Authors: Michael Connelly
Maggie leaned toward me and whispered, “Brace yourself.”
I nodded. I knew exactly where we were going.
“This trial is about a monster who killed a child. A monster who defiled one young girl and was going to move on to the next when something went wrong and he killed that child. This trial is about the family that was so fearful of that monster that they went along with the plan to cover up the crime and point the finger elsewhere. At an innocent man.”
Royce pointed righteously at Jessup as he said this last line. Maggie shook her head in disgust, a calculated move for the jury.
“Jason, would you please stand up?” Royce said.
His client did as instructed and turned fully to the jury, his eyes boldly scanning from face to face, not flinching or looking away.
“Jason Jessup is an innocent man,” Royce said with the requisite outrage in his voice. “He was the fall guy. An innocent man caught in an impromptu plan to cover up the worst kind of crime, the taking of a child’s life.”
Jessup sat down and Royce paused so his words would burn into every juror’s conscience. It was highly theatrical and planned that way.
“There are two victims here,” he finally said. “Melissa Landy is a victim. She lost her life. Jason Jessup is also a victim because they are trying to take his life. The family conspired against him and then the police followed their lead. They ignored the evidence and planted their own. And now after twenty-four years, after witnesses are gone and memories have dimmed, they’ve come calling for him…”
Royce cast his head down as if tremendously burdened by the truth. I knew he would now wrap things up.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we are here for only one reason. To seek the truth. Before the end of this day, you will know the truth about Windsor Boulevard. You will know that Jason Jessup is an innocent man.”
Royce paused again, then thanked the jury and moved back to his seat. In what I was sure was a well-rehearsed moment, Jessup put his arm around his lawyer’s shoulders, gave him a squeeze and thanked him.
But the judge gave Royce little time to savor the moment or the slick delivery of his opening statement. She told him to call his first witness. I turned in my seat and saw Bosch standing in the back of the courtroom. He gave me the nod. I had sent him to get Sarah Ann Gleason from the hotel as soon as Royce had informed me upon arriving at court that she would be his first witness.
“The
defense
calls Sarah Ann Gleason to the stand,” Royce said, putting the accent on defense in a way that suggested that this was an unexpected turnabout.
Bosch stepped out of the courtroom and quickly returned with Gleason. He walked her down the aisle and through the gate. She went the rest of the way on her own. She again was dressed for court informally, wearing a white peasant blouse and a pair of jeans.
Gleason was reminded by the judge that she was still under oath and turned over to Royce. This time when he went to the lectern he carried a thick file and a legal pad. Probably most of it—the file, at least—was just an attempt to intimidate Gleason, to make her think he had a big fat file on everything she had ever done wrong in life.
“Good morning, Ms. Gleason.”
“Good morning.”
“Now, you testified yesterday that you were the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of your stepfather, Kensington Landy, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
With the first word of her testimony I detected trepidation. She hadn’t been allowed to hear Royce’s opening statement but we had prepared Gleason for the way we thought the defense case would go. She was exhibiting fear already and this never played well with the jury. There was little Maggie and I could do. Sarah was up there on her own.
“At what point in your life did this abuse start?”
“When I was twelve.”
“And it ended when?”
“When I was thirteen. Right after my sister’s death.”
“I notice you didn’t call it your sister’s murder. You called it her death. Is there a reason for that?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, your sister was murdered, correct? It wasn’t an accident, was it?”
“No, it was murder.”
“Then why did you refer to it as her death just a moment ago?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Are you confused about what happened to your sister?”
Maggie was on her feet objecting before Gleason could answer.
“Counsel is badgering the witness,” she said. “He’s more interested in eliciting an emotional response than an answer.”
“Your Honor, I simply am trying to learn how and why this witness views this crime the way she does. It goes to state of mind of the witness. I am not interested in eliciting anything other than an answer to the question I asked.”
The judge weighed things for a moment before ruling.
“I’m going to allow it. The witness may answer the question.”
“I’ll repeat it,” Royce said. “Ms. Gleason, are you confused about what happened to your sister?”
During the exchange between lawyers and the judge, Gleason had found some resolve. She answered forcefully while hitting Royce with a hard stare of defiance.
“No, I’m not confused about what happened. I was there. She was kidnapped by your client and after that I never saw her again. There is no confusion about that at all.”
I wanted to stand and clap. Instead, I just nodded to myself. It was a fine, fine answer. But Royce moved on, acting as though he had not been hit with the tomato.
“There have been times in your life when you were confused, however, correct?”
“About my sister and what happened and who took her? Never.”
“I’m talking about times you were incarcerated in mental health facilities and the psych wards of jails and prisons.”
Gleason lowered her head in full realization that she would not escape this trial without a full airing of the lost years of her life. I just had to hope she would respond in the way Maggie had told her to.
“After the murder of my sister, many things went wrong in my life,” she said.
She then looked up directly at Royce as she continued.
“Yes, I spent some time in those kinds of places. I think, and my counselors agreed, that it was because of what happened to Melissa.”
Good answer, I thought. She was fighting.
“We’ll get back into that later on,” Royce said. “But getting back to your sister, she was twelve at the time of her murder, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“This would have been the same age you were when your stepfather began to sexually abuse you. Am I right?”
“About the same, yes.”
“Did you warn your sister about him?”
There was a long pause as Gleason considered her answer. This was because there was no good answer.
“Ms. Gleason?” the judge prompted. “Please answer the question.”
“No, I didn’t warn her. I was afraid to.”
“Afraid of what?” Royce asked.
“Him. As you’ve already pointed out, I’ve been through a lot of therapy in my life. I know that it is not unusual for a child to be unable to tell anyone. You get trapped in the behavior. Trapped by fear. I’ve been told that many times.”
“In other words, you go along to get along.”
“Sort of. But that is a simplification. It was more—”
“But you did live with a lot of fear in your life back then?”
“Yes, I—”
“Did your stepfather tell you not to tell anyone about what he was doing to you?”
“Yes, he said—”
“Did he threaten you?”
“He said that if I told anyone I would be taken away from my mother and sister. He said he would make sure that the state would think my mother knew about it and they would consider her unfit. They would take Melissa and me away. Then we would get split up because foster homes couldn’t always take two at a time.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Yes, I was twelve. I believed him.”
“And it scared you, didn’t it?”
“Yes. I wanted to stay with my fam—”
“Wasn’t it that same fear and control that your stepfather had over you that made you go along to get along after he killed your sister?”
Again Maggie jumped up to object, stating that the question was leading and assumed facts not in evidence. The judge agreed and sustained the objection.
Undeterred, Royce went at Gleason relentlessly.
“Isn’t it true that you and your mother did and said exactly what your stepfather told you to in the cover-up of Melissa’s murder?”
“No, that’s not—”
“He told you to say it was a tow truck driver and that you were to pick one of the men the police brought to the house.”
“No! He didn’t—”
“Objection!”
“There was no hide-and-seek game outside the house, was there? Your sister was murdered inside the house by Kensington Landy. Isn’t that true!”
“Your Honor!”
Maggie was now shouting.
“Counsel is badgering the witness with these leading questions. He doesn’t want her answers. He just wants to deliver his lies to the jury!”
The judge looked from Maggie to Royce.
“All right, everyone just calm down. The objection is sustained. Mr. Royce, ask the witness one question at a time and allow her the time to answer. And you will not ask leading questions. Need I remind you, you called her as a witness. If you wanted to lead her you should’ve conducted a cross-examination when you had the opportunity.”
Royce put on his best look of contrition. It must’ve been difficult.
“I apologize for getting carried away, Your Honor,” he said. “It won’t happen again.”
It didn’t matter if it happened again. Royce had already gotten his point across. His purpose was not to get an admission from Gleason. In fact, he expected none. His purpose was to get his alternate theory to the jury. In that, he was being very successful.
“Okay, let’s move on,” Royce said. “You mentioned earlier that you spent a considerable part of your adult life in counseling and drug rehab, not to mention incarceration. Is that correct?”
“To a point,” Gleason said. “I have been clean and sober and a—”
“Just answer the question that was asked,” Royce quickly interjected.
“Objection,” Maggie said. “She is trying to answer the question he asked, but Mr. Royce doesn’t like the full answer and is trying to cut her off.”
“Let her answer the question, Mr. Royce,” Breitman said tiredly. “Go ahead, Ms. Gleason.”
“I was just saying that I have been clean for seven years and a productive member of society.”
“Thank you, Ms. Gleason.”
Royce then led her through a tragic and sordid history, literally going arrest by arrest and revealing all the details of the depravity Sarah wallowed in for so long. Maggie objected often, arguing that it had little to do with Sarah’s identification of Jessup, but Breitman allowed most of the questioning to continue.
Finally, Royce wrapped up his examination by setting up his next witness.
“Getting back to the rehabilitation center in North Hollywood, you were there for five months in nineteen ninety-nine, correct?”
“I don’t remember exactly when or for how long. You obviously have the records there.”
“But you do remember meeting another client, named Edward Roman, known as Eddie?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And you got to know him well?”
“Yes.”
“How did you meet him?”
“We were in group counseling together.”
“How would you describe the relationship you had with Eddie Roman back then?”
“Well, in counseling we sort of realized that we knew some of the same people and liked doing the same things—meaning drugs. So we started hanging out and it continued after we were both released.”
“Was this a romantic relationship?”
Gleason laughed in a way that was not supposed to impart humor.
“What passed for romance between two drug addicts,” she said. “I think the term is
enablers
. By being together we were enabling each other. But
romance
is not a word I would use. We had sex on occasion—when he was able to. But there was no romance, Mr. Royce.”
“But didn’t you in fact believe at one point that you two were married?”
“Eddie set something up on the beach with a man he said was a minister. But it wasn’t real. It wasn’t legal.”
“But at the time you thought it was, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So were you in love with him?”
“No, I wasn’t in love with him. I just thought he could protect me.”
“So you were married, or at least thought you were. Did you live together?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In different motels in the Valley.”
“All this time you were together, you must’ve confided in Eddie, yes?”
“About some things, yes.”
“Did you ever confide in him about your sister’s murder?”
“I am sure I did. I didn’t keep it a secret. I would have talked about it in group therapy in North Hollywood and he was sitting right there.”
“Did you ever tell him that your stepfather killed your sister?”
“No, because that didn’t happen.”
“So if Eddie Roman were to come to this courtroom and testify that you did indeed tell him that, then he would be lying.”
“Yes.”
“But you have already testified yesterday and today that you have lied to counselors and police. You have stolen and committed many crimes in your life. But you’re not lying here. Is that what we are to believe?”
“I’m not lying. You are talking about a period of my life when I did those things. I don’t deny that. I was human trash, okay? But I am past that now and have been past it for a long time. I’m not lying now.”
“Okay, Ms. Gleason, no further questions.”
As Royce returned to his seat, Maggie and I put our heads together and whispered.
“She held up really well,” Maggie said. “I think we should let it stand and I’ll just hit a couple high notes.”
“Sounds good.”
“Ms. McPherson?” the judge prompted.
Maggie stood.
“Yes, Your Honor. Just a few questions.”
She went to the lectern with her trusty legal pad. She skipped the buildup and got right to the matters she wanted to cover.