Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [151]
“You’ve used the words ‘shocked’ and ‘appalled’ many times, Mrs. Polk,” Sequeira told Susan during recross-examination. “But do you recall saying in an interview on Court TV that you talked about it in a joking voice—the different actresses that might play you in a movie?”
The prosecutor was referring to an April 2006 interview that aired on Catherine Crier Live, conducted by my senior producer and coauthor, Cole Thompson. During the conversation, Susan said for the first time that she might be losing her case in court. In a moment of levity, she also joked about the possibility of a movie being made about her life, leading her to speculate that Winona Ryder should play the younger Susan, while Susan Sarandon should play her older self.
Though at the time the humor seemed harmless, Sequeira was seeking to use that televised interview to portray her as someone who pokes fun at a murder victim.
“Is it a crime to be able to find some humor in my situation?” Susan asked the prosecutor, charging that the Court TV producer “sand-bagged” her with the question. Breaking into a girlish giggle, she admitted that she still believes that Hannibal Lector is “too nice” a character to portray Felix.
“This is funny to you?” Sequeira huffed.
“I thought so,” Susan chuckled. But her demeanor quickly changed when she realized that jurors were not laughing along with her. Turning on the tears, she reminded panelists of her serious nature as a child, her difficult years as a wife, and her mother’s mantra.
“Have a sense of humor!” Susan said her mother always told her.
“I could look at my life as a tragedy. Or I could see it as a triumph,” she said as the tears flowed and she gasped for breath. “And I made a conscious choice that no matter what happened in my life, I wasn’t going to be a victim.”
Before resting her case on Thursday, June 8, Susan would call a colorful assortment of witnesses to testify. Among them was Laura Castro-Shelly, a fifth-degree Shaolin black belt who used the “fight or flight” response to explain the relatively few bruises Susan sustained during the fight with her husband.
“I believe it’s animalistic,” Castro-Shelly responded when asked how a woman of Polk’s size and stature could survive such a brutal attack by someone so much larger than she. “You become a lioness in the wilderness. You will protect yourself. You will protect your babies…. You will fight back knowing this could be your last breath.”
Susan also sought to direct the court’s attention to the role that psychics can play in crime investigation, calling Roger Clark, a retired Los Angeles sheriff ’s lieutenant and self-described psychic detective and expert in crime scene analysis to testify on her behalf. The former police lieutenant took the stand to bolster Dr. Cooper’s assertion that Felix died from a heart attack and not the massive injuries he sustained in the guest cottage. Similarly, Susan called psychic detective Annette Martin to testify; however, Judge Brady limited her testimony to a discussion of how her intuitive abilities are used by members of law enforcement—adding little to Susan’s defense. Susan touted Martin’s abilities, claiming she had a 100 percent success rate on the hundred cases she assisted on. “She testified because she cares about me,” Susan later said.
Next to take the stand was family therapist and domestic violence expert Linda Barnard who supported Susan’s claim that she was a victim of “physical, emotional, and verbal abuse” during her relationship with Felix. The expert admitted she had not conducted a psychological evaluation of Susan in jail, but instead, had based her conclusions on four meetings with the defendant at the West County Correctional Facility and a review of the case documents, including recorded interviews, medical records, and naval records on Felix Polk. In response to questions, Dr. Barnard asserted that Susan