Body Parts (34 page)

As Mazurek delivered his twenty-five-minute opening, he roamed around the courtroom, gesturing and animated, laying the blame for these murders squarely on Wayne’s shoulders.

“Wayne Adam Ford knows what he’s done. Knows what he’s done to four young women. He knows what he is. And through the course of the evidence in this trial, you will know what the defendant has done and what he is.

“The evidence will show that the defendant was responsible for the rape, the torture, for his sexual gratification, and the deaths of four women in their twenties. He then discarded their bodies, some dismembered, some decomposing, in various counties throughout the state of California. Discarded them all in bodies of water. Left them with no identification, no means for their loved ones knowing what ultimately happened to them.”

From there, Mazurek proceeded to lay out the details of each grisly crime, attempting to preemptively knock down whatever sympathy the defense would try to build for its client.

Starting with Jane Doe, Mazurek recounted parts of Wayne’s interview with Detective Juan Freeman in which he said that she—like his other victims—died accidentally.

“The defendant never, never specifies what, exactly, the accident was that happened with this girl. But he did talk about why she ended up the way that she did. He said he had to make her small, to get rid of her parts. And so what he did was, in his bathtub of his trailer, he cut her up, using a survival knife that he had at his camp, because he wanted to dispose of the parts.”

Mazurek set out to cast doubt on Wayne’s sincerity and truthfulness, telling the jury that they would notice a large—and suspiciously telling—gap in Wayne’s memory.

“The defendant will say he had sex with all of these girls, and that they all died, possibly, somehow, during sex. And what you’ll hear and what you’ll notice is that the defendant can describe in detail where he meets these girls . . . and then he can describe, after they’re dead, what happened to them, where he left them. . . . But he never can describe, and claims he can’t remember, how they died. But it was possibly, possibly during rough sex . . . [when] sometimes he likes to put his hands or a rope around women’s necks and choke them.”

Mazurek told the jury that the evidence would show that none of these girls died accidentally.

“He bound these women, engaged in sex with them, killed them, all because he liked to do it.”

Mazurek closed by using Wayne’s own words in June 1999 against him: “‘That lady could have told her grandchildren she was helped by two nice policemen and a serial killer.’

“Wayne Adam Ford is a serial killer,” Mazurek said, “a serial killer who knew what he was doing, killed for personal satisfaction, killed for sexual pleasure. The evidence will show he is guilty of four counts of first-degree murder.”

Canty’s oratorical style was a study in contrast to the jovial Mazurek, both in his limited movement and his expression. Although Canty was a friendly guy outside the courtroom, he rarely smiled in court, his expression so serious it bordered on dour. It was almost as if he had taken the gravity of the case inside him. He was clearly a believer in the cause, so he was credible to the jurors, making eye contact with them when he wanted to press a point.

Canty’s opening statement also lasted twenty-five minutes, during which he cast Wayne in a sympathetic light, while also attempting to remove the necessary precursors to prove first-degree murder. He painted Wayne as a mentally addled man who did not intend to kill these women and whose “encounters” with them were not premeditated. He reminded the jury that Wayne was on trial now because he had turned himself in, knowing he was giving up his freedom forever.

“Now, he wasn’t being sought, there were no APBs, the police had no clue as to who committed any of these four crimes that you heard described by the prosecutor. Nobody was focusing on him, nobody was trying to find Mr. Ford. He just walked in, and of his own volition, because he decided that the killing had to stop.”

Canty, playing a careful semantic game so as not to place blame on Wayne for murder, told the jury that these actions were significant in determining Wayne’s state of mind when “the four decedents’ lives were taken.

“The important thing about Wayne Ford is that he, himself, recognized there was something wrong with him. He had that insight.”

Canty told the jury they were “about to take a very long ride together,” which, for some people, may have conjured up an unwelcome image of Wayne driving around for days with the bodies in his truck. Nonetheless, Canty asked the jurors to keep an open mind during this ride, until the defense could present its case some months down the road.

He started by showing the jury a photo of Wayne in the pumpkin patch with his two-year-old son, Max, in October 1997, just before Wayne picked up his first victim. He recounted how Wayne couldn’t bear to leave his son crying in the child care center on his first birthday, so he stayed and comforted him. How he couldn’t bear to go back to see Max because he couldn’t trust himself not to steal the boy away. Canty then jumped to Wayne’s state of mind right after turning himself in, noting that he was very depressed and often broke into tears, raising concerns he might commit suicide.

Continuing with the social history, Canty showed the jury photos of Wayne’s parents, whom he characterized as neglectful.

“Suffice it to say, at this point, that Brigitte did not want her son Wayne, and was a cold, unfeeling woman who did not see the value of hugging or showing affection to another. Suffice it to say that Gene, Wayne’s dad, was a career military officer in the army intelligence, was just gone a lot, and struck fear into Wayne’s heart when he was home. Suffice it to say, at this point, that both parents had agendas other than raising Wayne. And after the divorce, when he was a young teen, he and his brother were left to fend for themselves.”

Canty said he would present evidence that would also help the jury to understand Wayne’s mental problems when the homicides occurred.

Although he primed the jury for the testimony of a psychological expert in the field of sexual murders, Canty explained that this was not an insanity case because Wayne knew right from wrong. That said, “The evidence will challenge you to attempt to understand the workings of Wayne’s mind. Truly, a journey into the outer reaches of psychological knowledge and beyond. We openly agree that in some respects what you’ll see and hear reflects the mind of a person who at some period of time was out on Mars.”

“So let’s take that ride,” Canty said.

After calling Bob Pottberg, who found the torso and alerted authorities, and Charlie Van Buskirk, the deputy coroner who collected and transported the remains to San Joaquin County with Freeman, Mazurek called the pathologist who conducted the autopsy of Jane Doe.

Dr. Robert Lawrence described the state of the body and gave a detailed description of Wayne’s surgical techniques.

“The breasts were removed, in what I would describe as a careful, skillful dissection,” he said. “I’m not saying a doctor did it, but I’m saying that it was done in a way that was neat, thorough. The entire breasts were removed on both sides. They were exactly the same on both sides. . . . There were no, what I would call, mistakes made as the breasts were removed. Really quite impressive.”

Lawrence testified that he couldn’t tell if the victim had been strangled because the upper part of the neck was missing.

“I would say, though, that the bruising pattern on the right rear of her shoulder could indicate that someone held her tightly with the left hand, while maybe possibly strangling her with the right hand. But there’s no way I could tell that. I’m just saying that’s one possibility.”

“In this case, do you have an opinion, given all the items that were removed, how long it would take to do that, based on your experience?” Mazurek asked.

“I’d say at least a couple of hours. . . . If this was done outdoors, it would have to be somewhere very isolated, where a person felt secure enough to undertake such a chore. If it were done indoors, it would usually be done in a bathtub. . . . Again, very messy. The way the breasts were removed indicates the type of precision and care that would take time, instead of just slashing and cutting. And I would say that the same thing applies, to a lesser extent, to the removal of the head and the extremities. . . . I think for a non-pathologist, you know, amateur, to do this kind of work would take quite a while.”

On the morning of March 16, Canty moved to exclude the presentation of Wayne’s hacksaw, hatchet, and knives to the jury—then also tried to exclude the testimony of the criminalist who had analyzed and compared them to Jane Doe’s remains—because there was no scientific evidence that they were
the
implements used to cut her up.

“These items should not be paraded in front of the jury,” Canty said.

Judge Smith said there was nothing “inherently prejudicial” about the items, which were lawful to possess, and relevant to Mazurek’s case.

Canty disagreed, saying they were prejudicial.

“Anybody could come in and say these things,” he said.

When Canty also questioned the relevance of the criminalist’s testimony, Smith said, “It goes to the manner in which the crimes were committed, the manner in which the bodies were disposed of, and that is circumstantial evidence of intent.”

Smith overruled Canty’s objection, allowing Los Angeles criminalist Steve Dowell to take the stand.

Dowell compared each of the tools to the cutting marks on the bones, but he could not identify any one tool that did the cutting because some of the implements had multiple features and uses for sawing, cutting, and chopping.

Referring to the marks on the vertebrae where the head was severed, Dowell said, “Any sharp object, including any of the knives that were submitted to me, could possibly produce those marks.”

“The marks that are left are consistent with the tools that you examined?”

“Correct.”

Mapes’s cross-examination was short and sweet.

“So what you can tell us is that the tools that you examined may have been used [to produce the marks] . . . you examined, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Or they may not have been used?”

“Correct.”

After questioning the witnesses about the forensic evidence, Mazurek called the sheriff’s dispatcher and sergeant who talked to Wayne in the station lobby when he turned himself in.

They finished up in court early that Friday, but the weekend break turned out to be longer than Mazurek had planned for.

Canty called Mazurek the next day, saying, “We might have to take next week off. There’s an issue with Wayne.”

“Okay, just keep me posted,” Mazurek said.

On Monday morning, Canty announced that Wayne had become so agitated with the prosecution’s presentation of the evidence the previous week that he was falling apart mentally. The judge allowed Canty’s request for a week’s break to allow Wayne to see a doctor and change his medication, which screwed up the travel plans for the prosecution witnesses scheduled to testify that week.

When the trial reconvened the following Monday, March 27, 2006, Mazurek called Detective Juan Freeman to testify about some of the horrific acts to which Wayne had admitted.

Wayne, who looked clean-cut in a dark blue suit, glanced through the transcripts of his interviews with Freeman, which had also been distributed to the jury.

Mazurek had Freeman prepare the jury for Wayne to be so soft-spoken at times that it was often difficult to hear him on the tape. Mazurek then played the first interview.

Before playing the tape of Freeman’s next interview, Mazurek asked, “Did he express any reservations to you about talking with you?”

“No, sir, he didn’t.”

Freeman described Wayne’s emotional state as “still somewhat down,” noting that “he did break down a bit here and there” when asked how the victims died. He later testified that Wayne’s answers were “evasive and nonresponsive.”

While they were at the campsite, Freeman said, Wayne was “being helpful” by directing the investigators to the hole where he had buried the victim’s thighs. He also explained what he had done with her body parts, specifically to her breasts, after cutting her up at his trailer.

“He said that they had been—they had shriveled up to almost nothing because he had cooked them and rendered the fat off the breasts into a coffee can,” Freeman said.

“He said that she was . . . physically bigger than he thought she’d be. . . . He said he was trying to flush her guts down the toilet.”

“Did he ever tell you why?”

“I don’t believe he did.”

The judge called a recess until the next morning, when Mazurek asked Freeman a few more questions.

On cross-examination, Canty led Freeman through an exercise that created the impression the prosecution was hiding something from the jury. He pointed out that the transcript in the jury’s hands was different from the one that had been previously prepared for the grand jury, then asked Freeman to make note in the dozen or so places where the notation of Wayne crying had been omitted.

Next, Canty let the prosecution witness make the defense’s case. By having Freeman admit that he’d tried to appeal to Wayne’s conscience during the interrogation, Canty, in effect, was able to show that even the detective thought Wayne had a conscience.

He also got Freeman to acknowledge that Wayne went quite willingly to the riverbank to help them locate Jane Doe’s head.

“And he didn’t resist that or say, ‘Gee, I don’t want to do that’? He seemed anxious to help you find things. Would that be fair?”

“That would be fair to say,” Freeman said, adding that it was also fair to say that Wayne seemed genuinely interested in trying to help identify his victim, another counterpoint to Freeman’s earlier testimony that Wayne was unresponsive and evasive during the interviews.

Freeman acknowledged that he’d advised the correctional officers that Wayne was depressed and that he “thought it’d be a good idea if they kept an eye on him . . . [in case] he became self-destructive.”