Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [116]
His sharp remarks did not appear to faze Susan, who plowed ahead, at one point displaying photographs of family trips to Disneyland and Gabe as a child playing with a friend and the family dogs, Max and Mitsie, in an attempt to elicit fond memories of their times together.
“Didn’t you say ‘even if she is delusional, we love her because she’s fun?’” Susan asked, holding up the “Best Mom” plaque that her three sons awarded her in 1997.
“Yeah, we loved you. This [the plaque] was Dad’s idea by the way,” he shot back. Susan wept when Gabe said he couldn’t confirm her claims that his dad punched her in the face, dragged her up the stairs by her hair, and told her that he would never give her a divorce.
“He threw water in your face one time,” the teen acknowledged.
“One time?” Susan fired back.
Gabe admitted that his father may have picked up and thrown small items around the house during arguments with Susan but said that he never threw anything directly at her.
Continuing, Susan asked Gabe about his strained relationship with Eli, tearing up as the questions came out of her mouth.
“Do you recall telling your brother Eli that he was your best friend?”
“Yes,” Gabe replied in a monotone.
“Do you remember when you went to school wearing his oversized clothes and shoes?” Susan asked, referring to Gabe’s time in elementary school. “Do you miss your brother?”
There was silence in the courtroom as Gabriel contemplated his answer. “Yes, I do miss him,” the teen replied, straightening himself in the chair. “I still have affection for Eli, Dad, and you…. I do have good memories. I do love you. But there’s terrible memories with the good memories.”
“You still have affection for your brother?” Susan posed. “Then why did you sue him?”
“I didn’t sue Eli, I sued you.”
“Didn’t you and your brother settle a wrongful death suit with me for $300,000?” Susan said, referring to the civil action that Gabe and Adam filed after her arrest.
Gabe was visibly upset when his mother brought up the suit in court, insisting that he wasn’t allowed to talk about it because of a confidentiality agreement that both parties had signed. “You know that,” he snapped at his mother.
“Couldn’t you have just left him off?” Susan asked, referring to Eli.
Gabe told his mother that he was not a lawyer, but it was his understanding that he and Adam had sued her, and that since Eli took her side, he had to be named in the suit.
“These things are obviously very important to you but they don’t seem to add or subtract from your case,” Judge Brady told Susan.
“I hope you don’t think I’m picking on you,” Susan told Gabriel before court adjourned that night. “You are aware that I loved all three of my sons the same?”
“Yes, I know,” he acknowledged. “You appreciate Eli a lot more now because he buys into your delusions and we don’t.”
On Tuesday, jurors arrived for a third day of cross-examination. Instead, they learned that Susan had asked for another delay.
“I’m sick and I think I’m getting bronchitis,” she sniffled.
The judge arranged to have her seen by a doctor; Brady also let Susan know that she was anxious to keep the proceedings moving along and hoped to resume court after lunch.
When Susan returned that afternoon, she reported that she had been prescribed antibiotics for her condition. She then requested an adjournment until the following Monday to get some “much needed rest.” “I was up half the night coughing,” she told the judge. “This is a murder trial and I want to be at my best.”
Judge Brady was sympathetic to Susan’s infirmity—she, too, was nursing a sore throat, but denied her request for what she deemed an “unreasonable” delay and ordered all parties back to court on Thursday, March 16. This adjournment was further evidence of the judge’s extraordinary patience. Brady rarely lost her cool even as Susan accused