Killer Nurse (20 page)

Cartwright:
Yes.

This question was important for several reasons and would be remembered by the jury. Thompson referred to this water that they'd been talking about all trial as tap water, the same water most of the jury got at their houses.

Thompson:
You wouldn't expect minor variations in the amount of chlorine Lufkin was using in their city water in that 5-week period in the exhaustion of 14 cubic feet of granulated activated carbon, would you?

Cartwright:
Not minor variations, no.

In other words, whatever caused the injuries and deaths to the patients, it wasn't the water. The only person who clung to this theory after this point was Deaton, who told the E! Program a month after the trial, “One of the possibilities of why these people were hurt was the water was bad. If their filters aren't working properly that chlorine or chloramine can get into the water and therefore into the system of the patients and can cause them to die or get very, very sick.”

But according to Deaton's own expert, 14 cubic feet of new granulated activated carbon was more than enough to properly filter the DaVita water, and besides, every patient received the exact same water. The jury never seriously considered the water the problem. If there was enough chlorine in the water to kill one, it would have killed or injured them all.

While watching Thompson cross-examine Cartwright, an eighteen-year-old high school senior who was there just to watch a portion of the trial admiringly compared Thompson to Joe Pesci's role in the movie
My Cousin Vinny
, where Pesci demolishes the other side's case point by point.

Thompson was tickled by the young man's comment. Not only that, he said—he and his family went out and rented the movie afterward.

CHAPTER
20

MAGIC BULLETS

What does a savior look like? Kimberly Clark Saenz's defense had a couple of them planned, and defense attorney Ryan Deaton had saved them for the end of the trial. These were his magic bullets meant to destroy the state's case, the people who'd put the smiles on Saenz's face and the reason she treated the trial as a social event.

The first of these was Nick Luker. Taylor said in an interview after the trial, “It was my understanding from the beginning that Luker was going to save them.”

After he was sworn in, Luker sat in the witness box as if he were relaxed at home in front of his TV. Dressed in a short-sleeved, faded scrub shirt and well-worn jeans, and sporting a condescending smirk, he didn't look like much of a savior.

When the jury entered, everyone in the courtroom stood except Luker. For a jury who had entered and left the courtroom a hundred times with everyone, including witnesses, standing for them, one that didn't stood out. The fact that the witness box was located right in front of the jury box didn't help.

David Bradford, one of the jurors, later said about Luker, “I pegged him when he got up there. He's screwy. He was just too slick.”

Deaton, however, believed in Luker so much that he tried to get the court to declare Luker an expert medical witness, but Herrington and Judge Bryan disagreed.

However, during his testimony, like Connie Baker, Luker declared he'd seen things that no one else had seen. He had nothing good to say about DaVita, their practices, the people he'd worked with, and even the water and the water process system.

Before Deaton turned the questioning over to Prosecutor Clyde Herrington, he headed the DA off from his first questions by having Luker explain his criminal history, which, leaving off traffic violations, was still peppered with DWIs. The first mark on Luker's criminal adult record in Angelina County was on December 31, 1984, at the age of twenty-one. On that date, law enforcement charged him with misdemeanor driving while intoxicated. On March 19, 1985, law enforcement again charged him with misdemeanor DWI. Luker upgraded those charges to a felony DWI in 1988, and then another felony DWI in 1996. On December 8, 2005, law enforcement charged him with felony failure to stop and render aid.

Deaton then asked Luker why DaVita had fired him. Luker told the jury that DaVita had fired him because he didn't shave.

Deaton's last question was if Luker had any reason for hard feelings against DaVita. Luker answered, “I don't work for them anymore, so why would I have any hard feelings?”

Most people in the courtroom, however, understood that being fired from a job just might cause some hard feelings.

At that point in the trial, Herrington had not attacked any witnesses. He'd treated them all the same—whether their testimony helped or hurt his case. Connie Baker, for instance: her testimony wasn't consistent with anything the other witnesses had said, even defense witnesses, yet Herrington had treated her just like the others. He never raised his voice, and he didn't even read her resignation letter out loud in the courtroom. He simply gave it to the jury to read.

Luker was the exception. While Herrington thought Baker was mistaken, he didn't think she was lying, and that was the difference between her and Luker. Also, Baker had been a surprise to the prosecution, but they'd been waiting for Luker.

Herrington's first question was, “Did you tell this court you were fired for not shaving?”

As Luker started to explain, Herrington snapped, “Answer yes or no.”

This was the first time he'd been curt with any witness during the trial, and the jury didn't fail to notice it.

When Luker answered yes, Herrington produced his file. It seemed that Luker had actually been fired for some of the things he'd accused other employees of doing, including almost hooking a patient up to the wrong machine and, according to Herrington, refusing to wash his hands.

The prosecution was ready for Luker because Detective Steve Abbott had gone the extra mile in the investigation and interviewed him four months after Saenz was accused of injecting the two patients with bleach. His testimony at the trial contradicted much of what he'd told the police in the interview, but Luker actually claimed that he remembered everything better four years later than he had four months after the accusation.

Taylor put Luker's testimony in perspective. He said simply, “Luker was a disaster.”

After Herrington's cross of Luker, some of the swagger left the defense, but the party still continued. Throughout the trial, the defendant, her family, and Deaton had acted like they had a secret that no one else had—one that would free Kimberly Saenz from that GPS ankle bracelet. On Friday, the courthouse found out that the big gun was Dr. Amy Gruszecki.

Friday after lunch, Deaton called Dr. Gruszecki to the stand. In many ways, Saenz's defense rested on Dr. Gruszecki's testimony, and they believed she was up to the challenge. The prosecution, however, had no idea what she was going to say.

When Dr. Gruszecki took the stand, Tortorice had asked several people in the audience to take down every word she said so he would have some ideas of how to challenge her testimony.

She appeared to be in her forties, about five-six and a hundred and forty pounds, with mousy brown hair and conservatively dressed. But her attitude was anything but conservative—despite the seriousness of the trial, Dr. Gruszecki's attitude was so bubbly and cheerful, one spectator commented on whether next she would break out her pom-poms. And her exuberance seemed to infect the demeanor of the defendant, defense attorney, and Saenz's family, whose smiles and laughter were even more pronounced than normal. She even chuckled several times while delivering her opinion on the cause of death of the victims.

Dr. Gruszecki seemed so confident not only in herself but the information that she possessed that at times she acted like anything but a medical expert and someone testifying in a capital murder case involving five dead people, and with the death penalty on the line. She giggled, and answered questions with an incessant chatter. At one point, the defense attorney, needing to tell her something, approached her without asking the judge's permission because she wouldn't be quiet long enough for him to ask permission. He stood behind her as she talked and finally leaned down and whispered something in her ear. Whatever he said, she nodded.

However, Chris Tortorice didn't have time to worry about Gruszecki's courtroom demeanor. As Friday wore on, it was obvious to spectators that this witness was indeed damaging the state's case against Saenz.

Dr. Gruszecki's credentials were daunting: She was a forensic pathologist—she conducted autopsies to determine the cause of all manners of death. She had a bachelor of science degree from the University of Trenton in Trenton, Pennsylvania; a master of science degree in forensic science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham; then did medical school and osteopathic medicine in Pennsylvania, and followed that up with a one-year internship as an internal medicine doctor. She added pathology residency after that for four years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and did a one-year fellowship in forensic pathology.

She had medical licenses in four states—Texas, Alabama, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi—and was board certified in anatomical and forensic pathology. She was an adjunct professor at the University of North Texas, and had worked as a medical examiner at Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Dr. Gruszecki was critical of the police, DaVita, the medical examiner who'd looked at the patients, and the state's experts. She testified that every one of the DaVita victims had died of natural causes. And if they'd died of natural causes, then there was no murder.

But it seemed Dr. Gruszecki wasn't satisfied with answering questions briefly.

She went on and on in her replies, and the more she talked, the closer the little hand of the clock continued to move toward five—the time Judge Bryan would end the trial for that day.

Dr. Gruszecki was the big gun designed to rip the state's evidence to shreds, and it had appeared that she'd done just that. Of the prosecution team's three attorneys, two had vast experience in the courtroom and in capital murder cases. They'd both cross-examined many medical experts in their careers. But the cross of Dr. Gruszecki, and all likelihood the saving of the state's case against Saenz, fell not to the two experienced attorneys, but to Christopher T. Tortorice, the young assistant U.S. Attorney prosecuting his first capital murder.

When Deaton finally passed the witness, the judge looked at the clock and announced that they would resume Monday morning at nine. Chris Tortorice closed his eyes and let out a huge sigh of relief.

He now had the whole weekend to prepare for cross.

* * *

Tension threatened to choke the packed courtroom on a wet Monday morning. The capital murder trial for Kimberly Clark Saenz was reaching its conclusion, and the Friday before, the defense had put on its last and by far most important witness—Dr. Amy Gruszecki, commonly referred to as the M.E.

Tortorice now had a confident Dr. Amy Gruszecki on the stand awaiting him. He'd realized that her testimony had hurt, but he'd felt she'd made some mistakes. And since, unlike normal witnesses, the testimony of experts was taped, Tortorice had spent the entire weekend studying Dr. Gruszecki's testimony.

The young, mild-mannered, geeky-looking attorney's first question knocked the smile off Dr. Gruszecki's face, and it wouldn't be seen again in this trial. He asked, “You're not board certified in clinical pathology, correct?”

Dr. Gruszecki replied, “Correct.”

“Have you taken those boards?” Tortorice asked.

“I took them, yes,” she admitted.

Tortorice zeroed in. “Did you pass them?”

Instead of replying yes or no, Dr. Gruszecki deflected. “I decided not to pursue it. I don't need them to practice pathology,” was her reply.

It didn't take a genius to guess why she decided not to pursue clinical pathology after she went to the trouble of paying for and taking the test.

Tortorice's next question and Gruszecki's answer also lodged in the jurors' minds. He asked her if she'd resigned from the Dallas County medical examiner's office after a controversy. She replied that she had submitted her resignation and they'd accepted it. If that was a controversy, so be it.

Tortorice never pursued it any further than that, but he didn't need to. He had a smart jury who could read between the lines. When Tortorice asked this question, several jurors recalled reading about the controversy in the medical examiner's office, and now they had a face to go with it.

Tortorice had gone into the cross knowing that Dr. Gruszecki's testimony had hurt them on Friday, but now he was about to pull the rug out from under some of her statements.

For example, Dr. Gruszecki had been critical in her testimony of the police for not exhuming Ms. Thelma Metcalf and doing an autopsy. She'd made this statement confidently—but evidently without ever taking a close look at Ms. Metcalf's death certificate.

After Tortorice handed her the death certificate, he asked, “Does it say on there whether or not Ms. Metcalf was cremated?” The question brought gasps from the audience and embarrassment to the defense.

Dr. Gruszecki was forced to concede that Ms. Metcalf had indeed been cremated. Tortorice asked, “Would that make an autopsy more difficult?”

Although everyone in the courtroom knew the answer, Dr. Gruszecki was forced to concede again, and it was obvious she didn't want to. No one at this point believed she was going to break out any pom-poms. Unfortunately for her and the defense, this was just the beginning.

There was one point Tortorice had waited anxiously to attack because he knew the doctor was dead wrong on it. On Friday, Dr. Gruszecki had testified that there was only one lab in the whole world doing research on 3-chlorotyrosine, a marker for chlorine exposure in blood. Tortorice had played back the tape of her testimony several times just to make sure she'd really made a mistake like that. He knew for a fact there were several labs doing research on it.

She'd clearly had time to reconsider as well, for when Tortorice asked her about that previous statement, Dr. Gruszecki denied having made it. He said, “Okay, Doctor! The jury will remember that.” He was right. They did.

However, the worst was yet to come. She'd testified Friday that injections of bleach would cause redness and even stated where she found that in literature on bleach injections. Yet when Tortorice handed Dr. Gruszecki a copy of the article from which she'd claimed to have obtained the information, she was forced to admit that it didn't say anything about redness.

Throughout the trial, Kimberly Saenz had appeared happy, engaged in the process. Saenz would smile at Deaton, whisper to him, or turn and laugh or smile at her family and friends behind her. That is, when she wasn't smirking at the families of the victims. Herrington said that she enjoyed the process and she showed that she did. Spectators and jury members alike couldn't understand what made her so supremely confident that she would get off. However, halfway through Tortorice's cross of Gruszecki, Saenz began to cry.