Dance of Death (33 page)

The judge's decision must have rattled the defense, for when the jury returned and Diggs stepped up to finish questioning Altman, he had misplaced his notes. A third-party suspect would not be mentioned again until Diggs's closing remarks.

Diggs had just enough time to get in the testimonies of Renee's great-aunt Rebecca Sexton and family friend Tammy Blackwell before the jury's sandwiches arrived at 8:30
P.M
. The jury took a quick twenty-minute break and reentered the courtroom for the testimony of Renee's grandmother Frances Bostick.

“Renee was like a zombie.” Bostick testified to Renee's demeanor the day she arrived home from the beach. “Her eyes were real large and sunk back in her head. She had been crying. We left her alone, with her arms wrapped around her body. She said she was freezing.... She didn't sleep.... She was shivering. It was hot outside, but she was acting like a cocoon.... She didn't eat anything that I saw.”

Bostick said she had asked Renee what had happened, that they had always been close, and she believed Renee would have told her, being her grandmother, more things than she would have told her parents. “And she said, ‘I just don't know who done it.' When I asked what he looked like, she said, ‘Well, he was dressed all in black.' ”

A family friend, Joel Clampitt, testified next, followed by Renee's father, Jack Summey.

Jack recapped for the jury Renee's interview at the Davie County Courthouse. He said they had waited until 9:00
P.M
. so that they could get a lawyer. Renee had also been getting Brent's affairs together for the funeral. He and his wife had sat outside the room, where they did the interview, right outside the door, and had heard quite a bit of it. He admitted they were trying to listen and to hear what was going on.

Jack recalled there was a break in the interview, somewhere around 12:30 or 1:00
A.M
. In the hallway, he had access to his daughter and an opportunity to speak with her and her lawyer at that time. “I told Renee, ‘If you know who it was, you tell them. If you don't know who it was, you tell them.' ” He said this had gone on for about ten minutes. “I was holding her hand. I can take my hands and squeeze someone's hands very hard and I was doing that to her. And I don't know if I just realized what I was doing or what, but I realized later that my hand was hurting, so I know I had to have been hurting her. I think she said she had taken all she could take and she said, ‘Let's go back in.' She goes back in and immediately identifies Mr. Frazier as the suspect.”

Upon further examination, Jack told the jury he didn't intend to convey to Renee that she should identify John Frazier. “I don't think I implied that. I was just wanting her to either tell them she knew who it was or she didn't know who it was. Just tell them the truth.”

In cross-examination from Hembree, Jack stated he hadn't suspected John Frazier as the killer. When he was asked what it was he wanted his daughter to do the night he talked with her and Victor Leckowitz during the break, he answered, “To either say she knew who did it or she didn't know who did it.”

“Did you tell her to tell the truth?” Hembree asked.

“Yes.”

“Repeatedly?”

“I asked her to tell either she did know who did it or she didn't know who did it.”

“Did you tell her to say it was John Frazier?”

“No.”

“Did you tell her to say she planned it?”

“No.”

“Did you tell her to say that they were gonna go to Dick's Last Resort; then they were gonna go down to the beach in a secluded area and kill him?”

“I did not know anything about that.”

“You didn't tell her that, did you?”

“No, I didn't.”

Hembree shifted his question slightly. “Sir, I believe you're a male; is that true?”

“I hope so.” Jack smiled.

“And you're older than your daughter.”

“Right.”

“And you're an authority figure to her, are you not?”

“I hope so.”

“She's going to trust your advice, isn't that fair to say?”

“I should hope so.”

“You even told Mr. Diggs a moment ago that subconsciously you were squeezing her hand to the point that it hurt your own hand. For what purpose?”

“I wanted to know if she knew who did it or she didn't know who did it.”

“You wanted her to tell the truth?” Hembree continued to play the heavy.

“Right.”

“And you conveyed that to her?”

“Yes, either she knew or she didn't know.”

“Did you put pressure on her to tell the truth?”

“Yes.”

“And she did tell the truth, didn't she?”

“That I don't know.”

Marie Summey followed her husband to the stand, telling the jury that Renee was shopping and buying clothing for Brent shortly before his death. Brent needed new clothes for church and she was buying him new jeans, shirts, socks and underwear. She would bring it by her house and ask what she thought about the clothes she had picked out. Three days before their trip, Renee had bought him a new pair of tennis shoes, stuff from Kinney and Dillard's, two pairs of Tommy jeans, two pairs of Levi's jeans, socks, underwear and belts. Marie had saved and produced receipts of all those purchases for the court.

Diggs questioned Marie about each receipt and then introduced all of them as defense exhibits. He wanted the jury to consider that if Renee knew her husband was going to be murdered, why would she have gone to all the trouble to buy him such expensive clothes?

On cross-examination, Humphries asked her if she knew Renee had been shopping with Courtney and Bruce Wolford at any time? And did she know that on at least one of these trips, she had met John Frazier at the mall?

She said she did not know anything about those trips, nor did she know Renee had been seeing John after her return home.

Humphries then asked Marie about her statement made to the fugitive task force the night her daughter had been arrested. “Mrs. Summey, do you recall having told Butch that in the case of Renee, sometimes you have to be hard on her to get her to tell the truth?”

“I told him that I was hard on Renee and my hardness—for me to be hard on Renee, I would give her two chances to tell me the truth and that was it.”

“Yes, ma'am, and I didn't mean to imply anything else,” Humphries added.

But what other implication could the jury perceive than her own mother had to come down hard on her before she told the truth?

As the defense tried to build their case, it became increasingly clear what was happening. The fact was no matter how hard Diggs attacked the police, no matter how fervently he argued Renee's confession was false and had been coerced, there was no other way to get around the fact that she had confessed to conspiring with John Frazier to murder her husband. Of course, he believed there was no direct evidence other than her confession to support that. The police and prosecutors were able to question and to speculate as to Frazier, but as it turned out, all they had against her was circumstantial evidence. So, why wouldn't the jury find it so implausible to believe Bruce Wolford—another of Renee's lovers who had as much motive to kill Brent as John—had killed her husband?

“Your Honor, the defense calls C. E. Martin to the stand.” Hembree was up and on his feet before the called witness took a step from his chair. A bench conference was held and then the judge dismissed the jury.

Hembree fired the first shot. “Your Honor, I submit that Mr. Diggs is proposed to call C. E. Martin, who is his paid investigator that's been working on this case with him since December or January. He proposes to qualify in what field, some sort of investigatory expert, to essentially challenge the police.”

“Well, I haven't heard what Mr. Diggs . . .” The judge stared down at the defense table with a pensive expression. “Why are you calling him, Mr. Diggs?”

“I'm gonna call him because he's an investigative expert. He has twenty-one years' experience with the Army Criminal Investigative Division. He is an expert in criminal investigative technique. He has worked on this case. I'm going to ask him what he would have done to investigate this case, what he would have done. We're not going to go into anything the Myrtle Beach police did. We're not going to be critical of them in any way. We're gonna ask him what he would have done and how he would have handled this case, if there are any leads he's aware of that in his opinion are still available to—”

The judge's expression turned solemn. “Oh, no. You're talking about third-party guilt. We're not going into any leads that he's talking about.” Cottingham didn't need any time to think about his decision and wasn't afraid of being overturned by a higher court. His mind was made up. “I'm not going into any third-party guilt,” he admonished in specific tones. “I'm talking about leads that are . . . No. You want to do what you saw done in [the] O. J. Simpson [trial] and I'm not gonna let you try the investigating officers in this courtroom. Now, I'm not gonna do that.”

“Judge, I'm not gonna do that,” Diggs pleaded.

“Well, I'll let you get him on the stand and see where you're going,” the judge quickly ruled. “The jury is outside. Go ahead. We're not going into that sort of stuff in South Carolina, [particularly] in Judge Cottingham's court.”

There was a huge issue at stake for the defense, so Diggs appealed, “Let me say this, if you're not gonna let him testify—”

“Well, no, I'm not saying that,” the judge reminded him. “I'm hearing where you think you're going and I'll see where you're going and then I'll rule on it.”

Diggs acknowledged with a nod. “Well, for the purpose of this examination, let's go with the qualifications of an expert.”

Rebuffed, Cottingham went on to state, “Well, you can tell me again now for the record and maybe we can save some time. Where is it you want to go with this witness? Perhaps I can save you some time.”

“I'm going to ask him how [does] one go about investigating [in] a case of this type.”

The judge wasn't exactly sure as to what issue. Diggs told him it was to solve the identity of the perpetrator of the murder, to which he asked, “As to what issue, that it was somebody else?”

“As to the issue, Your Honor, of creating a reliable, probative inquiry as to who the identity or as to the identity of the assailant in any kind of murder case. Not necessarily this one, but after we establish that, then we'll go into what he's done and what he's discovered in this case and go into other leads that still may not be fully developed in this case that maybe point somewhere other than to John Frazier.”

The judge returned looking solemn. “All right, now, let me tell you something. Evidence offered by an accused as to the commission of a crime by another person must be limited to such facts as are inconsistent with his own guilt and to such facts as raise a reasonable inference or presumption as to his own innocence. Evidence which can have no other effect than to cast a bare suspicion under another or to raise conjectural inferences is not admissible.”

“And I . . . Let me tell you what,” Diggs postured, “I'm following that to the letter and let me tell you why, because John Frazier's photograph, and, of course, they tied their case—lock, stock and barrel—to John Frazier.” He grabbed two sheets of paper up with his large hands. “Here's a photograph of John Frazier. Now, look, we have a composite drawing that's in evidence that was generated by one of the state's own witnesses, okay, and look at that composite.” He pointed to the composite. “Look at the hairdo on that.”

“What will this witness testify as to that issue?” Cottingham asked, trying to reconsider all the arguments and evidence of counsel.

“He's gonna testify about this being one factor in this case that hasn't been fully investigated,” Diggs related.

“Your Honor,” Hembree interrupted his argument, “he can argue that all day to the jury, but to have him get up and say, ‘Well, this is the way it ought to be done.' ”

The judge had read arguments on this issue for weeks and was ready to side with the prosecution. “No, sir. No, sir. I'm not going to permit that. We're not going to get into third-party guilt unless you specifically follow the rule as enunciated in
Gregory,
in
Beckham,
in
Williams,
and I can name ten others. And you can, too.”

“Well, I'm not gonna try to violate any of the rules in those cases, Your Honor,” Diggs responded firmly. “I'm just not doing it.”

“Well, you want to say, as I understand it, you want your paid investigator to get up and indicate any specificity that ex-culapates (
sic
) Mr. Frazier.”

“Your Honor, it's right there,” Diggs snapped back. “Defense exhibit two”

“No, sir. No, sir. That witness who furnished that information specifically said something . . .”

“No, no, this is from Mr. Hensley,” Diggs reminded him.

“No, sir, the eyewitness, the information from Donna, did not meet what she saw.”

Diggs shook his head. “No, sir. No, sir. No, sir.”

The judge leaned forward over his desk. “Yes, sir. Wait a minute now.”

“That's the other composite,” Diggs protested. “This is the composite that was generated by Mr. Hensley.”

“Well, we are not going down that road to let you indicate, to cast suspicions on a third party, on that picture. If you've got some evidence, [then] go ahead.”