The Stranger Beside Me (53 page)

But then, the motel itself was not exactly safe; Ruth Walsh, the ABC

anchorwoman from Seattle, had lost her money, her jewelry-even her wedding rings-to a cat burglar who'd crept into her room from the balcony six floors up as she slept.

We were a long way from the beaches where the tourists frolicked. A first cup of coffee of the day on the ninth floor in the communications center. Already, the phones were busy, reporters putting cofy men on hold, waiting for a daily update. Here, the black humor mounted. Two television reporters mimicked a personal interview with Mrs. Bundy, one of them playing the defendant's mother in a high falsetto: 363

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"And what was Ted like when he was a child, Mrs. Bundy?"

"Oh he was a good boy, a good, normal, Ail-American boy."

"What kind of toys did he like, Mrs. Bundy?"

"The usual things-guns, knives, panty hose-just like any boy."

"And did he have a job?"

"Oh, no. Teddy always had his credit cards." Hoots of laughter.

Waiting for the proceedings to flash onto the closed circuit TV before them, the verse writers scribbled.

Teddy came to Tallahassee, Looking for a pretty lassie, Creeping, sneaking through the dark, Lurking 'til he found his mark, Remember dear, remember wellHis bite is much worse than his bark. For some of the news people, the Bundy trial was only a story-and a great one at that; others seemed disturbed, too conscious of the waste of lives involved, not only the victims'-but the defendant's. We were watching a major tragedy unfold before us, and it meant far more than headlines.

Down on the fourth floor, the mood of the public was angry, vengeful. As I waited in line to pass through the metal detector, to submit to the search of my purse and papers that transpired everytime I entered the courtroom, I heard two men talking behind me.

"That Bundy ... he ain't never gonna get out of Florida alive . . . he's gonna get what's comin' to him."

"They oughta take him out and nail his balls to the wall and leave him there 'til he dies. And that'd be too good for him." I half-turned to look at them. Two nice, grandfatherly looking men. They echoed the feeling of the Florida public.

As the trial progressed, the crowds grew denser and more hostile. Could the jury feel it? Had they some suppressed anger of their own? You couldn't tell by looking at them. Their faces-like all jury faces-were bland, listening. One or two of them regularly nodded off to sleep during the long after-

noon sessions. Upstairs, in the press room, reporters would spot that and yell at the television set, "Wake up! Wake up! Hey Bernest! Wake up! Floy! Wake up!"

Ted still glanced into the press section to see if I was there, still smiled faintly, but he seemed to be shrinking, his eyes a little more hollow each day, as if something inside him was drying up, leaving only an exhausted shell sitting at the defense table.

Despite the long procession of young women, the parade of police officers who began to blend into one another somehow, the word was that Bundy might win. There was so much about him that was being held back from the jury.

Danny McKeever, looking frazzled, gave short press interviews saying that he was worried-something a prosecutor rarely admits. The press began to lay odds that that "son of a bitch may pull it off." We had missed a day in court because Mazie Edge had a virus; we would miss another when Ted himself came down with a high fever, a deep cough. On those days, with nothing else to do, we interviewed each other and side-bar stories of faint human interest were sent to home papers, stories describing how reporters from other areas felt-a kind of inbred journalism.

Ted was back then, looking paler, tired. Robert Fulford, manager of the Oak, testified about his first contact with Chris Hagen, of renting a room with a bunk bed, a table, chest of drawers, and a desk to him.

"He didn't have the rent when it come due. He said he could call his mother long-distance in Wisconsin and she'd send it down. I heard him make a call, and it seemed like he was talkin' to someone, but he never showed up with the rent. When I checked his room a couple of days later, he was gone."

The jury knew that Bundy had come to and left Tallahassee, but they would not know from whence-and why.

David Lee testified about his arrest of Bundy in Pensacola in the dark dawn of February 15th, told of how his prisoner had wanted to diÉ

The next day, July 17th, Ted did not come to court. At 9 A.M., he was notfn his place at the defense table. The gallery muttered, and the press box wondered; Bundy was always in his seat, unmanacled, when court began, now he was not. Something was wrong.

The jury was kept sequestered as jailer Marty Kratz ap-366

peared. Kratz explained to Judge Cowart that there had been trouble with Ted in the jail.

At about 1:00 A.M., Ted had thrown an orange between the bars of Cell 406 and succeeded in smashing one of the lights installed outside to give him better illumination in that cell. Jailers had immediately moved him to Cell 405 and searched his first cell. Hidden far back in that cell, they had found shards of broken glass from the splintered lightbulb. What for? Suicide? Escape?

"When we went to get him for court this morning," Kratz continued, "we couldn't get the key in the lock. He'd jammed some toilet paper in there." Reminded that he was due in court, Bundy had replied, "I'll be there when I feel like it."

Cowart did not take kindly to this information, and sent Ted's lawyers off to plead with their client to get himself to court in a hurry. He also found Ted in contempt of court for the delaying tactics. At 9:30, Ted appeared-a Ted who was angry, arguing that his treatment in Bade County was not satisfactory to him. He again decried the lack of exercise, the withholding of files, the blocking of his access to the law library. His voice broke, on the verge of tears, as he talked to Cowart. "There comes a time when the only thing I can do is passively resist ... I have potential . . . now . . . now . . . I've only used that part of my potential which is nonviolent. There comes a time when I have to say, 'Whoa . . .' "

"Whoa," Cowart answered. "If you say 'Whoa,' I'm going to have to use spurs."

Ted made a tactical error. He began to list the offenses against him, shaking his finger at Judge Cowart as he did so. Cowart took umbrage.

"Don't shake your finger at me, young man ... don't shake your finger at me!"

Bundy tilted his finger slightly toward the defense table.

"That's fine," Cowart said. "You can shake it at Mr. Haggard."

"He probably deserves it better than you do. In the three weeks I've been here, I've been taken to the law library three times."

"Yeah, and on at least three occasions you've just sat up there and talked to Sergeant Kratz. You never used the library itself."

"That's not true. It [the library] is a joke. But it's a better place to read than the interview room. There is no justification for the treatment I'm receiving. I am given a strip search after I see my attorney and that is unconscionable. Now, this railroad train is running, but if I'm going to get off, I'll get off if I need to demonstrate to this courtroom that they are influencing me and affecting me." Cowart spoke as if to a spoiled child. "This court is going to proceed on schedule without your voluntary interruptions. We're not going to have it any more. Now I want you to discuss that with your counsel. I want you to know your rights, but I also want you to know that as forebearing as this court can be, it can also be that strong."

"I'm willing to accept the consequences of my actions, Your Honor, and anything I do I'm aware of what the court will do."

"Then we're together. Bless your heart, and I just hope you stay with us. If you don't, we'll miss you."

Bundy ended it with bitter humor. "And all these people won't pay their monev to come see me."

Tempers were ragged for much of the day. When microanalyst Patricia Lasko testified that the two hairs found in the panty-hose mask at Dunwoody Street were "from Mr. Bundy or from someone whose hair is exactly like his," Haggard grilled her unmercifully. The discussion of hair microanalysis became so esoteric that the jury appeared lost in the scientific terminology. Haggard badeered Ms. Lasko until the judge warned him.

When Hasgard asked to examine Ms. Lasko's notes, she hung onto them stubbornly. Haggard wrenched them away, and Larry Simpson walked over and began a tug-of-war with the defense attorney over the notebook. Judee Cowart chastised both attorneys and sent the jury out. Then he comnlimented the usually mild-mannered Simpson, "It's the first time I've seen you get your dander up."

It was true. There had been little fire in cross-examination from either side.

The state's caseïwas coming to a close. Nita Neary had again raised her arm-this time in front of a jury-and pointed out Ted Bfmdy as the man she'd seen leaving the Chi Omesa House just after the murders. The biggest gun of all-Dr. Richard Souviron, the dental odontologist-was about to begin.

Souviron, a handsome, dapper man with a flair for the the-atrical, seemed to eniov his time before the jury. He held a pointer and indicated the teeth on the huge color photo of Ted Bundy's mouth-the photo which had been taken after the search warrant was served in the Leon County Jail more than a year earlier.

The jury seemed fascinated; they had been confused, obviously, by the serology testimony on semen, and by the hair testimony, but they followed the dental testimony alertly.

The tissue from Lisa Levy's buttock had been destroyed for comparison purposes through improper preservation; only the bite mark, photographed to scale, was left. Would it be enou«h?

"These are laterals . . . bicuspids . . . incisors . . ." Souviron explained that each individual's teeth had particular characteristics: alignment, irregularities, chips, size, sharpness-that these characteristics make them one of a kind. Souviron had found Ted's teeth particularly unique.

Dramatically, he tacked the enlarged picture of Lisa Levy's buttocks, bearing the purple rows of bite marks, on the display board in front of the jury. And then he placed a clear sheet on top of that-a sheet bearing an enlarged picture of the defendant's teeth.

"Thev line up exactly'."

Explaining the "double bite," Souviron continued: "The individual bit once, then turned sideways and bit a second time. The top teeth stayed in about the same position, but the lower teeth-biting harder-left 'two rings.' " The second bite made it even easier, Souviron said, to compare the teeth with the marks because he had twice as much to work with.

"Doctor," Prosecutor Simpson began. "Based upon your analysis and comparison of this particular bite mark, can you tell us within a reasonable degree of dental certainty whether or not the teeth represented in that photograph as being those of Theodore Robert Bundy and the teeth represented by the models that have been introduced as state's exhibits number

85, 86, made the bite marks reflected on your exhibit as marked and admitted into evidence?"

"Yes sir."

"And what is that opinion?"

"They made the marks."

It was the first time-the very first time in all the years since 1974-that a piece of physical evidence had been

linked absolutely between a victim and Ted Bundy . . . and the courtroom erupted.

The defense, of course, wanted to show that "dental certainty" and forensic odontology is a primitive, and not widely accepted science. Ed Harvey rose for the defense on cross-examination. He began, "Analyzing bite marks is part art and part science, isn't it?"

"I think that's a fair statement."

"And that really depends upon the experience and education of the examiner?"

"Yes."

"And your conclusions are really a matter of opinion. Is that correct?"

"That is correct."

"You've got a given set of teeth, or models, and a given area of skin, a thigh or a calf. Is there any way tQ test whether those teeth will make trie same marks over and over?"

Souviron smiled. "Yes, because I did an experiment just like that. I took models and I went to the morgue and I pressed the models into the buttocks area on different individuals and photographed them. Yes, they can be standardized, and, yes, they do match." Harvey feigned incredulity. "You said cadavers? Is that correct?"

"I couldn't find any live volunteers."

Harvey tried to find some areas of inconsistency, but his line of questioning failed.

Souviron explained further, and the jury leaned forward to listen. "If there's an area of inconsistency-out it goes. If there's a Vee'd-out central that wouldn't make this pattern, you'd say, 'Well, we'll have to exclude that person even though the arch size is the same, the cuspids are tucked down in behind the laterals and this type of thing. The centrals don't line up rigr|.' [But] The odds of finding this would be a needle in a haystack-an identical set like Mr. Bundy'swith the wear ol the centrals and everything, the chipped lateral incisor, everything identical. You'd have to be able to combine that with the three marks on the upper central incisors, and the odds against that are astronomical."

The state was closing its case with all flags flying. They 370

called Dr. Lowell J. Levine, the chief consultant in forensic dentistry to the New York City Medical Examiner.

Levine testified that he believed Lisa Levy-or the person whose flesh appeared in the photograph he studied-had been "passive" when the bite marks were left on her body. "There is very little evidence of motion or swirling you'd normally get as tissue moves in various directions as the teeth move on the skin. It almost looks more like an animal which has bitten and kinda grabs. These things were left slowly, and the person was not moving. They [sic] were passive when they were left."

"Can you give us an opinion as to the uniqueness of teeth?"

"Everybody's teeth are unique to that particular person for a number of reasons. One, the shapes of the teeth are unique, in addition to the juxtaposition or the relationship of each tooth to the other is unique, the twisting or tipping or bending also adds to that uniqueness. Present and missing teeth . . . and those are basically gross characteristics. We also have other types of individual characteristics which are accidental characteristics such as breaking." Mike Minerva, left behind in Tallahassee when Ted had grown disenchanted with him, was in the courtroom-apparently forgiven-to cross-examine Dr. Levine.