Cruel Death (37 page)

Judge Weinstein addressed the court after the complete verdict was read, saying he was delaying BJ’s sentencing until a trial date could be set for what amounted to a burglary charge against him. But most people sitting there knew BJ was not going to be sentenced until Erika’s trial was concluded.

From where Collins and Todd sat in the front row, the trial had gone better than expected. It seemed every decision, every motion, every objection, and every little nuance that makes up a criminal murder trial had gone their way. Because of that, Todd said later, they had expected maybe a better outcome, but they were pleased nonetheless that BJ had been convicted of at least
one
murder. He could have walked altogether, which would have been a disaster.

Heading out of the courtroom, Todd and Collins showed the disappointment on their long faces. Whether they expected it, or whether they ended up with more than they had expected, it really didn’t matter. What mattered was that Joshua Ford’s brutal death had not been redeemed by a court of law.

They had all been staying at the same hotel: Todd, Collins, and many of the family members of the victims, all of whom had attended the trial.

Todd expected to have to sit down and meet with them and talk about what had happened, and where they were taking the case against Erika. As he was in his hotel room, however, figuring out how to go about consoling the families, Deborah Ford knocked on the door.

“I just wanted to make sure you were OK,” Deborah said comfortingly. “We all did.”

The families were concerned that Todd and Collins would be depressed and broken by what had happened.

“Thank you,” Todd said, and they sat and talked.

“That is the type of people the Ford and Crutchley family members are,” Todd later told me. “Within all of their pain, here they were worried about Scott and [me]. They wanted to comfort
me
. That really showed me something.”

92

Stealing the Spotlight

With BJ’s trial out of the way, Joel Todd and Scott Collins focused on the one person they believed was more responsible for the murders of Joshua Ford and Martha Crutchley than BJ. And yet, from the moment Todd awoke on May 22, 2003, he knew it was going to be an uphill battle all the way to get that conviction. To his stunning surprise, the
Baltimore Sun
had interviewed Mitch and Cookie Grace, along with several of Erika’s supporters, in what turned out to be a five-thousand-word article—two full pages and one-half page of the newspaper, which is a lot of real estate for a daily newspaper to devote to
any
story—running under the banner headline
LIFE INTERRUPTED
.

“What is this?” Todd said aloud as he opened the morning paper. “I was furious,” he later added. “I immediately felt that somehow Mitch Grace had used his wealth or influence to get that article planted . . . hoping that it would have an impact on the trial.”

There, sitting in front of the seasoned prosecutor on his kitchen table, was a photo of Mitch Grace looking down, sullen and stone-cold in shock; Cookie’s head on his shoulder, his arm around her. Mitch looked as though he had just stopped crying. Below the rather large photo of Mitch and Cookie was a snapshot of Erika on the basketball court, and below that was another photo of Erika with Benjamin, both of them smiling, sitting in a restaurant, somewhere, with a draft beer in front of them.

“There was no good reason for that article to be printed!” Todd said.

He couldn’t believe it. Here was a seemingly sympathetic portrait of a family that, according to the article, had been turned inside out (rightly so) by the charges against Erika.

As Todd turned the page after reading the lead, which was about Erika’s “charmed existence” in Altoona, growing up under the umbra of a wealthy father and loving parents, there, staring back up at him, was a photo of Erika from high school. The photo had taken up almost a quarter of the entire second page. The strange part about it, Todd considered, was the photo of the victims, Joshua and Geney (one quarter the size of Erika’s), tucked underneath. Erika had upstaged two murder victims who had been “butchered,” Todd said later, and “dismembered. . . . It was a disgrace. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at.”

It wasn’t until the third—and final—page of the article that Erika was presented as a criminal, in handcuffs, walking into the courthouse in between an armed officer and a prison guard; her head was bowed, her skinny arms skeletal and brittle. Yet, the headline accompanying the photo said it all:
LIVES ON HOLD FOR ONLY CHILD
.

Near the end of the article, Mitch told the reporter,
“It’s awful to lose somebody and not be able to even say goodbye.”
Mitch was referring to the victims’ families and their suffering, but part of the statement was no doubt meant to support his own feelings of not being able to hold his daughter, or even touch her since she had been arrested. Chiming in on Mitch’s comment, Cookie said that it would have been easier in some ways for them if Erika was gone completely.

And so Todd and Collins were hoping that their potential group of jurors would not be intimidated or swayed in anyway by the obvious attempt Mitch, Cookie, and Erika’s camp had made to portray Erika as a nonthreatening college grad who had made some bad choices in life, but was, well, just an innocent little drama queen fighting for her freedom and identity back. After reading the long article, in which Erika’s entire academic career and sports life were chronicled, a person would think that Erika had gotten mixed up with the wrong guy in marrying BJ—and that alone had led to her troubles.

Because of such news coverage, Todd argued (and Arcky Tuminelli subsequently agreed) that the trial should be held in an out-of-the-way location, where a potential jury pool would not be tainted one way or another. And so the judge eventually moved Erika’s trial to Frederick County Circuit Court, in Frederick, Maryland, about 180 miles, or three and a half hours, away from the scene of the crime.

93

Her Turn—Again

Erika’s trial began on June 3, 2003. In his opening statement, Joel Todd attacked her character first, saying he and Scott Collins, “together, will be presenting the evidence against the defendant in this case, Erika Sifrit, who is accused of murdering, dismembering, and covering up the murder of Joshua Ford and Martha ‘Geney’ Crutchley, as well as the burglary of Hooters in Ocean City.”

Todd then went into an apology he believed the state needed to make, considering that the evidence and photographs he was going to present throughout the state’s case were going to be graphic and horrific in nature. Or, as Todd put it, “gruesome and grotesque.” But it had to be done in the great order of justice. It was important for the jury to see the horror this woman had perpetrated.

From there, Todd went through the case in chronological order, painting Erika as the diabolical, evil, twisted murderer he believed her to be. He spoke of how the state’s theory centered around a game Erika and BJ liked to play with couples they met, where the loss of Erika’s purse set in motion events that were beyond the realm of what any sane human being could imagine. Then he talked up an important point—something the jury would, Todd knew, take great pride in looking at closely and judging: how scared was Erika of her husband, truly, as she was likely going to undoubtedly argue?

“Tuesday [after the murders] was a fun day for the defendant,” Todd said patronizingly, leaning on that aspect of his argument. “With little or no thought to the condition of the victims, our happy defendant plays miniature golf . . . and later she goes to Ocean City’s famous boardwalk.... Later that same day, in Lewes, Delaware, the defendant gets a tattoo . . . and that evening, she goes to Hooters, where she shows off her new tattoo and poses with the Hooters girls.”

In all of these photos, in fact, the woman is smiling.

Laughing.

Drinking.

Eating.

Enjoying her life.

They were devastating accusations. How could Erika claim BJ had made her participate in the crimes, and that he controlled her every move and she was terrified of him, if she was photographed hamming it up all over town after the murders? In fact, in many of the photos, Erika and BJ are holding each other, smiling, kissing, just happy to be alive.

“On Wednesday,” Todd argued, “while our victims continue to decay, the defendant returns for fun to the boardwalk . . . followed by another feast of crabs . . . then another trip to Hooters . . . and another trip to Seacrets nightclub.”

Todd explained Karen Wilson and her friend Todd Wright’s story of meeting up with Erika and BJ. It was a night that started out with a flat tire and ended in some sort of bizarre hunt—a gun pointed in their faces—for Erika’s belongings. And the entire time, Erika was supporting her husband. Why?

Because she was the instigator of this deadly game.

Watching from her seat in front of the judge, Erika sat comfortably and looked on with interest. Mitch and Cookie were sitting in back of their daughter, listening to every word carefully, holding hands, heads bowed at times, a grimacing look of disgrace and disgust on their ashen, tired faces.

Todd used a computer-assisted slide show at times to support his argument, which his office had spent a considerable amount of time putting together. Against a magenta background, Todd cued photos of the gun and items found in Erika’s purse. He described their importance, implying sternly, with a tinge of sarcasm and anger, that some of the items were “morbid souvenirs” Erika had kept of the killings—especially Joshua and Geney’s driver’s licenses, which Erika—not BJ—had in her possession.

“Her hobby,” Todd said, “was that she liked to
collect
things—anything, actually, to help the defendant look back and remember significant events in her life.”

And these items, belonging to the victims, were relics to remind her of the night she and her husband had murdered and dismembered two human beings.

Concluding his short opening a few minutes later, Todd said, “The bullets fired into the body of Joshua Ford, which took his life, were fired from a weapon removed from the possession of the defendant. At the conclusion of this case, I will ask you to return a verdict of guilty to all of the charges.”

Tom Ceraso had been brought into the case as Arcky Tuminelli’s co-counsel. Now Ceraso stood and began to tell jurors that they shouldn’t take whatever the state’s attorney says as gospel. Think about BJ’s involvement. Think about the powerful and strenuous psychological training BJ went through as a SEAL. Think about how he had
access
to Erika’s gun and knife. Don’t just assume, because some
prosecutor
says so, that Erika is guilty based on what amounts to
circumstantial
evidence.

Ceraso said he and Tuminelli would prove by the end of the trial that BJ killed Ford and Crutchley, using as evidence the statements BJ himself had made to others, as well as testimony from his trial.

“We have this confession,” Ceraso hammered, “an absolute confession and concession on the part of Benjamin Sifrit.”

There was a pause.

Then, “He killed them. He
butchered
them.”

Ceraso promised he would allow Karen Wilson to tell her disturbing story of BJ threatening her and her friend Todd with the same gun that killed Joshua Ford, and yet failed to explain how he and Tuminelli would prove such an accusation. Moreover, some of the defense’s most detrimental evidence, Ceraso said, would be BJ’s own testimony from his trial, in which he acknowledged and talked about cutting up the bodies of Ford and Crutchley. What more evidence did a jury need? Here was a man admitting how he had butchered these two people. In fact, Ceraso said, when asked under cross-examination about his role, the question framed as, “You did it, didn’t you?” BJ responded with a resounding “Yes.” Reading aloud from a transcript of BJ’s trial, before throwing it down on the table in front of him, Ceraso stared at jurors with a “can you believe this?” look.

The questions on everyone’s mind as any murder trial begins are: Will the defendant take the stand? Will she raise her right hand and tell her story? All juries want to hear from defendants. They want to understand through the defendant’s eyes, responses, and body language what role—if any—she played, or didn’t play, in the purported crime.

Either way, juries want answers.

Ceraso hinted that Erika would possibly take the stand, although Arcky Tuminelli told reporters later that same day, referring to the same question, “I refuse to say yes or no.”

94

Pathology

Joel Todd’s first witness was Dr. Adrienne Perlman, Delaware’s deputy state medical examiner (ME), who testified—same as she did during BJ’s trial—how she removed two bullets from Joshua Ford’s torso: one from the neck and one from the right side of his chest.

Both wounds, the doctor said, “were fatal.”

Crutchley’s death, Perlman told jurors, was a bit more complicated to theorize, and the method of murder was almost impossible to prove. The doctor couldn’t determine how Geney had actually died, since the only body part authorities uncovered was her left leg, the ME said with a touch of disappointment in her academic-sounding voice.

Erika sat and acted as if this gruesome discussion of body parts was routine and unaffecting, like maybe she was indifferent to it all. And this was, possibly, part of Tuminelli and Ceraso’s strategy: Erika should perhaps act as though she was emotionally immune to everything, emotionally uninvolved, and not invested in any part of it. BJ had warped her mind so badly, controlled her every move so tightly, and wound up her anxieties so profoundly, nothing shocked her anymore. She was a shell of a human being. She had turned into a robot, detached from society.

On the other hand, Erika was running back to her cell writing salacious letters to her paper lover, Jimmy, depicting sexual fantasies and plans for the future.