Wasted (24 page)

The man who had just called himself a slick dog sat down.

 

 

The prosecutors and defense lawyers picked their jurors. Ten of the jurors were college graduates. Several of them had advanced degrees. Three of them were engineers, and two were attorneys—a young, practicing attorney and mother of two, and a young Texas A&M University graduate who had recently taken the bar and was awaiting the results.

 

 

Outside the presence of the jury, the attorneys argued whether there was “a deal” between Kim LeBlanc and the state. The defense asserted that there was a deal and the proof was in the indictments. Justin Thomas’s indictment noted use of a deadly weapon, and Kim LeBlanc’s indictment, in the defense’s view, made no mention of a deadly weapon.

Prosecutor Gregg Cox angrily argued that the indictments were equal. “My charging decision is not any sort of any agreement with anyone!” Cox shouted.

“Yes, it is,” said the defense. “A fix is a fix.”

“There have been no discussions of any deals whatsoever,” said Cox.

“I know that they think they don’t have a deal,” said the defense. “The word ‘deal’ means something different to the state than it does to me. I accept that.”

Judge Fuller overruled the defense, and Court recessed for lunch.

 

 

At 2:05 p.m., court reconvened, again outside the presence of the jurors, so that the defense attorneys could present their objections to the state’s motions
in limine.
Patrick Ganne wanted the freedom to ask witnesses about motivation, bias, and prejudice. The state wanted the Judge to rule before the defense could ask such questions.

“And my response,” said Ganne, “is that I think ... [Cox is] trying to gain a strategic advantage by interrupting the flow of questioning so as to allow us to approach the bench, get the ruling, seek permission, get the ruling to go into it, and warn his witnesses at the same time that the hammer is about to drop on them.”

“Judge,” pleaded Cox.

“You’ve been watching TV, Ganne,” said Fuller.

 

 

“Your Honor,” Ganne continued, “what he’s trying to do is interfere with trial strategy. If I’m going to an improper area, I’m sure that the way to stop it is for him to object, for you to make a ruling. If that’s what it comes to.”

“I’m asking before he gets into stuff that he knows is probably objectionable, that we approach the bench and talk about it,” said Cox.

“I’m not going to do that,” replied Ganne. “I’m not going to knowingly, intentionally ask inappropriate or objectionable questions.”

“My God, Ganne,” said Judge Fuller. “You expect to sell that to the Court? You talk about taking advantage of the elderly.”

The arguments proceeded, and Judge Fuller added, “Probably ought to open this Court with a prayer before we bring in the jury. You want me to rule on that?”

Again the arguments continued, and Ganne stated, “What we’re asking is that when a witness is passed, we don’t want to be running up to the bench every five minutes.”

“Well, I don’t think this means every witness, surely,” said Fuller. “You’re not going to be doing this to police officers.” Fuller looked at Jim Sawyer. “What did you whisper? I read lips, too.” Fuller sustained the defense’s objection.

More arguments continued briefly; then prosecutor Van Winkle read the indictment against Thomas.

“Justin Thomas, how do you plead?” said Fuller.

“Not guilty.”

 

 

Opening statements began before a packed courtroom, so packed that one could no longer see that the gallery chairs were dirty orange, like a Halloween gone bad, that the carpet was tan, the walls yellow ochre.

There were reporters. There were Mark and Dian Hartwell. There were observers. There were friends of Regina’s, well-dressed, bright, young, flamboyant Gen-Xers who chattered and hugged each other often.

Gregg Cox stood. In a soft, smooth voice, he made a brief opening statement—Justin Thomas stabbed Regina Hartwell after she threatened to turn him in to police for dealing drugs. “She was jealous of Justin, and you’re going to hear evidence Justin was jealous of her; his girlfriend being such close friends and accepting money from Regina.”

Thomas and LeBlanc “then came up with a plan of chopping up the body, putting it in a trash can with some cement, wrapping a chain around, dropping it in the Colorado River. They went into town, went to Builders Square, and purchased the trash can, two bags of cement, a chain, and a padlock. And they drove back to Bastrop.

“In the meantime, Justin had called a friend to ask to get some help in getting rid of her Jeep. When they got back out there from Builders Square, they figured they couldn’t get rid of the Jeep very quickly. It’s going to take some time. And his family had come home. And Kim’s going to tell you they found out what had happened, and they told him to get that body out of there and they didn’t want this going on.

“So she said that Justin came up with a new thing.”

He burned Regina’s body.

 

 

The jurors glanced at Thomas. In slacks, shirt, and tie, he looked like a handsome University of Texas football player. Patrick Ganne wanted them to see Thomas as a dumb, ole farm boy. And he wanted them to see Kim LeBlanc as a Jezebel.

“What I anticipate you’re going to hear within the next two to three days is state-sponsored perjury,” said Ganne. “I hope the words shock you. Because they were meant to.”

He accused LeBlanc of murder. “What she is is a person who goes not by her own name,” said Ganne, his piercing, blue eyes staring right at the jurors, “but she changes her name when it is convenient for her to do so, who sells her body, who sells her sexuality for money.”

He told the jurors that Regina Hartwell had bought Kim LeBlanc a matching, identical Jeep Sahara “as a symbol of their wedding” and that Kim had murdered Regina because she believed she was going to inherit $3.7 million from Regina.

“Follow the money,” announced Ganne. “Follow the money. You’ll find your guilty party.”

Ganne looked intently at the jurors. “The prosecutor further has not told you that he’s kissed [Kim LeBlanc] on the lips, that is that he’s made a deal with her.”

“Who we gonna blame,” said Ganne, “the people who’ve been involved for a number of years or the guy who just comes on the scene looking dumb? ‘I just love a dumb-looking man. They can be used and become useful at times.’”

Ganne closed, “So I look forward to spending the next few days with you as we navigate these treacherous shoals of falsehoods. The truth will come out. It’s so evident that it just cries.”

The jurors didn’t know that Ganne’s and Sawyer’s usual, admitted defense tactic was “the bitch did it.”

 

 

At 2:40 p.m., the first witness took the stand for the prosecution, Bluebonnet Volunteer Fire Chief Terry Duval. He painted the picture of Regina Hartwell’s burning. As the photograph of her flaking, crispened, black corpse flashed before the courtroom, stomachs turned.

Even Justin Thomas didn’t want to look, despite the fact that he was no stranger to the gruesome. If Hartwell’s tar-baby black corpse had been someone from his California days, back when Thomas “took care” of business, he wouldn’t have thought twice about staring at that grotesque photograph.

Regina was different, however. She was someone he’d spent time with, had fun with, developed a relationship with. But Thomas showed no reaction.

Regina’s friends, in tears, shoved open the court’s swinging wooden doors and ran for the restrooms to vomit.

“What? What?” asked Anita Morales. “Tell me what’s going on.” Anita, not allowed in the courtroom because she was scheduled to testify, sat in the hallway. She was furious that she couldn’t listen to the trial. No one, she thought, loved Regina as much as she. Anita sat back down and waited.

Witnesses came and went quickly. Bastrop County Sheriff Deputy John Barton told of seeing the body and calling for a homicide investigator. Joy Parrot, an employee of Regina’s childhood dentist, told of turning over Regina’s dental records to Mark Hartwell.

Joel Hartwell, Regina’s uncle, testified more about Regina’s dental records, as well as her inheritance. He, rather than Mark Hartwell, took the stand so that Regina’s father could sit in the courtroom and listen to the complete trial.

“Mr. Hartwell,” said prosecutor Gail Van Winkle to Joel Hartwell, “I believe you testified you came to Austin with your brother and you were present at a probate hearing. Is that correct?”

“Yes, I was,” said Joel Hartwell.

“Who received Regina’s estate?”

“Her father.”

He pointed out Mark Hartwell, the man wearing glasses and a white shirt and tie.

 

 

The prosecution then called to the stand Deputy Robert Gremillion of the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department. He stated that he was at the scene of the fire, had helped collect evidence, had seen the knife wrapped in blue cloth under Regina Hartwell’s body, and had escorted her burned Jeep from the fire site to the the county’s sullyport, a holding area for prisoners that was also used as a holding area for vehicles.

Jim Sawyer watched Gremillion. “Now,” said Sawyer as he cross-examined the deputy, “were you surprised—I’m just asking you about you personally—were you surprised to find a knife—may I approach the bench, Your Honor?—wrapped, I take it the cloth seemed to have been wrapped around it to preserve it or protect it, wouldn’t you agree?”

“I would think,” said the deputy.

“Surprised to find that knife there under the body?”

“No,” said Gremillion.

“Well, let me ask you this,” said Sawyer. “If she had been shot to death, if that turned out to be the evidence, would you have been surprised to find a gun wrapped in a cloth stuck under the body, a dead body of a person you find in a Jeep?”

“Not really,” answered the deputy.

“Not really,” Sawyer repeated, incredulously. “So let me see. You think it’s kind of not unusual that someone lights a fire that can be seen a mile away and leaves a weapon wrapped in a cloth under the body in a Jeep that’s being burned?”

“In my opinion, yes, they’re going to leave [a weapon], especially being a wood handle like that, near the source of ignition, the highest temperature,” said the deputy.

“Why not leave it out without being wrapped, and away from the body, so it would burn with the rest of the car?”

“Maybe his thinking was that it was more fuel around it with the cloth,” answered Gremillion.

At 4:30 p.m., court recessed until 9:10 the following morning.

On Wednesday, August 14, 1996, day two of the trial of Justin Thomas, Deputy Gremillion briefly took the stand once again. He stated that as soon as he was on the scene of the fire, he had smelled fuel, and, the closer he had moved toward the Jeep, the stronger the smell had gotten.

Detective David Campos, in charge of CID at the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Department, then testified about transporting the slightly charred knife to the Texas Department of Public Safety Lab on July 7, 1995 and releasing evidence, including the scorched, blue cloth and trash can, to APD Detective Doug Dukes on July 10, 1995.

Officer Timothy Pruett stepped up to the stand next to tell of the missing-person report he had taken on Regina Hartwell. He had noticed dried blood on a statue, he said, but Regina’s friends had not seemed concerned about it. They had been concerned, however, that her dog had been unattended and that her makeup had been in her apartment.

Kim LeBlanc, he said, had been worried too, but she had not talked a lot. LeBlanc had admitted, however, that she had been on Hartwell’ s bank account and could have used Hartwell’s ATM card anytime she’d wanted.

The following day, July 5, 1995, stated Pruett, he had received a computer message from APD Homicide telling him to contact them. He also had received a call from Ynema Mangum telling him that a great deal of money was gone from Regina Hartwell’s account. At 2 a.m., on July 7, he had written up a report for Homicide.

As Officer Pruett exited the courtroom, he stopped near Anita Morales. He apologized to her.

 

 

Eighteen minutes after Officer Pruett had begun his testimony regarding the missing-persons report filed by Anita Morales, Ynema Mangum, Kim LeBlanc and Jeremy Barnes, Barnes was called to the stand.

He stared at Thomas. Justin didn’t look the same as Jeremy had remembered. Before, Thomas had looked presentable. In court, to Jeremy, Justin Thomas was deadly frightening. There was nothing in his eyes. They were empty.

Gregg Cox turned to Barnes. “Did Regina have a motor scooter of some kind?”

“Yes,” said Jeremy, “she did.”

“And are you aware of an accident that occurred with that scooter?”

“Yes.”

“Who was driving when the accident occurred?”

Barnes didn’t want to look at Thomas, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of him. Never before had Jeremy believed in the death penalty. Then looking at Justin, testifying in the face of the man he believed had stabbed to death Regina Hartwell, he believed in an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. “Justin Thomas.”

“When did that happen?” asked Cox.

“It was before they went on their trip,” answered Barnes.

He testified about seeing an upset Regina the night before she died, about Regina leaving a message on his machine the next day, about cleaning up her apartment, about thinking the blood in her apartment was from a nosebleed, about searching for Regina, and about finding Kim LeBlanc in Regina’s apartment scrubbing the rust stain with liquid detergent and crying, “I’m trying to get this blood off.”

He told the jurors about cleaning out the apartment again with Kim and Anita Morales and about making the missing-person report. He told of his conversation with the Bastrop County Sheriff Deputy and of the subsequent arrival of the Austin Police Department. To the court, he pointed out Justin Thomas. “He’s wearing a light, cream shirt with a tie, a pair of khakis.”

“Did you ever see Mr. Thomas with a Mohawk?” asked Gregg Cox.

“No.”

“Did you ever see him with his hair dyed black?”

“No, not that I remember.”

 

 

More officers took the stand. APD Detective John Hunt testified about his arrival at the James Thomas home and his encounters there with Kim LeBlanc and Justin Thomas, about his transporting Kim to APD, and his cellphone conversation with Cathy LeBlanc.

He then stated that he had spent approximately five hours with Kim LeBlanc, and that during that time she had been “cooperative but hard to understand because she spoke so softly and quietly and was so detached.”

He also said that Justin Thomas had not been handcuffed at the Jim Thomas house.

Under cross-examination, Hunt admitted that LeBlanc had tried to leave the interview room and that she had mumbled, “I’m caught.” He also stated that at 7:16 p.m. on July 5, 1995, after being alone with her parents for fifteen or twenty minutes, LeBlanc had knocked on the door of the interview room and invoked her right to an attorney.

Next, Detective Douglas Dukes testified to going to the Regina Hartwell apartment on July 5, 1995 and spending several hours there “holding up a wall.” He told of witnessing the Luminol test done by the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab team, and of seeing a large piece of carpet glow with the Luminol.

He stated that on July 10, 1995, he had gone to the Bastrop County Sheriff’s Office, met with David Campos, and received and transported some evidence, including the five-gallon gas can.

Dukes also said he had been present at the search of Kim LeBlanc’s apartment and that on July 5 he had conducted the interview of Brad Wilson.

 

 

Texas Ranger Rocky Wardlow stepped up to the stand. He told the court about searching Regina’s apartment and meeting Kim LeBlanc on the night of July 5, 1995. “She looked extremely tired,” said Wardlow. “Weak. Frail might be another word that might be used.”

The jurors were shown a police photo of LeBlanc, taken that July night. In the Polaroid shot, Kim wore a dark-colored tank top. Her hair was short. Her red, drugged eyes were half-shut. Her swollen nose and lips were chapped scarlet.

He said LeBlanc had been cooperative and that he had gotten a consent to search from her parents. He stated that he had booked Justin Thomas. Wardlow was shown a mug shot of Thomas—hollow-cheeked, hollow-eyed, and Mohawk-coiffed. “Yes, ma’am,” said Wardlow to Van Winkle, that accurately depicted Thomas on July 5.

He testified to having seen the cut on Justin Thomas’s hand.

He stated that he had searched the Thomas home the following day and obtained weapons, a trash can, bags of cement, a new chain with a locked lock on it, Kim LeBlanc’s purse containing receipts and a fake Kentucky driver’s license, and Kim’s Jeep.

And, he had searched Kim LeBlanc’s apartment. There, blood had been found. On September 21, 1995, he had obtained an evidentiary search warrant for blood, hair, and saliva samples from Justin Thomas, which had been taken in Wardlow’s presence.

 

 

Elmer Ballard, assistant manager of Builders Square, took the stand next for less than nine minutes to verify the authenticity of the hardware store receipt found in LeBlanc’s purse.

 

 

On that second day of trial, at 3:31 in the afternoon, Kim LeBlanc entered the courtroom. In shock, everyone stared. Unlike her police photograph, which had been displayed earlier in the courtroom, Kim looked healthy and alive. Her dress was conservative and nice. She looked sweet, innocent, like a University of Texas sorority girl.

“Is your attorney in the courtroom?” asked Cox.

“Yes, sir,” said LeBlanc, softly.

“And who is that?”

“John C. Carsey.”

John Carsey was a former University of Texas basketball star who made 6’4” Justin Thomas look small.

“John, will you raise your hand,” said Judge Fuller.

Carsey glided his hand into the air like a player on well-oiled wheels.

“Your Honor,” Ganne interrupted, urgently, “1 think he ought to be identified for whom he works.”

“What?” said Fuller.

Carsey was also the son-in-law and law partner of Roy Minton, Austin’s most notorious attorney. Minton, a University of Texas alum, had represented the publicly traded Freeport McMoran for another wealthy and influential U.T. alum.

Minton, and anyone affiliated with his law firm, was an attorney with clout among D.A.s, U.T. supporters, and judges. His close ties to prosecutors and judges, pointed out one local magistrate, were symbolized by the location of his offices, across from the D.A.’s office and across from the courthouse.

“It doesn’t matter where he works,” said Fuller.

But to Ganne and Sawyer it mattered. They believed the Carsey-Minton-D.A.-judge connection was why their client was on trial by himself rather than with his co-conspirator, Kim LeBlanc—LeBlanc had the attorney with the bigger clout. On top of that, they believed, LeBlanc had the Caucasian-beauty clout—
Beauty and the Beast
the defense attorneys dubbed the case.

 

 

Finally, the beautiful twenty-year-old Kim LeBlanc, protected by immunity, got into her testimony. She talked about how she had met Regina Hartwell. She told the court that, no, Regina hadn’t bought her her Jeep—she’d had her Jeep since she was seventeen years old, since before she had met Regina. But Regina had given her a multitude of other gifts.

LeBlanc spoke of the diamond ring and of the $5,000 mutual fund Regina had set up for her.

“Did she tell you this was your money?” said Cox.

“Yeah, it was in my name, is what she told me.”

“And did she deal mostly with you, as far as the financial things like that, or did she deal with someone else?”

“No,” said Kim. “She dealt with my mother.”

“Okay,” replied Cox. “Did your mother and Regina know each other?”

“Yes.”

“Did your mom understand your relationship with Regina?”

“I really—” Kim stuttered and stalled, “I think she did. She had to. We didn’t talk about it other than at my home about it, but she knew that I cared for Regina a lot and that I spent the majority of my time with her.”

“Okay. Now, did Regina ever talk to you about putting you in her will or giving you any kind of inheritance? Was anything like that ever discussed?”

“No.”

 

 

“Did you ever feel uncomfortable accepting all these monies, gifts and so forth from Regina?” said Cox, his voice calm.

“Yeah, ah, in the beginning, because I’ve never been around anybody with a lot of money, and in the end because I realized I wasn’t a lesbian. And, yeah, that was the source of a lot of discussions between her and I [sic].” Kim’s voice sounded deep and older than her years.

“Why did you continue to take money from her?”

“Because I didn’t want to go back home.”

“Were there problems in your home life?” said Cox.

Kim paused. “Yeah,” she spoke softly, but firmly. “There were. There were problems.”

“So you didn’t want to live with your parents,” said Cox. “Is that correct?”

“No. My father [sic] was a very sick man.”

“If you had not accepted money from Regina, would you have been able to live on your own in the current state that you were in?”

“No, I wouldn’t have. Today I know that anybody can live on their own, but at this time I had never lived without my parents or without somebody taking care of me, and so I was definitely convinced that there was no way I would be able to make it without her money. I would either have to go home or I would have to stay with her.”

LeBlanc was business-like and detached as she talked about Regina Hartwell, her once friend and provider and lover, as she talked about their drug use, as she talked about Justin. Her coldness turned off many in the courtroom.

They just didn’t know that that’s the way sexual abuse victims cope—by detaching, by going outside themselves, by leaving their bodies so that they can no longer feel. No one had ever told them that.

Kim told them, though, what it was like to use drugs.

“By the time that you knew Regina, what sort of drugs were you using?” asked Cox.

“When I knew Regina I was doing Ecstasy.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a, well, it’s a drug that ... I really don’t know what it is. It’s a pill,” she laughed. “I probably should have known what was in it, but it’s got heroin in it. It’s got a little bit of cocaine in it. It’s got ... it’s a pill that looks like a vitamin C pill, and you take it and it makes you feel like—lowers your inhibitions and makes you feel sexual. It’s a very relaxing kind of drug.”

“Okay,” Cox responded. “Were you using cocaine when you first met Regina?”

“No.”

“Okay. Did Regina use drugs?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of drugs did she use?”

“Ecstasy, mushrooms, cocaine.”

“Did you use cocaine with her in the beginning?”

“No, sir.”

Kim LeBlanc talked about partying with Regina at Manuel’s, Club 404, and Oil Can Harry’s.

“At some point,” said Cox, “during this time that you were having this relationship with Regina, did the nature of the relationship change in any way?”

“I don’t understand the question,” said Kim. “Did it change?”

“You were dating in the beginning, you said.”

“Right,” LeBlanc answered.

“Okay. Was that always the case?”

“Yeah,” she said. “We were always, I mean, when I say I was dating Regina, I didn’t go out with anybody else, ever. That would have been bad.”

LeBlanc told the court about meeting Justin Thomas, about snorting crystal meth with him, about Justin, Kim, and Regina doing drugs together, and about Justin’s drug dealing.

“Now, did Regina—was she interested in this drug dealing?”

“Yeah,” answered Kim. “Mainly because she was concerned about me being involved with Justin if she wasn’t there.”

“Did she get herself involved in it somewhat?”

“Yes, she did. She was always real protective, and she wanted to—she wanted Justin and her to work together to sell it in Club 404, and she wanted to become a part of it between [sic] the guy in California also, and she wanted to become more part of it so she could be there in some way to protect me.”