Dance of Death (39 page)

Ed Lovett, John's stepfather, wanted the Pooles to know, in a class act, that he sincerely offered his family's deepest sympathy “for the horrific times they had had since the incident.”

Judge Peeples wasn't as poetic as Cottingham had been. “Nothing I can say can bring him back or change what happened,” he said to the Pooles in a quavering voice. “There is nothing more valuable than human life. But it's always darkest before the dawn—you just have to keep faith.”

Peeples then sentenced the thirty-year-old Frazier to life in prison for the murder conviction, thirty years for the armed robbery and five years for the conspiracy conviction. The sentences for armed robbery and conspiracy would run concurrently with the life sentence.

John turned and hugged his mother, then not so graciously stepped toward the police officers. The officers handcuffed him and walked him out of the courtroom. He slowly stepped down the hall like he was walking onto a frozen pond.

Members of the Poole family stood together with the prosecutors and the police and talked with news reporters. Captain Sam Hendrick, Detectives Altman, King and Frontz were there to congratulate them. Their long ordeal finally over, Craig Poole said Frazier's verdict and sentence would help bring closure and healing to his family. “It feels a lot different than it did after Renee's trial.”

Bill Poole credited many prayers to God for the verdicts and sentences of Frazier and his daughter-in-law. “Murder is bad,” he said softly with one arm around his wife and the other around his daughter. “But this is the worst because of the circumstances.”

Frazier's attorney Morgan Martin told reporters he was very disappointed with the outcome. He still maintained Frazier's innocence and promised to file an appeal.

After hearing about Frazier's intentions to appeal several weeks later, Dee Mishler penned a letter to the
Sun News:

Attorney Bill Diggs filed Renee's request for a new trial with the South Carolina Court of Appeals on June 6, 2000. As previously argued before Judge Cottingham, Diggs listed and expounded upon what he believed were errors in her trial. But in January 2002, the court of appeals affirmed Renee's conviction and sent notice that she would not be getting a new trial.

It was welcome news to the prosecutor and to the Poole family.

“She's dangerous,” Hembree told the press. “She's bad. And I don't want to give her another shot at being out among law-abiding citizens. Renee Poole is a cold and ruthless murderer and she is where she should be—in a cell.”

The cell Hembree was referring to was Leath Correctional Institute, in Greenwood, South Carolina. Barring a miracle, Renee would be spending the rest of her natural life inside this facility.

Renee's misfortune at getting a new trial didn't discourage John's attorneys from filing an appeal with the state. Morgan Martin and Tommy Brittain believed John had not received a fair trial.

At the April 2003 hearing, Martin stated before the high court, “We didn't get a fair trial from that judge. Two witnesses identified him as the killer and he had a right to challenge that.”

John hadn't done anything wrong. His family believed that. His lawyers believed that. His mother knew it. Jane Lovett had asked her son point-blank if he had done this, if he had killed Brent Poole. He told her no and she believed him. It had cost Jane all the inheritance from her father, her retirement, her rental property and even her automobile. She spent nearly $500,000 on her son since he was arrested, but that was nothing when compared to his life. She was rewarded for her faithfulness, for in January 2004, the state supreme court overturned John's conviction and life sentence. Citing errors by circuit judge Rodney Peeples, the high court ordered a new trial because he erred in: 1) excluding testimony from videographer Donald Smith and his videotape depicting the scene of the eyewitness identification, 2) excluding portions of the videotaped deposition of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus concerning a “Photo Lineup Study” and 3) allowing the testimony of Frazier's coworker Bruce Sovereign.

John Frazier's new trial was scheduled to begin May 16, 2005.

This case weighed heavily on my mind from the first day I read about it in the
Sun News.
I know and respect the persons who investigated, prosecuted and defended this case. Indeed, I consider many of them my friends. During the two trials, I also got to know the families and developed long, lasting relationships with some of them. And, from the very beginning, they proved themselves to be honorable, respectable and courageous folks.

Kimberly Renee Poole continues to serve her life sentence at Leath Correctional Institute. In a bizarre twist of fate, the person she was often likened to, Susan Smith, is one of her suitemates and they have developed a platonic relationship. On November 9, Renee celebrated her twenty-ninth birthday. She, Susan and several other prison inmates celebrated with an impromptu party.

“Oh, you'd be surprised how resourceful one can get in prison,” Renee wrote to me.

An old college roommate of Brent's had been visiting Renee regularly. They had agreed if she were to be released from prison, the two of them would hookup and give their relationship a try. Apparently, that friendship must have run its course, for Renee recently posted her profile and advertised for pen pals on the web.

Horry County solicitor Greg Hembree was reelected during the last election and is currently serving his second term. He and deputy solicitor Fran Humphries now argue their cases in a much improved, multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art complex, sitting directly behind the older courthouse on Second Avenue. They are very confident John Boyd Frazier will be found guilty in his upcoming trial.

“We'll just prepare for trial a second time, get ready and do it again,” Hembree said after he received the news from the supreme court. “The videotape and lighting expert are another tool Frazier's attorneys can use to attack the witnesses' testimony, but I think what they saw will hold up. The eye can pick up better than a video camera, so the testimony may not help him much. And as for allowing testimony about the photo-lineup IDs, the witnesses picked Frazier from the pictures because they saw him, not because of a description from someone else. Other evidence made the case against Frazier so strong that the new testimony should have little effect.”

In August 1999, Captain Sam Hendrick resigned his post at Myrtle Beach police and accepted the job as chief of police, in Conway. Several months later, Sergeant John King gave notice he would be joining his old boss in Conway.

Detective Terry Altman is still employed in the homicide department at MBPD. Although his job requires more supervision and less hands-on investigation of crimes, he says he still gets a rush when he has the opportunity to interrogate criminals. “It's the greatest job in the world.” He smiles. “I can't think of anything that excites me more than the moment when the criminal finally breaks down and admits he or she has committed the crime. And you walk away saying, ‘I got 'em.'”

Bill Diggs still practices law in Myrtle Beach and Orrie West continues to represent those who can't afford to pay for an attorney. Diggs has visited Renee only twice since her conviction, yet he continues to work on her appeals. He is eminently qualified for this task, given the fact he served as the former chief attorney for the South Carolina Office of Appellate Defense for five years and has represented approximately one thousand clients at the appellate and postconviction levels.

The last time Diggs visited Renee was with Morgan Martin in 2004. He made the mistake of asking her, “How do you like my hair?” She told him she didn't give a damn about his hair—all she was interested in was getting out of prison.

The Summeys are angry with Diggs and claim he won't return their phone calls. Marie said she was going to Myrtle Beach to have a talk with him. And true to form, she swore, “Bill is going to look mighty funny in court with a foot up his ass.”

Jane Lovett says that she has never had a problem with John's attorney. “It has been wonderful to know Morgan Martin and have him. God blessed us greatly with his presence in our life. He always talks with me when I call on him, and as soon as he can, he will call me back. He calls at night or weekends or anytime I need him. I have his home number, his cell number and his car number. I truly thank God for him and know God sent him to us in our desperate time of need.”

The Pooles contact the MBPD homicide office just about every time they visit Myrtle Beach and have never failed to express their appreciation for bringing justice to their son's case. Each day they think about Renee, and how she not only murdered their son but inflicted a lifetime of trauma and loss on them and their family. Life will never be the same without Brent, but at least they have Katie to hold on to. They pray Renee will one day accept what she has done, and will at last acknowledge she is a murderer. But they know they're only fooling themselves. It was Renee's failure to face her sins in the first place that resulted in Brent's death. They believe she never had any guilt or remorse for what she did or said to Brent while they were married and it is that same attitude now that has cost her her own daughter.

The Pooles listened in court when Dr. Thrasher tried to explain all the terrible things had happened in Renee's childhood that made her into what she is. But they never bought into all that psychological mumbo jumbo. Dee Mishler believed Renee to be simply evil; she deliberately chose to lie, cheat and murder, and then tried to pretend she was Brent's grieving wife all the while. It was Renee's own doing, her unwillingness to accept responsibility for all the deceit in her life, that led to her downfall and caused her to give testimony to the police that would assure she and John Boyd Frazier would be caught and punished.

But the Pooles wondered, even after all this time: how could she still proclaim her innocence, knowing she had already confessed and admitted she helped plan it? In June 1998, they filed a petition with the North Carolina court stating that Renee was not a fit and proper person to exercise custody over Katie and asked that they be granted exclusive care, custody and control. For their granddaughter's sake, they have tried to fill their home with photos of happier days with her father, but that does not include her mother. In every picture where Renee had appeared with Brent, her image has been cut out.

Katie will soon be celebrating her tenth birthday. She has not spoken or written to her mother since the conviction and no longer visits the Summeys. All of Renee's letters and cards to Katie are saved and put away at her mother's house. Marie sends word to Katie they are there for her whenever she's old enough to understand and wants to see them. Katie does not return Marie's phone calls. After knowing how her mother betrayed her father with the other men she had affairs with, it is hard to believe Katie will ever be able to have enough trust in her life to enjoy any close relationship.

After corresponding with Renee for two years now, I am convinced she thinks about the people whose lives intersected and impacted with hers. As she grows old in prison, she continues to reflect as to why she chose certain paths in her life and followed that course to certain disaster. For the most part, she will admit she had always taken for granted the people who loved and believed in her the most. That was certainly the case with her parents and then Brent, who had worshiped and adored her since they were both teenagers. She sees now that many of her lovers she dragged into her spiraling marriage were already losers, people, like herself, who abused their wedding vows and had serious troubles with their own relationships. They were people like Bruce Wolford, who spent so much energy spinning his webs of deceit and constructing excuses to explain embarrassing situations to his spouse and his lover, who were both suffering with broken hearts.

Most of Renee's friends have not written or talked with her since her conviction. She's never imagined any of her lovers agonizing over her as they sat in their homes and watched as she was handcuffed and driven away by the police to face murder charges. She guessed they considered themselves fortunate to have escaped from her long enough to
not
become the desperate man John apparently was, or they, too, could have been wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.

If everything the prosecution said about Renee was true, then she killed the one man who could afford her because he wouldn't give her enough time. It was a terrible waste of a good man's life. Renee now understands she also wasted her own life, and like so many young women who get caught in the underworld of the adult entertainment business, she threw away great opportunities for happiness in exchange for a nonstop orgy of lust and an apparently overwhelming desire to validate her self-worth by entangling herself with people who used or manipulated her as easily as she behaved toward them. During all or most of her adult life, she had cashed in on her physical attractiveness to snare one man after another, and didn't hesitate to bring in a parade of women friends to satisfy her libido. She worked her love potions on the men and women she worked and slept with, and even tried them on Terry Altman, when she posed as the poor little girl whom everyone was picking on. She often interrupted his question-and-answer sessions with threats and innuendos, yet at the end of two interviews, she asked him for a hug.

She doesn't understand any of that.

One would think if Renee had truly hungered for love and affection, all she had to do was ask for it. It was certainly within her capabilities to establish and sustain warm and loving relationships. And if she no longer loved Brent, why didn't she just find someone else and settle down with that person? The prosecution's theory maintained she was too driven by greed. She wanted it all and ruthlessly squandered all opportunities for a healthy relationship, behaving like a child caught up in a candy store. She didn't have to waste her adult life cheating on the person who trusted her the most. She was an attractive, intelligent and creative woman, who had other options besides dancing seminude at the Silver Fox. It wasn't the money, for she didn't spend it on herself, but rather on Brent and other people.

A customer once told Renee he would pay her $2,000 to come dance for him outside the club and then sleep with him. She told him no and if that was what he was looking for, she could direct him to someone who would be willing to make the extra money, but she wasn't. She then walked away from him and thanked him when he later gave her a $20 tip.

Apparently, Renee preferred the challenge and pleasure of seducing men and women over any other gainful employment as a means of boosting her self-worth. After seven years of self-introspection and others poring over her life with a microscope, there is still much she will never know about her life and why she did the things she did.

If Renee and John really did plan this murder, then they weren't all that clever. They made some terrible mistakes, beginning with John's choice of clothing to the fake robbery they created and the story they stuck to throughout the investigation. Renee's performance on the beach was believable, but it seemed after that, she did almost everything wrong. It was her cold heart and the ice in her veins that first grabbed the detectives' attention. If John planned it all and gave her directions in what to do and say, he lacked real ingenuity in both shrewdness and criminal expertise.

The most dramatic moments of the trials were not in the courtroom, but in the courtyard and breezeways outside the courtroom where the families confronted and challenged each other. It would have been so easy for tempers to have flared and gotten out of hand.

Having been involved with the families of both Renee and John, it's hard to say who has suffered the most. Marie frequently calls me in tears. She is heartbroken over not seeing Katie, who looks so much like her mother. She and Jack long for a relationship with her and believe the Pooles have poisoned her against them and Renee, but have no idea how to break through that. They hold out hope that Katie will want to find out the truth for herself someday, that she will want to question her mother about all that happened. They pray their beloved and only granddaughter will one day accept the love they so desperately want to give her.

But until then, it hurts. It really hurts.

John Frazier's loyal parents have also suffered because of the predicament they have been cast into. They were not only dragged through the hurt and embarrassment of seeing their son arrested, prosecuted and convicted for murder, but Jane Lovett has spent nearly everything she has in the world to help him get straight. John was never the type of person others sought out to pattern their lives after and he always seemed to put himself right in the middle of serious trouble. His difficulties appear to come when he falls under the destructive influence of others and can't find the words to say no. But he seems to have the care of a loving mother and attentive stepfather and they're doing their best to support him.

To this day, both families strongly support their incarcerated children. They believe they have been wrongly accused and convicted, and that the real killer still runs free. Is it possible that Brent could have been murdered by some crazy psychotic roaming the beach? Were the Pooles victims of a robbery gone bad, or was it a diabolical plan that happened exactly as Renee said it had? It is odd that no cases even remotely similar to Brent's murder have occurred in the beach area since.

Despite public opinion, the American justice system does not always find the truth. Renee and John are angry that the state has held them responsible for Brent's murder and want to punish them for their actions. Even after having been judged by a jury of their peers, they still feel they have been wrongly accused. It is difficult for most persons to feel any empathy for what has happened to them. They were caught up in a love triangle, knowing all the while something, sooner or later, had to give. They desired to manipulate and have something without following the laws of society. Did their lives not follow the laws of nature in that
whatever a man soweth, he shall also reap
?