And Never See Her Again (18 page)

"Between five-thirty and a quarter to six," Teresa replied.

"Approximately how many times did you see the vehicle behaving strangely and driving slowly prior to March twenty-sixth?" Foran inquired

"Two or three different times," Teresa said.

Teresa told the twelve-person jury that it appeared to be a man driving the vehicle, but she couldn't give a definitive description of him.

Foran returned to the prosecution table and sat beside Miller and Callahan as Leon Haley rose to address Teresa.

Although Teresa had begun to relax during Robert Foran's questioning, her anxiety level rose as the defense attorney walked toward the witness stand.

Haley attempted to put Teresa at ease, and after a brief introduction, Haley clarified that the location of where the children had been playing on the day of Opal's disappearance was a vacant lot adjoining the Sanderford property.

"Did y'all have a dog at the time?" Haley asked.

"Yes."

"Did you hear the dog at all barking or making any type of noises that would give you some concern that maybe the children could have been in trouble?" Haley inquired.

"No."

"When Austin told you Opal had gone bye-bye, and you proceeded to walk in the direction he pointed, he said, `No, car,' correct?" Haley asked. "Yes."

"He was letting you know walking is not going to do us any good because she went in a car, right?" Haley questioned.

"Not necessarily, because we're talking about a two-year-old," Teresa replied. "To a two-year-old `byebye' can be next door or back inside the house."

"You saw several children playing and you talked to some of the children. Did they tell you they had seen a car circling the area?" Haley asked.

"Yes, they did."

"Did they tell you that they saw Opal in the car?" Haley asked.

o."

"Did the children tell you that the car was a purplish car that they saw circle?" Haley questioned.

"No. They said it was a dark car," Teresa answered.

"They told you it was a dark car, no specific color. Is that fair to say?" Haley asked.

"I don't remember," Teresa said, her brow wrinkled.

"You would have told authorities back then whatever you recalled because it would have been fresh on your mind. Is that fair to say?" Haley asked.

"No, not necessarily," Teresa said, shaking her head. "The reason being is because the first night you talk to them, you are so upset that some things that you remember don't come back for a little bit later. But most everything that was of great importance I told that night."

"Spencer told you Opal was kidnapped. What do you think he meant?" Haley inquired.

Teresa looked at Haley questioningly. With a small shrug, she replied, "That Opal was kidnapped. That someone had taken Opal."

Haley returned to the subject of the car the abductor drove on March 26, 1999, specifically the color. Teresa admitted that she had written a note that Spencer had told her the car was a purply pink and had passed that information along to the Saginaw police. She denied, however, that she hadn't told authorities on the night of the abduction that the car was dark in color.

Holding a photo of Ricky Franks's black Mercury Cougar, Haley asked if Teresa was claiming it was the actual car seen on North Hampshire on the day Opal disappeared.

"No, I'm saying it's a car very much like that one," Teresa testified.

Smiles crossed the faces of the Franks family and whispers were exchanged. They believed it hadn't been Ricky's car the children had seen; they believed he was not the one seen driving around the Saginaw neighborhood; they believed in Ricky's innocence. They felt Haley was making that clear to the jury.

"When you say to us that you saw a car in the area, was it actually a black car or was it actually a dark car?" Haley asked.

"It was a black car," Teresa said with confidence.

"Do you know whether the person you saw in the car was a black male, white male, or a Mexican male?" Haley prodded.

"No, I don't," Teresa answered.

Leon Haley was pleased with Teresa Sanderford's testimony. She couldn't identify Ricky Franks's car as the one seen driving in the neighborhood and she couldn't put his client in the car.

At the end of questioning, Teresa walked to the bench where her husband sat in the courtroom. She took her seat beside Clay. He put his arm around her and gave her a hug. Clay knew how difficult it had been for Teresa to relive the events of March 26. She had answered all the questions with direct, straightforward answers. She had done well and was greatly relieved. But there were still hard times ahead. Other witnesses would be testifying about the day Opal was taken and, with each telling, the Sanderford family would be forced to relive the most horrifying day of their lives.

In response to the calling of her name, Charlene Williams slowly shuffled toward the witness stand. Walking with the aid of a cane, she pushed down heavily on the instrument with some difficulty as she stepped up and settled into the witness-box. Spencer's grandmother was in ill health and her gait reflected the multiple problems she suffered. Charlene watched as Lisa Callahan approached.

"May I approach the witness, Your Honor?" Callahan asked.

"I'm sorry, hon. I didn't hear that," Charlene remarked.

"I was addressing the judge," Callahan stated.

Gallery spectators smiled.

For thirty-four years Charlene Williams had lived on North Hampshire Street in Saginaw, Texas. She had watched children of all ages play in the vacant lot across from her house. Never had she experienced the fear, the horror, she had on March 26, 1999. Now, sitting in the Tarrant Countyjustice Center, she would be asked to relive the events of that day.

As Robert Foran had done with Teresa Sanderford, but without asking her to step down from the witness-box, Callahan asked Charlene to identify a photo depicting her Saginaw neighborhood. Then Callahan turned to the day Opal was taken.

"Opal and Spencer and Austin were playing across the street, what were you doing?" Callahan asked.

"I was in the house playing Free Cell, a game on the computer," Charlene answered.

Callahan asked Charlene to describe what happened when Spencer ran into her house.

"He said, `Grandma, Grandma.' l said, `What?' And he said, `Somebody took Opal.' And I just looked at him and I said, `Spencer, you are watching too much television. What happened?' And he just told me that somebody took Opal. I still didn't believe him and I said, `Oh, honey, just go out and play.' He said, `I don't want to go in front.' I said, `Then go in the backyard,' because I thought it pertained to what had been going on in Dallas, with the newscast of something that had happened there," Charlene explained.

"What happened next?" Callahan encouraged.

"It wasn't two or three minutes later that Teresa came and knocked on the door and said, `I've got to see Spencer.' And I said, `He's in the backyard.' She said, `Opal is gone. I have to talk to him.' Then I went and got him," Charlene added.

"Did you talk to him about what had happened?" Callahan asked.

"He said that they were playing on the lot and a car pulled up on the east side of the street, heading south, and a man got out of the car, picked her up, knocked her in the car, and took off," Charlene said.

"Did he say anything about what Opal did when the man picked her up?" Callahan inquired.

"She was crying."

Charlene explained that Spencer told her the man said, "Hi" before he grabbed Opal, then knocked her in the car by striking her in the chest with his hand. Spencer had also said that the man had driven to Opal's aunt Pat's house, pulled into the driveway, made a U-turn, and headed back up Hampshire.

"Did he say anything concerning the man's appearance?" Callahan asked.

`Just that he was slender, tall, and that was it," Charlene answered.

"Did Spencer describe the car to you?" Callahan questioned.

"He said it was a dark car. I asked, `What did it look like?' He said, `Looked a little bit like Mommy's.' His mother has a sports car," Charlene responded.

Callahan asked what color Spencer's mother's car was and was told by Charlene that her daughter's car was black.

Callahan smiled at Charlene Williams to let her know she had done well; then Callahan turned her witness over to the defense.

The defense's cross-examination of Charlene Williams fell to Edward Jones. His brunet hair, dark brown mustache, and goatee accented his handsome face. He approached Charlene with the respect he would have given his own mother.

Jones reiterated many of the questions asked by Callahan for clarification. He then asked Charlene, "Did you notice anything strange in the moments preceding Spencer coming in and telling you about Opal? Anything that would take your attention outside?"

"No. Just that he came through the door like a rocket," Charlene explained.

"Did you notice anything weird in the neighborhood in the weeks before?" Jones asked.

"Not really. We had a lot of construction going on, a lot of building on the different houses in the block. Repair work. But nothing out of the usual, outside of normal every week happenings," Charlene replied.

As Callahan had, Jones asked Charlene to point out the positions of each of the houses on her street from a photo presented to the jury.

Charlene described how she had driven around the neighborhood, to the nearby convenience store, and to the Dairy Queen, looking for a dark car with a child inside. She admitted she had seen none.

The elderly grandmother was excused and as she slowly made her way to the rear of the courtroom, Patricia Barrett, Teresa Sanderford's sister's, walked to the witness stand. Pat's hair was a shade darker and a few inches shorter than that of her sister's. The women were not only sisters, but close friends.

In Greg Miller's recognizable style, he strolled to where Patricia Barrett had taken her seat to the left of Judge Gill.

Pat testified that she had no firsthand knowledge of Opal's kidnapping. Like Teresa, she hadn't seen the abduction, had only heard about it from family. But like Teresa, Pat had seen a car cruising the neighborhood in the weeks leading up to Opal's disappearance.

"And why did the car catch your attention?" Greg Miller asked.

"It was going slower than normal, or a little bit more cautious is a better way of putting it," Pat answered.

Pat described the vehicle as black with tinted windows.

Miller handed his witness a photo of Ricky Franks's car and asked, "Is that car similar or dissimilar to the vehicle that you saw in your neighborhood in the days preceding Opal's abduction?"

"Similar," Pat responded.

"The back portion of the car, would you describe it as sort of being boxlike, or boxy?" Miller asked.

"Boxy, yes," Pat agreed.

"Now, admittedly, you aren't saying that this is the car that you saw," Miller stated.

"No. I said it looked like the car," Pat responded.

Leon Haley had few questions for Patricia Barrett. He got right to the point.

"All this similar and similar-like, the bottom line is that the car that you see in this photo, you aren't saying that is the car that you saw in the neighborhood; is that correct?" Haley asked.

"No, I can't say that," Pat said honestly.

"Do you know what model of vehicle you saw riding through the neighborhood?" Haley inquired.

"Black Cougar, kind of like that one," Pat said, motioning toward the photo of Franks' car in Haley's hand.

"Now you are saying a black Cougar?" Haley asked with a trace of surprise.

"Or one like that," Pat said. "It just looked like a black car with tinted windows."

"You don't know if it was a Cougar or not, do you?" Haley asked.

"No, not really," Pat answered truthfully.

"You are not saying that you saw Ricky Franks riding in the neighborhood in a car like that, are you?" Haley pressed.

"No. I'm not."

Once again the defense had emphasized the point that the car seen in the Sanderford neighborhood before Opal's abduction, and the day she was taken, could not be identified as belonging to their client.

Pat Barrett's short time on the stand was over. The case was moving along quickly when James "Trey" Barnes was announced as the state's next witness.

Known as Trey to friends and family, he was one of the boys playing ball in the street the day Opal disappeared. Robert Foran asked the tall, slim fourteen-year-old if he had noticed anything unusual on March 26, 1999.

"A car kept passing by us," Trey stated.

He explained that he and his friends had stopped tossing the ball when the car passed by so that they wouldn't hit the vehicle. He added that the car had driven past five or six times and had come from the direction of Opal's house.

"Do you remember the color?" Foran asked.

"It was a purplish color," Trey responded.

Trey was unable to tell what make or model it was, but, like Teresa and Pat, Trey remembered the windows were tinted.

As had been done with Teresa and Pat, Trey was shown a picture of Ricky Franks's black Cougar and asked if he was able to say if that was the car he had seen on March 26. And like the sisters, he was unable to identify Franks's car as the one he had seen the day Opal disappeared.

Edward Jones walked toward Trey with a reassuring smile. Jones planned to continue the defense's attack on the identification of the car seen in the Saginaw area. He believed they were creating significant doubt in the minds of jurors that the car seen by witnesses on March 26 wasn't the same car owned by their client.

"When you talked to the police regarding this incident, do you remember telling them that the vehicle had very, very shiny wheels?" Jones asked.

"Yes, sir."

"By very, very shiny wheels, do you mean chrome wheels?"Jones pursued.

"Yes, sir."

"And that's something that you were sure about when you told the police about that, isn't it?" Jones asked.

"Pretty sure."

"Okay. Isn't it also true that you told the police that the vehicle sat either higher in the front or higher in the back, that it wasn't level?" Jones questioned.