Doc: The Rape of the Town of Lovell (53 page)

Q You are here as a consultant?

A Yes.

Q And I assume the defendant has paid your way?

A Of course.

Q And he paid you a fee to be here today?

A Of course he did. My time is valuable.

Q But you are basing what you say today solely on your review of the records?

A Yes.

Q Okay. And you were not present at any time any of the complaints were alleged to have occurred?

A No. I have never been here before.

On redirect, Aarestad countered, "Because you are being paid a consultant fee, Dr. Buster, would you come here and testify falsely?"

"No way."

"In respect to those specific dates and patients indicated by Counsel, does anything change your opinion that those examinations were justified?"

"No way."

The defense rested.

In the hall, Dr. Buster volunteered his opinion of the proceedings to reporter Catherine Warren of the Casper
Star-Tribune.
"Preposterous," he said. "A sham . . . obscenely stupid." The accusations, he said, were "patently stupid." He observed that "women are wonderful, but who in the world is going to do that in his office . . . where his activity is totally visible?" He said he'd agreed to testify only after Wayne Aarestad had verified that he sincerely believed Dr. Story was innocent.

Back in the courtroom, rebuttal witness Judi Cashel testified that a thorough search of the Lovell Medical Building on the night of Dr. Story's arrest had failed to produce the medical charts of Annella St. Thomas and Wanda Hammond.

Contractor Gerald Brinkerhoff testified that he'd built the Story

clinic and installed "privacy latches." He said that Dr. Story had wanted the doors rehung—for "more privacy, I suppose."

The judge recessed the day's proceedings at
11
:30
a.m
., and Wayne Aarestad confided to a reporter that "a conspiracy exists" to "drive Dr. Story out of town." He repeated that he was very happy with the jury.

On Monday, David Wilcock testified that Dr. Story had described his office procedures during interrogation and had denied that anyone ever suggested that he have a third person in the examining room.

Dr. Rand Flory, the young obstetrician and gynecologist from nearby Cody, repeated his contention that sexual intercourse was possible during a pelvic exam.

Q Why do you have that opinion, Doctor?

A Well, because when all this was going on, I had always assumed it would be possible, and so my wife and I went up to the office and tried it. It is rather, on my table—it is clumsy because I can't—I'm not the right height for my table, but it is a possible thing.

Q You don't have a table like this in your office?

A No, sir. I would assume it would be much easier on that because then I could adjust for the difference in height between me and my table.

Aarestad demanded that Flory's answer be stricken. "It is completely and totally unrelated to this case, and what the witness did with his wife has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on this particular table, these particular ladies and this particular circumstance."

"Overruled," Judge Hartman said. "His answer will stand." Aarestad declined to cross-examine.

Caroline Shotwell testified that Story's office procedures called for raising the lid on the garbage receptacle every night to "dry it out" and burning the contents in the incinerator in the morning-On cross-examination she admitted that she saw nothing unusual in the procedure.

EXPERTS

After long wrangling, a Deaver woman was permitted to testify that Story had violated her. Then Wanda Hammond took the stand to deny the assertion that she'd had an I.U.D. installed. "I'm positive," she said.

Story was his own final witness on surrebuttal. Aarestad asked if there was any truth to the Deaver woman's story. "None whatsoever," he answered.

They were the last words of testimony. Just after 10:30
a.m
. on Monday, April 15, two weeks after Judge Hartman had banged the case to life with his gavel, he gave the jurors the day off and suggested that they bring overnight bags the next day.

81

THE SUMMING-UP

By sunrise, a frieze of hopeful spectators waited under the pinkish tint of the county building's Grecian columns. Some blew on their hands or shuffled their feet. The temperature was expected to climb into the seventies later, but in the postdawn hours it was only a degree or two above freezing. A few of the curious carried Styro-foam cups from the restaurant down the block. There wasn't much talking. Feelings still ran high, and allegiances were better kept private. It would be time enough to take sides upstairs.

Everyone was seated, waiting for the judge and the lawyers to emerge from the back rooms, when Rex Nebel nudged his wife. Arden McArthur was about to make her first appearance of the trial. "She thinks she's a New York model," Cheri whispered.

The prominent Mormon woman wore a big hat and high boots. Before she found a seat in the left half of the spectator section, she whirled a cape over her shoulder and looked at the Story
support
ers. "Remember
101 Dalmatians
?" Rex said. "She thinks she's Cruella DeVille."

« # »

Dean McArthur had used every ounce of his authority as household leader to shelter her from the trial. "You don't want all the pointy fingers," he advised.

Of course Arden knew he was right. For months, the Story people had been tearing at her good name like woodpeckers. As fast as she tracked one rumor to its source and forced its originator to back down, another popped up. She realized that it would take a PR firm to put out the fire.

After the girls had brought their lawsuit and Story counter-claimed for $10 million, the harassment increased. A decent LDS woman couldn't repeat some of the words the callers used on the phone.

Now and then another victim had come forward to tell Arden her story, usually in strictest confidence. They thanked Arden for what she'd done but begged off active roles. Most were like the one who phoned and said that Story had abused her but "We don't want to take it any further. We can't afford to be sued."

"Land's sake," Arden had answered, "he can't sue you for something
he
did. It's just a tactic he's using." But the woman wouldn't give her name.

At the start of the trial, the ailing Dean had asked her to drive him to Kansas City to visit some favorite relatives. He'd been making trips like this lately—terminal trips, as though he knew his own timetable. Every night she called back home to Lovell for news of the trial. They returned the night before final arguments were scheduled, and she itched to go. She remembered the opposing lawyers in "Perry Mason," shaking their fingers at each other and hurling brilliant catchphrases as they argued on behalf of their clients.

"I'd rather you didn't go," Dean had said from the chair where he now spent hours every day, sucking in air a teaspoonful at a time.

"Dean," she'd said, "I've got to."

When Story turned from his seat to wave at his supporters, one of Arden's LDS seatmates remarked, "Well, he won't act like a tin god anymore."

Arden whispered, "He never did act like a tin one."

Another woman said she'd heard that Story's brother was drawing up charts to prove that the conspirators were related.

"If you go far enough back," Arden commented, "we probably are. Listen, let that guy alone and he'll do all your genealogies for you. I'm not very good at it myself."

Terry Tharp didn't believe in snake-oil oratory and doubted if he could bring it off if he tried. He was convinced that lawsuits were won by evidence, facts and trial prep—except, of course, on TV. A University of Wyoming law professor had said, "Keep it short. Then cut it in half." Tharp figured that any speech over thirty minutes wasn't worth the proverbial bucket of warm spit, at least to a Big Horn County jury. He knew these people; he'd grown up thirty miles south, raising sheep, alfalfa, beans, hay, and malt barley for Coors. He knew the locals. To some of them, "howdy" was a little long-winded.

There wasn't much left to say anyway. In two weeks of trial, every point had been made and remade ten times over. He'd seen jurors nodding off, and he'd had to fight sagging eyelids himself. He kidded his pretty wife that if he had to sit through one more lecture on female plumbing, he'd swear off sex forever.

The judge asked, "Mr. Tharp, are you ready for closing argument?"

"Yes, Your Honor. I am." He stepped to the front of the jury box and wondered why his bony knees weren't knocking. Some of Story's victims were in the audience, still pale and shaky. They would be marked for life. Sex criminals had that effect; they were the lowest order of life. He realized why he wasn't nervous. He had only so much space between his ears, and he couldn't be nervous and enraged at the same time.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he began, "since April third we have covered a lot of ground. . . . Lots of things have been
tossed
around and lots of things have been said. But I think this trial comes down to one basic question: who is telling the truth, these nine victims or the defendant? I think the reason for that is very simple. These are the only people in that exam room on the day these acts occurred. There was nobody else present."

He reminded the jurors that they weren't dealing with simple malpractice; "we are dealing with a crime: rape." He described these cases in short takes, a minute or so on each, emphasizing the common M.O. and circumstances, the women who'd gone in for colds and flu shots, their special vulnerabilities, the careful draping, the absence of a nurse, the odd remarks like "Didn't you know?" and "Can you take any more?"

He pointed to the exhibit table and picked his words carefully. "We have got the records. Now these records, as far as I'm concerned, are good for maybe a couple of things. They show the date of the visits. They show the last dates some of these women went to the defendant." He paused. "But I would ask you to scrutinize some of those records very carefully." The St. Thomas and Hammond charts hadn't appeared until the defense introduced them in court, he pointed out, nor had any defense witness explained where they'd been kept or why they hadn't been found earlier. "We never did hear a satisfactory answer to that question," he said.

He cautioned the jurors about pity. "[Story] presented his wife. Now she is not here because of what the victims did; she is here because of what the defendant did. You are not to feel sorry for him. What you owe him is fairness. You don't owe him pity.

"He presented two former nurses who actually worked in his office within the recent past. Examine their testimony carefully, because there was some difference between what one said were his office procedures and the other actually said. . . .

"What were the rest of the witnesses? They were character witnesses. Now these people saw the defendant in a setting, a certain setting—his public image. There wasn't one of them that was alone in the examining room with him when any of these assaults were committed. Not one!"

He turned to the medical experts. "Dr. Wrung has an obvious bias. He testified that it was physically impossible, but you saw him step to that table. You heard Dr. Flory's testimony. Dr. Buster had a lot of fine qualifications. He read the charts. But he never saw or talked with any of these victims. ... He testified solely from paper. You can do anything you want with a pencil and a piece of paper. . . . With all due respect to his qualifications, he is a professional witness. He comes in, he testifies, he picks up his check and he leaves."

As for Story himself, "He skirted around the things that I, or I think anybody else, would reasonably want to hear. He was evasive on cross-examination. He could remember what he wanted to remember. The things that he didn't want to remember, he forgot. He tried to come across as a kind, caring physician, but yet he never cared enough to ask why Julia Bradbury, a patient for eighteen years, would quit him overnight. He never cared enough to ask—because he knew why."

He re-stated Story's three basic defenses: "He is a nice guy and he couldn't have done it. But if you don't believe that, it is physically impossible. And lastly, if you don't believe that, these women are all just mistaken. ... I had a law school teacher who said in a criminal case if you have got more than two defenses, you don't really have any. And I think that's what we have got here. You have kind of got a grab bag, and that is what he is asking you to do —is grab."

He advised the jurors to take their common sense into the jury room. "You don't have to park it at the door. . . . There is only one verdict in light of the evidence and I think that is guilty. Thank

you."

As he sat down, he looked at his watch. He'd spoken for twenty minutes. He wasn't worried about omissions. Since the burden of proof was on the state, courtroom rules permitted him to speak again at the end..

Wayne Aarestad stood up, smiled at the judge, and began with the gracious old legal formality, "May it please the Court and Counsel."

From his first words, the North Dakota lawyer seemed to be trying to take the jury into his confidence. "I believe that this case presents the starkest contrast between two sides ... of any case that
I
have ever seen. Either Dr. Story is the most perverted
sexual
deviant physician probably to hit the face of the earth in years, if not for all times, or the State's case is completely and totally false and a fabrication."