Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [136]
Friday’s court session adjourned when the prosecutor announced that he had no further questions.
Chapter Twenty-seven
NO MURDER AT ALL
The following Monday, court resumed with Susan’s redirect examination of Eli. She would keep her son on the stand until Thursday afternoon when Judge Brady announced she had heard enough and halted the questioning. During those four days, Susan trotted out numerous e-mails that her sons exchanged after their father’s death and instructed Eli to read them aloud. “I hope you do join the team and then I can see you soon,” Gabe wrote to Eli in January of 2004.
“I’m disappointed in you,” Gabe wrote in another correspondence. “Get your shit together. You’re siding with a person who murdered our dad.”
Gabriel was not the only brother sending e-mails to Eli. In January 2005, Adam sent one saying he would entertain his mother’s request to write a letter to the court, pronouncing, “I don’t believe my mother killed my father in cold blood, but in self-defense.”
In response to questions from Susan, Eli maintained that his elder brother had threatened to disinherit him if he did not join the wrongful death civil suit that Adam and Gabe filed against their mother.
“If I could just apologize for my language beforehand,” Eli asked jurors before reading Gabriel’s final e-mail correspondence aloud. “Eli, if you believe all that shit, you’re a fucking psycho, and I never want to see you again,” Eli read from the page his mother handed him. “I really should start calling you Susan. Grow the fuck up!”
Looking up from the paper, Eli accused Sequeira of “smiling at him.”
The accusation caught the judge off guard. Straightening herself in her chair, Brady glanced at the prosecutor. For the record, she noted that he was sitting at his table, resting his cheek and chin in his hand and gazing away from the witness box.
“I object!” Susan barked. “The district attorney is making faces at my son.”
Brady drew a breath and instructed Susan to move on with her questions.
“Was it like a smiling face?” Susan asked Eli with regard to Sequeira’s supposed grin.
“Mrs. Polk,” the judge interrupted, warning Susan to move on.
“It was like a smirk,” Eli replied.
Brady instructed Eli not to respond after she had ruled.
“I object!” Susan yelled out.
“Is there any way to take this show on the road?” Sequeira interjected, shaking his head in frustration.
“It is a show,” Eli agreed.
Banging her hand on the desk, Brady terminated the proceedings. “All right! We’re done for the day!”
Humorous though it was, the episode reflected Brady’s growing frustration. Whereas once the judge had been willing to tolerate Susan’s behavior, she was becoming much less lenient. Furthermore, Susan continued to bait Sequeira, and her efforts were clearly taking a toll on everyone involved.
On Tuesday, Susan directed her middle son to read letters he had written to her in jail. She was anxious to point out the sections in which Eli referred to his willingness to take the stand and “tell the truth” about Dad, but she didn’t anticipate the unsettling impact that many of the letters would have on the courtroom. As Eli spoke about his mother’s innocence, his voice sounded less and less like a son, and more like a lover. The impact was palpable, as the jurors shifted in their seats.
“I miss you so much it is driving me crazy,” Eli read aloud from one. “You are everything to me…. The truth about Dad needs to come out.”
“P.S. I wake up and see your face,” the note continued. “I love you enough to burn all I am and meet you in the afterlife.”
Susan cried aloud as her son recited the words to jurors. He had already told the court about the framed photo of his mother that he kept in his locker at Byron Boys’ Ranch. He had made the frame in wood shop and hung it in the locker so he could see her face every day.
The testimony that day was disquieting, and Sequeira recognized that Susan may have alienated the jurors with her son’s writings. Once again the prosecutor