Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [102]
At one point, he even drew a parallel between Felix Polk and fanatical cult leader James Warren “Jim” Jones, the American founder of the Peoples Temple Church in San Francisco and later Jonestown in Guyana. It was Jones who organized the mass suicide of 914 of his followers, including nearly three hundred children, and convinced them to collectively drink a Kool-Aid cocktail laced with poison in November 1978.
Horowitz insisted that just as Jones gained control over his disciples, Felix won psychological control over Susan by molesting her under hypnosis at the tender age of sixteen, and then continuing the abuse with threats and beatings over the course of their marriage.
From the front row of the gallery, Horowitz’s wife, Pamela Vitale, listened intently as her husband next introduced Felix’s little-known secret: that he had been committed to a psychiatric hospital after suffering a “schizophrenic reaction” in the mid-fifties while serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. It was news to many in the courtroom that Dr. Polk had spent nearly one year in a locked ward of a U.S. Naval Hospital. Horowitz promised more on Felix’s hospitalization through testimony from a defense expert who would explain how Felix’s mental condition made him prone to “outbursts of rage, violence, and anger.”
“Susan Polk defended her life against an attack by a vengeful, rageful, aggressive man,” Horowitz insisted. “She was on her back. She fought him off and lived.”
In spite of Horowitz’s strong opening, the trial did not get off to a good start. Jurors seemed skeptical of the defense’s claim that police had mishandled evidence. In addition, Horowitz’s explanation for Susan’s initial denial and subsequent cover-up of the crime did not appear to ring true with the twelve jurors—especially after they heard the prosecutor describe her elaborate efforts to cover up the crime during his opening remarks. O’Connor pointed out that Susan cleaned and hid the knife used in the attack, got rid of her bloody clothing, and placed her husband’s car at the train station in an effort to cover her tracks. Those were hardly the actions of an innocent woman, he insisted.
The following morning, jurors boarded a bus for the Polk’s hillside residence to get their first look at the Miner Road crime scene. The group spent several hours viewing the pool area and the guesthouse where Gabriel found his father’s bloodied body.
That Wednesday, the jury heard from prosecution witnesses, among them the 911 operator who took Felix Polk’s call on October 6, exactly one week before the murder, to report that his wife had threatened his life.
“I remember the caller saying, ‘My wife threatened to kill me,’” police dispatcher Randee Johnson testified.
Another witness, Deputy Sheriff Shannon Kelly, one of the first officers on the scene, testified that Susan denied having done anything wrong during the ride to police headquarters on the night of October 14,2002. Although his role in the criminal investigation was limited, Kelly endured two hours of cross-examination by Horowitz, who was trying to cast doubt on police competence at the crime scene. This strategy proved lost on jurors, two of whom were overheard in the men’s room trying to figure out why Horowitz had spent so much time with Kelly. Apparently the men were unaware that defense lawyer, Ivan Golde, was also in the bathroom at the time.
“They didn’t see me,” Golde later complained to Judge Brady. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
The judge denied Horowitz’s request to have the two jurors removed from the case, but warned the men to refrain from further discussion of the case. “I know this is not like what you see on TV, but it is important,” Judge Brady told the jurors.
O’Connor closed the first week of testimony with a victory, as the judge accepted into