A Fever in the Heart: And Other True Cases (32 page)

As an offer of proof, Jeff Sullivan prepared to call Stoney Morton, one of the coterie of young wrestlers who had made up Gabby Moore's social circle. Chris Tait objected on the grounds of hearsay and irrelevancy.

Morton's testimony would not be a happy thing for the defense. He had accompanied Gabby Moore on a visit to Turfy in Ellensburg the previous October. At some point, Gabby and Turfy ha(l told Stoney to go out and "start the car." He had done so, but as the two had come out of the dorm, Stoney had overheard a conversation. "I got out of the car," Stoney had told investigators, "and I heard Turfy say, But they will know it was a black man."

"

"No," Gabby had said, "not if you wear a full-faced ski mask."

The defense prevailed, at least for the moment, and Stoney Morton was sent back to Yakima, to testify, perhaps, on another day. Although the jury was unaware of decisions being made over the weekend of August 21-22, those days marked the most agonizing part of the whole trial for Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Sullivan. And it all concerned lie detector tests. At the time, only three states in America allowed polygraph results into a trial without stipulation (agreement) by both the prosecution and the defense. Several lie detector tests had been given to both Turfy and his brother by Dick Nesary, the Yakima police polygrapher. And, ironically, the tests tended to suggest that Turfy was telling the truth and Anthony was not. The defense team wanted Sullivan to agree to a stipulated polygraph, one whose results could be presented to the juryno matter what the outcome was. They were prepared to call in an out-of-state polygraph expert, Dr. Stanley Abrams, to administer the test to Turfy. Adam Moore and Chris Tait were obviously confident that Turfy would pass this fourth and stipulated polygraph test, confident enough to offer the results to the jury. Jeff Sullivan's first impulse was to say no to the stipulated polygraph. His case was flowing well, each witness building on the foundation laid down by the witness before.

Unless Sullivan agreed to allow the fourth polygraph in, there would be no mention of any of the lie detector tests. A prosecutor's political reputation is built on his win-loss record, and this was a huge case, particularly for a thirty-two-year-old newly elected prosecuting attorney. But, for Jeff Sullivan, there were other factors more compelling than winning for the sake of winning. "I was in the middle of a trial," Sullivan recalled, "and I knew I could lose it all. But, morally, I could not risk convicting an innocent man." After wrestling with the dilemma all weekend, Sullivan agreed to the stipulated polygraph. Everything in him agreed with Vern Henderson that Turfy's taped confessions were the real truth and that the polygraph by someone totally unconnected with the case or the Yakima Police Department would substantiate that. And yet, if Turfy should pass the lie detector test, Sullivan's case would be dead in the water. It was an awesome risk. But not as awesome as the prospect of convicting an innocent man without giving him every opportunity to prove his innocence. Jeff Sullivan's decision proved to be the correct one. Dr. Abrams, a defense witness, was impressive. It was Abrams who had given a lie detector test to Patty Hearst (although the results were not allowed into her trial). His credentials were impeccable. Abrams had examined the lie detector test results that Dick Nesary had administered to Turfy and Anthony Pleasant. He had found that the first two tests given to Turfy were "inconclusive" and he thought the third was leaning "slightly toward the truth." Like Nesary, Abrams found Anthony's test more untruthful. It was all moot. The jury never heard Abrams testify. They lingered all of Monday morning in the jurors' room, curious about what was going on in the courtroom. Dr. Abrams was to have administered a fourth and definitive polygraph examination to Turfy Pleasant that morning. However, after the pretest conversation with Abrams, Turfy asked for some time to think. After fifteen minutes, he spoke to his attorneys. He had decided he didn't want to take the polygraph from Abrams, after all. The defense team, who had been so anxious to have Prosecutor Jeff Sullivan stipulate to this polygraph, now back pedaled.

They went back into the courtroom and told Judge Lay that they would not now or ever stipulate to a new polygraph test. I "We will not agree to it," Adam Moore said. The jury never heard a word about polygraph tests.

Sullivan heaved a discreet sigh of relief. He had gambled on the side of his conscience and it had been the right way to go. The statess case was drawing to a close. Vern Bender son testified just before the two taped confessions were played. Adam Moore and Chris Tait cross-examined Vern fiercely, suggesting that the witness had tricked Turfy into confessing.

It didn't fly. Vern Henderson was perfectly willing to discuss his friendship with Morris Blankenbaker. There had been no vendetta on his part. All he ever wanted was the truth. He told of finding the casing ten feet from where Morris lay dying. Chris Tait questioned why Turfy had been put in a private cell the night of his arrest, and why he had given his confessions on two separate days. He suggested that Vern and Bob Brimmer had told Turfy they were going to "pretend they were in court" and that a jury was listening to the story Turfy was telling about the murders. "Yes, sir," Vern said quietly. "He did say that to him." Vern did not remember every word of the conversation between Brimmer and Turfy before the tape was turned on. "Isn't it a fact that Sergeant Brimmer told him they would never buy his story, and that he didn't believe him?"

"Yes, he did say that."

"What did Angelo say about this game of pretend'?"

"What do you mean what did he say, sir?"

"How did he react to it?"

"He was telling him what happened that's how.... He told a story and Sergeant Brimmer told him that there weren't any facts to back it up....

He couldn't tell us where he was between two o'clock A.M. and three o'clock A.M." [the night of Morris Blankenbaker's murder]. "And you told him There aren't any facts to back up your story'?"

"We told him to give us some facts to back up the story."

Chris Tait had a slight touch of sarcasm in his voice as he questioned Vern Henderson, but he didn't shake the young detective. Vern had a cleanness in his testimony that no amount of cross-examination could sully. Yes, Turfy had trusted him, but Vern had promised nothing, ever.

He had bought Turfy a hamburger and a Coke, but Turfy had repaid him.

"Did you loan him more money?"

"Bought him a Coke out of the pop machine.... Loaned him a quarter."

"Why was it that you didn't participate in this pretending session that Sergeant Brimmer was the jury and Angelo was telling his story?"

"Because he was talking to him, sir. He was the chief investigator. He didn't need both of us talking to him at the same time."

"You didn't take any part in that at all. You were just kind of along for the ride, sir?" Tait mimicked Henderson.

"I wasn't along for the ride, sir. I was sitting there listening."

"Did you call Angelo sir' every time he answered a question the way you are to me this afternoon?"

"I really doubt that, sir."

The gallery laughed, and Judge Lay rapped for order. There had been so little to laugh about in this trial. Tait kept trying to box Vern Henderson into a corner, to get him to say that Turfy had been tricked promising him that he could continue his education in prison. "Tell us about that conversation," Tait directed. "He was concerned about he was going to have to go to jail and lose out on all of the things that he really wanted in life that he was working hard for his school and stuff."

"Did you tell him that you would help him with his education?"

"He was told by Sergeant Brimmer that there were programs he might get into. .. we would try to make a request. .. if it was possible. That's all." Scornful, Tait asked, "Did you tell him to trust you?"

"No. I didn't use the words Trust me." He used the word that he trusted me." The tapes that Turfy Pleasant and his attorneys now wished to recant played to a hushed courtroom. This was powerful direct evidence, the sound of Turfy's voice speaking of the coach he had once revered.

"We were tight. In my book, he was Number One.... I would do anything for the man, just not to see him hurt." Turfy's voice detailed the last moments of Morris Blankenbaker, and then the last moments of the man who had planned both murders. These tapes that had long since become familiar to the attorneys and the detectives were riveting and horrifying to the gallery. The jurors' faces remained unreadable.

"Everything was his idea." Turfy Pleasant's voice cracked.

"Mr. Moore had this plan laid out, right?" Vern Henderson asked.

"Yes, he had it all laid out. To the bone. To the bone."

"How do you feel?" Vern Henderson's voice asked, as the second tape came to an end. "I don't," Turfy said stoically. "Because I really just did it for him."

"What else?"

"I was under the influence of him all the time, you know," Turfy said wearily. "I was on his mind track. I wasn't on mine." As a defense, would it have flown? Murder by brainwashing? Mind control? Perhaps.

Perhaps not. But it might be too late now. Adam Moore and Chris Tait had gone with a straight "Our client is innocent" defense. Now, Adam Moore leaped to his feet and asked for a dismissal of the murder charges in the death of Gabby Moore,or, at the very least, a reduction to manslaughter. "The facts before the court clearly proclaim the involvement of Gabby Moore as the prime mover behind this whole sordid mess, this whole sickening sequence. He's the grand artificer about everything that we've heard in court. He brought it all about. There isn't a scintilla of evidence that Angelo Pleasant intended the death of that man, not a bit, not a scrap, not a tidbit, nothing." Chris Tait argued that Gabby Moore had never intended to die, and that the defense believed that Turfy never intended to administer a fatal wound. "He was supposed to live. That's why the telephone was off the hook, so that Mr. Moore could crawl across the floor with the bullet wound in his shoulder and call for help. We know that he wanted to live because it was with the bullet wound, the attack on his person, that he hoped to convince Jerilee that he was innocent of his prior involvement.... He was supposed to live. He wanted very much to live. He wanted to get Jerilee back.... [Even] taking it in the light most favorable to the state, it's got to be by some magical, mysterious process that we turn it into evidence of premeditation. It isn't by any logical process that any of us are normally acquainted with. It's by some other process that I will never understand as long as I live. That's not premeditation."

Ahh, but it was.

And Jeff sullivan had the evidence in the defendant's own words.

Turfy Pleasant had been afraid of the power Gabby Moore held over him.

"It seems to me," Sullivan began, "there are a number of logical inferences from the evidence that indicate that Glynn Moore was killed pre meditatively and Angelo Pleasant intended his death.... Glynn Moore contacted Angelo on Christmas Eve. Angelo came up there and he threatened him. He threatened him. He said, Angelo, go get that gun and shoot me or I'm going to turn you in for the death of Morris Blankenbaker." So he went and got that gun. I think his exact words were, I will put your neck on the chopping block if you don't do what I say."" Sullivan pointed out that the defendant was supposed to shoot Moore high in the left shoulder. "He also told the police that the shot came from six or seven feet away. I submit, Your Honor, that Exhibit fourteen shows the bullet hole of entry in the body of Glynn Moore not high on the left shoulder but seven or eight inches below the left shoulder. The testimony of Dr. Muzzall is clear from twelve inches or less." VERN HENDERSON: Well, this is the plan?

TUFFY: Well, it wasn't a plan. I just did it.

VERN HENDERSON: Now, you did this because he had you up against the wall, or did you do this because this was mainly a plan he had? TUFFY: I really did it because he had me up against a wall. I really believed he had me. "Angelo realized," Sullivan said firmly, "that if he didn't eliminate Mr. Moore he was going to be able to use this threat of exposing him for the death of Morris Blankenbaker, and he would keep it over him for the rest of his life. And he adopted some of Mr. Moore's philosophy: If you got a problem, eliminate the problem,'

and he eliminated him. As soon as he shot him, did he try and help this man that he loved so much? No, he didn't help him. He ran."

Jeff Sullivan submitted that the evidence of premeditation was in place to support the first-degree murder charges. The prosecution rested.

At nine the next morning, Judge Lay ruled that he would not reduce the charge against the defendant in Gabby Moore's death. Coydell Pleasant began the defense case. She was in an untenable position. If she stood up for her son Angelo (Turfy), she endangered Anthony. And vice versa.

She testified that Anthony had only visited Angelo once in jail, and he said he was "nervous" after Angelo was arrested. She said she and other family members had encouraged Angelo to tell the police everything. In tears, Coydell Pleasant said that Angelo had told her about Anthony during one of her visits to the Yakima County Jail. "He told me, Mom, it's going to hurt you, but Daddy raised us up to tell the truth."" It was almost as if Coydell believed that if two of her sons shared the guilt of the murders, each would pay only half the penalty. Her testimony was clearly a desperation heartbreaking attempt to protect both Turfy and Anthony. In the end, her words had little impact. It was Turfy Pleasant who would be the main defense witness.

Handsome, with a broad grin that seemed completely without guile, Turfy proved at times to be a garrulous, even charming witness, as he recalled his rise to fame under Gabby Moore's tutelage and his glory days.

Despite the fact that he had been in jail for six months, he was still in peak condition. If he had been brought down by the long months of waiting for trial, he did not betray it. It was almost as if Turfy Pleasant believed he were going to walk away from the courtroom a free man. To do so, of course, he would have to implicate his own brother and his own best friend. Adam Moore clearly wanted the jurors to get to know his client as a person, rather than as the defendant in a double murder case. Turfy obliged by recalling the high points of his life. "My senior year I took second in state. Coming up my sophomore year and my junior year, I was a two-time state champion in freestyle wrestling."