Echoes of My Soul (17 page)

A
s the trial of Ricky Robles entered the fourth week of testimony, it was becoming increasingly clear to knowledgeable spectators how unique the proceedings were in the annals of the New York DAO. Here was a prosecution team having to admit that their vaunted Homicide Bureau had made a grievous mistake in indicting George Whitmore Jr., and then ask the jurors to look at the evidence and believe that the prosecutors now had the right man, Richard Robles. And here was the defense out to show that Robles was no better a suspect than Whitmore had been and, in a strange twist, that the New York DAO didn't make mistakes.

Perhaps the most singular irony was the role reversal between the two sides when Mack Dollinger began calling to the stand the Brooklyn detectives and brass involved in the interrogation and arrest of George Whitmore Jr. Now it was the defense attorney's mission to convince the jury of the professionalism, dedication and abilities of men he traditionally would have been at odds with in a trial. On the other hand, it was John Keenan's quest, however reluctantly, to destroy the Brooklyn cops' credibility, competency and, in a couple of instances, call into question their integrity.

The fact that the Brooklyn detectives, particularly Joseph DiPrima and Edward Bulger, had forced the “strange bedfellows” scenario angered and saddened Mel Glass. As Frank Hogan had noted back in January when discussing the ramifications of indicting Robles and dismissing the case against Whitmore, the effects of the mistake on the justice system might be felt for years. He had predicted that in future cases in which the prosecution relied in part or whole on a confession, it would be commonplace for defense attorneys to point to George Whitmore Jr. and argue to juries that if the police could manufacture a false confession in one case, they could manufacture them in all. And that even such a renowned DAO as New York's sometimes indicted innocent people.

Also, by its nature, the trial threatened to create a rift between the DAO and the NYPD, which in normal circumstances were natural allies in the fight to protect citizens, get criminals off the streets and administer justice. But now, John Keenan had to demonstrate to the jury that Brooklyn detectives had not just been sloppy. Rather, they had lied and cheated to frame an innocent man—a position that would be repeated in the newspapers, as well as around the coffeepot in squad rooms. The detectives who'd worked with Mel Glass knew and respected the way he'd gone about his investigation—and that he was right about George Whitmore Jr. and Richard Robles. But the NYPD had thousands of officers, detectives and brass—many of whom didn't know the truth or want to believe that their fellow officers would have framed an innocent person.

That night before, Glass and Keenan had talked about how to avoid painting all members of the NYPD with the same broad brush. Keenan would need to tread lightly while separating cops' natural inclination to protect their own from what they knew, in this case, to be right. It would mean asking them to cross the thin blue line to tell the truth—and even under oath, some would, and some wouldn't.

 

The effort began with Mack Dollinger's first police witness, Deputy Chief Inspector Edward Carey, assigned to the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad at the time of Whitmore's arrest, but now retired. Carey told the jury that he'd been present during some of the interrogation and that Whitmore appeared relaxed and was answering questions voluntarily.

On cross-examination Keenan showed Carey the photograph of Abbe Mills and Jennifer Holley, People's Exhibit 72, and asked if Detective Bulger had told him he thought the blonde was Janice Wylie.

“We were trying to ID who the girl was,” Carey said; then he shrugged. “No one said it was the Wylie girl, because no one knew the Wylie girl.”

Keenan wasn't buying it. “Did Bulger tell you that one of the women in the photograph strongly resembled the Wylie girl?”

“He said she was blonde. . . .”

Moving toward the witness, Keenan deliberately and forcefully asked again, “Did Bulger tell you that one of the women in the photograph strongly resembled the Wylie girl?”

Challenged, Carey thought about it for a moment and nervously licked his lips. Then he nodded. “That's right. He did.”

 

As Deputy Chief Inspector Carey was excused, Mack Dollinger rose and announced, “The defense calls Joseph DiPrima.”

The barrel-chested detective walked into the courtroom a moment later and looked over the people waiting there as if scanning the crowd for a suspect. When his gaze reached Mel Glass, DiPrima's eyes hardened briefly before he composed himself and strode purposefully to the witness stand to be sworn in.

Another quick glare from the detective as he took his seat reminded Glass of their “whose team are you on” confrontation at the Edmonds trial in April. But the detective's square-jawed face was impassive beneath his salt-and-pepper crew cut as he faced the jury and waited for Dollinger to ask his first question.

Glass wondered if the detective felt compromised as a defense witness after twenty-eight years with the NYPD and currently a detective first grade.

“The highest level of detective—is that right?” Dollinger asked effusively.

“Yes,” DiPrima answered without emotion.

After establishing the detective's credentials, Dollinger had him describe the events regarding George Whitmore Jr. from the point when Detective Edward Bulger had poked his head in the door and asked if he could question the suspect. DiPrima gave a general chronology of the interrogation process. He emphatically testified that Whitmore had
not
been intimidated into making his statements and that he'd
not
been fed details of the crime. And, yes, Whitmore had willingly signed the statement written out for him by Bulger.

“Did you or anyone else suggest to Mr. Whitmore that Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert were okay, still alive?” Dollinger asked.

“I never told George Whitmore the girls were still alive,” the detective replied tersely. “And I never heard anyone else say that, too.”

Walked right into it,
Glass thought as Keenan rose to cross-examine the witness.

 

Striding right up to the jury box, John Keenan placed a transcript with several pages of notes on the ledge that protruded from the box. He turned and addressed the detective. “Didn't you tell Assistant DA James Hosty, when he arrived at the Seventy-third Precinct, that as far as George Whitmore knew, the girls were still alive? Didn't you tell that to Hosty?”

“Yes, that's correct,” DiPrima admitted with a frown.

Keenan was a master chess player in the courtroom and believed it was essential to establish basic fundamental truths as a foundation before moving to checkmate.

“Detective Bulger told you that one of the girls in the photo looked like Janice Wylie. Is that correct?” he asked.

“Yeah,” DiPrima conceded, “and I believed him, because he'd been assigned to the Wylie-Hoffert case.”

Keenan swiftly changed tactics and moved quickly toward checkmate. “Did you tell Mel Glass in the summer of 1964 that you'd been in the building at 57 East Eighty-eighth Street prior to April 24, 1964, when George Whitmore was arrested? That you'd visited a doctor's office there two or three times?”

DiPrima shot another hard glance at Glass before answering, “Yeah.”

“And did you tell Mr. Glass that your doctor told you about the Wylie-Hoffert murders that happened in that building?”

“Yeah, he said that two girls were killed in the building.”

“So you knew that the girls were killed in the building at 57 East Eighty-eighth Street
before,
” Keenan emphasized and repeated, “
before
George Whitmore was questioned on April 24, 1964?”

DiPrima scowled. “Yeah, I knew it.”

“Didn't you testify in Supreme Court in Kings County, Brooklyn, on March sixth of this year, that you had
no
idea that Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert were murdered in an apartment on East Eighty-eighth Street in Manhattan?”

DiPrima suddenly had the look of a man who realized he'd walked into quicksand with no apparent way out. “I don't remember,” he muttered.

Expecting the evasive prevarication, Keenan produced from his papers on the jury box ledge a New York State trial transcript from the Brooklyn proceedings he'd just mentioned. He asked the court to take judicial notice of the official certified copy and enter it into evidence. Judge Davidson so ruled without objection.

With the court's permission, Keenan then handed one set of the pages to DiPrima and kept another for himself. He had already provided the defense with its copy. “Detective, this is from your sworn testimony starting at page seven hundred twenty-eight of the trial transcript. I'll read the questions and you read how you answered for the jury, please.”

DiPrima swallowed hard, but he didn't reply.

Keenan began. “ ‘Question—Did George Whitmore mention to you the Eighty-eighth Street apartment and that he got the picture from there before you mentioned anything to him about an Eighty-eighth Street apartment?' ”

The detective cleared his throat. “ ‘Answer—I had no idea about . . .' ” DiPrima hesitated, understanding now just how fast he was sinking into the bottomless pit.

“Please continue,” Keenan insisted.

“‘Answer—I had no idea about an Eighty-eighth Street apartment.' ”

“ ‘Question—You had no idea about an Eighty-eighth Street apartment?' ”

“ ‘Answer—That's right.' ”

“ ‘Question—Didn't you know that was where the girls were killed?' ”

“ ‘Answer—I didn't even know the address or place. I knew they were killed in Manhattan.' ”

Keenan looked up from the transcript and fixed his eyes on DiPrima. “But you did know where the girls were killed when you were questioning George Whitmore, didn't you?” he demanded.

DiPrima let out a heavy sigh. “I knew they were killed in Manhattan.” He blinked hard and then finished by saying, “And I knew they were killed on Eighty-eighth Street. Yes, sir.”

Keenan bore in on the witness as he moved slowly toward him. Now just a few feet separating him from the witness, he shot out, “And you knew
that
when you were questioning George Whitmore?”

“Yes.”

“And yet, you testified under oath, ‘I didn't even know the address or the place.' You did testify that way?”

“Yes, sir.”

The jury was riveted by the confrontation; and after DiPrima's admission, the jurors focused on Keenan. Exposed as a cop who had lied under oath, DiPrima's face blushed red. He kept his eyes on the prosecutor, as if he couldn't face the jurors any longer.

Keenan glared at the witness.
Checkmate,
Glass thought.

“Now, Detective DiPrima, was that the truth when you testified in Brooklyn?” Keenan asked.

“I can't answer that question without elaborating on it,” DiPrima whined.

“You can't answer whether that was the truth without elaborating?” Keenan scoffed. “Why on earth not?”

“Because my answer of ‘yes' would be misconstrued,” DiPrima explained weakly.

Because your answer is that you committed perjury,
Glass thought.

O
ne by one, Mack Dollinger put the Brooklyn cops on the stand to defend the case against Whitmore. And one by one, Keenan either dismissed their testimony as inconsequential or forced them to paint themselves as lazy, incompetent or dishonest. Then, at last, the defense attorney called Detective Edward Bulger.

The heavyweight championship bout is about to begin,
Glass thought.

When the detective entered the courtroom, Glass was surprised how much Bulger had aged since he'd last seen him. The paunch was more pronounced, as were the jowls, which hung from the once-square jaw. He looked like he'd aged ten years since the early spring. Then again, “the hero,” who'd solved that generation's most notorious murders in the New York metro area, had suffered repeated blows to his reputation and pride.

 

The downward spiral had started with the arrest of Richard Robles and the media blitz that had painted George Whitmore Jr. as an innocent scapegoat and his accusers as dirty racist cops. Then in April '65, shortly after the Edmonds mistrial, the NAACP brought to the attention of the press the story of David Coleman, an unemployed twenty-two-year-old black man living in Brooklyn when he was convicted in 1959 of the murder and rape of an elderly white woman, Margaret O'Meara. Detective Bulger had been the lead detective in that case, too, when they interrogated Coleman. After pleading his innocence for thirty-six hours, the suspect had finally confessed to the murder and nearly a hundred burglaries. Although he'd quickly recanted and accused the police of intimidating him, he was convicted and sentenced to death based almost solely on his confession.

Then shortly after the Edmonds mistrial, the NAACP uncovered another case of a questionable confession involving Detective Bulger. A murder suspect, Charles Everett, was told by Bulger that if he would admit to attacking the victim, who the detective claimed was still alive, Bulger would convince the victim to agree to a light sentence. Frightened, Everett decided to confess to assault and hope for the best. But the victim was dead, and Everett was charged with murder and convicted.

In light of the Whitmore allegations of Bulger's questionable conduct, both cases were currently being reviewed at the appellate court level, and the early consensus was that the convictions would be overturned. The disturbing similarity of the other two cases and Whitmore's was one of the main reasons cited when the legislature and Governor Rockefeller did away with the death penalty in July '65.

 

As Detective Bulger clenched his jaw and walked past the prosecution table, with his eyes fixed straight ahead, Mel Glass thought about the hours he and John Keenan had spent discussing the Brooklyn cops' motives. In the beginning they didn't believe that the Brooklyn detectives, Bulger in particular, had set about trying to frame an innocent man. Edward Bulger had seen the photograph and he'd been convinced that the blonde was Janice Wylie and that George Whitmore Jr. was her killer. Whether it was from a real desire to see justice done, or to make himself a hero, or a little of both was up for discussion. After that sighting of the photograph, Bulger had done everything in his power to badger, cajole and trick an easily manipulated and compliant young man with a low IQ, an eighth-grade education and a pronounced naïveté into confessing.

And if that meant helping to refresh the suspect's memory by providing some of the details, then, well, the ends justified the means, didn't they?
Glass thought ruefully.

After the revelations about the Coleman and Everett cases, the prosecutors wondered if they'd been giving Bulger too much of the benefit of the doubt about his motives. At the very least, the detective and his cohorts, who'd gone along for the ride, had been myopic and lazy. Captain Frank Weldon and Edward Bulger had both been told by Detective John Lynch in the early-morning hours of Saturday, April 25, 1964, that Max Wylie denied that the blonde in the photo was his daughter. It wouldn't have necessarily killed their case. The photograph could still have come from the apartment. However, the Brooklyn detectives and their bosses didn't take the next step and drive to Wildwood to see if Whitmore's story about the dump, or his alibi about being in the Ivy Hotel, held up. Neither had they tried to find the women in the photograph.

The detectives not only supplied Whitmore with the factual details of the murders through their leading questions, but they also directed him to the conclusions that determined his guilt. For example, when Whitmore told ADA James Hosty during the Q&A that the apartment building was four to five stories high, Bulger left the room. When the detective came back, he whispered in the prosecutor's ear.

Playing into the detective's determination to make Whitmore's statement fit the facts, Hosty then asked, “You mentioned that this building was about four to five stories high. Could it have been eight to ten stories?”

“Yes,” Whitmore replied.

Then there was the anecdote about the razor blade wrapper that Bulger said he'd seen lying on the bathroom floor. The detective knew that a razor blade had been found on the floor of the murder room; at his suggestion Whitmore said he'd taken the blade out of a paper wrapper and used it to cut a sheet into strips to bind the girls—all details that had been supplied by Bulger and DiPrima. But the detective apparently didn't know that the razor blade had been from a dispenser found in a bedroom drawer; it never had a paper wrapper. So the ever-pleasing Whitmore had confessed to something that never happened—a story that could have only come from the detective.

Glass's and Keenan's concerns about the Brooklyn detectives' manipulation of Whitmore were further illuminated by two other anecdotes. In the first, during the afternoon questioning, Bulger had told Whitmore that he'd just spoken to the girls on the phone. Later, when Hosty took the Q&A in the early-morning hours of April 25, he asked Whitmore about the window shades being down.

“Why did you pull the shades down?” Hosty had asked.

“If they came to, they would get up,” Whitmore had replied.

“The two girls you cut?”

“Yes, and somebody in the next apartment would see them tied up.”

“You were afraid somebody from the outside could look into the apartment?”

“Yes.”

When Glass and Keenan read about this exchange, they were astounded. Anyone who had attacked and brutally murdered the girls—especially in the manner in which it was done—would have known that scenario was inconceivable.

Significantly, the Hosty Q&A started at two in the morning and ended fifty minutes later on April 25. Not satisfied with the faux confession, the interrogators had reconvened the session at 4:03
A.M.
Whitmore had claimed to have cut Janice Wylie “a few times around the face.” Given the medical examiner's description that Janice Wylie was disemboweled and Emily Hoffert virtually decapitated, the detectives and Hosty needed a more evidentiary consistent confession:

“Now you originally told me that you cut her (Janice Wylie) a few times around the face?” Hosty then asked.

“Yes.”

“And was that correct?”

“No.”

“Where did you cut her?”

“In the stomach.”

“How did you cut her around the stomach?”

“Sliced.”

“How many times did you slice her?”

“Two or three times.”

Keenan and Glass were stunned and appalled at the manipulation. They believed that between the end of the initial Q&A and its resumption more than an hour later, Whitmore had been given answers that once again fit the evidence. So after having a suspect in custody for eighteen hours, during which time George Whitmore Jr. was continually questioned, Detective Edward Bulger got what he felt he needed to be the sleuth who solved the notorious “Career Girls Murders.”

 

Detective Bulger's appearance in the courtroom was not by his choice. In fact, he'd tried to avoid showing up despite having been subpoenaed. In the days before his scheduled appearance, he'd “disappeared” and couldn't be located when Detective Lynch was sent to find him.

The defense and NYPD had even asked Bulger's son, who was also a detective, but he said he didn't know where his father had gone. Believing that the son was less than sincere, Glass insisted that he be brought before Judge Davidson in his chambers and ordered to contact his father. Davidson was not the sort of judge who put up with any shenanigans. He glared at the son, who then declared that “by coincidence” he'd heard from his father the night before. “He's waiting for my call at a motel in Miami,” the son said.

“Then I suggest you call him and tell him to be in court tomorrow at ten
A.M.
sharp. Am I clear?” Judge Davidson demanded.

“Yes, sir, very clear,” the son responded.

The order worked. Bulger now sat in the witness chair and explained to the jury that he'd recently retired from the force, but he had been a detective first grade with the Brooklyn North Homicide Squad on April 24, 1964, and into the morning of April 25, when he questioned George Whitmore about the Wylie-Hoffert slayings.

Like Joseph DiPrima before him, Edward Bulger recounted the events that eventually led to Whitmore's arrest for the murders. And, he said, no one threatened George Whitmore Jr. or told him what to say. “I made out a statement for George Whitmore to sign. He initialed each page and signed the last one.”

 

On cross-examination Keenan made sure that the jury understood that Detective Bulger had been assigned to the Wylie-Hoffert task force for about three months, much longer than most other detectives similarly situated, except for the detectives originally assigned to the case. As such, he'd made himself an expert, or so he might have thought, on every aspect of the murders: he read all of the DD5s, viewed all of the crime scene photographs numerous times and had spent multiple hours on various occasions inside apartment 3C at 57 East Eighty-Eighth Street.

Keenan also got Bulger to note that Whitmore did not have a lawyer present at the Seventy-third Precinct when he confessed. He knew the jury would remember that Richard Robles did have a lawyer available when he decided to make statements to David Downes and the other Manhattan detectives.

Now, as in the second Joe Louis–Max Schmeling heavyweight fight in Yankee Stadium, the initial fundamental sparring was to be mere prelude as Keenan moved abruptly to the knockout. He asked the detective to describe his interviewing style. “You are always polite, soft-spoken, calm, and you don't feed the suspect any information?”

“Yes, sir.”

Walking over to the jury box ledge to examine his notes, Keenan appeared to be reading when he asked: “Do you recall questioning Eddie White, a black man, about twenty-four years of age, about the Wylie-Hoffert murders on December 16, 1963?”

“I remember vaguely talking to him,” Bulger replied, frowning.

“Do you recall saying to Mr. White as you leaned across the desk in the presence of Sergeant Brent, of the Twenty-third Detective Squad, and hitting your hand on the desk”—as he spoke, Keenan's voice grew louder and angrier; everyone in the courtroom seemed to jump when he slammed his hand on the ledge, where he kept his notes—“and saying to Mr. White, ‘You're the guy who did this! You saw the door open and walked in. You saw the bottles on the floor and picked them up! Then you saw Janice . . . nude!' ”

Bulger's jaw set as he glared at Keenan. “No, sir!”

“Do you recall Sergeant Brent looking at you after you said that to Mr. White?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you recall saying to Mr. White then, ‘All right, get out of here, but I'm not through with you yet'? Do you recall saying any such thing?”

“No, sir.”

“You deny that happened?”

“No, sir.”

“You don't deny that happened?”

“I do deny it happened.”

As the witness stewed, Keenan lowered his voice. He moved on to People's Exhibit 72, the photograph of Abbe Mills and Jennifer Holley.

Bulger acknowledged that Whitmore first told him he got the photograph at the Wildwood dump, and that he'd written the inscription on the back.

“And you responded how?” Keenan asked.

“I told him I didn't believe him.”

“Were you watching George Whitmore's stomach?”

The question caught everyone except Glass off guard. Bulger furrowed his brow. “I don't know.”

“But you didn't believe him,” Keenan suggested, shrugging.

“Yes, sir.”

“You thought he was lying.”

“Yes, sir.”

Now direct and assertive, Keenan asked, “Well, didn't you tell my colleague Mel Glass on July 30, 1964, in room 617 of the District Attorney's Office in New York County that you could always tell when a Negro was lying by watching his stomach because it moves in and out when he lies?”

It seemed that for a moment everyone in the courtroom held his or her breath. There were quite a few black spectators in the courtroom, and their faces contorted into scowls. Angry muttering rose to such a level that Judge Davidson had to put a stop to it with a stern look.

“I don't remember,” Bulger replied.

“You don't remember?”

“I'm not saying I didn't say it, but I don't remember saying it. I may have said it.”

As Keenan's questioning went on, Bulger seemed to wear down. He claimed it was Joseph DiPrima who demanded that George Whitmore Jr. tell the truth and quit saying he got the photograph from the dump. “Then Whitmore said he got it in the apartment on Eighty-eighth Street in Manhattan.”