Sleep In Heavenly Peace (Pinnacle True Crime) (35 page)

1

STEPHAN SCHICK HAD a job ahead of him. He needed to convince a jury that Odell hadn’t killed her children, but was perhaps a victim of abuse by her “ex-husband, parents, and other men in her life,” he said. This was one of the reasons why her children ended up dead. He had to do this, however, despite not putting one witness on the stand.

“First, was there proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” Schick asked in an unthreatening, soft tone as he began addressing the jury during his closing argument, raising his hand, using three separate fingers to count off his points, “that these babies were born alive? Second, was there proof…that Dianne was guilty of
intentional
murder? Third, was there proof…Dianne Odell was guilty of
depraved
-indifference murder?”

Principally, Schick focused on the one fact he thought Lungen had failed to prove: that the babies had been born alive. And if the jury believed the children were stillborn, well, there was no chance Odell could have murdered them.

“If they were not born alive, this is not a murder case—period!” After a pause, Schick then began an attack on Dr. Baden. “He testified that there was no medical or scientific evidence he was aware of that he could say the babies were born alive.” Next, in a patronizing, almost angry manner—as if to suggest Baden was some sort of wild-haired, wacky scientist—mocking Baden’s own words, Schick said, “‘Well, what do I believe? What do I believe from what other people are telling me?’ That may be fine,” he continued more seriously, “in a classroom or at a university…but that’s
not
where we are.”

He asked the jury to consider the prosecution’s supposed “expert” testimony and weigh it thoroughly: fact or opinion?

There was an “alternate” theory, Schick said, for what happened to those babies and why Odell toted them around with her for so long—other than Odell “being a murderer.

“She didn’t want to part with these babies.”

Next he continued berating Baden, calling him “bias[ed]” and “un-independent.” He essentially asked the jury to withdraw his testimony and concentrate on the facts.

“It’s not a crime to have a baby at home. Does it immediately jump to murder if you have a baby at home and the baby doesn’t live?”

It was a good point, made by a competent attorney with decades of experience, who had taken on a case, he knew from the onset, that was nearly impossible to win.

He said Odell carried the babies around with her from state to state, for twenty-plus years, because “she couldn’t bear to part with them.”

Finally, “Her children are the only thing in her life that ever loved her back,” he concluded with an odd sense of contentment in his voice. It was clear he believed wholeheartedly in what he was saying. “I am begging you to send this woman back to her children.”

2

In a courtroom, Steve Lungen spoke loudly, with authority. He liked to use his hands to explain things, and was well-known for using graphics and charts to accentuate the underlying themes of the cases he tried.

Thus, on the afternoon of December 15, 2003, as Lungen’s closing argument in the
People of the State of New York
v.
Dianne Odell
began, a projection on the screen in the courtroom stared back at jurors. As Lungen began to wrap up a case he firmly believed he had proven beyond a reasonable doubt, there was a sign that, in his view, explained it all:

UNLESS SHE MURDERED THEM

The message was there to remind jurors of the facts in the case and the circumstantial evidence that seemed particularly damaging to Odell as it sat there, gnawing at everyone, begging jurors to try to focus on what the “circumstances” surrounding the deaths of the children explained. Lungen knew he couldn’t let jurors forget how indicative each set of circumstances in Odell’s many pregnancies were to the totality of the case. Nor could he allow himself to fail to make the jury aware of the unadorned fact that the law protected all victims, regardless of age, creed, color, race, ethnicity, or—most important—
relation
to the accused.

“I don’t have the luxury, as prosecutor, to talk to you about things that are speculative, things that—by guess-work—were never testified to on the witness stand,” Lungen said after introducing himself. “…Much of what Mr. Schick told you about this afternoon was fiction-based.”

Lungen had a burning desire from the beginning of the case to represent the three babies who, he said, never had a chance at life and, in death, had no one to speak for them.

“The added pressure is that I am here talking for three babies and there is no one—
no one here but me—
to talk to you about these three babies. And I feel that. Make no mistake about it.”

As he twisted one of his cuff links and steepled his hands in front of his face, Lungen paused before continuing. Using graphics once again, he put up a second exhibit on the overhead projector introducing jurors to each one of the children.

“I want to introduce you to Baby Number One…. Today he would be twenty-one years old. [And]…Miss Baby Dandignac [Baby Number Three], she would be eighteen today. And we know Mr. Baby [Number Two], he would be age twenty. There’s nothing abstract about these babies. They were real!” Then he hit the podium with his fist: “They were born alive.”

From there, Lungen went on to quote one of the nation’s most esteemed and noted presidents. Slowly putting on his glasses, looking down at his notes, “Abraham Lincoln said, ‘All that I am, of ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.’”

Then, later, “Feel sorry for
her
?” he yelled with energy. “I would…if she didn’t
kill
three of her babies.”

Pointing to the overhead projector screen, then turning and looking at jurors, once again Lungen said that the babies were real people.

“They existed. And they were born alive…. Should you cry for the defendant? I leave that to you. She cries for herself. She tells you she cries for these babies. You can fool me once. You can try to fool me twice. But I’m no
damn
fool the third time.”

With a commanding presence, he didn’t miss a beat, recapping just about every major aspect of his case.

“Fool me once, shame on
you
. Fool me twice, shame on
me
. But I say to you: Fool
us
three times, and shame on all of us. The defendant, by the evidence, is nothing less than a serial killer and murderer of babies.”

Further along, “Odell hid the babies to hide her crimes, and carried them with her so no one would find out what she had done.

“She talks about ringing in her ears,” he shouted. “The screaming in her ears she’s telling you about, that’s the screaming of those babies. She’s been hearing it for two decades.”

Ending what could be called a rather animated, yet at the same time intense and blunt closing argument, Lungen quoted Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Carl Sandburg: “‘A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.’ Ladies and gentlemen,” he said before pausing a moment and lowering his voice, “do not let this defendant defy God’s opinion by ending the lives of three of God’s children.”

The courtroom was silent. It had been the first time, save for Odell twirling and twisting rosary beads in her hand and mumbling silent prayers to herself, that anyone had looked at the situation through a pious lens.

In the end, Lungen’s final argument was everything a closing should have been: terse, direct, emotional.

Judge LaBuda instructed the jury on the law. It was late in the day.

Then, “I will resume tomorrow morning at eight-thirty. You are going to be kept, as we talked about, sequestered….” From there, he warned jurors that they were not entering into deliberations yet. “It would be a disservice to everyone, including yourselves, so please don’t discuss this case amongst yourselves this evening. Don’t discuss this case with anyone.”

After the jury left the courtroom, the judge asked if there was anything else.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Schick said, and stood.

“What do you have, Mr. Schick?”

“Judge, I would request a mistrial based upon the impropriety contained in the prosecution’s closing statement that included…vouching for the police. Identifying the police action as ‘we in law enforcement’ and ‘we were this and we were that, the police did nothing wrong.’”

Schick continued, accusing Lungen of stating numerous inconsistent statements that were simply untrue in his opinion, thus painting a bias portrait of Odell and implying that if she had given birth to the three babies in a hospital, they would have survived.

“Finally,” Schick continued, “concluding his statement…[Lungen sat down and left] the poster up while the court was giving the instructions to the jury…his misleading poster of what the defendant
allegedly
said or meant. For all those reasons, I respectfully request the court declare a mistrial.”

When Lungen had his chance to speak, he said he had based his argument on the credibility of police officers. “There is nothing in what Mr. Schick said that is the basis for any mistrial whatsoever.”

“Mr. Schick,” the judge said kindly, “your application is denied. The main reason Mr. Lungen’s comments were in fair response [is that they were] part of the ebb and flow of a summation in a very emotional case.”

3

The following afternoon, December 16, Odell walked into the courtroom and, as usual, took a seat next to Schick and Havas. It was time to learn her fate. After five hours of deliberations, the jury had come to a decision. Since the start of trial, which had lasted a total of four days, Odell looked like she’d aged ten years. With her knit sweater, button-up dress shirt, olive skin, penciled-in-looking, thin, dark eyebrows, and salt-and-pepper hair, she resembled actress Bea Arthur during her days on the hit ’70s sitcom
Maude
.

As the jury foreperson stood, Odell appeared nervous and shaky as Schick put his arm around her shoulder to comfort her.

“Not guilty.”

There was a sigh of relief on Odell’s side of the room. On three counts of intentional murder, she had been found not guilty. Could it be? Was Odell going home?

Lungen looked stunned.
What?

“That first not guilty on the first count, intentional murder, I think that made some butts tighten on the prosecution side,” Heather Yakin said later. “Dianne was pretty emotional throughout the trial…. [She]actually reacted to things in appropriate ways, crying when the babies were mentioned or shown, stuff like that. Lungen, of course, thought it was all an act. I don’t think anything in the case was that simple. I think Odell probably did have a horrible life, and I’m sure she loves all of her living kids. That said, I don’t know what really happened during those births. I think deep down, Dianne knows, but I can’t decide if she’s ever admitted it to herself.”

But then the jury finished reading its verdict: “Guilty.” On three counts of depraved-indifference murder, the jury had found Odell guilty.

Schick bowed his head and began rubbing his forehead, squeezing Odell tightly as she seemed to be in shock. And as the jury read its official verdict on each count, she broke down as Clarissa, who had stood behind her mother throughout the entire trial, ran out of the courtroom crying.

So it was. Odell had been judged by her peers in a court of law. As she left the courtroom in handcuffs, she turned and stared at Robert Sauerstein and her children and said, “Don’t cry, guys. I love you.”

4

It would be a little over a month before Odell learned how long she would be spending in prison. Some in town thought the judge might spare her hard time and grant her probation and time served. Several “Letters to the Editor” published in area newspapers supported Odell. Some residents, who had followed every detail of the trial, believed she had been wrongly convicted.

“Odell deserved better,” wrote one woman.

“I can’t get Odell out of [my] mind,” said another.

“Have mercy on Odell,” yet another.

The prevailing feeling among the many females who had chimed in after the trial was that prison was no place for a woman who had been abused by her mother and father. What was it that had sparked such support for a convicted baby killer?

On January 8, 2004, Heather Yakin finally got that exclusive interview she had been hoping for throughout the entire ordeal. As it turned out, it wasn’t with a long-lost relative who could bring forth startling information that would send the case into a whirlwind, or one of the fathers of the babies—but Odell herself.

It was time, Odell decided while waiting in jail to be sentenced, to tell her side of the story—a side, incidentally, she was now fuming that she had never gotten to tell jurors.

Headlined
ODELL’S DARK TALE
, the question-and-answer interview detailed, in Odell’s words, her “abusive” upbringing by her mom and dad. She spoke of the same horrors she had been telling Schick about all along, sticking to her story that she’d had nothing to do with killing her babies. The article gave the community a clear portrait of Odell’s supposed abusive life—something, she had said over and over since her conviction, she had never been given the opportunity to do in court.

After that, Odell spoke to Court TV and gave it an exclusive interview, again detailing her childhood. She shed tear after tear talking to Court TV, which would later run the interview in pieces during its airing of the trial.