Cruel Doubt (44 page)

“If there is a responsibility that Chris Pritchard did not carry out in regard to telling his family earlier, then I assure Your Honor, it was at the direction of his lawyers, who were caught in the position of saying, ‘We can't do it because she may be required to testify. They just have to accept our word for it that there's more involved here than anybody thinks there is, and at the proper time we can make it all known.'

“And if Your Honor please, when it came time to make a decision on what to do, there is nobody in this courtroom who knows, or will ever know, whether proper decisions were made or not. We live with our decisions. They become history. They are subject to second-guessing. They are subject to many things.

“But in keeping with the responsibility that Mr. Vosburgh and I and my son had, we evaluated this case from the standpoint of its being a one-witness case. And we evaluated it from the standpoint that we thought there were serious discrepancies, or areas that could not be confirmed by the prosecution, as a one-witness case. That witness being Mr. Henderson.

“And we had an obligation to tell Mr. Pritchard how we evaluated his case if he went to trial. And we did that. And after hearing us tell him that this was not by any means, in our opinion—and I am not asking anyone else's opinion at this time, I am just trying to set the tone of what Mr. Pritchard heard from us—rightly or wrongly, his attorneys thought there was at least anywhere from a small chance to a good chance that if these matters were put before a jury, Mr. Pritchard had a good chance—as would Mr. Upchurch, based on the evidence at that time.

“We told him our opinion. We also told Chris that we did not know what could be worked out in the way of an agreement to plead guilty, but that we would explore it if he wanted us to. And we said we doubted that Chris Pritchard could walk out of our office that day, or after a trial in which he might be found not guilty, and ever feel good about himself again. And his lawyers would not have felt good about it.

“And Chris sat there and said to us, ‘I participated, and I understand I am responsible for it, and I don't want to walk out.' And so we did work something out with the State.”

Osteen paused. He had needed to get that off his chest. He had needed to leave in some appropriate forum some objective record of the agonies he'd been through along the road to where he now stood. To those who knew him well, this public display of personal feeling about a professional matter was entirely uncharacteristic. But this case had affected him as had no other during his thirty-year career. And since this would be the only time he'd talk about it publicly, he wanted to say a few more things—perhaps hoping that by trying to explain to Judge Watts how this had happened, he might succeed, at least in part, in explaining it to himself.

“There are a few things, Your Honor, that I want to call to your attention that I thought were bizarre in this case, and that have never, perhaps, occurred before.

“Chris Pritchard had a record in his community of being an honorable person as he grew up. And it's just almost
inconceivable
that things could have gone as wrong as they did. But it's not a unique situation when coupled, as Dr. Royal said yesterday, with whatever there was in his genetic or environmental makeup, and with his early years and the difficulties that he encountered then.

“It seems to me that it is reasonable to say that when he got to a school—and it could have been State or any other school. I certainly don't say it's because he went to State. I say that wherever he went at that time, whatever group he became part of at that time, was likely to have a great influence on him.

“And it did. There was just an ineffable pattern of things going from good to not so good, bad to worse.” But greatly to my surprise, I find that this is not an unusual situation. This week I was reading a book called
Understanding the New Age
. I don't know where it came from. My wife got it somewhere. And I picked it up and started reading it.

“There is, in this country, if Your Honor please, a ‘new age,' which has moved away from some of the things that many people were taught in their youth and clung to, still cling to, as being the things that perhaps make people act in a better manner.

“This new age—and I guess one of the people that comes to mind is a lady named Shirley MacLaine, an actress who has been involved deeply in this new-age theory—this seems to be a theory that says, ‘I am a being, and I am capable of transferring my own powers to a greater power, and therefore I am God.' That's the thinking.

“And there was a writer in the
L.A. Times
, Russell Chandler, who set out to look into and explore this new age. I would like to refer to him for just a moment if I may. Because he said something that hits this case. At least, it did for me. He said, ‘We are all aware that a warning label must be attached to psychedelic drugs, for in the “new age” this is the entry level for altered states. For tens of thousands of people, psychedelic drugs bring back not a past Xanadu, but lead to a mental hospital for a fried brain. By the late 1980s there was growing experimentation and research with high-tech “Designer Drugs” including Ecstasy'—which has been mentioned in this court.

“ ‘Warnings about opening up the mind to hallucination and sinister entities are regularly sounded by critics of the “new age.” The alarms include the dangers of fantasy, role playing, and imagination games like Dungeons and Dragons, which swept the youth culture several years ago. Dungeons and Dragons is a doorway to the occult.'

“It goes on,” Osteen said, “to discuss Dungeons and Dragons, saying it's laced with references to magic, occult wisdom, violence, and power. And what this man, Russell Chandler, is saying in his summary is that the hallucinogenic drugs, the Dungeons and Dragons game, the other mind-altering games, are an attempt to harness a segment of society that's never had much religion—to create an alternate religious worldview.”

This was Bill Osteen, the old Republican representative and federal prosecutor speaking now, but speaking to a judge who, except for political affiliation, clearly shared almost all the same values.

“In my view,” Osteen said, “it's the kind of pathology where the more fascinated a person gets with it, the more likely it is that he can become mentally unbalanced by the process itself.”

He again quoted from the book. “ ‘Auto-hypnosis is a powerful tool, not totally understood. It is manipulation.' If Your Honor pleases, I submit that is essentially what we see in Chris Pritchard's case. I am sure there are people who can play Dungeons and Dragons and never have any lasting results. There are people who, unfortunately, can use drugs and not have any lasting results. And there are people who can grow up in deprived homes and do wonderfully well. But once in a while, those categories come together and create what has been created here.

“And I submit that Chris Pritchard, at the time this dastardly act happened, was changed to such an extent—not only his personality, but his pathology, as Dr. Royal has said—that he had moved himself into a position of imagined power and control over his own destiny, which he now understands is not his to determine.

“And through it all, there is a mother who sat on this stand, and who has sat for months and gone through
pure hell
not knowing what was out there, but knowing something was.

“Who has gone from the belief that ‘My son was not involved' to the understanding that ‘Some way, something is not as I understand it' to the full understanding.

“And a mother who sits there and says, ‘I am going to help him. I am going to give him my love and I am going to work with him.'

“I hope Your Honor will take those things into consideration.”

* * *

Then Judge Watts gave Chris a chance to speak.

Chris stood. In jacket and tie that would soon be exchanged for prison jumpsuit, he looked anguished, frightened, and still only about sixteen years old. Whatever combination of arrogance and surliness he had used to mask his guilts and fears over the preceding year and a half, they were now gone. More than ever—and not just to Bonnie—he seemed a victim himself.

“I just want to say, first of all, that I believe Mr. Norton was extremely fair in allowing me to take this plea bargain agreement. I know that I am guilty and I do deserve to spend time in prison. And I think it was fair of him to allow me to have that opportunity.

“I want to speak with my family.” Chris looked unsteady on his feet. Also, he was starting to cry. “As Dr. Royal has mentioned, I seem to deny my feelings. I don't know why, but I do. And they build up like pressure in a cook pot.”

He was crying now, and finding it hard to go on. “They build up like pressure in a cook pot,” he said, “and they overflow, as right now.”

He turned away from Judge Watts to look back at the closely packed rows where his mother, his sister, his grandmother, his uncle, his aunts, and so many of the friends he'd had in high school—and even the parents of many of those friends—sat watching him. A number of them were crying, too.

“I just want you to know that I love all of you,” Chris said to them, crying so hard he had to pause. “And I thank you all for being here and supporting me. I honestly feel I do not deserve this support. But the Lord has given me strength to stand here today and do what I know is right. And I ask that he give you all the strength and support in the coming years, for I will not be here to do that myself.”

Then, trying to compose himself, he turned back to face the judge.

“I can't hold anything against James Upchurch or Neal Henderson for what they did. The Lord asked me to forgive them, and I have. Just as He has asked me to forgive myself, which I have not quite been able to do just yet.

“That's all that I have to say. Thank you.”

Judge Watts called for a ten-minute recess.

* * *

When court resumed, the judge spoke. As with everyone else involved, elements of this case had touched him in ways he'd not forget. Having spent more than twenty years in the criminal justice system, Thomas Watts was no stranger to horror, sadness, and waste. Yet, he, too, seemed shaken by exposure here to something more—to something mysterious and malignant.

He began, however, by talking about Bonnie. “It was indeed a difficult situation counsel found themselves in, in this case. But if there's anybody in this courtroom that I personally have the deepest of sympathy for, it is Bonnie Von Stein, a lady who has lost her husband. It was just very obvious from her testimony, from all that she has ever said, that he was the light of her life. And she's a lady who is now about to lose her son, at least in a physical sense of separation.”

Then he spoke directly to her. “I hope, Mrs. Von Stein, based upon what Dr. Royal has done, that you may in fact regain a son who had been lost previously. The difficulties and conflicts that Mr. Osteen and Mr. Vosburgh encountered pale in comparison with the things that you've been through. And my heart goes out to you, ma'am. I think this matter shouldn't conclude without me saying that.”

Judge Watts turned his attention back to Chris. “Now, having dealt with some heinous crimes, some terribly, terribly tragic things, I honestly and sincerely would still have to say that this case is, as you put it, Mr. Osteen, bizarre and just atrocious in its consequences for all concerned.

“But particularly for Lieth Von Stein, who, without benefit of jury, without benefit of judge, without benefit of due process of law, had the ultimate punishment imposed upon him savagely and brutally, as the consummation of a plan that originated in the mind of his stepson, whom he loved and cared for.

“You gentlemen,” he said to Osteen and Vosburgh, “appeared before me with a motion in Greenville, back in December. And while you were getting organized and putting your things out on the table, there was a Bible lying open on that judge's bench in Pitt County. I had not placed it there. I don't know who did.

“But as you gentlemen were getting ready to speak, I glanced down and the book was open to Proverbs 28:24. I made a note of it at that time and I've carried it with me ever since.

“ ‘Who so robbeth his father or his mother and sayeth, it is not transgression, the same is the company of a destroyer.' That's old law, but that's still good law.

“And when Upchurch was apprehended, he had a backpack that had many things in it that I did not admit into evidence. But among those books he was carrying with him was the collected works of William Shakespeare.
King Lear
, act one, scene four: ‘How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child.' How sharper than a serpent's tooth.”

Now he looked directly at Chris.

“I believe you are now remorseful, Mr. Pritchard. I don't doubt your remorse in the slightest. I believe, if you had it to do over again, if you could go back and undo those whom you have wronged, you would do so. But you can't. And you must pay the consequences of those events which you put into motion.

“And the genesis, the genesis was Christopher Pritchard. The midwife may have been Dungeons and Dragons and drugs—I would not argue with that—but the genesis was Christopher Pritchard.

“ ‘How sharper than a serpent's tooth.' ”

Then Thomas Watts imposed the maximum sentence: life plus twenty years. It would be, probably, more than twenty years before Chris even became eligible for parole.

* * *

Chris was permitted to walk to the front of the spectator area and give farewell hugs to family and friends. Then Osteen asked the judge if Chris could have just a moment alone with his mother and sister before being taken away.

Chris, Bonnie, and Bill Osteen were led to a small room adjacent to the judge's chambers for a private farewell. Angela did not accompany them. “I don't understand why,” Osteen said later, “because the purpose was to give them a chance to at least say good-bye.”