentencing that it was his suggestion to the Department of Corrections that he be made to serve each and every minute of the sixty years that he had been sentenced to.

It wasn’t a perfect result but a monster was off the streets and everyone could breathe a sigh of relief –or could they?

Fast forward to September of 2002. Watts is scheduled for release from the Texas Department of Corrections in May 2006 because of the quintessential “technicality” one always hears about when they find out about a criminal getting off after committing a crime. This technicality is too complex to go in depth about in this post, suffice to say that it was based on a legal nuance that no one had ever anticipated or prepared for.

By the time I hear about the case, the state of Texas had exhausted all of it’s options to keep Watts in prison. Texas was looking to Michigan to review old cases where Watts was a suspect to see if anything was overlooked and whether there might be a viable Michigan case still out there.

After learning what I could about the monster that was Coral Eugene Watts, I called the Michigan State Police. An informal task force was formed to comb through almost two hundred old Michigan cases that were possibly tied to Watts. This informal task force contained myself from the Wayne County Prosecutors office and others. I was a participant because the bulk of cases suspected to be tied to Watts were from the Detroit area, which is within the jurisdiction of Wayne County. The Michigan State police and the Michigan Attorney General’s office were also a part of the task force, as were law enforcement members from various localities where murders suspected to be tied to Watts were located.

The task force effort was a frustrating one. We knew that Watts had committed a number of murders but we did not have sufficient proof to charge him on any of the cases. Lt. Bill Hanger of the Michigan State Police continued to comb through the cases but the clock was ticking towards May 2006 and nothing was screaming out on any of the cases other than the ticking clock. I began to dread the calls from Andy Kahan, the head of the Crime Victim’s Assistance Unit for the Mayors office in Houston because I had no good news to tell him.

I changed jobs from the Wayne County Prosecutors office to the Michigan Attorney General’s office in August of 2003, but I couldn’t escape Coral Eugene Watts or Andy Kahan. I took over the job of the lawyer handling the Michigan Attorney General’s end of the Watts' case so it was still mine just in a different forum.

TICK, TICK, TICK,…

A fortuitous break was about to occur much to everyone’s surprise.

On January 15, 2004, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox went on national TV on The Abrams Report to talk about Coral Eugene Watts and the ticking clock. The phone number to the Michigan Attorney General’s office Criminal Division was running across the bottom of the screen asking for persons to call if they had any information.

Call it divine intervention or whatever you will, Joseph Foy, a witness to a crime committed in Ferndale, Michigan, in 1979, was flipping through the channels and saw the footage of Watts being shown on The Abrams Report. Foy had come forward in 1981 identifying Watts after seeing footage on TV when Watts was apprehended in Texas. The case hadn’t been pursued in Michigan because Watts was expected to be locked up for the rest of his life in Texas. I, of course, didn’t know any of this at that time The Abrams Report aired.

The morning after the broadcast I went to work and found a pink message slip waiting. It said “Joseph Foy, saw one of Watts’ murders," along with a phone number.

“Sure you did," I instantly thought, having been frustrated over the case for so long.

I looked at my secretary and said one word “Wacko?"

She replied, "I don’t think so."

Before I returned the call to Joseph Foy, Lt. Hanger called to talk to me about the previous night’s broadcast on national TV. I mentioned the message that I had received and I can still hear the skepticism that I heard in Lt. Hangers voice when he said “Oh yeah?" I was skeptical as well, we had been frustrated at every turn for so long.

Later that day I returned Mr. Foy’s call. What I found on the other end was a lucid, coherent, well spoken individual who seemed to know what he was talking about. After that call I quickly called Lt. Hanger and spoke to him for the second time that day but this time things were different.

“I think we have our case” I told him.

We did indeed finally have our case. It wasn’t a perfect case, but it was a case and the gods were about to smile on us in a number of ways.

The original Ferndale Police Department file had been lost, but the Detroit Police Department had a full copy of the file from a task force effort on Watts, which occurred right after his arrest in Texas. The original composite sketch of the suspect which was drawn the day after the Ferndale murder, with Mr. Foy’s assistance, was in a box in the basement of the sketch artist who still worked for the county sheriff's department. What are the odds of that twenty two years later?

It wasn’t a great case. It was old and it was based on one witness, but it was a case. Complicated legal maneuvers later strengthened the case when the judge ruled that evidence of Watts’ murders in Texas could be admitted to show a pattern and scheme of behavior.


The trial was held in November 2004. The headline of the local paper on the first day of jury selection read as big and bold as if World War Three had just started. In large bold black type the headline screamed that Michigan was the last hope to keep this monster in prison. My first task of the day was a frantic call to the jail lockup area at the courthouse, which is manned by the county sheriff’s department. My plea to the deputy sheriff stationed at that post was to tape over the newspaper boxes in the courthouse to prevent potential jurors from seeing the headlines.

The trial was dramatic and stress filled. Many of the family members of victims from Watts' Texas murders attended the trial because this had become their trial as well. They were finally getting a chance to see Watts put away on a murder charge. The trial was broadcast live on Court TV and there were 32 other media agencies in attendance in a make shift media center set up at the courthouse. The pressure during the trial was enormous, the stakes were just so high. Suffice to say for the purpose of this post, I didn’t sleep much for a few weeks.


When we got word that the jury had a verdict my heart was beating so hard that I thought it was going to beat out of my chest. The words “Guilty of First Degree Murder” have never sounded so sweet.

In retrospect I often think about how strange it is that things all came together in the manner that they did. The fortuitous appearance of the Attorney General on national TV, the likelihood that Joseph Foy would be flipping through the channels at that very moment, and the way that we were able to reconstruct the file and locate the composite sketch in a basement box like we did.

However, nothing is as strange to me as the fact that the scared 22-year-old coed of my senior year in college ended up with the upper hand. How weird that I was the one who put the monster that was Coral Eugene Watts away for good. Who would have dreamed it back in the school year of 1980?

The hunter had become the hunted. All I can say is full circle.

Note: Coral Eugene Watts died of prostate cancer in a Michigan prison in September 2007.

Statements made in this post are my own and do not reflects the views, opinion or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

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'Tell Everyone we want to Bring Stacy Home For Christmas'

by Susan Murphy-Milano

About two months before the disappearance of Stacy Peterson, wife of former Bolingrook, Illinois, Police Sergeant, Drew Peterson, Stacy met with Pastor Neil Schori and had a conversation that likely will play out for the world when Pastor Schori testifies at Kathleen Savio’s murder trial sometime next year. Kathleen Savio, Drew’s third wife, as you remember, was found dead in a dry bathtub and probably would never have been heard from again had Stacy not gone missing. Drew Peterson is now on trial for her murder.

What is interesting is not so much the meeting in August 2007 with Pastor Schori, but when Stacy left to go home, Pastor Schori’s private line rang and on the other end was Drew Peterson. He called just to say hello and said he would call back to meet with the pastor at a later date in the near future. What Drew Peterson was really doing was saying, “Look, buddy, I know you just met with my wife, and I want you to know that I know,” therefore placing the pastor on notice that he, too, was being watched.

It was then, when Stacy Peterson returned home, that she was likely questioned by Drew as to why she met with him and what was said. Stacy likely did not flinch when he interrogated her, and although she sensed an impending danger, a smell change, as I call it, temporarily she disarmed him. She begins formulating a plan to end the marriage, feeling secure enough that her officer husband would not harm one hair on her head as it would sound the alarm connecting him to Kathleen’s murder should anything happen to her.

From the time the call was placed by Peterson to the pastor, he begins to show us his pattern of conduct leading up to, in my opinion, the murder of Stacy Peterson. The only way he would know for certain if Stacy was at the church that day is because he was stalking her. In the circus-like atmosphere the moment Stacy Peterson was reported missing, the focus was on finding her. No one ever remotely considered or looked at Drew Peterson’s pattern of conduct prior to October 28, 2007.

The documented patterns of his behavior go as far back to when he was married to Kathleen Savio, found dead in the former marital home in March 2004, and earlier, as letters and police reports written during their marriage document abuse toward her.

Peterson’s pattern of conduct is then served on a golden platter by the national media. His words during interviews are from a man who believes he has gotten away with murder, a second time. He tells us all, at the early stages of his new found celebrity in the fall of 2007, “she is where she wants to be.” No, what Peterson is telling us is that Stacy knew better and yet defied him anyway. For that he made her pay with her life. He is telling the world this was her choice.

Peterson’s actions reach back to the crime scene in 2004 of Kathleen Savio. He was familiar with his former wife’s schedule and comfortable enough with the layout of his former home to carry out a murder. In my opinion, it was the perfect crime to stage in the upstairs bathroom on a weekend when he had visitation with the kids; they were not in the house. Stacy, and who else was there? Did his oldest son, Steven, on Saturday, February 28, happen to stop by that weekend to enjoy a warm, fuzzy family night of pizza and movie? Did he have an alibi for that night?

Once fellow officers responded to the 911 call to the home of Kathleen Savio, did any of them wonder why Peterson didn’t just radio the station? He was still on duty and in uniform. How many of the officers responding to the call answered to Peterson because he was their supervisor? Drew Peterson’s pattern of conduct is important during the murder investigation. The crime scene is his stage at which he shines in being the master at manipulation and deception among those he works with everyday, fighting crime. Peterson gets away with the crime and moves forward with his life.

We don’t know Peterson’s pattern of conduct in the days leading up to Stacy’s disappearance and alleged murder. We do know that Stacy had confided in a neighbor about Drew moving out of the home. She set up an appointment with Harry Smith for a divorce consultation. She made a statement to her sister, considered hearsay, “if something happens to me it’s no accident;” the words Kathleen would write when she petitioned the court for an order of protection.

Peterson’s pattern of conduct and actions are important as it relates to Stacy Peterson. She can be placed in the marital home the morning she disappeared, so we know she and Peterson were in that house. From Sunday morning until the following day, there is a window of opportunity for Peterson, and when the coast is clear, in my opinion, he takes her out of the house. How far is he really going to drive? Does he go to one of two camp grounds with which he is familiar within an hour’s drive of the house? There are not a lot of traffic lights out that way so the route would likely be an easy drive. What about near his childhood home? Wherever he drove that night it was a safe and familiar area, known only to Peterson, a place he could go and not raise any suspicion, no different than when he murdered Kathleen in a home he once lived in.

Now, with another holiday season, the fourth to be exact, Stacy Peterson is still missing. She is missing from her children’s lives and the family and friends who continue to pray that she will be found and brought home.

Yesterday, I spoke with those whom knew and loved Stacy. In the background of my mind, I could hear The Grinch Who Stole Christmas playing. They proceeded to tell me, “No one man, including the Grinch, can destroy the hope and love that everyone has for those children! What Christmas does, it brings hope to those in need that no man, not even Drew, can put out.”

They went on to say, “The Grinch at least saw the errors of his ways. Even the Grinch has something on Drew and that is sad.”

"Holding on to hope, the light burns ever brighter that leads us to the truth and to Stacy because it is powered by prayer, love and the hope that Christmas brings.”

“Tell everyone we want to Bring Stacy Home for Christmas!”

On Monday, December 20, at 10 p.m. EST, A&E Biography is presenting a show about Drew Peterson. I was interviewed extensively, speaking out from my own point of view on the man I’ve come to know through many sources. My only wish is that I spoke in truth, and for the two wives of Drew Peterson who can no longer speak for themselves.

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The Defense Takes the Floor

by Kathryn Casey

In our ongoing series of WCI interviews, we last talked with Donna Pendergast about the ins and outs of being a prosecutor. Today, the tables have turned, and the defense takes over the courtroom, or, perhaps I should have said, our blog. WCI contributor, renown defense attorney Katherine Scardino has agreed to answer our queries. It's always been my view that there are a lot of people who misunderstand the role of a defense attorney and, perhaps, underestimate or even dismiss all they do for our system of justice. So this is our turn to hear from an insider what it's like sitting in the courtroom next to a client on trial for murder, knowing that if you lose, that person may die.

KC: Why did you become a criminal defense lawyer?

KS: I was so excited to finally get my college degree (in 1979) at a “more mature” age than most college graduates, that frankly, I wanted to go further. I was aware that I could not do much with a degree in political science. My husband at the time was a defense lawyer, and I had gone to court to watch him in trial. Not only was I influenced by Robert, but there was also a female lawyer named Jan Fox, who I idolized at the time. She was a lawyer representing a co-defendant in a federal case my husband tried, and I went to federal court to watch some of the proceedings. I saw her as well organized (more so than the male lawyers), well spoken, smart--and a female yet! So, she became my “goal,” so to speak. I wanted to help people--which is the standard answer to this question--but I also wanted to be a woman doing a job well that had generally been done by men.

KC: What do you think is the most common misconception about your profession?

KS: I think the most common misconception about what I do for a living is the idea that defense lawyers are doing something immoral by representing guilty people. People feel that those who are charged with heinous crimes--murder, robbery or, even worse, crimes against children of any type--should not have due process. These people, it is felt by most, do not deserve any consideration. Just find them guilty and put them in prison and what does it matter that they are not afforded the generally accepted ideals of constitutional rights.

KC: Do you think most people really understand the importance of a criminal defense attorney’s role in our justice system?

KS: Some people do, but most do not. The perception that criminal defense attorneys are protecting “your” rights as well as the rights of the defendant is just not something citizens grasp until I tell them in voir dire (jury selection).

KC: If people would look at you today, polished, a highly educated and successful woman, would they understand, do you think, the poverty you came from?

KS: No, I do not think it would be something that would come to mind today. I do not discuss it, nor is it a subject that anyone else asks about. There have been articles about me that have discussed those environmental issues while I was growing up, but most people do not think about that. A person hiring me only wants to know what I can do for them. Remember, these are people who are in crisis. They do not care about me or my background--only if I am able to help them get out of this crisis situation.

KC: I know that you’ve said that you were a victim of sexual abuse as a child. That seems like something more likely to make one a prosecutor than a defense attorney. Does it impact the way you see those charged with similar crimes? How about the way you see victims? In what way?

KS: Oddly enough, I never remembered anything about being sexually abused as a child until I was about 40 years old and already a lawyer. I remember the day. I was at home in the early morning hours watching the Today Show, and the subject was child sexual abuse. The guest was a mental health expert talking about how such abuse affects the victims.

I felt like someone had punched me in the abdomen. It hit me like a ton of bricks. That was me! I had repressed all those bad memories as a child, but then I remembered everything and it was amazing. I began to cry, then stopped and wondered if wallowing around in self-pity was what I really wanted to do. From that point forward, I have believed that people who have suffered some kind of abuse or injustice during their formative years can do one of two things - they can wallow around in self pity and play the victim game or set it aside and rise above it. No one wants to hear anyone else complaining about something that happened 20, 30 or 40 years before. It just should not be relevant. That is not to say that the abused person does not have feelings about what happened, but people must deal with it in their own way without being a “whiner” in other’s eyes. Most unattractive.

Those are my thoughts about the abuse itself and how I chose to handle it. You ask whether, based on what happened to me, I should have been a prosecutor. I think under other circumstances, I might have been. But, I was married to a criminal defense attorney (since age 26), so my leaning was toward criminal defense.

Does my experience impact on the way I handle child abuse cases now? In a word, no. I understand fully that my job is not to make moral decisions. I represent people who wish to hire me to help them in the most critical times of their lives. The victims of child abuse are not victims until a jury says so. And, regardless of general opinion, there have been many cases of false allegations. So, both the state prosecution and the defense attorney should take a cold, hard look at the evidence and accusations in each case.


KC: What is the most important quality for a criminal defense attorney?

KS: Unlike most other attorneys, I feel that the most important quality for me is my passion for the case. I have been criticized that I take each case personally, and that is certainly true. If I feel that a person has been wrongly charged, I will not rest until I have done everything possible to prove his innocence or to get the case dismissed by the prosecution. If I feel that the police or some other agency has committed unconstitutional acts against my client, I will fight for the suppression of that evidence. For example, if the police coerced a defendant to make a statement; if there is evidence of the state withholding exculpatory evidence, then that is fodder for my passion against injustice. I cannot understand how a lawyer can represent another individual without knowing everything about that person so that he can feel how that person felt under certain circumstances and, most importantly, get that feeling across to the jury.

KC: I’ve had some attorneys tell me that they never ask if their client is guilty. They don’t want to know. Others that they have to know to mount a defense, with today’s forensic evidence. Do you ask? Why or why not?

KS: I think defense lawyers say they don’t need to know because that sounded good years ago. However, you are correct - in today’s world with DNA and other forensic sciences, the defense lawyer has to know what to expect in a trial--and how to rebut it. If there is a possibility of DNA on the victim’s clothes, then the lawyer must know how and why.

KC: If you have a client who is obviously guilty, who has committed a horrendous act, does it change the way you view your role? Does it change the way you try the case?

KS: Of course it does. If the evidence is strong against my client, then I have to either find a way to explain the evidence to convince a jury that the evidence does not rise to the level of “beyond a reasonable doubt," the standard in Texas in a criminal case, or considering whether to attempt to work out a plea bargain with the state. If that becomes impossible, then it may be that the only chance my client has of a lesser sentence (sometimes other than death or life without parole) is in the punishment hearing, where the defense lawyer can present evidence to the jury regarding a client’s background, mental health or medical history, etc. - called “mitigation.”

KC: You won the first acquittal in a capital murder case in Harris County in over 20 years, with the Joe Durrett case. This in a county that at the time had what some called a “death machine.” How do you view the death penalty? I’ve read that you once believed in it but that you aren’t so sure any longer. Is that true? What do you see as alternatives?

KS: Years ago, I did believe that sometimes a person did something so heinous that I could personally pull the switch on the electric chair, or in today’s environment, inject the lethal concoction to stop his or her heartbeat. Those people just did not deserve to live in our world where the rest of us followed the law, worked and provided for our families, had a belief and moral system that made up a structured world where we all could live together.

But, over the years and after handling around 45 capital murder cases, I have come to the conclusion that while the death penalty may be appropriate in some cases, my state, Texas, should not have a death penalty under the current system. It just is not administered fairly. We have 254 counties in the State of Texas and 254 different systems of whether a prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty.

For example, a person could kill someone in Harris County (Houston) and be charged with capital murder. If he commits the same crime in one of the other 253 counties, that same person may--or may not--be charged with capital murder. The decision rests solely with the district attorney in that particular county - and money. Can the county afford to pay for a capital murder trial? They have to pay for defense lawyers, experts, prosecutors, judge, court reporter and a myriad of other costs associated with trials. In some cases, a capital murder trial can cost around $1 million. Some smaller counties simply cannot afford it. Is that fair?

KC: The Durrett case was an amazing accomplishment. I wonder if you got the attention from it that you would have had had you been a man? Sometimes, it seems, women’s victories are diminished. Did this happen in this case?

KS: Only a woman would ask this question. The answer is a resounding “yes.” The Durrett case was tried in 1997, and as a member of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, an association that recognizes outstanding accomplishments by its members, I felt that they would do something. In 1998, Mike Ramsey, another defense lawyer in Houston, won an acquittal in the Robert Angleton case here in Houston. Angleton was accused of hiring his brother to kill his wife in his River Oaks home, the wealthiest neighborhood in Houston. TCDLA, awarded Mike Ramsey “Lawyer of the Year”--and to top it off, he accepted the award as having had the “first acquittal in a death capital in Texas in 25 years.” I sat in the audience amazed that no one said anything to correct this - or maybe no one cared. Unfortunately, I still believe that women today do not get the same recognition - or pay - that men get for the same job. For me, the glass ceiling is not broken.

KC: Most of those who follow the headlines would agree that it’s obvious there are innocent men and women in our prisons. A year or more ago, you and I were out together, and you told me about a case of yours, Anthony Graves (photo right), who’d been convicted of participating in the horrific murders of an entire family. On Texas’ death row, Graves won an appeal, and you were going to represent him in a new trial, one that could either result in his freedom or his execution. That night you told me repeatedly that you knew your client was innocent. What’s it like when you believe your client is unfairly charged and his very life is in your hands?

KS: It is an awesome responsibility. The closer to a capital trial, the less sleep I get. I keep asking myself if I have done everything I should have done; what else can I do? Am I really ready to go to trial? Maybe we should get a reset again? It goes back to that passion I mentioned earlier in another question. By the trial day, I am truly a basket case--but after 26-plus years, I now realize that once the jury is seated, and I actually start, everything smooths out and I go to work. There is no more time for the luxury of being nervous. And, I have convinced myself that when I speak to the jury, I am actually just talking to people. They are just people who have their own life’s experiences, just like all of us do. So, I have to ferret out what those experiences are that might impact how they would look at my client and the facts of this specific case.


But, you mentioned Anthony Graves. I was convinced early that Anthony Graves was an innocent man. It really did not take much. All it required was a thorough, competent investigation of the case. My team had a wonderful investigator who could answer all questions. We all were convinced he was innocent. But, that conviction within each of us was a torment. How to convince the prosecutors to dismiss? It did not take long for us to realize that was not going to happen. Or how to convince a jury to find a death row inmate innocent of a crime that occurred 18 years ago? If we had a trial, it would have been an enormous hill to climb, and frankly, I am not sure the jury would have found him not guilty.

Remember, “not guilty” simply means “not proven” beyond a reasonable doubt, but it would have been difficult for any jury to let him go. After all, six people were brutally murdered. But there was NO evidence Anthony Graves had anything at all to do with the crime, plus the prosecutor in his trial withheld evidence and intimidated witnesses not to testify on his behalf. Combined it seems that it should have been enough to convince even the most hardened prosecutor in Texas that he was actually innocent, which it eventually did.

KC: After 18 years behind bars, this past October Graves was set free. Due to your hard work, that of the rest of his defense team, and the conviction of a former WCI contributor, prosecutor Kelly Siegler, who looked at the case as she prepared it for trial, and came to the same conclusion you had, that Graves was an innocent man. As you've said above, there was, in fact, never any evidence connecting Graves to the crime. What should be done with prosecutors who ignored the truth or manufactured evidence where there isn’t any?

KS: This question is easy. Prosecutors take an oath to see that justice is done. They do not swear to get a conviction in every case. I believe that when prosecutors sway off course, away from their oath of office, they should be prosecuted - just as a defense lawyer would be if that defense lawyer committed intentional illegal acts to see that a person was freed. The State Bar of Texas refused to accept a complaint against the prosecutor who did all those things to Anthony Graves in 1992 through 1994. Charles Sebesta probably thinks he is home free with the absolute immunity that he has now. But, he does not understand the tenacity of the lawyers representing Anthony Graves. That will be something to watch in the future.

KC: Admittedly, many of those who commit crimes have endured difficult lives, often of poverty, and sometimes terrible abuse. How do you think this should be considered in a trial? At what point does it become relevant?

KS: Our law provides that only in the punishment hearing does evidence of a defendant’s background, mental health, abuse, etc. become relevant. Defense lawyers are required, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, to competently and thoroughly investigate the client’s background and to produce mitigation evidence. If we do not do that, we may be found to have provided ineffective assistance of counsel. Mitigation evidence can mean the difference between death and life without parole.

KC: In the Calvin McGee case, you had a client who’d clearly committed a horrendous murder, shooting a woman through the head as she sat in her car. McGee was convicted, and in sentencing his life was on the line. You addressed the jury, explaining that your client had suffered emotional, physical, and sexual abuse while growing up in abject poverty. At one point you asked, “How can you expect someone to crawl out of that environment?” Despite your pleading for his life, McGee was sentenced to death. What do you think that says about our society?

KS: This was my first death sentence, and I was very upset about this verdict. I had spent enough time with Calvin to know exactly what happened in the incident. I knew his family; I had been to their home. It was hard to hear those words after a heartfelt plea for him to be able to live in a box in a Texas prison for the rest of his life. What would it have hurt to let him live? It would have been cheaper on the taxpayers for him to live. What is wrong with having this person be alive, living in a 10-foot by 10-foot space, with a slot in the door where a guard pushes a tin plate through it during your three meals a day. And, there is no human contact. There have been many articles written about the results of having no human contact. It does not take long for a person to decompensate to the point of being mentally ill after a total withdrawal of all contact with other people. Do jurors think they would be doing him a favor by letting him live like that? I have never understood the need to kill. We kill people who kill people. Amazing!

KC: Katherine, should we routinely consider childhood abuse and poverty when assessing punishment for crimes, especially murder? Don’t many people go through similar experiences and live good lives? In fact, haven’t you done what you said McGee couldn’t be expected to do?

KS: Yes, we must routinely consider all the client’s experiences when the jury considers the appropriate punishment. How else can you do it if you do not know this person? Every person - every crime - is different. There is no set punishment for murder, robbery - there is a range of punishment - and the proper number of years in prison, or a probation possibly, depends on the specific person. So, the jury must consider every angle of a person’s life. It has been my experience that most, not all, but most juries try very hard not to hand out a death sentence, especially in today’s world after so many people have been found to be innocent after spending years and years in prison.

You asked why I am not a criminal after having experienced some of the same - I was a white girl growing up in the '50s and '60s. I was sent to school and believe it or not, some of that schooling and my father’s Church of Christ teaching must have sunk in. Most of these young black men, and yes, most are young black males, do not have even what I had. Every person is different and responds differently to the same circumstances.

KC: If someone is charged with a crime, what’s the first thing you’d advise them to do? What do most people do wrong?

KS: This is a good question. The first thing I tell all my clients is to shut up. Many defendants are convicted because they gave a confession. And yes, it is their constitutional right not to say anything. Why help the prosecution convict them? Would you want your son to immediately tell the police if he committed a crime, or would you prefer to hire some criminal defense lawyer to defend him - which can be done a lot easier without a confession. The police are not your friends when you are arrested. They want you to think they are, but they are not.

KC: Is there one thing you’d like WCI to understand about the justice system? What is it?

KS: I have noticed that many of our contributors are people who are attempting to gather evidence to convict the accused. I understand that it is hard for people in those fields to remember that all citizens of the United States have certain rights that are afforded them under our wonderful Constitution. Those rights should not be violated, under any circumstances. And, we all must fight to protect those rights, even for the most guilty.

It is easy to forget those rights until it is our son or daughter, husband or wife, who finds him/herself caught up in the criminal justice system. Then, we scream for a defense lawyer and for our rights. You know, as I do, that our criminal justice system is flawed and that it may be your son, daughter, husband or wife who is accused, found guilty when actually innocent and sentenced to a term in prison. So, I want everyone to remember to be careful. Be careful when you are judging another person that you have an open mind, that you do not pre-judge unfairly.

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'Murder Mountain' Debuts Later This Week

by Stacy Dittrich

It’s the book that launched my career from street cop to crime author, the book that gave me the hopes and dreams of living a lucrative career as an esteemed novelist. Part of that happened, minus the lucrative and esteemed. Now, I have to replace those words with starving and mediocre. Regardless of the mere pennies in my bank account, I count my blessings daily. Only six months after I left law enforcement full-time, the bottom fell out of the economy. I watched as half of my fellow officers lost their jobs, and I would have been one of them. Now, as they face their unemployment pay nearing a dismal end, they are further faced with zero police jobs available.

Little did I know that on a busy summer day in 2004, I would encounter a situation that would set the stage for a career I couldn’t have possibly imagined.

Working road patrol at the Richland County Sheriff’s Department in Mansfield, Ohio, in July, 2004, our shift was running all over the county responding to robberies, domestic assaults, sexual assaults, etc. It was incredibly hot, which seems to bring out the worst in society. Halfway through the shift, an ATL (Attempt to Locate) was put out over the radio. The dispatcher gave a vehicle description and said a man driving the vehicle had numerous weapons with him and was holding his wife and baby hostage. Of course, it was one of those lovely occurrences where I pulled into a nearby gas station for my daily cup of joe and literally almost ran into the suspect. Just my luck. Promptly arresting the man, I determined the wife and baby were unharmed and were not being held against their will. However, there were numerous weapons in the car along with an empty propane tank. After transporting the suspect to jail, I began to interview him, and what he told me was so utterly ridiculous, I laughed out loud. Unfortunately, I learned shortly after that most of what he said was true.

He wasn’t holding his wife and baby hostage; he was protecting them, he explained. He had fled from West Virginia where he was a runner, laymen’s terms for one who transports large quantities of crystal meth back and forth across state lines. His father lived in the area of town where I arrested him and he was hoping to hide out there. He was trying to hide from the county sheriff’s department in West Virginia, but not for why most of us would assume. He was hiding from them because they were the ones he worked for. He alleged that several law enforcement officers and local criminals paired up and ran the entire meth operation. And, if you crossed them, you paid for it dearly--sometimes with your life. A violent drug feud was being waged in a small West Virginia town called Ovapa in Clay County. The locals had given the area the fitting nickname of Murder Mountain. Ridiculous, right?

He further explained that several missing women over the past few years were the direct result of crossing the head honchos. One of the women, Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt, 18, apparently suffered a horrific death. My suspect alleged that she had been put through a wood chipper and eaten. Those responsible allegedly joked that they had thrown her on the grill and made bitchburgers out of her. Sadly, Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt's skeletal remains were found in December, 2009, and her father still seeks justice.

So determined was I to prove my suspect’s theory as a fantasy at best, I handed him off to the corrections officers and began to research on the internet. I was completely shocked to find much of what he said was alleged to have happened in numerous articles. It’s possible that he could have heard or read the stories and inserted himself in them to avoid getting into trouble. Not to mention, there was nothing mentioning corrupt law enforcement officers. But, I didn't think so. He seemed genuinely fearful and gave additional information that I didn’t find in any of the articles. Still, I wasn’t completely convinced.

I called my local FBI office where I knew one of the agents had spent a decade in the West Virginia office. “Not only is it possible, but most likely true,” the agent said, after I told him the story. “In a few very remote regions of West Virginia, some law enforcement agencies consist of one guy getting paid five bucks an hour to drive his own truck around. These are the so-called deputies that turn to crime so they can afford to pay their bills,” he furthered.

I handed the case over to the agent who would, in turn, contact the DEA. I was done with it, but it continued to roll around in my head for the rest of that day. To this day, I never knew what became of it once I turned it over. I could never determine if the entire story was true, but all I could think about was it would make a compelling fictional book. I didn’t know at the time, but arresting my suspect at the gas station that day literally changed my life.

Six months later, after constantly thinking about it, I sat down at my computer. I was always a good writer and I was surprised at how easy my fictional story came to me. That was the day CeeCee Gallagher and her colorful counterparts were born, in a book I titled Murder Mountain, inspired by the West Virginia case. Quite frankly, I had no intention of getting it published; I was just doing it for fun. It took me almost eleven months to write. I finished Murder Mountain in December, 2005. The next book in the series, The Devil’s Closet, took me just nine weeks. I relented, got an agent, and eventually a publishing offer. We started the series with The Devil’s Closet, devising the plan to put Murder Mountain out later as a prequel in the hopes of generating new interest in the entire series. The time has finally arrived, and I am truly excited. A little about the book:

“When a young woman vanishes from home without her personal effects, Detective CeeCee Gallagher is determined to find her—only to discover she was not the first to vanish. CeeCee and FBI Agent Michael Hagerman follow the trail of chilling clues deep into the West Virginia woods, and a dark world of drugs, torture, and law enforcement corruption. With her family in grave danger, CeeCee will have to risk everything if she is to bring justice to Murder Mountain.”

Murder Mountain debuts later this week at bookstores and online. I am very happy to say that not only are five books now available in the CeeCee Gallagher series, but she will be coming to a television near you. The series has been optioned by Freemantle Distributing and Porchlight Entertainment. The Pennsylvania Film Commission grabbed the series, and filming begins there later next year.

Stay tuned and happy reading!

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Did Ronni Chasen's Fiery Temper Anger the Cyclist Who Shot and Killed Her?

by Dr. Lillian Glass

The day after Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was killed, her friends and colleagues sang her praises. They said she was the sweetest woman, who was loved by all. But as we read between the lines, their comments reveal a different story.

Their comments may give us more insight into her personality and perhaps why  Harold Smith, the person of interest, wanted her dead.  Smith ended up  committing suicide after police confronted him. Initially, police said he had  nothing to do with her murder. But now it has been discovered that he was indeed the murderer.

The Beverly Hills Police now say that Harold Smith killed her, while riding his bike, as Ronni was on Sunset Boulevard, turning left onto Whittier Drive. Apparently, Smith bragged to people that he killed Ronni and that is why they sought him out as a person of interest.

While police have said it looked to be a botched robbery, was she actually a victim of road rage? Did she cut cyclist Smith off or honk at him or yell at him? Was he so enraged by this that he pulled a gun and simply shot her?  He didn’t just shoot her once; he shot her five times. This meant he was furious with her and wanted her dead.

Ronni’s brother, Larry Cohen, even thought it was road rage. When he found out this happened, he remarked that his sister had a fiery temper and speculated that she may have angered the wrong person on the road while driving. He would certainly know his sister’s personality best.

Adjectives commonly used to describe Ronni by family and friends and colleagues were:  persistent, doggedly determined, fiercely protective, pushy, and very aggressive.

One colleague remarked that Ronni was known for her "fast-talking, old school, New York aggressiveness on behalf of her clients and was not a person one quickly forgot after meeting.”

Songwriter Diane Warren painted a picture of a publicist who was determined to get whatever she wanted no matter what. She described a situation when Ronni wanted a photo taken of Diane with some other celebrities in the photograph. Diane reported, “(Chasen) goes, ‘I don’t care what I have to do--I’m getting that picture,’ That was Ronni. She had something she wanted to do and she got that picture. She’d tell you what to do, and people listened to her.”

At Ronni’s funeral service, her relentless, turbocharged drive was mentioned by many. Those giving the eulogy each described Chasen’s forceful personality. Ronni’s close friend Vivian Mayer-Siskind’s comment about Ronni spoke volumes about Ronni when she stated, “Ronni came to me last night and was pissed as hell. ‘Now you get me a free Armani suit.’”

Perhaps the most compelling insight into Chasen’s personality came from producer Irwin Winkler of Rocky fame. He told the Los Angeles Times that when his 2004 film De-Lovely was not nominated for a Golden Globe, Chasen “was furious. She screamed and yelled at (members of) the Hollywood Foreign Press,” the group that puts on the annual awards show.

While Ronni may have been nice to her friends, colleagues, studio executives, and A-list celebrity clients who paid her large amounts of money, how did she treat others? When someone yells and screams at others, like producer Irwin Winkler reported Ronni did because her client didn’t get nominated for an award, it makes you wonder.

Did that aggressive, yelling, and relentless behavior transfer over on to the road? Did she scream and yell at the wrong person on the road who ended up shooting her? Obviously, there was someone in the last moments of her life who was angry. Harold Smith was so angry that he shot her five times in the chest.

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