Winter of frozen dreams (15 page)

Daviess body was discovered on the afternoon of March 27th.

The tenant who lived above Daviess apartment had been annoyed by the clattering of the bathroom fan. He reported the irritating noise to the maintenance man. The maintenance man and the resident manager entered the premises at 3:20 p.m., expecting to slap a wall switch and exit. Instead they shuddered at the sight of a corpse.

Steve Urso was one of the first officers on the scene. Because he was Chuck Lullings nephew, he immediately realized the significance of Daviess death and called his uncle and the DA with the news.

Rather than gruesome, Urso thought the setting oddly surreal. The fan gurgled stridently. The bathroom appeared clean, peaceful, with Davies in a state of contented repose. Rigor mortis had set in, and Davies s skin looked shiny in the Kohler tub, like a piece of wax fruit on a platter. Discoloration blotted the appendages, and what was underwater was tinted white. A melancholy smile seemed pressed on the livid lips. A trace of spittle had hardened at the corner of the mouth. The cocked head pondered heaven, and in what struck Urso as a poetic counterpoint, blunt fingers cupped the penis.

By 3:50 p.m. the place was swarming with police. An emergency medical service crew had come and gone. Doyle and Lulling and Spencer toured the scene of the tragedy. Captains and lieutenants chatted in the hallway. Everyone wanted to witness the poor fool who had been beguiled and destroyed by love.

Sergeant Peter Brown took photographs. Each room was dusted for fingerprints. Personal effects were confiscated from the bedroom closet and desk and dresser drawers. A rent check for April was sitting atop the bureau. The coroner and deputy coroner inspected the body.

Davies was clean—no marks, no bruises, no abrasions. There was no indication of struggle anywhere in the apartment. Dry towels and slippers waited for him to emerge from the bath. An uncapped plastic vial sat alone atop the toilet tank. The prescription was dated March

Gerald Davies, circa 1976 (Dane County Sheriffs Department)

Former Madison police detective Chuck Lulling, who headed the investigation of the Berge murder (Bill Fritsch/ Madison

Magazine)

Police mugshots from Jerry Daviess arrest on Christmas Day

1977 (Dane County Sheriff's Department)

Gerald Daviess car (right), which was used to transport Harry Berges body to the snowbanks on Blackhawk Road, in front of Daviess apartment complex (Dane County Sheriff's Department)

The Rising Sun, one of the parlors owned by Ken Curtis. Barbara worked here part-time.

(Karl Harter)

The Kollege Klub, the basement bar where undercover police observed the encounter between Jerry Davies and Barbara Hoffman shortly after Davies had implicated Hoffman in the Berge

murder (Kar! Harter

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Daviess letter to insurance agent Phil Sprecher signing over his Central Life Assurance policies to Barbara. She later got $10,000 of this money.

Receipt for the cyanide shipped to Davies

Don Eisenberg arguing one of many motions in the Hoffman

Case (© 1979 Brent Nicastro)

Barbara Hoffman and her lawyer, Don Eisenberg, at a January 1979 pretrial hearing at the City-County Building, Madison (Rich RyghlCapital Timet)

John Burr, assistant district attorney of Dane County, at the Barbara Hoffman trial, 1980 (Rich Rygh/ Capital Times)

Jim Doyle, district attorney of Dane County, 1978 (David SandeUlCapital Times)

Circuit Judge Michael Torphy, who finally presided over the case in June 1980 (Rich Ryghl Capital Times)

Sam Cerro, owner of a Madison massage parlor: his complicated plea bargain on an unrelated matter allowed for key testimony in the Hoffman trial. (David SandelllCapital Times)

The courtroom, June 1980 (David SandeWlCapital Times)

Barbara Hoffman and Don Eisenberg at the courthouse (David Sandell/ Capital Times)