Deadly Seduction (29 page)

But this time Siders preempted any potential bombshell disclosures like Susan’s alleged affair with David in the first trial, by getting in the first mention of her claims of illicit sex with her stepson.

“David is nothing more than another lie,” insisted Siders.

Susan watched him say those words with a desperate sense of frustration. She so wanted to tell the world about the affair, but she had been told not to mention it by Charlie Scruggs.

Defender Charlie Scruggs insisted, “Things are not always what they appear.” He said that Susan had used “very, very bad judgment” when she picked up the murder weapon, but she did not shoot her husband.

And he told the jury, “Don’t convict on a suspicion of guilt. Keep in mind the thing is not always what the facts appear to be. Listen and apply your common sense. We want to find out the truth here.”

Scruggs fervently believed that the prosecution was going to use Susan’s claims of an affair with David as further evidence against her. They would try and convince the jury that her theft of David’s gun made even more sense because of her infatuation. In other words,
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
Or at least that was how the prosecution intended to turn around the case if Susan repeated her claims.

Charlie Scruggs was absolutely correct. Wil Siders did indeed plan to use Susan’s claims of an affair as further evidence of her premeditated murder scheme. Clearly, he believed that she was trying to frame David for his father’s killing because he had either ended the affair or turned down Susan’s attempts to begin a relationship in the first place.

One of the numerous holes in the prosecution case emerged when Indiana State Police Sgt. Gary Boyles conceded that David Grund could have taped all the TV programs the night of his father’s death and that would explain why he so impressed the investigator with his detailed knowledge of the shows he claimed he watched when he stayed in that entire evening. But this weak aspect of the prosecution case was never fully exploited by the defense team.

Dr. Dean Gifford, the pathologist who carried out the autopsy on Jim Grund in the early hours of August 4, 1992, even testified that he could not deny that there was a possibility Grund did commit suicide.

“My opinion is that this was a homicide,” Gifford told the court. “It’s unusual for a person to shoot himself in the eye, usually it’s either in the mouth or temple … but there’s no way to know one hundred percent.”

When David Grund took the stand, he was asked detailed questions by Wil Siders about his movements on the night of his father’s murder because there was still the faintest cloud of suspicion hanging over his involvement in the killing.

David insisted that he had eaten that night at his girlfriend Suzanne’s parents’ house before going home to watch television. He told the court that he and Suzanne went to bed around 11:00
P.M.

Yet again, Susan’s attorney Charlie Scruggs did not attempt to cross-examine David. Two years later he insisted there was no point in doing so.

Back in court that day, Charlie Scruggs did win a small victory when he persuaded the judge not to allow the prosecution to talk about Susan’s previous marriages and her “bad acts in the past.”

“Just because a person has a bad marriage doesn’t mean they’re likely to kill their spouse,” insisted Scruggs. “It’s extremely prejudicial.”

The judge agreed and told the court, “The defendant’s character is not admissible until he or she puts it in. If you have direct evidence of their marriage within a reasonable period of time then we’ll talk about letting that be in, but I’m not going to allow any character assassinations. That’s not going to happen.”

When Susan’s sixty-two-year-old mother, Nellie Sanders, gave evidence, Susan just sat there, staring straight ahead. She was emotionless despite the fact this was the woman who raised her, fed her, clothed her, and sheltered her.

Later, Susan’s sister Darlene took the stand and repeated her account of what happened. Then Wil Siders decided to take issue with any forthcoming defense suggestions that Darlene was somehow out to get revenge on her prettier, younger sister.

Siders asked Darlene. “Is it a fair statement that you love your sister?”

“Yes,” replied Darlene. She was clearly close to tears. She looked over in the direction of Susan, who did not even bother to lift her head and acknowledge the glance.

Charlie Scruggs later insisted to the court that Darlene was a liar who was “evasive and vague.” He pointed out that Darlene could almost be considered an accessory to the murder.

One of Susan’s other sisters, Rita Saylors, backed Scruggs by insisting to the court that Darlene was not a reliable witness. The case had well and truly split Susan’s family apart. Rita later insisted that her sister had been having an affair with David and she believes her sister was the victim of a complete miscarriage of justice.

Throughout the early stages of the second murder hearing, Susan sat without uttering a word to the court. She occasionally exchanged looks with family members seated in the back row of the courtroom and made brief comments into the ear of her attorney.

Susan finally took the stand herself on March 13. She looked a slight figure, dressed in black, turning slightly to face the jury who were to decide if she was guilty of murdering her husband. Sometimes, she would stare directly at them with disturbing and relentless eyes. She rarely looked at Wil Siders or even her attorney, Charlie Scruggs, whom she clearly resented by this stage.

Susan was growing increasingly upset by the restrictions placed on her by Scruggs, even turning and saying to the jury at one stage that, “It’s difficult when you’re confined as to what you can say.”

Her voice was high, light, shaky, and nearly impossible to discern at times, but she still managed to convey confidence in her story.

The only real change in Susan’s testimony from her first trial came when she told the court that she did in fact pick up her dog from her mother’s house on the night of the murder. Earlier, she had claimed the dog had stayed at her mother’s until the following day.

Susan became highly emotional when Wil Siders forced her to examine a photograph of the death scene, featuring a very gruesome picture of her dead husband.

“No,” she screamed. “Take that away.” She then broke down crying on the witness stand for about two minutes.

After she had regained her composure, Susan insisted to the court, “I never saw him like that. Never!”

For a total of three hours and five minutes, Susan defended herself against over fifteen hours of testimony the prosecution had piled up against her.

Later, as she told of the events of August 3, 1992, the day her husband was killed, she repeated her predicament, “How can I tell them … there’s so much I can’t say. I can’t repeat conversations.”

Significantly, Charlie Scruggs even sided with prosecutor Siders when he agreed that she should not keep making such remarks to the court.

Susan was clearly upset and angry, even when the judge threatened to call another mistrial and reconvene in six months, if she did not stop attempting to tell the jury that there were things she could not say. But that was the key to Susan’s frustration—there clearly were things she wanted to tell the jury, but couldn’t.

“I thought I had a right to explain things?” Susan snapped back at Judge Surbeck.

Prosecutor Wil Siders later asked Susan’s mother if she would come back to the witness stand to refute some of her daughter’s testimony. After doing so, Nellie Sanders did not leave the courtroom as she should have. She looked over towards Susan, who was quietly sobbing into her Kleenex.

Nellie then slowly walked over to Susan, leaned over the table her crying daughter was sitting behind, and said,
“I love you, honey, more than you’ll ever know.”

Then she walked out.

*   *   *

The judge then allowed prosecutor Wil Siders to present his final nail in Susan’s coffin: a line-up of local dignitaries who were prepared to tell the court what an untruthful person Susan was. Charlie Scruggs and his client knew that this was most probably the beginning of the end.

1. First came Judge Bruce Embrey. “I do not consider her to be a truthful person. Her reputation within the community is very poor.”

2. Then followed Jack Vetter, the Florida businessman who provided the boat that Jimmy and Susan married on. “I don’t think she’s a very honest person.”

3. Don Bakehorn, Jimmy Grund’s business partner in Shanty Malone’s and one of the wealthiest people in Peru. “Susan is not a truthful person.”

4. Jimmy Grund’s sister Jane Allen. “She’s a liar.”

5. Betty Crawshaw, wife of Jimmy’s friend Dr. John Crawshaw. “She lies. She’s not to be believed.”

And so it went on. The issue of Susan’s so-called dishonesty was made loud and clear by the first witness, but Wil Siders decided to keep ramming the point home over and over again.

During summing up, Siders told the jury that Susan was a woman with no job skills, a woman who was on her fourth marriage. “If ever you have a character you can characterize as a gold digger, this is it.”

But Charlie Scruggs concentrated on the testimony of her sister Darlene Worden. He told the jury that Darlene had every reason to lie because she was afraid of being charged as an accessory. “Darlene Worden is not credible. She’s not worthy of belief.”

Scruggs rounded off his summing up by insisting, “I don’t know who could have done this. A prosecuting attorney has many enemies. A lawyer makes enemies. We’re not here for vindictive justice. Let’s get the right person.”

The jury deliberation had included an examination of ninety pieces of evidence. The jurors had listened to fifty-one witnesses during the four days of testimony in the second trial.

When the jury finally went out, Susan began the anxious wait for a verdict that was witnessed by all those present in that crowded courtroom.

She stood against the railing that divided her from the packed audience for much of the time. Occasionally, she would hold the hand of her attorney’s assistant, Stephanie Doran. Sometimes, a tear would appear to stream slowly down her cheek. She dabbed at it with a tissue. Eventually, those solitary tears turned into a veritable flood of emotion, but it was difficult to tell whether this was the real Susan or simply an image she wished to portray to the court.

*   *   *

On March 23, 1994, following a midnight notice from the jury, Special Judge Surbeck of Allen Superior Court reconvened court. Susan had her blonde hair pushed back off her pretty, angular face by a thick black band which made her look like one of those stern-faced B-movie starlets of the fifties. It had been thirteen hours and thirty-five minutes since they had departed to consider their verdict. Most of them took a brief peek at the woman charged with murdering her husband as they filed back into the courtroom. In each case, it was purely a cursory glance.

The judge then asked the jury foreman if a decision had been reached.

“Yes,” replied the foreman. He then passed a written statement to Judge Surbeck. The judge hesitated then read a formal verdict: “Guilty.”

Friends and family in the court exclaimed “Yes” and “There is a God” in an instantaneous burst of reaction as Susan Grund buried her anguished face into her fists and handkerchief without a sound. Then, almost just as many of the crowd began to weep. Her mother, her sister, her friends. They recognized the tragedy that had unfolded in front of their very eyes. It was a tragedy that could so easily have been avoided.

Surbeck then asked each juror—all of them were Kosciusko County residents—directly by name if the decision announced was correct. Almost simultaneously, Susan began to cry, her eyes pleading in their direction as she wept.

“Yes, sir,” was echoed by the ten women and two men of the jury.

Surbeck thanked the jurors for their service and attention and excused them from the courtroom. Later, he thanked Scruggs and Siders for their work.

Surbeck ordered a tentative sentencing date of 10:00
A.M.
on April 15. He warned there could be changes in the date and time if either the prosecution or defense had a conflict. None of this mattered to Susan; she rubbed her eyes and quietly continued to sob. She faced a prison term of thirty to sixty years, but it really didn’t matter anymore.

After court was recessed, Susan was hurriedly escorted out of the courtroom with Charlie Scruggs. On one side of her was Sheriff Jack Rich. On the other, his wife, jail matron Linda Rich. They were both solemn faced in the glare of the television lamps and popping flashbulbs. They even looked as if they felt a twinge of sympathy for their star prisoner.

Linda Rich held Susan’s arm in a motherly fashion as Susan tried desperately to turn away from the cameras. Her head was bowed; an immaculate white lace handkerchief clutched up to her face hiding either those emotionless eyes or maybe a genuine tear or two. It was hard to tell. The photos that appeared in the newspapers next day certainly helped project the image of a woman who might actually have felt sorry for what she was alleged to have done.

Some of Susan’s friends in the public gallery for the second trial also could not help feeling great sympathy for Susan—despite that cold, heartless image. Local journalist Nancy Newman, who knew Susan’s retarded brother and her father, as well as regularly encountering the “classy” version of Susan once she had married Jim Grund, actually felt for her friend. She and others believed that Susan’s biggest mistake had been her unashamed ambition to get to the right side of the tracks. Now she was paying the ultimate price.

*   *   *

Back in the courtroom, prosecutor Wil Siders was speaking to the jury and thanking them profusely for their time and effort.

After the trial, Siders hinted at so-called shocking stories about Susan’s personal life that were never brought before the jury. Why? Was it because of some inbuilt sensitivity on the part of the hard-nosed prosecutor? Or was it because Susan Grund’s dirty linen might well have involved a number of familiar figures from Peru’s elite, ruling class? We shall never know.