Little Lost Angel (25 page)

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efferson circuit judge Ted Todd, who sat on the bench for the sentencing hearings of Melinda, Laurie, and Toni, would say later that he felt like he was “caught in the eye of a hurricane.”

He had presided over two prior murder trials, but neither had been high-profile cases. He’d never been exposed to a media crunch like that surrounding Shanda’s murder, with reporters camped outside his office on a daily basis and phone calls coming in from the national press.

Then there were the stacks of paperwork filed by the prosecutor and the lawyers for the girls—dozens of motions, responses, depositions, and reports that threatened constantly to overwhelm his court staff, which already had its hands full with its usual docket of divorces, child-custody cases, and criminal complaints.

“I hope I never have to, or the community never has to, go through anything like that again,” Todd said later. “It was taxing to us all.”

The balding, fifty-three-year-old Todd, a graduate of Duke University, was a medium-sized man with a slight paunch that he constantly tried to work off by running a few miles each day. He was well educated and was a soft-spoken but
engaging conversationalist outside the courtroom. On the bench, however, he was all business, dealing with minor domestic disputes with the same sincere, serious manner as criminal cases.

With a wife and three children of his own, Todd was deeply disturbed by the grisly nature of Shanda’s murder, but he was determined not to let his personal feelings sway his decisions. In fact, he admitted afterward that he bent over backward to accommodate the various requests by defense counsel to have the court pay for additional legal help, private investigators, and psychologists.

“I didn’t want there to be any chance of a reversal of a decision because of something I didn’t give the defense,” Todd said.

None of this set well with prosecutor Guy Townsend, who felt that Todd was too cozy with the defense counsels. Todd and Townsend had never been close. Their differences dated back to Townsend’s stormy campaign against former prosecutor Merritt Alcorn. Todd knew he’d have to work with whoever won the race, so he stayed out of the political fray and didn’t openly support either Townsend or Alcorn. But despite his public neutrality, Todd sensed that Townsend held a grudge against him.

“For some reason Guy has always thought me a part of the Alcorn camp even though I purposely kept a low profile during the campaign,” Todd said.

Townsend’s disenchantment with Todd came to a head that summer when the judge agreed to let Melinda’s attorney, Mike Walro, hire a second counsel with public defender money.

Walro, a solidly built man with a bushy mustache, had the sure, easy manner of an old-time country lawyer, but he knew he was in over his head with this case. Although an able criminal attorney, he had limited experience in murder trials. He remedied that by bringing in Russell Johnson, a young but experienced defense attorney from Franklin, Indiana, a small town just south of Indianapolis.

Johnson worked out of a humble office, but he had Big City Lawyer written all over him. Possessing Robert Redford-like, all-American good looks, he was an impeccable
dresser and was always neatly coifed. He spoke in smooth, knowing tones and carried himself with an air of complete self-assurance. Though only thirty-seven, he had a reputation as one of the best murder defense lawyers in the state. His greatest triumph had come the previous summer in the Jack Dobkins death-penalty case. Dobkins had been charged with the torture slaying of a Shelbyville, Indiana, woman who had been found with her nipples bitten off. The state’s case hinged on a forensic report that said the teeth prints on the woman’s breasts were made by Dobkins. But the case was dismissed before it went to trial when Johnson produced a forensic expert who proved that the teeth marks had not been made by Dobkins.

Despite Townsend’s objections, Todd granted Walro’s request that Johnson come on as co-counsel at a rate of $60 an hour for 300 hours. But a short time later, in a private meeting attended by Townsend, Walro told Todd that Johnson had turned down the appointment because of the $18,000 pay limit.

Several weeks after that conversation, however, Johnson made his first court appearance as Melinda’s counsel. After the hearing, Townsend pulled Walro aside.

“So Russ has decided that he’ll work for $18,000 after all,” Townsend said.

“Well, let’s just say he’s on the job,” Walro answered.

Townsend later learned that Johnson had changed his mind after Melinda’s family had agreed to sell their home to pay excess expenses if Johnson’s bill exceeded $18,000.

Angered that Todd had approved the arrangement without first consulting him, Townsend filed a motion asking that Todd be removed as the judge in Melinda’s trial. Townsend contended that Judge Todd had violated the judicial code of conduct by having clandestine meetings with Walro and Johnson, in which the defense’s strategy was discussed behind Townsend’s back.

When Judge Todd held a hearing on the motion on June 5, Johnson testified that he’d sent Todd a letter outlining his arrangement with the Loveless family but had had no other conversations with the judge about it. Walro also denied discussing the matter with Todd.

Townsend wasn’t satisfied. “I have a problem with it when a public defender is appointed because someone is declared indigent and then accepts payments from the defendant,” he said indignantly.

Obviously upset at being charged with improprieties, Todd remained quiet until Townsend referred to a 1986 U.S. appellate court decision pertaining to out-of-court conversations between judges and counsels.

“You keep citing that case,” Todd said. “Can you tell me the facts of that case? Was it a criminal case or a civil case?”

To his embarrassment, Townsend did not know. He told the judge that although he was not familiar with the details of the case, they weren’t important to appreciate the court’s ruling against out-of-court conversations.

“You’ve made some very strong accusations against this court,” Todd responded harshly, “and I want you to substantiate them. You’ve cited a case and you don’t know what it says. You haven’t even read the case.”

Townsend bristled at Todd’s remarks, then went on the offensive. “Melinda Loveless has the right to a fair trial,” he said. “But she does not have a right to a trial in which the deck is stacked against the state. The state also has the right to have this case heard by a judge who will not carry on clandestine conversations with defense counsel, who will not join with the defense in keeping secrets from the state of Indiana, who will not secretly agree to permit defense counsel to receive secret payments for his representation.”

Judge Todd was not impressed with Townsend’s oratory. “The only communication I’ve had with Mr. Walro has been in regard to administrative matters. Your motion is without merit, completely unsubstantiated, and has no basis in fact.”

Townsend’s gambit had failed. He was stuck with Judge Todd on the bench and Russ Johnson in Melinda’s corner.

Johnson would say later that he and Townsend “mixed like oil and water. I got the impression he thought I was a bigshot hired to come in to make him look bad.”

Having lost that battle, Townsend turned his attention again to the plea agreements. He thought that Laurie, Melinda, and Hope would all be eager to plead to one count
of murder—which was still his offer—once Toni Lawrence agreed to testify. But that was not the case.

“The defense counsels kept saying that they wouldn’t plead unless I could guarantee them a deal of only forty years for the murder,” Townsend said, noting that this meant they could be out in twenty years on good behavior. “I wasn’t about to do that. I wanted them to accept a plea that would allow the judge to set the sentence.”

Frustrated by the stalemate, Townsend decided to play his trump card: He would file for the death penalty.

“From the very beginning I didn’t think there was much possibility that I could get the death penalty,” Townsend said. “I was aware of Judge Todd’s stance against it.”

Townsend also knew that no one under eighteen had received the death penalty in Indiana since the Paula Cooper murder case in 1985. Cooper, a fifteen-year-old from Gary, Indiana, was sentenced to the death penalty after she was found guilty of stabbing Ruth Pelke, a seventy-eight-year-old Bible teacher, thirty-seven times with a butcher knife. But after a worldwide campaign for clemency—including an appeal from Pope John Paul II and a petition signed by a million people delivered to the United Nations—the case was appealed and it was declared unconstitutional to impose the death penalty on someone under the age of sixteen. In 1989 Cooper’s sentence was reduced to sixty years in prison. In the interim, the Indiana legislature raised its medieval ten-year-old standard and made sixteen the minimum age for the death penalty.

Although Melinda, sixteen, and Laurie, seventeen, were eligible, therefore, the odds were against their receiving the death penalty. Of the 133 people executed by the state in its history, only three had been under the age of eighteen—each of those had been seventeen at the age of the crime.

In addition, Townsend himself was philosophically opposed to the death penalty.

“I had a personal aversion to the idea of the state killing people but also knew that duty sometimes requires you to do things that you find personally distasteful,” Townsend said. “I think the defense counsels were counting on me not
having the guts to use it. They had no motivation to plead because they didn’t think I was going to use the big stick. I told them that if they wanted to force us to go to trial, then we’re going to trial with the stakes as high as I could raise them.”

During the second week of June, therefore, Townsend filed for the maximum sentence against Melinda Loveless and Laurie Tackett. He could not do the same for Hope Rippey, because she was under sixteen at the time of the murder.

The filing for the death penalty meant that Mike Walro and Robert Barlow could no longer serve as lead counsels for Melinda and Laurie because neither was death-penalty qualified. State law says the lead counsel in a death-penalty case must have at least five years of criminal trial experience, have tried at least five felony cases, and have been lead counsel or co-counsel on a previous death-penalty case.

Although neither of the original public defenders was death-penalty qualified, Todd elected to keep them both on the case to assure continuity in the girls’ defense. Russ Johnson became lead counsel in Melinda’s defense. The lead counsel for Laurie would be Wil Goering, the former chief deputy prosecutor who had gained Townsend’s enmity during his bitter political campaign against Merritt Alcorn.

Goering, forty, resented the way that Townsend had used the death-penalty filing. “Clearly, the reason he filed for the death penalty was to leverage a guilty plea,” he said. “He was saying plead guilty or we’re going to kill you.”

*  *  *

When Toni Lawrence agreed to testify against the other girls, she’d hoped that the bargain would include her release on bail. It didn’t. Spring gave way to summer and she was still locked in her tiny cell, waiting for the legal maneuvering to end, waiting for her day in court. She became increasingly depressed, and frequent visits from her parents did little to raise her spirits. She continued to have nightmares about Shanda’s death and would wake up screaming. Her cell was equipped with a video camera, and the constant supervision made her even more paranoid. By August, the pressure of
being the state’s key witness had worn her down. She dreaded the thought of having to face Melinda and Laurie in court.

On August 17, a Monday afternoon, Toni asked to use the phone. The jailers said later that they didn’t know whom she called, but on her way back to her cell she seemed happy and talkative.

Ten minutes later, the jailer monitoring the video camera noticed Toni lying on the floor of her cell. Nothing unusual, as she did that all the time. But something about it didn’t seem right. He knocked on her cell door and called to her. No response. Opening the door, he saw there were a couple of pills—prescribed antidepressants that she was supposed to take daily—lying beside her. Unable to shake Toni awake, the jailer called for an ambulance and had her rushed to the Scott County hospital.

Later, Scott County sheriff John Lizenby found an empty soft drink can in the cell. Five more pills were stuck to its bottom.

“She hadn’t been taking her medicine, she’d been storing it,” Lizenby told reporters. “The pills were supposed to have been crushed, but she’d talked the jailer out of doing so. She must have hoarded a bunch of them.”

Toni’s condition was so serious that she was flown by helicopter to Kosair’s Children Hospital in Louisville, where she lay in a coma for five days.

One month after filing the death-penalty charges, Townsend’s case was suddenly thrown into jeopardy.

“There was a point where we didn’t know whether she would pull through,” Townsend said. “It’s always distressing when a child tries to take her own life. Our first concern, of course, was for her safety. But yes, I will admit I worried how it would affect the case. We had an investment in her. It did put us in a bad position. Getting the results would have been more difficult without her.”