Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [132]
Referring to Susan’s description of the “power struggle” she was facing with her husband, Dr. Peters said that she was “constantly on the losing end. You were isolated off within your family as being the quote-unquote ‘crazy one,’” the psychiatrist told Susan in court.
On cross-examination, the witness admitted that Susan was also recalling sexual and physical abuse, supposedly inflicted by her parents, and that Felix Polk expressed concern for his wife and was anxious to take her home. He also testified to a notation in Susan’s record that Felix had requested Susan be committed to the psychiatric hospital for observation. Dr. Peters said that Felix had made no such request to him.
In addition, Sequeira pointed out that it was Felix who called the ambulance that day, arguably saving Susan’s life.
“One could say that, yes,” Dr. Peters replied.
On Tuesday, after calling Eli’s former rugby coach to testify about her son’s character, Susan then called David Townsend, a forensic computer expert, originally hired by Dan Horowitz, to discuss the tests he performed on Susan’s home computer. Townsend, a former police officer, claimed that someone had twice accessed the files containing Susan’s two-hundred-page diary before officers had obtained a search warrant. This contradicted Detective Mike Costa, who, under oath, denied reading the diary, but it remained unclear who might have done so. While this accusation suggested a violation of police protocol, his tests showed that, though the diary was accessed, it did not appear to have been altered. Townsend’s examination also revealed that law enforcement did not document the required chain of custody for the computer.
The court adjourned for lunch but when the session resumed, it was Eli who returned to the stand. He testified that his father was a violent and controlling man who regularly tried to convince his children that their mother was crazy. Wearing a pained looked, he sat hunched in the witness box, listening to an audiotape of himself reacting to news of his father’s death the day after Felix’s body was found.
Eli’s sad demeanor on the stand did not match his commanding figure. Broad shouldered, at just over six feet tall, nevertheless, Eli appeared vulnerable and in need of emotional support. Unlike his two brothers who seemed defiant and expressed a loathing for their mother, it was clear that Eli had a special connection to Susan. Eli’s subdued appearance also stood in stark contrast to his lengthy juvenile rap sheet that included various assaults and encounters with the police.
“Did you love your dad?” Susan asked her son.
“Yeah, he was just a damaged person…. Looking back, he was a really unstable person,” Eli described his father.
For the remainder of the afternoon, Eli confirmed Susan’s claims regarding Felix’s tyrannical behavior, his purported links to the Jewish mafia, and accusations that his brothers had turned on Susan out of greed.
“He tried to get you on medication,” Eli said. “He talked to the kids about how to handle you. His whole thing was ‘you were crazy’ and ‘you imagined things.’”
Eli insisted his mother had every reason to believe that Felix was linked to the Mossad. “We’d be at dinner and he’d talk about his patients,” Eli recalled. “He said he had a patient in the FBI who was an assassin. He said he saw numerous people involved in the FBI and the CIA.”
Eli also contended that two of Felix’s friends regularly spoke of their ties to Israeli Intelligence and the Mossad.
On Wednesday, Eli’s testimony was again interrupted when a surprise witness was wheeled into the courtroom and announced her need to speak out on Susan’s behalf.
Seemingly out of breath, seventy-seven-year-old Elizabeth Bradley’s appearance momentarily created what could only be described as a “Perry Mason moment.”
“Oh my God!” Susan gasped. “Eli, do you remember who this is?”
Eli did not recall the Polks’ former neighbor from Berkeley, but he sat quietly as Mrs. Bradley