CHAPTER 59
Tuesday, May 8, 2001
167th District Court
Austin, Texas
After nearly ten months of legal housecleaning, interminable delays, and twelve days of jury selection, the trial of Robert Springsteen IV began.
The defense team included fifty-five-year-old Joe James Sawyer, a graduate of the University of Texas undergraduate school and law school, a burly man with an old-school Texas twang and charm to boot. According to sources, Sawyer had a reputation for throwing back a cold one or three. His partner at the defense table was Berkley Bettis.
The prosecution consisted of Darla Davis, an energetic assistant district attorney who worked on the disappearance and subsequent murder case of Atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair, Robert Smith, the assistant district attorney who requested the girls’ autopsies be sealed back in 1992, and Efrain de la Fuente, who grew up as a migrant farmworker who toiled in the fields. His father gained his United States citizenship with the help of Cesar Chavez. De la Fuente was a battalion commander in the ROTC, attended college at St. Mary’s in San Antonio, and was an officer in the United States Army. De la Fuente studied law at Drake University. After law school, he became a JAG officer. He later worked as a prosecutor and a defense lawyer.
The proceedings would be overseen by Judge Mike Lynch, a University of Texas Law School graduate, former prosecutor, and former defense lawyer, who became a judge in 1993.
Judge Lynch received support from court reporter Jim King, head bailiff Salvador “Sal” Hernandez, who was later voted Best Dressed Bailiff in the 2002
Austin Chronicle
“Readers’ Poll,” and assistant bailiff Bob Burnett.
The pain was evident on the faces of the victims’ families as they entered the courtroom. Bob Ayers spoke of how his feelings had changed over time. “I said before that I had no feelings toward them, but as I start to learn more, I’m starting to get mad.”
The person Ayers was mad at entered the courtroom. Robert Springsteen, dressed in khaki pants and a button-down long-sleeved shirt, ambled in toward the defense table. He had put on several pounds while behind bars. The defendant took his chair at the table. Once seated, he looked around to see who was there to support him. The majority of his family had been subpoenaed by the prosecution, so they were not allowed to attend the trial. His one constant was his grandmother Maryjane Roudebush. After he spotted his kin, Springsteen’s eyes drifted over to the other side of the aisle. There he saw Bob and Pam Ayers, Maria Thomas, and Barbara Ayres-Wilson (who had remarried before the trial), seated in the first two rows directly behind the prosecution table.
Robert Smith stepped forward to make the opening argument for the state against Robert Burns Springsteen IV. He began by re-creating the night of December 6, 1991. He spoke of the girls at work. He mentioned how Springsteen propped open the back door of the yogurt shop with a pack of cigarettes. How the boys returned to the store and entered through that same door. He talked about how each girl was tied up and executed by the defendant. Smith’s soft delivery style contrasted drastically with the despicable imagery he painted.
“Robert Springsteen and his friends left out the back door on December 6, 1991, and they have successfully eluded justice until today.”
Smith spoke of the distorted crime scene caused by fire and water damage. How it was difficult to obtain usable evidence because of the destruction of the scene.
Smith discussed the states of the girls’ bodies. How they were lying. Distinguishing characteristics of what was done to them. He mentioned the ice scoop and how it was used on Sarah Harbison. He spoke of how Sarah removed her boyfriend’s ring before she was forced to strip off her clothes.
Smith talked about the makeup of the police homicide division back in 1991. He mentioned how severely understaffed the group was and how that led to several problems involved in the murder case.
The prosecutor detailed the different interviews conducted with Robert Springsteen, Michael Scott, Forrest Welborn, and Maurice Pierce. He covered the confessions given by Scott and Springsteen. Of Springsteen’s confession, he said, “You will . . . see the complex inner workings of a guilty mind who tries to deny, to avoid, to shift blame, and ultimately to admit responsibility.”
Smith looked at the jury as he closed. “There is going to be no question that he did it. There is going to be no question, when you hear all of the evidence,” he said as he turned toward Springsteen, “that you are sitting in the courtroom with the man who killed Amy Ayers.”
Joe James Sawyer stood before the court to give his opening remarks. He acknowledged the jurors. “I will not say ‘good morning’ to you. That would be obscene. There is nothing good about a morning when we begin this process of discussing the deaths of four young girls in the presence of the family and loved ones,” Sawyer solemnly stated. “And maybe the only thing to say in regard to that, that is sufficient, is, ‘Unto the day is the evil of the day.’”
Sawyer immediately honed in on the crime scene processing. He questioned the lack of protocol for logging in participants at the crime scene that night. He also pointed out a dichotomy in Robert Smith’s opening statement in regard to the evidence.
“Mr. Smith told you two things at once,” he declared to the jury. “That the fire destroyed this crime scene, and yet he was able to show you with great exactitude the plentitude of evidence that actually came out of the crime scene.”
Sawyer questioned the issue of holdback information in the case. “Within weeks of this crime, the details of the crime had become almost meaningless.”
Springsteen’s representative also discussed the issue of the fire. “I’ll tell you something else Mr. Smith didn’t tell you”—Sawyer paused as he spotted a juror who seemed to waver—“and if this bores you, I’m sorry—this may be one of the key issues in this trial. How did this fire begin?” Sawyer briefly touched on how fire investigator Melvin Stahl conducted an on-site investigation, yet the state chose not to use his report in the case.
“What does it tell us, then, about the crime scene? Maybe the evidence begins to speak to us. Maybe these killers weren’t so bold that they shot and strangled this girl and then took the time to build a fire on top of someone. Maybe something else happened.
“That fire may be the single most important piece of evidence for you to consider.”
Sawyer also mentioned politics.
“Another component, that is, another subtext to this case, that is nasty but true, and that was the sheer political pressure to solve this case.”
He also mentioned that several people confessed to the murders before his client did.
Sawyer also spoke about the possibility of police misconduct.
“Remember, remember—the police may lie. Remember that these police are going up there naked . . . with not a shred of evidence to support any accusation against this man,” he stated as he nodded toward Springsteen.
Sawyer closed by saying, “This case excited our city in a very negative way. Excited our city as no case probably ever has before and, I pray to God, never will again.
“But when you sift through it . . . you begin to see a pattern of evidence that . . . points to another possibility, if not probability, if not with absolute definitude.”
1:00
P.M.
The state hoped to open their case on a strong, emotional note. Robert Smith called Bob Ayers to the stand. Ayers spoke of life with his daughter. What she enjoyed. The things she did to make her family happy. He also spoke of December 6, 1991.
“She followed us to the door,” Amy’s father recalled. “We told her we loved her. She told us that she loved us, and she locked the door behind us.”
“And was that the last time you ever saw your daughter alive?” Smith asked.
“Yes, sir.”
The prosecution followed with Barbara Ayres-Wilson, mother of Sarah and Jennifer Harbison. Ayres-Wilson gave more emotional testimony about the last day of her daughters’ lives.
Next up was Maria Thomas, mother of Eliza Thomas. She spoke of how she helped her daughter with her sick pig the morning of December 6, 1991. She also recalled how she saw all four girls alive in the yogurt shop just hours before their deaths.
Eliza’s father, James Thomas, gave similar testimony about seeing his daughter and her three friends at the restaurant on the night of the murders.
After Mr. Thomas, the state called Sam Buchanan, Jennifer Harbison’s boyfriend. Buchanan was a successful baseball player at Lanier High School at the time. He also had been sexually active with Jennifer Harbison. In fact, his semen had been found in her vagina at the crime scene. Buchanan talked about attending his grandfather’s funeral the day Jennifer was murdered.
Next up was Sarah Harbison’s boyfriend, Michael McCathern. Michael and Sarah had been dating for one month at the time of her death. The young man spoke of the ring he had given Sarah. It had a green stone in the middle, with a tractor on one side and his initials on the other side.
It was an extremely tearful beginning to what would be an emotionally wrenching trial.
After bringing the girls to life through their loved ones’ testimony, Smith shifted gears. He now needed to re-create what happened that night for the jury.
He began with Dearl Croft.
Croft detailed his visit to the yogurt shop that night. He spoke about a strange encounter with a boy in a green fatigue army jacket.
The next key witness was Officer Troy Gay, now a lieutenant, the man who first spotted the smoke and fire at the yogurt shop. He was the first witness to describe the details of the crime scene. He was also the first witness the defense team cross-examined.
The final witness for the day was fire specialist Rene Garza, who described extinguishing the fire inside the shop. He also described the discovery of the bodies.
Wednesday, May 9, 2001
The first portion of the second day of testimony covered more firefighter and police officer descriptions of the crime scene. On cross-examination, the defense team focused on the number of personnel traipsing through the murder site and the dissemination of crime scene information. Sawyer also pressed the firefighters if they recalled Sergeant John Jones’s arrival at the yogurt shop with a Channel 7 cameraman and newsreader.
The second half of the day featured testimony from Texas Department of Public Safety crime scene investigator Irma Rios. She spoke at length about the processing of the yogurt shop murder scene.
Rios recalled the process of collecting evidence that night. To illustrate her testimony, the prosecution projected several graphic photographs of the girls’ corpses. The larger-than-life-size views of a naked Amy Ayers and the other three girls’ charred bodies caused ripples of emotion throughout the courtroom.
The families of the girls wept openly.
Barbara Ayres-Wilson looked away from the photographs of her daughters. It was especially difficult because she should have been celebrating Jennifer’s twenty-seventh birthday this day.
Thursday, May 10, 2001
Judge Lynch attempted to kick the day off on a humorous note. After the jury was seated, he asked if they experienced problems with the new high-tech facility’s elevators. It was an ongoing problem ever since the building was built.
“We had a FedEx guy trying to get up here to deliver a package,” the judge recalled, “and we decided he spent more time between the first floor and the eighth floor than he did from here to Dallas.”
A few of the jurors grinned and nodded knowingly.
It was a nice anecdote to the grim testimony that would follow.
Smith finished up his questioning of Irma Rios rather quickly. He passed the witness to Joe James Sawyer, who immediately pounced on the fire evidence in relation to the girls’ bodies.
Sawyer asked Rios if she took pictures of the floor where the girls’ corpses lay after they were removed. He mentioned it was important because “you can later determine whether or not the person had been moved, whether the person was there when the fire began, [or] whether the person was there when the fire started.” Sawyer pointed out a bare spot underneath Jennifer Harbison in one crime scene photograph. He surmised that that indicated she was there when the fire started.
Sawyer also asked Rios if she smelled anything unusual at the murder site.
“I did not smell anything like gasoline or any kind of accelerant.” She added, “There could have been another accelerant used.”
Sawyer wanted to know if Rios knew the whereabouts of the metal shelves located in the back of the yogurt shop—the same shelves upon which, arson investigator Melvin Stahl claimed, the fire began.
“The metal shelves were not collected.”
“Would you agree with me,” Sawyer responded, “that the preservation of those shelves would have been important . . . to help the jury determine the truth of the origin of the fire?”
Rios declined to answer fully. She claimed that she was not an arson investigator; therefore, she was not properly suited to answer that question.
“The fire burned with sufficient intensity to melt an aluminum alloy in the aluminum ladder. Did you collect the ladder?” Sawyer followed up.
“No, I didn’t,” answered Rios.
“Did anyone collect it?”
“No.”
“So it’s not available for the jury to examine or for anyone to testify about the intensity of the gases at the top of that fire?”
“No.”
Sawyer continued to attempt to show disorder at the crime scene with Rios and the DPS crime scene investigative team.
“Wasn’t Mr. Les Carpenter, from the medical examiner’s office, on the scene demanding that you release the bodies to him and arguing about the procedures that you were following?”