Final Analysis (13 page)

When police reached Adam by phone, he denied any involvement in the theft and pointed a finger at another area teen.

Despite being the youngest, Gabriel was not immune to the problems that his brothers faced. On March 24, 2000, Gabriel and five of his friends burglarized a neighbor’s home, stealing six speakers, DVDs, and one hundred dollars from the homeowner’s wallet, which they took from a pocketbook in the kitchen. Police found all six boys in the backyard of the Polk’s
house in Piedmont. The homeowner declined to press charges, asking that the boys be counseled and released to the custody of their parents. A police report indicated that the stolen property was returned.

Also in 2000, Gabriel got into a fight with a fellow student in the hallway of Miramonte Middle School. He claimed the boy was a “snitch” and accused the kid of “acting gay.” Gabe claimed the boy got in his face, provoking a fight. There were indications that friction had existed between the two boys dating back to the sixth grade. At first, Gabriel sought to avoid a fight with the boy. But when the boy struck him in the back of the head with a set of keys, Gabriel turned to confront the youth. Gabe was later taken to the hospital, where he was treated for a gash that required staples to close it up. A subsequent investigation revealed that Gabe had been struck with a T-shaped weapon, a two-inch steel rod with a flat metal base, however this did little to quell the ongoing feud. School authorities accused Gabe of bringing “manufactured” weapons such as a roll of taped quarters, a brass card holder made into brass knuckles, and an eight-inch weighted blackjack to school to seek revenge. Police confiscated the materials and later learned the homemade weapons were brought to school by several of Gabe’s friends. The boys were arrested on charges of “possession of a deadly weapon” and ordered to attend an anger management course.

W
hile the dangerous behavior of the three boys had been going on for years, in the summer of 2002 the situation went from bad to worse. On July 29, 2002, Adam was arrested for drunk driving. He was ordered to participate in a two-day, county-sponsored Alcohol Offense Program in Contra Costa County. The first session was set for October 12—the weekend of his father’s murder, which could explain why Adam was home in Orinda for the weekend.

Adam was already facing dismissal at UCLA. Authorities were poised to expel the teen because he hadn’t completed enough coursework in his freshman year. He had dropped several classes without authorization, intending to make up the work in his sophomore year. School officials ad
vised him that they could only reverse their decision under “extraordinary” circumstances. In August, Felix wrote a letter of explanation to the vice provost of undergraduate education at UCLA on Adam’s behalf, blaming “problems at home” for his son’s decision to reduce his course load without first obtaining permission. Adam thought lightening his load would make the spring semester “manageable for him because of the stress he was experiencing in relation to his family situation.”

“During this past year, Adam’s family, as he has known it, has fallen apart,” Felix wrote in the letter dated August 17. “In the fall of 2001, my wife and I separated under extremely tense and difficult circumstances. The stable family and security he had known for most of his life was dramatically altered. It was under these difficult circumstances that Adam began his freshman year at UCLA.

“Adam has always been a winner academically, socially, and athletically,” Felix wrote. “At De La Salle High School in Northern California, he was class president for three years and graduated near the top of his class in grades. He was a starting footballer for two years for the highest ranked football team in the country. He received public recognition and honors for his athleticism. He has known only success and achievement. And at UCLA, he was the only freshman on the Varsity Rugby Team and became a starter. He is also now an enthusiastic member of a fraternity.”

Ultimately, Felix’s efforts on behalf of Adam proved successful, as UCLA officials agreed to allow Adam to return for his sophomore year, but just as soon as he’d extinguished one fire, another one spread, only this time Felix proved unable to help. The son in question this time was Eli, who violated the terms of his probation and was now trying to avoid juvenile hall.

In a letter to the court, Felix defended his middle son, pointing to his varied accomplishments in the sporting arena as proof of his potential.

“At De La Salle, he was the only freshman on the junior varsity team,” Felix wrote in the three-page letter. “At Miramonte High School, Eli was the only sophomore on the varsity football team. At the University of California basketball camp, [the coach] selected Eli out publicly as the kid who was ‘most likely to make it’ because of his skills and discipline. Currently, Eli is the youngest starting player on the Lamorinda rugby team.

“For many reasons, Eli has tremendous potential,” Felix stated. “I am deeply concerned that if Eli now becomes more involved in the correctional system that it will permanently deflect him away from leading the constructive and successful life which he is capable of doing…. In my view, my son Eli is very much a salvageable young man who can make it in the world. In my view, steering him away from the correctional, institutional system is imperative. In light of this, I respectfully and urgently request that the court consider…that he be placed in my custody in Berkeley, where I have secured a spacious two bedroom apartment…that he continue to receive psychological counseling in which I will participate with him, if he prefers that…and that he be involved immediately in a drug program.”

While Felix’s plea appeared heartfelt, it failed to convince the judge to ignore the recommendations of the confidential probation report to the Juvenile Court of Contra Costa County.

“It seems like the minor [Eli] could use a respite from his parents’ bitter dispute and conflicts so that he can separate himself and work on his own individual issues and make rehabilitation a true priority,” the confidential report cited.

Indeed, the May 22, 2002, report painted a disturbing picture of the Polk family dynamic. “The minor [Eli] is currently caught in the middle of a bitter custody dispute between the mother and the father, both who have heaved a barrage of insults and allegations against each other, even in an open court setting,” it stated. “The mother has been problematic with authority figures, including the arresting police officers, the probation department, home supervision staff, and was arrested in court for contempt and failure to follow court orders. When the judge ordered that the mother receive a psychological assessment, the mother flat-out refused and said she would remove herself from the case rather than to comply with those orders.

“The father who has housed this minor in the last few months has also had problems due to the fact that the minor has accused the father of child abuse resulting in a report to CPS [Child Protective Services] and the minor being put back in custody. It is unclear whether the minor really felt threatened by the father or was fabricating the abuse in hopes
that he would get moved back with the mother, the minor was eventually released back to the father and has continued to attend Berkeley High.”

Included in the lengthy report was an evaluation from a deputy of the probation department who met with both parents regarding Eli’s situation. “The father denies all the allegations of abuse saying when the minor was younger and had hyperactivity from hypoglycemia, the father would ‘swat him’ but that was approximately eight years ago,” the deputy wrote. “The father says he’s a nonviolent person and believes the minor lives in a paranoid environment due to the intensive conflict between the mother and father and their impending divorce. The father said under the current conditions, he wasn’t sure if he wants to live with Eli because of his present hostility, paranoia, and aggressiveness….

“Mother felt Eli did something very wrong, but felt there was mitigating circumstances to cause him to do it,” the deputy continued, referring to an interview he had with Susan Polk. “The mother says the minor hadn’t been in a fight since reaching physical maturity and felt he wasn’t sure of his own strength. The mother’s concerns are that the minor grew up in a violent household and that he needs anger management. The mother felt Eli was the target of the father’s anger, and so is expressing his anger that he has kept inside. The mother felt the minor could benefit from drug and alcohol counseling, as well as family counseling.”

The deputy noted that during the interview with Susan, she contradicted Felix’s assertion that Eli had suffered from hypoglycemia as a youth, claiming her son had never been diagnosed with the illness. Also in the report were claims by members of the probation department that Eli had been self-medicating with drugs and alcohol in an attempt to deal with the turmoil at home. Eli told officers that he smoked marijuana on a daily basis and drank alcohol three to four times a month, occasionally experimenting with drugs such as Ecstasy and mushrooms. Denying suggestions that he might be “depressed,” Eli did admit that he suffered from chronic “stomach problems,” which officials attributed to stress.

During his visit to the probation department on May 22, Eli charged in private that his father was physically and emotionally abusive. Felix had accompanied his middle son to the evaluation that day, but when they arrived, Eli announced that he wanted to speak with a deputy alone. Only
then did Eli present the officer with a four-page handwritten letter about “physical and mental abuse” he claimed Felix was inflicting upon him.

“The minor was periodically shaken and emotional as he talked about wanting to move back with his mother and how he felt he couldn’t live in such close confined space with his father,” the deputy wrote in his report to the court. “The minor described the father as having in the past ‘beaten the crap’ out of him and his brothers and been mentally abusive with continual putdowns, mental mind games, and intimidation.”

Attached to the report was a psychological evaluation of Eli conducted on May 13, “one where the parents present in a compelling, provocative manner,” the psychologist wrote in a three-page letter to the Court, also dated May 22, 2002. “The father is a mental health professional who appears depressed, ineffective, and passive. [The] mother is aggressive, emotionally labile, and often contradictory in her behaviors and statements,” the psychologist continued.

A
s local news channels were airing details of the gruesome Orinda murder, Detective Costa and his team were chasing down leads. Their first stop was Felix’s Berkeley office. It was late morning on October 16 when Costa and his colleague, Jeff Moule, climbed the steps to 3001 Dana Avenue. The two men looked almost like father and son as they strode into the office building. Costa was in his fifties, with jet-black hair parted to one side. His mustache was short and neatly trimmed, just like Moule’s.

Moule was fair-haired, twenty years younger and forty pounds thinner than his superior officer. But still, the two men were of similar height and possessed the authoritative demeanor of law enforcement officers. Once inside, they found the office door locked and an “out” sign posted on it. There was no receptionist; it wasn’t that kind of complex.

Costa knocked on the door of an adjacent office. A psychiatrist named Justin Simon poked his head out the door. He told the detectives he was the building’s owner and that he leased space to Felix Polk, but theirs was strictly a tenant/landlord relationship. Still, Dr. Simon indicated that he was aware of marital difficulties between Felix and his wife. Detective Costa elected not to inform Simon of Felix’s murder given the vague nature of his relationship with Felix. He was certain Susan had mentioned Dr. Simon during their interview at headquarters as the
psychiatrist who supposedly prescribed medications for her husband. Costa would check into it.

Before leaving Berkeley, he and Moule conducted a sweep of area streets in search of Felix’s missing vehicle. The Saab was not there. Grabbing the radio, Costa contacted the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police to request that they check their stations for the black Saab. A short time later, an officer radioed back to report that he had located the sedan at the Orinda station in the upper west lot, in space number 1268. Orinda police were directed to secure the vehicle and have it towed to an impound yard to be examined. The officer assigned to move the car told Costa there were no visible signs of blood, weapons, or other evidence that might link the vehicle to the crime. He noted there was a coat in the back seat, along with a collar and dog bed.

Their next lead took them back to Orinda not far from the BART station. Costa and Moule had heard that Susan’s mother, Helen Bolling, had once lived in the town. They wanted to check out the address. A call to headquarters yielded a listing for a Bolling at 52 Barbara Road.

The modest residence was across the train tracks from the ritzy country club section, where Susan and Felix lived. While the landscape was mainly farmland and orchards when Helen first purchased the house on Barbara Road in the 1970s, the city of Orinda had grown substantially over the years. The north end, where Susan and Felix bought their home two years earlier, was now sprinkled with million-dollar residences.

A dark-haired man in his late-forties answered the door. He was not very tall, about eye level with the detectives.

“Do you know a Susan Polk?” Detective Moule asked.

“She’s my sister,” the man answered, identifying himself as David Bolling. He told police that his mother still owned the property, and another in San Diego, where she was currently residing and that he and his mother had had little contact with Susan over the years.

It soon became clear to the officers that in spite of the strained relationship with his sister, David Bolling was aware of the “incident” and that she had been arrested on suspicion of killing her husband.

“I have a hard time believing that Susan could kill someone,” David told the officers. “But she does have an attitude towards authority.”

Detective Costa took notes. He told David about his interview with Susan at headquarters the day before. She claimed their father had abused her when she was a young girl. “Do you know anything about that?” Costa asked.

“I know she’s been telling people that,” David replied. “It’s just bullshit.”

David said that as far as he knew, his father had never done anything like that. He said he last spoke with his sister about two or three months earlier.

She had been avoiding family members lately, David told the detectives.

I
t was late in the afternoon of October 16 when Detective Moule went to the detention center in Martinez to interview Susan again. Detective Jeffrey Hebel would participate in the interrogation. The two had been paired up on Monday night when they questioned Susan’s son Gabe about the murder.

This would be the third time in thirty-six hours that Susan was interrogated by police. She was being held at the Contra Costa detention facility on suspicion of murder in lieu of one million dollars bail. Two days had passed since her incarceration and she continued to maintain her innocence. Hebel and Moule decided to take a forceful approach, in an attempt to scare her into admitting her role in the crime.

But the detectives’ efforts failed. Susan remained detached and composed during the lengthy interrogation. Even as the detectives worked to trip her up, she didn’t break a sweat. It was as if she was disconnected from the entire incident. In response to questions, she again recounted her movements during the past week. While some details differed slightly from her original version, her basic story remained the same. Susan claimed she didn’t see Felix’s Saab at the house that Monday morning when she returned from dropping Gabe at school. She spent much of the morning watering the small garden she tended in the terraced area near the home’s front entrance.

“I am clear about that time line,” Hebel said. “I want to go back and talk about some other stuff about your background. I understand several
years ago you kind of had some recollection about some abuse from your childhood and that caused some tough times for you. Is that correct or am I getting bad info on you?”

“Well, you are hearing it from my children.”

“If you tell me something, I am not going to them and say this is what your mom said,” Hebel assured Susan.

“Partly, it’s a story that my husband cooked up for the kids as to what was happening,” Susan said. From there, she went on to recount how the story of uncovering past trauma was how Felix manipulated the truth in order to avoid informing the boys of Felix and Susan’s marital difficulties. As the detectives hung on her words, Susan once again offered her version of the last twenty years, explaining that she threatened a divorce several times over the course of their marriage. Sitting in the room, Susan coolly told the detectives how her threats to leave him were often met with death threats from Felix, who had even gone so far as telling Gabriel that he would kill Susan if she left. On another occasion, one that Susan later documented in their divorce papers, Felix made another threat on her life, this time in front of Adam and Eli. Coming in 2000, during a time when Eli’s allegiance was to his father, the threat was in response to an ongoing quarrel Susan and Felix were having over his office. Like so many of their fights, this one ended with Susan telling Felix that she wanted a divorce. His response was quick.

“He [Felix] backed me up all the way across my room,” Susan explained to the detectives, “and he said, ‘You make me so mad, I could kill you. I feel like punching you in the face or punching you.’”

But unlike past occasions where Felix had hit Susan, this time he did not get the chance. As he raised his fist to strike her, Eli stepped in first, punching his mother hard on her lip. The reaction was instantaneous as blood began to pour from Susan’s nose and mouth, dripping off of her face and onto the floor. Later, in addition to her eyes severely swelling and the side of her face bruising, Susan received several stitches on her lip that would leave a scar.

Having witnessed the entire drama unfold, Adam excitedly told his father and brother that this constituted abuse and called 911, a move that made Eli fearful of going to jail. Susan was also worried that Eli’s punch
would land him in police custody, so in order to avoid seeing Eli in jail again, the family concocted a story in which Susan had hit her face on the bed. Like so many of their lies, this one covered up the painful realities of the family’s life, but still it worked. Eli was never reprimanded for the attack on his mother.

According to Susan, while her repeated attempts to exit the marriage were rebuffed, at one point, she even went so far as to try and obtain a restraining order against Felix. But her efforts stalled in March 2001 after Felix allegedly incited a physical altercation with her and later claimed, with Eli as a witness, that she kicked him in the back. Once again the police were summoned to the house on Miner Road and while there, Susan apparently attacked Felix again, this time in front of the officers. The incident landed her in handcuffs and promptly ended her attempts at getting a restraining order. Though Felix didn’t press charges, the damage had been done.

As Susan told her side of events, the detectives continued to remind her of the evidence that was rapidly mounting against her and the fact that she was their number one suspect.

“We were at your house all day today and the scientists, they’re still there,” Moule said. “They call themselves CSI, crime scene investigators…. We collected all of your shoes…and there’s a shoe present. It’s not the same shoe, I’m not going to say it’s the same shoe…but it’s the same size shoe, it’s your size in the blood, okay?”

“There is no way that I went in there,” Susan said, referring to the guest cottage where Felix’s body was found.

“I’m not saying you had some big grand plan and you thought about it for a year. Things happen for different reasons…you had a struggle with him. There’s DNA in his hand. You have injuries on your face consistent with injuries on his body. You were in a struggle with him.”

“No, I was not.”

Hebel jumped in. “Your DNA is in that room.”

“You’re done,” Moule announced. “Your footprint, your DNA. It’s not about an interest, it’s about what happened and about your future right now…. Be honest.”

“I was not in there,” Susan maintained.

“Susan, this isn’t going away, you’re not getting out of jail. You need to give your side of this so that we can tell the court. Our job is just fact finders.”

“Well, then find the facts. Find out who did it.”

“We found the facts,” Moule said.

“We’re done,” Hebel added.

“We have to know why,” Moule said.

The detectives kept after her, but even under the intense questioning, Susan maintained her innocence. When they brought up the possibility of using a polygraph test, Susan adamantly refused, claiming that if it’s not reliable in a courtroom, then it’s simply not reliable.

As Susan sat there denying any involvement, it was unclear what, if anything, was her strategy. Susan was a very intelligent woman, and as such, her continued profession of innocence in the face of the evidence against her was baffling. While Moule and Hebel were trying to elicit a confession, the other investigators were in the process of building a substantial case against her. Still, she maintained her innocence, almost as if, in her mind, she really had not been involved. As Susan had on so many occasions, she seemed to be shaping her own version of reality, a version that had removed her involvement in Felix’s death. It was a harmful proposition in any situation, but in Susan’s case it had a profoundly negative impact. Eventually investigators and prosecutors would use these denials and lies to demonstrate the cold-blooded nature of her killing, arguing that her attempt to cover up denoted premeditation, making this a case of first-degree murder.

Now apparent to Detective Hebel that his current strategy was ineffective, he changed tactics, insinuating that the scratches on her eyes were a result of the deadly fight she had with Felix in the guesthouse that night. Susan said she’d been roughhousing with the family dog when he bit her.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” the detective smirked. “That’s not a dog bite.”

Detective Moule jumped in. “Susan, how did you sustain this mark right here on your right eye?” he asked, pulling at his moustache. “Do you want me to get a mirror and you can look at it yourself, and maybe it will jar your memory?”

Susan didn’t crack a smile. “I fool around with the dog all the time,” she insisted. “The dog jumped in my face.”

“Okay,” Moule grinned. “You have a little bit of darkness under your left eye, your left eye right here, a little bit of darkness. Did you also sustain that from the dog?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you mind putting your hands out again?” Detective Hebel instructed. “Can you stretch them all the way out.”

Susan complied.

“On your left hand there’s some scratches right in here and some redness right here,” Hebel noted, pointing a finger at Susan’s hand. “And on your right hand near your right index knuckle, there’s…it almost looks like bruising or redness. It’s light bruising.”

“Uh-huh,” Susan acknowledged.

“Can you roll them over,” Hebel directed. “You have some cuts on your left hand near the pad under your small finger.”

“Under the left thumb,” Moule added. “And then right here. Has that redness been there for a while?”

“There’s also, it looks like a scratch right there under her left arm, a little red mark,” Detective Hebel added.

“I was gardening barehanded and I played rough with the dog,” Susan persisted.

“Okay. Will you look at me and close your eyes, please,” Detective Moule commanded. “That’s quite a mark,” he said, referring to the scratch on her eyelid.

“He hit you,” Hebel announced, referring to Felix. “That’s why you got into this altercation with him.”

Moule jumped in, lunging forward at Susan’s face. “He was violent with you. He abused you and he had been doing it for a long time. Detective Hebel and I have been involved for years in domestic violence.”

“You know what…it didn’t happen,” Susan declared.

Later, looking back on the transcripts, it was hard to believe that a smart woman, who was so blatantly associated with a crime, would profess her innocence with so much passion. Most suspects, when faced with such insurmountable evidence would, at the very least, have come clean
that they played a
role
in the crime. However, this was not the case with Susan, who continued to steadfastly maintain her innocence for more than a year after Felix’s body was discovered.