Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, a Mother's Sacrifice (33 page)

“If I took a castor bean and just swallowed the whole bean and didn’t chew on it, would that kill me?” Morrison asked.

“Quite likely not …. The bean itself has a rather hard coating—shell—which would essentially protect one from ricin toxicity.”

“Ricin’s not in the shell?”

“That’s correct. It’s in the pulp of the bean itself.”

State’s Exhibits No. 11 and No. 12—the sample of Michael Farrar’s blood, and the packet of castor beans sent to the FBI lab—were shown to Richardson. He identified the sixteen beans in the Earl May packet—mottled reddish-brown seeds, shiny on the outside, with a white, pulpy, oily material inside—as castor beans. He had done a number of tests on them.

“And you performed some chemical assays to determine whether or not the insides of those beans contained ricin?”

“That’s correct.”

“And did they come up with a positive for that?”

“These were positive for containing ricin … in the percentage that the literature indicated should be in those beans.”

“You said that the literature said those beans would have between one and five percent ricin?”

“That’s correct. And those had two to three percent.”

“Has ricin been used in mystery novels as an agent of death?” Morrison asked.

“Probably the most notable in terms of ricin,” Richardson answered, “which could well have been a fictional account—but in fact turned out to be a
real
account—was one involving an individual named Markov, a … defector from Communist Bulgaria in 1979 or 1980. He was living in Great Britain at the time, was a writer and a speaker, and happened to be saying unkind things about the Communist regime in Belgrade on Radio Free Europe and the BBC …. He was poisoned by being stabbed in the thigh with a James Bond type of device, an umbrella that injected a combination of ingredients containing about half a milligram of ricin. He succumbed about three days later.”

Richardson explained that one didn’t need a scientific background to poison someone with ricin. “In the underground terrorist literature, there are simple cookbook solutions of how to do this.”

“And one way to do it would be to mash the beans up?” Morrison asked.

Richardson said that would make it easy to administer ricin orally.

“What’s going to happen to that person?”

“A variety of things—both at a biochemical and a molecular level … At a molecular level, the effects of ricin inhibit protein synthesis, which is important to cell function. It’s also a lectin [a protein found in plant seeds] that is going to cause cell agglutination [clumping together] and breakdown of red blood cells at a tissue level. It’s going to cause organ toxicity in the liver and pancreas. And the general toxic nature orally: vomiting, nausea, diarrhea, gastroenteritis, hemorrhagic enteritis, bleeding in the GI tract … ”

Richardson testified that he had reviewed Dr. Michael Farrar’s medical records, producing an instant flurry of objections from the defense. Moriarty objected on the grounds that Richardson was not a medical doctor and could not give a diagnosis on the basis of the 150-page stack of medical records.

“Judge,” Morrison said. “I’m not going to ask him if he has an opinion whether or not … [Michael Farrar was] ricin poisoned, based on those records.”

Ruddick nodded. “Well, I think we’re ready for the next question.”

“Do you,” Morrison asked Richardson, “have an opinion on the symptomatology on those medical records? Is [it] consistent or inconsistent with ricin poisoning?”

“I found them to be consistent with ricin poisoning. I found nothing to be
inconsistent
with ricin poisoning.”

The courtroom buzzed, but Debora, as usual, stared at the witness, her face a mask.

It was time for the noon recess. Frustrated, Morrison lapsed into the Kansas vernacular. “Judge, I’m not near close to being done with him.” But whatever further questions he had for Richardson would have to wait.

Lunch hours were short. There was no time to leave the county complex; spectators, lawyers—even the judge himself—walked across the quadrangle, heads bent against the icy wind, toward the basement cafeteria in the administration building. If anyone who knew her recognized Celeste Walker sitting in the least conspicuous corner of the cafeteria, nobody gave her away by acknowledging her. Mike had not returned to the courtroom after his testimony the day before—nor would he. Celeste did not yet know if she would be called to testify, and so she waited.

At 1:15, Drew Richardson was back in the witness chair. His morning testimony had shown him to be a scientist, who often gave overlong answers while the gallery waited to hear if he would answer the one question that truly mattered: Had he found ricin antibodies in the samples of Mike’s blood sent to him from Johnson County, Kansas?

But Richardson would not be hurried. He testified that ricin enters the victim’s tissues rapidly and does damage there, sometimes causing “cell death.”

Morrison, patient, but anxious to translate Richardson’s testimony into lay terms, asked, “I guess what I’m getting at is—let’s say I was poisoned with ricin and I survived. If I was brought to you or some other chemist or physician, let’s say a week or two weeks later, would you be able to perform some sort of a test on me that would be able to tell you whether or not ricin is present in my bloodstream or in my tissue or whatever?”

“It’s quite unlikely,” Richardson said. Unless the ricin had been injected. If it had been swallowed, ricin would remain undetectable for a much longer time.

“Now,” Morrison asked, “if it was a month or two after the ricin had been administered—let’s say orally, for example—would it be fair to say that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to find it?”

“Yes. Certainly in a nonlethal situation.”

And, somehow, Mike had survived.

“Now, are there ways to analyze tissues of the body to detect whether ricin has been there?” Morrison asked.

“Yes.”

“How would you do that?”

It was fascinating to watch these two men, both trying to present the same information to Judge Ruddick. Morrison was searching for lay terms; Richardson had difficulty speaking in anything but scientific jargon. They arrived at a system: Richardson would speak and Morrison would translate. It was so desperately important for the prosecution to show that Mike had been systematically poisoned by castor beans like those found in Debora’s tote bag. Proof of that would reveal a heedless side of her personality, would show how far she would go for revenge.

Richardson began another long answer, explaining how he tested for ricin in the human body.

“One would indirectly analyze for ricin exposure by looking for antibodies …. Ricin … is a protein. It is a toxin. It is also known as an antigen …. An ‘antigen’ is actually an abbreviation for ‘antibody genesis.’ A compound the size of ricin, and with the structure, et cetera—the nature—of ricin, would produce an antibody response.
One.
Not only an antibody from a class of antibodies, but produce a very specific lock-and-key fit—an antibody specifically and uniquely designed and structured to fit the structure of ricin.”

“Are antibodies in our blood?” Morrison asked.

“Yes.”

“Pardon me for being so very, very, basic here,” Morrison interrupted. “Would it be fair to say that an antibody is in the body to defend against attacking substances to the body—in the bloodstream? Correct?”

“That’s correct. It’s also a protein in nature, and a multi-charged protein.”

That wasn’t really information Morrison needed. Heads began to shake in the gallery, and Judge Ruddick was listening hard for what he needed to know.

“Let’s say”—Morrison was trying to translate again—“I’m being poisoned with ricin and I survive. What you’re telling me is that if ricin gets in my bloodstream … my body is going to build antibodies to defend against the invader. Correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“Those antibodies—do they disappear as soon as that invader’s gone, or is it something that’s going to stay with me forever?”

Richardson said that one dose of ricin would likely produce a very small amount of antibody. However, someone exposed a second time—and then a third—would produce more antibodies, which might last for months or even years. Furthermore, there was a way to test for specific antibodies, Richardson explained, using the ELISA test—the same process used in home pregnancy tests.

Now, Morrison asked about Mike’s blood serum samples, which Richardson had tested. “And were you able to determine from the testing whether or not there was the presence of specific antibodies that reacted to ricin?”

“Yes, I was able to make the determination.”

“And were they present?”

“Yes, they were.”

Not only were antibodies to ricin present in Mike’s blood serum, Richardson testified, they were present in such large quantities
two months
after the last episode of illness that he felt certain Mike had had “multiple exposures” to ricin. In lay terms, Richardson had just testified that, deliberately or accidentally, Mike had been fed ricin—not once but two or three times. Or more.

Moriarty rose to cross-examine, being deliberately folksy even though, for now, there was no jury listening. “Doctor,” he said, “there are some in here that think I’m not as smart as you. But be that as it may, I’m going to try my best.”

And try he did. Moriarty had boned up on ricin and the ELISA test. He had researched articles on ricin with long, esoteric titles and he had also found on the Internet a “book” called
The Big Book of Mischief
, which seemed to have some relevance to this case—a rabbit, perhaps, for the defense to pull out of its hat later. Moriarty did an admirable job of cross-examining Richardson, but he could not shake the scientist’s conviction that the antibodies in Mike’s blood proved he had been poisoned with castor beans several times.

36

W
ith the tedious—but vital—scientific testimony on ricin antibodies out of the way, Morrison moved on to the night of October 23—24. Miriam Russell, the dispatcher from the Prairie Village Police Department, was first. It was Russell whose experience and quick thinking had resulted in the immediate dispatch of officers to Canterbury Court.

A hushed courtroom listened to a tape of the call Russell had taken at 12:21 on the morning of October 24. There were unidentifiable background noises and the sound of someone breathing into the phone, a ragged, panicky breathing. Then the line went dead. Either someone had hung up the phone, or the lines had been severed.

The “someone” had been Lissa, calling from her bedroom phone as black smoke oozed through her walls and around her door.

Steve Hunter was next. A field sergeant in charge of several patrol units in his sector, he was a trim man, well muscled, with a thick head of light brown hair. He had been the first officer on the scene of the fire, and memories of that night flickered across his face as he told how he had tried in vain to find Tim and Kelly and get them out of the burning house.

In clipped phrases, Hunter described for Morrison his first meeting with Debora and Lissa. “The juvenile was very frantic, sort of jumping up and down and screaming toward me that her brother and sister were inside the house trapped. ‘Please don’t let them die!’”

“Did she say that more than once?”

“She said, I believe, twice, ‘Please save them! Please don’t let them die!’”

“What was the other person doing?”

“Standing there. Did not make any comments. Did not say anything to me.”

“Is that other person here today?”

“Yes, she is.” Hunter pointed to Debora Green. “The second female at the defense table, in the white flowered top.”

“So what did you do then?”

“The juvenile said that her sister was in the rear upstairs bedroom. I also advised the dispatcher that we did have people trapped in the house.”

“All right. Did you know where Mom was—the mother of this girl?”

“No, I did not …. I asked, ‘Where’s Mom?’ And the defendant said, ‘Well, I’m Mom.’”

“Is that
all
she said?”

“Yes.”

“What was her demeanor like?”

“If I can describe it best,” Hunter replied, “about the same demeanor as I’m looking at her right now. Very unassuming. Very calm. Very cool.”

Staring back at the officer who had tried so hard to save her children, Debora
was
very calm and very cool.

Hunter told Judge Ruddick that he had tried to get into the house again and again, only to find all the doors blocked. “The fire was growing immensely, faster moving than I’ve ever seen a house fire.”

“Could you hear anybody at that point inside the house?” Morrison asked.

“No, I could not.”

Over the fire’s roar, it would have been difficult to hear voices calling for help. Hunter estimated that he and his men reached the scene about five minutes before the fire units began to arrive.

“Did you talk to a neighbor, John Forman?”

“It was later on in the morning—approximately seven o’clock that morning.”

“Did he give you something?”

“He gave me a typewritten letter, and Dr. Forman advised that he had found it in his yard.”

Hunter told Dennis Moore during cross-examination that he had remained at the fire scene until sometime after noon—twelve hours later—when two bodies were removed from the burned house.

The defense had demanded the “field notes” of the officers who had been present at the fire scene, but that issue was put off until further proceedings. Now, Moore questioned Hunter closely about what he might have said to other officers at the scene. “You were, in fact, interviewed by members of the Metro Squad on October twenty-sixth?”

“Yes.”

“How did you describe Debora Green when you were talking to the officers of the Metro Squad that interviewed you?”

“Well, since I don’t have any notes to refer back to, to the best of my recollection as to how I testified: her demeanor was very calm, cool, and collected.”

“Did you say to Officers Boyer and Perry that she had a look of indifference on her face?”

“That may be the word I used to describe her.”

“Did you also say that she had a ‘smug look on her face’ and an expression like, ‘You’re not going in there. You’re not going to save anybody’?”

“That may be, yes.”

Hunter said he had not spoken to Dr. Mary Forman, except to say hello. The Formans had allowed him to use their bathroom. After he spoke to the Metro Squad, he had had no more input into the investigation.

Dr. John Forman, a thoracic surgeon—a heart and chest surgeon—took the stand next. He was a well-built man with high cheekbones and short hair. He looked young, although he had graduated from medical school seventeen years earlier. He also looked as though he would have preferred to be anywhere but on the witness stand in this hearing.

In response to Morrison’s questions, John Forman recounted how his eleven-year-old son found a letter in their yard while he was raking leaves. The boy had been confused by a word on the page he found: “adultery.”

“And I asked him where he’d found the letter and he took me outside and we found a second page and they seemed to go together.”

“Were they weathered?”

“Not a bit …. They were easily read and quite fresh.”

Over objections by the defense, Judge Ruddick allowed Forman to describe what he had read in the letter. “Well,” Forman began, “the letter accused Mike Farrar and Celeste Walker of moral indiscretion. It also praised Debora Green as a paragon of virtue. And it dealt with some adult issues that we didn’t think he [the Forman’s son] ought to be reading.”

“Did you find that letter—unusual?”

“It’s the only letter like that I’ve ever found.”

Dr. Forman testified that Debora had come to his house at about 12:20 or 12:25 A.M., asking him to call “111.”

“Where could you see the fire from?” Morrison asked.

“I could see it blazing over the top of the garage …. flames and a glow and smoke.”

“Did you recall anything unusual about Debora Green’s hair when you first saw her that night?”

“It looked to me as though it had been wet and dried expeditiously.”

“Was it wet?”

“It looked … The hair is wet—but it looked like it had been toweled off, dried quickly, but not dripping wet.”

Kevin Moriarty tried to get Dr. Forman to say that he and his wife did not like Debora.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“But you
have
said that before in this investigation.”

“That we did not like her?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think we said that.”

Moriarty drew out the information that Dr. Forman had not remembered Debora’s hair being wet until a day or so after the fire. But, Forman said, “When I made my realization about the hair, I called [Detective Burnetta] independently to see if that would be of interest to him.”

“The night that Debora came over, she was yelling, ‘Call the fire department’ whether it was ‘111’ or ‘911.’ Is that correct?” Moriarty asked.

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Did she make any comment about her children?”

“Yes, she did …. She said they were in the house and the house was burning.”

The defense position here was obvious: Moriarty wanted to show that John and Mary Forman had deliberately added to the investigators’ suspicions about Debora. “Did you tell the police that evening that you had concerns about Debora starting the fire?” Moriarty asked.

“I don’t believe so.”

“Do you know if your wife had concerns—and you can answer yes or no—first: the night of the fire and everything was going on, did she express concerns to you that she suspected Debora Green had started the fire?”

“I don’t think there was much question in either of our minds about that,” Dr. Forman answered evenly.

Moriarty was obviously beginning to annoy the State’s witness, but he kept after Dr. Forman, trying to get him to say that he and the other neighbors and Mike Farrar had all talked to the police immediately, expressing their opinions on Debora’s guilt.

“Did you communicate to Mike Farrar your concern that Debora Green had set the house on fire?” Moriarty asked Dr. Forman.

“That’s a difficult question to answer. I guess we talked about it, but not so directly.”

“Help me out,” Moriarty said. “I don’t understand what that means.”

“I asked him if he thought their other fire was a random event in light of what was going on now.”

Moriarty wondered why Dr. Forman had given the strange letter he found in his yard to the police at seven A.M. “You must have thought there was some significance of this letter and the house fire. Isn’t that correct?”

“Sure, I did,” Dr. Forman said, a tinge of anger in his voice.

“When did that strike you?”

“The moment I opened the door and saw the house burning down.”

“But you chose not to share that information or your concern with any police officers?” Moriarty said, incredulously.

“I guess I was more concerned with Lissa and Kelly and Tim getting out and our kids getting out,” Dr. Forman said with his jaw set. “I felt a little more concern about those things than trying to pin it on anyone at that point.”

Perhaps Moriarty had gone a bit too far. He ended by asking Dr. Forman the effects of Klonopin, and Forman said he couldn’t give those off the top of his head.

On redirect, Morrison asked Dr. Forman about his written statement of October 24. “Is that the one where you also said you did not believe Debora Green was genuinely hysterical?”

“That’s correct.”

“And it was at that time, and still is, your opinion that she did not exhibit any visceral concern in that situation?”

“I thought she was relatively devoid of emotion in what I considered to be a highly emotional situation.”

“Was she cool?”

“Cool—or just distanced.”

Moriarty tried again on recross. He clearly wanted to show Judge Ruddick that Debora’s neighbors had not liked her to begin with, and that they had built a case against her even before the ashes of the deadly fire were cool. It was already clear that Debora had not been a contender for Ms. Congeniality of Canterbury Court, but there was no evidence that anyone had conspired against her. There was only Mike’s testimony about Dr. Mary Forman’s frantic, angry call to him just after the fire was discovered: “Your wife is a fucking arsonist!”

“Had you had any contact with Mike about Debora,” Moriarty asked Dr. Forman, “before the fire and after he moved out?”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Do you know at the time of this evening that she was taking medication for depression?”

“No, I did not.”

“Do you know if that type of medication can affect one’s affect?”

“I was not familiar with what she was taking. I don’t know that much about antidepressants.”

“Can some medications affect one’s affect?”

“I supposed they can.”

“What does ‘flat affect’ mean?”

“Devoid of emotion.”

Moriarty had what he wanted, and he turned away briskly with a “Thank you very much.”

But Dr. Forman was a chest surgeon, not a psychiatrist. He had known Debora as a next-door neighbor, and that was how he was describing her for the judge. He had watched her as her children were trapped in a burning house and had seen not a scintilla of emotion on her face. If there were antidepressants
that
powerful, Dr. Forman didn’t know which ones they might be.