Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [87]
In one letter, dated March 12, 2003, Dan praised Gabriel’s progress. “His studies are really quite good,” Dan wrote. “He is improving on his study skills, reluctantly, like most teenagers that I know and he is beginning to be willing to recognize those areas that he needs to work on.”
Keeping the imprisoned mother apprised of every detail, Dan informed Susan that her son was now a member of the De La Salle rugby team and the junior varsity football team and that he “was getting along well with our family.”
“We have had no problem with him breaking primary rules such as smoking, drinking, or significant defiance,” Dan noted. “And we communicate openly and frankly so that he knows he has both commitment and support. He continues to work with his counselor twice a week…. He is still not reading your letters. We always tell him when they arrive and we keep them unopened for him for a later time. We recognize that they are very important to him…. Gabe sees more and more that he has a lot of opportunity and a lot of potential and Marjorie and I think he will excel.”
These letters to Susan continued until July or August of 2003, when Susan and Marjorie Briner had a verbal confrontation over the telephone. The altercation, which came after months of angry letters and phone calls from Susan, prompted Marjorie to cut off all communication with Gabe’s mother. At first, the couple obliged Susan’s myriad requests, including shopping for Christmas and birthday gifts for her sons for which she promised to reimburse the couple. However, this arrangement soured after Susan raged at Marjorie for refusing to buy Adam a DVD that he insisted he didn’t want.
Susan’s pattern was to blow up, rant and rave, and then follow up with a kind letter as if the angry incident never took place. It was a difficult routine for a family that was just trying to help a young teenager get back on his feet, and by August of 2003, Marjorie Briner could not bear any more confrontations. In addition to her verbal abuse, Susan was now claiming the Briners were conspiring with others to rob the Polk estate, accusing the family of brainwashing her sons against her in order to get their hands on the family money.
This conspiracy theory was further complicated by the fact that Susan was convinced the Briners were in cahoots with Felix’s twin brother, John, and John’s attorney, Bud Mackenzie, who was representing John in the Polk estate proceedings. She even went so far as to blame the couple for pocketing Gabriel’s monthly social security check of twelve hundred dollars to spend on personal indulgences, a check that Gabe’s half sister, Jennifer, had arranged for him to receive after their father’s death.
In reality, Gabriel was turning over his check each month to help offset the couple’s expenses. Although they both held good jobs, the Briners were not rich. Dan Briner was hoping to teach Gabriel how to manage his finances, and in the early days, he was giving the teen a four hundred dollar monthly allowance, which he increased as the boy showed he could handle his own financial affairs.
The success that the family experienced with Gabriel eventually led them to take responsibility for Eli after he was released from Byron Boys’ Ranch in the summer of 2003. The arrangement did not last long, and Eli stayed just two weeks, claiming the couple tried to sour him on his mother.
“He was essentially living out of his car, but sleeping at the house,” Dan Briner said of Eli’s brief stay. “He had his girlfriend downstairs. We were trying to help him. The plan was to send him out to a school in Colorado that would take him. He liked rugby and we thought that the estate would cover the tickets.
“His Aunt Evelyn helped with the planning,” Dan said of Felix’s older sister, who had gone on to become a concert pianist. She was also one of Eli’s biggest supporters, offering to help in any way she could, but there didn’t seem