The Road Out of Hell (33 page)

“Yes.”

“So here is what we do for now. You only discuss your case with me and my team. You never talk about it—not at all—to anybody else. I don’t mean that for legal reasons, either. Why, with the case we already have against this creature…. Anyway, I’m going to let them keep you in isolation for now if you want, but I can also assure you that you will not be molested while I am in control of this case—and I mean whether you’re with the other patients or not. If anybody tries to harm you, they will personally answer to me. Nobody around here wants me mad at them.”

Sanford decided to act as if he believed that, whether he did or not. He gave Mr. Kelley a solemn nod. Kelley cleared his throat. “All right then. I’ll be back to see you in the morning, and in the meantime I have a homework assignment for you.”

“What? Homework?”

“Exercise for the brain. I want you to spend some time thinking about the idea that when you say you don’t want me to be tricked, maybe you have it wrong. I want you to start asking yourself whether you’re the one who got tricked and your uncle is the one who did it.”

Thirteen

Gordon Stewart Northcott’s plan was to drop his parents at their home and then head toward Seattle alone with the car, leaving them to finalize things in Los Angeles and then board a train. Dad could ride with him or he could go with her on the train. They would all rendezvous in Seattle and then cross back into their native land together.

The plan had a flaw—George Northcott may not have been a dominating figure, but his brooding temperament was skilled at passive resistance. All of his anger and resentment over what had been done to his life by his son’s insanity and his wife’s psychotic mothering—and perhaps, if he was feeling honest, regret over his support of their activities—coalesced into an unyielding desire to remain at home. He determined to live there until somebody came for him.

Cyrus George Northcott knew that he had not committed any crimes, not anything like murder, or at least nothing that traced directly back to him. He wanted no more to do with the madness surrounding him. In his desperation and despair, he tried to distance himself from it all by completely rejecting their escape plan. He might have even hoped, with the optimism of sheer denial, that he could still spare himself his portion of their fate.

So George watched his son drive off, finally leaving them alone, but there was no comfort in it. Louise only stayed in town long enough to pick up her final paycheck on the following day. Then she boarded the train and fled Los Angeles, just as they had planned. Louise’s extraordinary attachment to her son commanded her to tend to him. Dad, as she called her husband, was expendable. She and Stewart were leaving Dad practically the same way they had left Sanford at the abandoned ranch. It was the last day of the Northcott family’s time together in this world.

The comic twist was that the Northcott family reduced itself to its inevitable conclusion very quickly. Louise managed to join Stewart in Seattle and return to Canada, but her husband George was promptly arrested in California. As soon as he was in custody, he fell into such a broken and nerve-racked condition that out of grim coincidence, he wound up staying in the adult prisoner ward of the same hospital that housed Sanford.

The family strangeness manifested in a more concentrated form up in Canada. Sanford’s mother Winnie—upon hearing that her son was in custody after supposedly being tortured and held as a sex slave to her brother, who had been down there murdering children for enjoyment—decided to flee with her son’s tormentor and provide assistance in his escape.

Predictably, not even the remaining Northcotts had any genuine fugitive skills. Within a couple of weeks, it became clear to all of them that life on the road just was not going to work. Winnie then jumped ship, gave herself up, and publicly condemned herself for taking her brother’s side against her own son. Few sympathized. She was spared conspiracy charges, but from that day forward she would have only the briefest contacts with her son.

On September 18, Stewart and Louise split up in an attempt to avoid detection. Each managed to get arrested on that same day. Stewart flashed a hundred-dollar U.S. bill to pay for a stateroom on a cruise ship that he hoped would get him out of the region. The crew did not accept American money, but Stewart threw a fit and insisted that they make an exception just for him. He made such a scene about it and drew so much attention to himself that alert citizens noticed him and drew comparisons from current news stories. They turned him in.

Like mother, like son: Louise went to the Canadian Pacific Railway office in the town of Spence’s Bridge and tried to buy a ticket with a fifty-dollar U.S. bill. The flash of a large-denomination American bill was a red flag that no fugitive should have been waving. The money drew just enough attention to her that she too was recognized because of radio broadcasts and newspaper articles.

Both were arrested without resistance. In custody, Stewart screamed his outrage and his innocence and began trying to fight extradition to America. Louise quickly caved and admitted killing Walter Collins. She pled guilty without requesting a trial and then began a months-long process of alternatively confessing to having done all the murders herself and denying all wrongdoing.

With the family’s insanity swirling around her, Jessie left Canada and made her way back to California. Loyal Kelley found a local family who was sympathetic to her cause and gave her a place to stay in their home while she was in Los Angeles to provide her testimony for trial. In late October, she and Sanford were finally reunited by Mr. Kelley. On Saturday the twentieth, he and District Attorney Earl Redwine arranged to bring Jessie to the hospital. Kelley gave a written statement to the press saying, “Neither myself nor Mr. Redwine interfered in any way with the happy reunion of Jessie and her brother. They were left to themselves to do as they pleased. And to say that the meeting of the two was pathetic and heart-rending is putting it lightly. The girl took her brother in her arms and loved and caressed him in a way that a mother would receive her own child from whom she had been parted for many months.”

After Uncle Stewart lost his extradition fight, Sanford had another visitor. It came as no surprise to him that his uncle had requested to see him. Sanford knew that Uncle Stewart was hoping to talk him into changing his story, and Sanford’s first reaction was to refuse the visit, but Mr. Kelley thought it would be a good idea to see if the defendant would say anything to incriminate himself. He promised Sanford that he would be well guarded. So Sanford agreed to see his uncle there in his hospital room.

A crowd of officers and lawyers surrounded his bed, and Uncle Stewart was walked in, well chained. Sanford had already decided not to look at him. Uncle Stewart could ask whatever questions he wanted, but he would not get basic respect. “Sanford,” Stewart began, sounding shaky, “I want you to tell the truth about this Mexican case. You know he was killed on that ranch.”

Sanford snorted and kept his eyes off him. “I
don’t
know it,” was all he replied.

“Dad has told the truth, Mother has told the truth, now you tell the truth!” Sanford did not answer. Uncle Stewart kept badgering him, trying to make one stab of guilt after another hit home, looking for a way to get his hooks in. Sanford recognized the usual tricks. “Everything else you have said is all right, but tell the truth about the Mexican. I will take the blame for everything. Anything that you did, I made you do.”

Uncle Stewart got that last line right, but Sanford folded his arms and kept his gaze fixed on the opposite wall. He could already see that Uncle Stewart just wanted him to say anything at all that would tie him further into the crimes, maybe take some of the heat off Uncle Stewart. “Now tell the truth, won’t you?”

For two years, his uncle had rarely asked him for anything: rather, he had constantly demanded. He had given orders and issued threats. He had used violence as a form of personal amusement. He had been the most formidable force in Sanford’s world. It was an exquisite moment for Sanford when he allowed himself to turn to Uncle Stewart for the one and only time that day and spoke to him in a stronger voice than he had ever dared to use with him: “I
have
told the truth.”

Mr. Kelley piped up in a bright voice, “Good enough for me, gentlemen! Let’s get him on out of here now, shall we?”

Sanford could only shake his head. He could see why Uncle Stewart would want to take a chance on coming in here and finding out if he could still control him, maybe hoping to put him to use somehow. But his uncle was so well guarded that he couldn’t use violence, which was his only power over Sanford. He was glad that the truth made the lies, the alibis, all unnecessary. He had a long way to go to regain his health, and it was a relief not to have to work that hard just to answer some questions.

The trail began on January 11, 1929. Sanford was kept out of it except for a few pre-trial interviews with Mr. Redwine and Mr. Kelley. They gave him a few glimpses of the progress that was being made by the State. Uncle Stewart had decided that he was smarter than all his lawyers, so he had fired them and stood on his constitutional right to defend himself.

On the first day of Sanford’s testimony as the State’s key witness, he sat dumbstruck in the courthouse holding cell and could barely absorb what Mr. Kelley was telling him. The flu-like symptoms that he had been battling for weeks added to the bizarre feel of the situation. In the four months that Sanford had been in custody at the prison ward, Mr. Kelley had not involved him in the mechanics of the trial preparation, except for his own statements. He knew nothing about American courts, so that this surprise turn of events hit hard.

“I mean it, Sanford, we thought sure that we could shut this down. Even though American law gives you the right to be your own attorney, he’s not competent to do it. The judge knows it. We thought sure that he would never grant the motion.”

“But… Uncle Stewart?”

“Listen: your story is your story, and it doesn’t matter who asks you. It’s never going to matter for the rest of your life. People will ask. If you want to, you will tell them. And if you tell them the truth, then what you say today is the same thing you will say then.”

“But Uncle Stewart?”

“Believe me, I would have gotten some kind of a warning to you if I’d thought there was any chance of this idiot being allowed to be his own mouthpiece.”

“He’s going to stand right there in front of my face and question me?”

“Every defendant has the right to do that under the Constitution. It was put there to give a final chance to any defendant who found himself with crooked representation, you know—let a guy toss it all up in the air and run the show on his own. Good idea in the right hands.”

“No, Mr. Kelley. Can’t you—I mean, is there any way to stop him from doing this?”

“We argued everything we could. He fired his attorneys and he’s going to do his own cross-examination on your testimony.” He put his hand on Sanford’s shoulder. “First day we met, I asked you to think about whether you’re the one who was tricked—deliberately trapped there with his madness?”

“But I know what I did.”

“So does the court. You gave them the truth, so far. What if the rest of the truth is that you are dignifying his insanity if you believe the lies he told you?”

That one hit home. Sanford looked up at Mr. Kelley and met his eyes. He held his gaze for the first time, instead of turning back to the floor. Mr. Kelley asked, “Are you equipped to go out there now and do this?”

Then it occurred to him that he did have a way to respond to such a situation. Uncle Stewart himself had forced Sanford to develop it over his two years on the murder ranch. “Actually, I am. I have Uncle Stewart’s mask of benign affability all ready to go. I can use it against him. I’ve already done it plenty of times.”

“Mask of what?”

This time Sanford looked at him and actually managed to flash a quick grin. Mr. Kelley had never heard him use such big words.

Sanford’s testimony in open court under direct examination by Uncle Stewart went through that first day and stretched into a second. The courtroom was packed for both sessions as a result of nonstop news coverage of a case that had quickly become infamous. Judge George R. Freeman kept a tight lid on the proceedings. He insisted upon complete silence in his courtroom while fifteen-year-old Sanford Clark testified about certain acts that his uncle had forced him to commit while in Wineville. The testimony did not go well for the defendant. From the moment Sanford took the stand, Uncle Stewart faced a nephew who seemed much more open than he expected. Sanford’s face was fixed with a pleasant and accessible expression. Uncle Stewart was too clever to fail to recognize the mask that he had forced Sanford to practice. But since his strategy was to hook back into Sanford’s mind and manipulate his testimony, Uncle Stewart quickly grew flustered that the boy could seem so self-possessed. His impotence against this former sex slave was a deep cut from a dull blade. A gentleman court reporter transcribed it all on one of the new silent courtroom typewriters.

“Now, these Winslow boys, did you propose any other scheme besides murdering them?” Stewart asked.

“No.” Ordinarily, Sanford’s shame would have fixed his gaze to the floor, but he could maintain the mask for several minutes at a time when he had to.

“Why?”