Disturbed Ground (28 page)

In the meantime, the institutional food apparently agreed with her. She gained so much weight that Assistant Public Defender Vlautin complained to reporters that she wasn't getting an adequate dose of thyroid medication. (He didn't mention, however, that she shunned the available exercise equipment.)

To relieve the tedium of jailhouse life, Dorothea regularly sat on her bunk with a stubby pencil and applied her nimble imagination to the writing of a manuscript—a Western, rumor had it, like her literature of choice. She wrote for hours, venturing out into the dayroom just long enough to sharpen her pencil. (No pens were allowed.) With her poor spelling and grammar, the finished manuscript was an undistinguished, amateurish attempt, giving Larry McMurtry no cause to worry.

Puente's literary talents would bring her neither fame nor glory, but her name meanwhile stimulated the creative talents of others: Humorous "calling cards," T-shirts, "gift certificates," and fliers were circulating the city. Most were simply passed hand to hand for a laugh, adding to Puente's notoriety. One flier, for example, advertised "Dorothea's Diner," suggesting that the recipient "dig in to these house favorites," including a menu of head cheese, elbow macaroni, liver and onions, kidney pie, and "cream of esophagus soup."

With the passage of time, one would think that Puente's name would be forgotten. Not so.
Halloween inspired a new round of parody. One shop sent out a black-and-orange flier boldly proclaiming "Horror on F Street" with "Dorothea Costumes." A few shop windows even featured such a costume: a red coat, white wig, pills, and a shovel.

All this doubtless entertained a large segment of the Sacramento populace. But beneath the snickering, there were unhappy grumblings about all this "disgusting, morbid humor."

Puente's defense team was not amused. It wasn't easy having a client who was the butt of jokes, particularly when pledged to the sacrosanct presumption of innocence. On top of this, with the prelim rapidly approaching, Kevin Clymo now learned that Blackburn had tape-recorded phone conversations with his client! Feeling vexed, he fumed that this was a violation not only of trust, but of law.

Clymo considered filing charges, but it seemed pointless. This was only a misdemeanor, and besides, it was too late to stop publication. With perfectly awful timing, Blackburn's book was released in Sacramento just before Puente's preliminary hearing. Worse, the book was entitled
Human Harvest,
and carried the inflammatory subtitle, "The Sacramento Murder Story." Puente hadn't even been tried yet—much less convicted—and once again her name was publicly linked with murder.

The defense attorneys weren't just sitting on their hands. Early on, Clymo and Vlautin had started keeping records of any public mention of their client, whether in print or on the air, so they could chart her exposure. Their experts were analyzing all Puente's media coverage, preparing a surprise attack for the preliminary hearing, readying what Clymo termed their "defense arsenal."

Part V: GRAVE ACCUSATIONS

So many ways to die. Many of us do so under suspicious circumstances… And just because death follows life as surely as ashes a fire, we nonetheless demand an explanation whenever there is some doubt as to the cause and manner of its coming.

—
Christopher Joyce and Eric Stover,
Witnesses from the Grave

CHAPTER 30

In a whirlwind of preparation, George Williamson scrambled to rally witnesses who were dispersed across the country: former tenants, relatives, nurses, doctors, people from all walks of life. Important as this case was, he wouldn't have much time to spend with any of them.

He called Judy Moise in for routine preparation one afternoon to give her the rundown on what to expect in court. "I'm really nervous," Judy told him. "I've never been on the witness stand before."

He leaned back and waved the notion aside. "Don't be nervous," he said. "You're a hero. Without you, there wouldn't even be a case."

Judy certainly didn't feel like a hero. She clasped her notes in her lap like a schoolgirl, afraid she'd confuse dates or forget something important. She was eager to help but felt that this meeting with Williamson was rushed.

It was. Williamson wished he had more time, but the Yeoman trial had squeezed his preparation time down to less than three weeks. Less than three weeks to organize a case spanning more
than six years, a witness list of perhaps 120 people, and nine counts of murder.

For the preliminary hearing (the California equivalent of a grand jury), all he really had to do was prove that there was sufficient evidence to bind Dorothea Puente over to trial. But he knew that this might be his only chance to get some of these people on record. One witness, John Sharp, was due for heart surgery. Several others were aged or infirm. And former tenant Julius "Pat" Kelley had recently died—though not before both sides had rushed to his deathbed to videotape his testimony.

Time was running out.

After a quick review of Judy's testimony, Williamson was steering her out to the elevator. She suddenly realized that, with the preliminary hearing just days away, this was all the preparation she was going to get.

On the clear, cool morning of April 25, 1990, the media converged on the Sacramento courthouse with heady expectations. Sturdy men wearing power packs hefted video cameras; newspaper reporters paced the hall; radio news reporters double-checked tape recorders; television reporters with perfect hair reviewed their notes and bantered with cameramen; sketch artists compared expensive arsenals of pens. Finally, nearly a year and a half after her arrest, after being rescheduled three times, Dorothea Puente's preliminary hearing was about to commence. Now the court would decide whether to bring her to trial for murder. Nine counts. A death penalty case.

Carol Ivy, a San Francisco TV reporter who had been up at dawn to make the long drive to Sacramento, surveyed the scene and declared, "Everyone wants this story."

But if Puente's defense attorneys had their way, the entire preliminary hearing would be a nonevent. Even before the courtroom doors opened, the startling news had spread that the defense had filed a last-minute motion to exclude the press and the public.
A sham,
reporters scoffed, with varying tones of conviction.

When the courtroom finally opened, some of the media crush was vented into the empty jury box, and the bailiff still had to turn away disappointed spectators. The noise level rose and fell in waves of anticipation.

Puente was finally brought in, flanked by her attorneys. She clasped
Kevin Clymo's arm, lending her an air of frailty. Once she was seated, Peter Vlautin poured her water in the deferential way one might serve an aged aunt. Despite a light touch of make-up, she looked extraordinarily pale. Her skin was milky and smooth, her features fine and even, and her white skirt and sweater made her snowy hair seem even whiter.

Off to one side, Deputy District Attorney George Williamson watched the proceedings coolly. Even physically, he and Kevin Clymo seemed virtual opposites. Williamson was clean-shaven and had a full head of brown hair that he hadn't had time to have cut. Clymo's bald head gleamed, and he sported a large droopy mustache that earned him comparisons with the wrestler Hulk Hogan. In stature, George "the Bull Dog" Williamson was short and compact; Clymo's towering height was almost intimidating.

The bailiff intoned, "All rise," and Judge Gail D. Ohanesian, a petite woman with cropped dark hair and somber eyes, entered the court. With that, all the players were assembled.

The motion to exclude the press and public was the first order of business. In a bald attempt to catch the media flat-footed, this motion had been filed only the previous afternoon. Two attorneys representing various news media had scrambled to get here, and soon they were scrapping with the defense.

The prosecutor, who had witnesses waiting, listened impassively, his impatience scarcely breaking the surface.

The judge, meanwhile, seemed to be struggling to get a grasp on this unexpected turn of events. She quizzed both sides, yet appeared hesitant to give any response. The media began to buzz with consternation. Wasn't this odd? They'd expected the judge to promptly rule against the motion and get on with it. Maybe she was in over her head, they whispered.

Finally, Judge Ohanesian was persuaded that some of the arguments on this motion should be heard in camera, or in secret. The court was cleared and the doors shut.

Even Williamson was excluded. He came out in the hallway and told his witnesses—including an anxious Judy Moise—to go on home.

The whole of the next day, the attorneys argued behind closed doors. The defense called two expert witnesses who testified, using
detailed graphs and charts, that the jury pool had already been polluted by protracted coverage, predicting dire problems with jury selection if coverage continued. (Ironically, these experts on the ill effects of media coverage were hit by the glare of TV cameras whenever they left the sanctity of the courtroom. Even when they went down the hall to the rest room, lights and video cameras followed.)

While arguing the motion to close the proceedings, the defense was fine-tuning an argument for a change of venue. Their exhibits detailing the extensive coverage to date included articles from
Newsweek, U.S. News &
World Report,
and the AARP
Journal,
as well as 252 newspaper articles, 711 broadcasts, Blackburn's premature book, and even a Geraldo Rivera show called "The Murderer Next Door."

Meanwhile, the press was left to loiter in the halls and debate whether this unpredictable judge might close the proceedings after all. With no other options open to them, resourceful artists took turns peering through the narrow crack between the closed double doors, sketching amazingly accurate renderings that were then dabbed with color in time to make the five o'clock news.

By Friday afternoon, Judge Ohanesian had heard all the defense's arguments. She acknowledged that the "nature and extent of coverage in this case has been unique," and that it had been "the talk of the country," but she concluded that an open preliminary hearing would not compromise the defendant's right to a fair trial
.

The flag was up.

As his first witness, Deputy DA George Williamson called Judy Moise.
She entered looking poised, but in truth she had worried about this moment for weeks, reviewing her log and racking her brain about dates, times, and sequence. Her nervousness
showed in a tendency to over-answer. Guided by
Williamson's questions, she explained about her job, about Bert
,
about
meeting Dorothea Puente, about how Bert had flourished while staying at her boardinghouse. She recalled Bert's disappearance, and how Dorothea
had repeatedly assured her that Bert was in Mexico, promising his return.
She explained about the strange phone calls from a man claiming
to be Miguel Obregon, who'd slipped and called himself Don Anthony, and about the letter with the Reno, Nevada, postmark.

When Judy started off on a tangent, Williamson would cut in and put her back on track. He knew just where he wanted to go, and it was his style to focus on his point and move unswervingly toward it: the epitome of "direct examination."

The cross-examination wouldn't be quite so smooth. Clymo clearly wanted to discredit this witness. He attacked her credentials and slighted her job, since she wasn't a licensed social worker. He prodded her about her contract with the motion picture company that had signed up so many individuals associated with this case, implying that Judy Moise would profit from lying.

Judy hadn't expected this. She felt she was being alternately badgered and then cut off. Her testimony turned rocky.

At one point, Clymo stood just behind Puente and rested his big hands on her shoulders. Judy couldn't avoid making eye contact with the woman. Puente's stare was so unnerving, Judy shivered and looked away, vowing not to look at her again.

She was feeling uneasy and befuddled by the time Clymo got around to some provocative questions about Bert Montoya.