Born to Lose (37 page)

“Over the times we met with Karen,” said Minahan, “we grew to like her a great deal. For us, she was surely a key witness, an intelligent, nice-looking young woman, terrified, only twenty-one, and sweet like the girl next door. We were protective of her like she was our daughter. Our goal with Karen was to have her speak to Hoss's incriminating remarks about Zanella's death.”

It began comfortably enough. Maxwell was sworn in and answered questions readily. The jury learned how Hoss had confronted her in the cemetery the previous September: “The next thing I knew, a man crouched in front of me with a gun. He said, ‘Be quiet and you won't get hurt.'”

Q. What else did he say?

A. He said, “I'm the guy who killed the Verona cop.”

Fagan let this one sentence hang in the air before moving ahead.

Shown exhibit #1, the gun, Maxwell said it was similar to the one her abductor used. Prompted by Fagan's skillful questions, she then described her journey with Hoss: how long he'd kept her with him, the routes and locations of their travels, and the talk they'd exchanged. “Hoss said,” she related, “that he wished Zanella had not died, but he said it was either the copper or him.”

Fagan thought Maxwell's time on the stand was dream testimony. Then Snyder got up for the cross-examination. His tone with the young woman was different from Fagan's, like a summer's breeze gone chilly.

“Miss Maxwell,” began Snyder, “your home is in Arnold, which is next door to New Kensington. Correct?”

A. Yes

Q. Lived there your whole life?

A. Yes.

Q. From what you've read, were you aware the defendant was from the same area?

A. Yes.

Q. Had you the opportunity to meet the defendant, ever seen him before?

A. No.

Q. Been to any parties or any type of social situations with him before?

A. Definitely not.

Q. Are you absolutely positive of that?

A. Yes, very.

Fagan was alarmed at Snyder's innuendo. Any more and he'd be on his feet. In the time leading up to trial, Fagan's attitude toward Snyder and Baxter had been the standard adversarial but professional relationship, but that would change.

“I had no problem with Fred Baxter,” Fagan remembered. “Freddie's mother was the famous singer, Jeannie Baxter … had radio and TV shows. Good personality, same with her son. Freddie was a good guy, one you'd enjoy a smoke and drink with. Snyder, though, had a grating personality, the kind that rubbed most people the wrong way.”

Fagan and Minahan, antennae up, waited to see Snyder's direction. Even Judge Strauss leaned forward. Sensing the prosecution was onto him, Snyder backed off for a short time, then went on the offensive:

Q. You mentioned you and the defendant were together a good while, eighteen hours?

A. Yes.

Q. Where did you two go?

“Objection!” It was Fagan, who at sidebar said he did not care for the characterization, implying that Hoss and Miss Maxwell were on a leisurely Sunday drive. He reminded Snyder that Maxwell had been at gunpoint the whole time.

Snyder replied, as if perplexed, “Well, that's what I'd like to know, if she—”

Strauss cut in forcefully. “Be very careful, counselor.”

Chastised, Snyder walked the line for the time being. He coaxed the increasingly nervous witness to recount the particulars of stopping for food and gas. Maxwell said Hoss had once left her alone in the car while he bought a candy bar.

“So why didn't you step on the gas?” asked Snyder.

“Because he took the keys,” answered Maxwell with exasperation, the answer to her quite evident.

Maxwell gave another twenty minutes of testimony before Snyder subtly led questioning toward the time and place of Hoss's rape upon her. Fagan could “feel it coming, that son-of-a-bitch. He was aiming to expose what happened to her.”

Snyder proceeded. “You were doing the driving, Miss Maxwell, so you've said. Was there occasion when you pulled off the road … ?”

Fagan was up like a jack-in-the-box. “If it please the court, may we have a sidebar?” Discomposed, Fagan and Minahan strode toward Strauss, Snyder right behind. An uncomfortable Baxter kept his seat beside his bemused client, who'd orchestrated this shenanigan by telling his attorneys that Maxwell had loyally come at his bidding to help him decamp Pittsburgh. The
ensuing sex, Hoss had assured them, was consensual, if not at her urging. Snyder planned to fly this kite—characterizing Maxwell as Hoss's hussy— to create doubt among the jury. The distraught witness peeked at Judge Strauss, as if he could toss her a life jacket.

“Your Honor,” Fagan appealed to Strauss in low but intense tones, “up until this time, all authorities have attempted to keep private that Stanley Hoss raped this girl. Mr. Snyder is coming to the rape, and you can see he plans to develop that as he proceeds. To me, this girl's future is more important than anything else. I realize I cannot prevent him from doing it, I am requesting it.”

“But it is our contention,” countered Snyder, “that the girl is lying, that her entire story is made up. Could I have ten minutes with my partner, in light of Mr. Fagan giving me this information?”

“This is not unknown to you,” Fagan shot back.

“You'd know it from your client if it happened,” said Strauss to Snyder, who responded, “My client never admitted anything. Why would he tell me?” Irked, Strauss said, “At one time I was a lawyer.”

“I had tears in my eyes, I was so upset,” remembered Fagan. “I
promised
her she wouldn't have to divulge the rape and depravities. She did not want her fiancé or anyone to know what happened. I said to Strauss, ‘If you permit them to cross-examine this girl on what transpired between Pittsburgh and Wheeling, I'll withdraw this instant. I'll quit.'”

Ill will lingered but the wrangle ended. Karen was allowed to step down, secrets intact.

Key state witnesses took the stand in a special Saturday session. Identified as the brother-in-law to Hoss's mistress, Walter Penn explained that while Hoss was on the run, he had telephoned Penn, calling him by his nickname, Pookie, and asking, “How is Jo?” Hoss had then said he was in a motel and provided a number for Penn to get to Jodine.

Q. What did you do?

A. I called the FBI in Pittsburgh.

Fagan was anxious to bring his next batch of witnesses before the jury, but doing so took a morning-long battle with the defense, who sought suppression. Strauss finally ruled in favor of the prosecution. The witnesses the defense wanted quashed were FBI agents and police officers.

Fagan began with Special Agent Edwin Flint of the Waterloo office.

Q. Relative to the conversation just provided by Mr. Walter Penn, did you locate the phone number provided by Mr. Penn?

A. Yes, in Jackson, Minnesota.

Q. Then?

A. I called the Waterloo PD, among other places, to be on the alert for a vehicle sought by law enforcement.

Q. What was that vehicle?

A. A 1969 Pontiac GTO convertible.

Q. Registered to whom?

“Objection, Your Honor.” It was Snyder. He sure as hell didn't want the owner's name revealed in court.

At sidebar, Judge Strauss asked Fagan's intent. “Merely that Agent Flint instructed Waterloo to look for a type of automobile and the license number,” answered Fagan.

The Court: You'll establish later the ownership?

Fagan: Yes, Sir.

Snyder: I have no objection to establishing the license number, but we may as well make the objection now that if the name Peugeot is mentioned as ownership of this automobile, we will at that time ask for a mistrial.

Judge Strauss, weary and wary of Snyder, said the defense might ask for anything it wished—at the proper time.

“I don't want it blurted out, said Snyder. “It is prejudicial mentioning the name Peugeot in this trial.”

Strauss answered in his deep voice. “It is apparent, Mr. Snyder, you feel a case can be tried in a vacuum devoid of all surrounding circumstances. That is not the law of Pennsylvania, has never been, and we are not going to make it so now. As long as the prosecution establishes ownership of items in question [that] … are related to the crime by circumstance, it is material and may be offered—and that is the rule.”

Again in front of the jury, Fagan resumed with Agent Flint, who said he provided the Waterloo police department with the particulars of the car Hoss was believed to be driving. “It was an alert to Waterloo,” said Flint.

At this point, late in the trial, the prosecution went for the coup de grace, relying on the cumulative effect of testimony about who killed Joe Zanella, the words of Hoss himself, and other matters that would tell the jurors: of Stanley Hoss, be very afraid.

Several Waterloo cops were called. Each told of his role at the Maywood Diner, their tense wait while their quarry ate his steak and sipped his coffee, then of the confrontation in the parking lot. The donnybrook itself, though, was minimized to imply police benignity. Said Lt. Duane Murry, “In the parking lot I informed the suspect he was under arrest, at which time he began to fight. We subdued him, then I advised him of his rights.” Murray later joked to a Pittsburgh cop, “And that, leaving unsaid a hundred punches by all parties, is what happened.”

Fagan began questioning Detective Matzen about the letters found on the bed in Hoss's room at the Traveler's Motel but Snyder, at sidebar, said he did not want any letters introduced to the jury, “unless they authenticate who did the handwriting.” The matter was dropped for the time but later to be resurrected because Fagan believed it too important not to have the jurors hear what Hoss wrote.

The packet of letters in Hoss's motel room was but one example of evidence that would not have seen the light of day were it not for a handshake in a clandestine meeting. From the start of the Hoss affair, relations between the FBI and the various local institutions involved was not what it could have been. From the time of Hoss's arrest in Waterloo, relations deteriorated further. In particular, the uneasy alliance between the FBI and the district attorney's office in Pittsburgh gave way to open conflict. Be that as it may, lead prosecutor Ted Fagan had no intention of letting intergovernmental jockeying sink his case. Without the knowledge of his boss, District Attorney Duggan, he placed a call to the Pittsburgh FBI chief, Ian MacLennan. At professional risk, the two met on the eve of trial over Guinness Stouts and cigarettes.

“I need your files,” Fagan said.

MacLennan chuckled. “And have Hoover assign me to the Anchorage office?”

The pair talked awhile and eventually agreed that to achieve their common goal—to crush Hoss, see him dead—they would share all information.

“Okay Ted, I'll give you our files,” said MacLennan, “but you alone, not that SOB Duggan. My agents will cooperate fully. We'll give you the exhibits we have. To you, not your office. We're not giving your office a thing, for what they've done.” In this frosty climate, Fagan got what he needed.

As fruit of this meeting, Fagan called several agents to the stand on Saturday afternoon, the third day of the trial. Agent Flint quoted Hoss as saying of Zanella, “‘I was ready for him.'”

Agent Danny Dunn, who'd perhaps spent more time with Hoss than anyone, said, “The defendant told me he killed Verona policeman Joseph Zanella and the gun he used was the same one found in Waterloo.” Agent John Anderson, from the FBI's Omaha office, testified that he'd asked Hoss if he had killed the officer and Hoss had replied, “‘I showed that dumb bastard,'” a boast that brought gasps from the spectators, but no reaction from Zanella's widow, Mary Ella, who sat numb, eyes unblinking.

This powerful testimony on late Saturday afternoon was what lingered with the jurors for the balance of the weekend. By Monday morning all that remained for the prosecution was to add the finishing touches. Fagan did so with the final three witnesses.

First up was Jodine Fawkes, whispered to be a go-go dancer, whose appearance elicited no end of interest among spectators and jury members. The court security personnel were pretty interested, t0o: they didn't want her tossing a six-shooter to her beau, and they didn't really trust the newfangled metal detector. The trouble was security had trouble positively locating Jodine during the trial, especially since she wasn't the only young woman in the audience. A few other young women thought to be girlfriends of Hoss also mingled with the trial crowd. Detectives would make note of each, but the next day one or two of the women would turn up with a different hair color. The brunette would be blonde, the chestnut, now raven. Said Sheriff Gene Coon: “The jezebels were changing wigs like they did their bobbles and lipstick.” Was one of them Jodine herself?

Ted Fagan had subpoenaed Jodine for Saturday's session, but, when called, she was not to be found. Tracked down at home and “talked to” by a couple of Coon's deputies, the renitent Miss Fawkes was persuaded to make herself available for the prosecution.

A kind but firm Fagan asked Jodine how long she'd known the defendant.

A. Six years.

Q. Is this a close relationship?

A. Yes.

As the prosecution had managed to introduce, over vigorous defense objection, the letters found on Hoss's motel bed in Waterloo, Fagan asked Jodine if she was the intended recipient.

A. I don't know.

Q. Well, they are addressed to you?

A. I guess they're to me.

When Fagan showed Jodine several pages and asked if she could identify the handwriting, Jodine hedged, but eventually granted that the missives “look like” they came from Hoss's hand.

After making eye contact with Stanley, the shapely Miss Fawkes stepped down, then blew him a kiss.

Taking her place was Philip Conover, an FBI fingerprint expert. Conover said he found palm and fingerprints on an envelope, a letter, and two post cards forwarded to him by the Waterloo Police Department.