Everything She Ever Wanted (106 page)

Both Don Stoop and Michelle Berry were bitterly disappointed,

ultimately frustrated.
 
They had given it everything they had.

Georgia passions being what they were, there would be other cases.

They devoutly hoped not to run into Pat again, although it was

certainly possible that they would, given world enough and time.

On June 12, 1991, less than two months after she was arrested, Patricia

Taylor Allanson aka Patricia Radcliffe Taylor appeared with her

attorney in the Hon.
 
William H. Alexander's courtroom in Atlanta.

A plea had been negotiated in Indictment No.
 
Z-32688.

Pat took the stand and looked stolidly at Bill Akins as he approached

her.
 
His questioning was routine.
 
He needed to establish that she was

competent and understood what she was about to do, that she felt she

had been fairly represented.

"Were you satisfied," Akins asked, "with the services that he rendered

on your behalf?"

"More than satisfied."

"Counsel," Akins turned to Steve Roberts.
 
"Do you waive formal

reading?"

"Yes, we do."

"His.
 
Taylor, do you understand," Akins began, "that you are charged

in seven counts in the bill of indictment?
 
Count I charges you with

aggravated assault with intent to murder, which carries with it a

penalty of one to twenty years in the penitentiary.
 
Count 11 charges

you with aggravated assault, which also carries with it a penalty of

one to twenty years.
 
. . . You can't be convicted of both.
 
. . .

Count I'll charges you with violation of the Georgia Controlled

Substances Act dealing with being in possession of Halcion .
 
. . one

to five years.
 
. . . That is a Schedule IV drug."
 
Count IV was the

same.
 
"You can't be convicted of both.
 
Count V charges you with theft

by taking, specifically a stainless-steel Rolex watch .
 
. . ten years

in the penitentiary.
 
Count VI charges you with theft by taking of some

specifically named items of jewelry .
 
. . one to ten years."

Akins explained that the matter two charges were could be convicted of

both.

"Count VII charges you with unlawfully posing as a registered nurse

without a license.
 
That is a misdemeanor, which carries with it a

maximum penalty of twelve months in jail and a one-thousand-dollar

fine.

Do you understand all of those charges and the penalties for them?"

"Yes, I do."

Pat Taylor was prepared, she said, to plead guilty to aggravated

assault, to violation of the Georgia Controlled Substances Act, to

theft by taking of the specific items, and to posing as a registered

nurse: Counts 11, IV, VI and VII.
 
She understood full well that she

could be sentenced to a total of thirty-six years in prison, and that

she had the right to a trial by jury.
 
She was waiving that right.

Pat was eager to make a statement about why she was pleading guilty.

Her attorney explained she could do that when the judge Bill Akins

reviewed Pat's long, long history with the legal system in Fulton

County, giving a summary of what he would have presented in a trial if

there had been one: the violent deaths, the poisonings, the forged

wills.
 
Moving into the recent past, he told Judge Alexander that Pat

had been paroled, trained to work only in nursing homes.
 
"She also

cared for an elderly lady by the name of Mansfield.
 
She essentially

worked with His.
 
Mansfield through a nursing home and the children

didn't have much contact with her.
 
His.
 
Mansfield subsequently died

and was cremated.
 
And that's really all we know about that."

The Crist assignment was next.
 
Akins described the lies and questioned

her later.

misrepresentations, and Pat's constant dismissal of all other

employees.
 
"It was essentially she and her codefendant, Debbie Cole

Alexander, who were the primary caretakers of the elder Mr.

Crist....

Mrs. Crist's ... doctor prescribed a sedative known as Halcion.... The

doctor prescribed thirty pills ... to take no more than one

pill-preferably just half a pill-at bedtime.

Within the span of some thirty-six days, Your Honor, the defendant

acquired an additional one hundred and twenty tablets of Halcion from

two different drugstores."

The case that Don Stoop and Michelle Berry had built step by step was

stunning to listen to.
 
Judge Alexander sat quietly, absorbed, as Bill

Akins told of the huge drugstore bills, the Crist childrens'growing

suspicions and fears.

"Dr. Watson .
 
. . drew a blood sample [from Elizabeth Crist] which

subsequently showed almost double the normal dosage of Halcion, and

this was at a time when the elder Mrs. Crist was not as drugged as she

was at other points.

. . . I would expect the evidence at trial to show further .
 
. . that

the overdoses of Halcion that Mr. Crist was getting exacerbated his

condition with Parkinson's and accelerated his decline .
 
. . and also

harmed the health of Mrs.
 
Crist."

After noting the valuables missing from the Crists' estate, Akins gave

the state's recommendation for sentencing.
 
"As to Count II-aggravated

assaulttwelve years to serve eight, the balance on probation.
 
. . .

Count IV, five years to serve concurrent.
 
As to Count VI, ten years to

serve ei lit, concurrent, and, as to Count VII, twelve months to serve

concurrent.
 
. . .

"As a condition of probation, Your Honor, I recommend that the

defendant receive counseling and that she at no time be employed either

for compensation or voluntarily in anything which might be remotely a

health-related field."

That certainly seemed a given.

Steve Roberts asked for two additional conditions.
 
"He [Bill Akins]

has agreed as a condition of this plea .
 
. . that the codefendant,

Debbie Alexander, who is Mrs. Taylor's daughter .
 
. . be put into the

pretrial intervention program and, upon successful completion of that,

that case would be dead-docketed against her and that she will not be

further prosecuted."
 
She had also promised to make restitution for Mr.

Crist's Rolex watch.

And next, the big carrot.
 
The humongous carrot.

"As a condition of this plea, he [Bill Akins] will in no way attempt to

indict Mrs. Taylor for, in connection with, the death of Mr. Walter

Allanson, which occurred, I believe, in 1974."

Akins nodded and rose to explain .
 
this condition further to Judge

Alexander.
 
"Your Honor, that is correct.
 
It came to light during the

course of our investigation of this case that this defendant was

substantially Involved as a party to the murder .
 
. . of her

ex-husband's-Tommy Allanson'sparents.
 
It is my position that, if she

enters a plea as outlined, the state will not proceed further with the

indictment or prosecution of that case - " Steve Roberts spoke again.

He said that his client was pleading guilty against his advice.
 
He had

advised Pat to plead not guilty and go to trial.

"My client is entering this plea today.
 
She will tell the court freely

and voluntarily she wishes to enter what is in effect an Alford

plea."

(An Alford plea has nothing at all to do with Bill and Susan Alford;

the etiology of the name is from some landmark case a long time back.

It was an ironic match-nothing more.) Margureitte and Clifford

Radcliffe, who were, of course, in attendance, flinched a little at the

sound of the name.
 
But t ey sat as proudly and benevolently as ever,

gazing upon their daughter.

"She wishes the court to understand the reasons why she is entering her

plea," Roberts continued, "that the nature of the charges made against

her and her daughter lead her to the belief that, if the evidence as

outlined by Mr. Akins is presented to a jury, that there is a

substantial likelihood that she would be convicted, and, if convicted,

would receive a harsher sentence than the state is recommending

today.

. . . The state has indicated it would introduce her prior crimes-which

they would contend is a similar crime.
 
Mr. Akins has notified me that

he would put up evidence to that effect.

"So all of those things, as well as her intention to put an end to this

matter once and for all-both with regard to this crime, the crime

involving Mr. Allanson in 1974, and her prior offense involving the

alleged poisoning-all of those things, Your Honor, are entering into my

client's decision to enter her plea today Pat lumbered to her feet

to face judge Alexander.
 
She wore jail-issue blue pants and top, and

sandals.
 
Fourteen years and thirty-five days had gone by since the

last time she was sentenced to prison, but she still had her cheering

section.
 
Debbie was there, along with her new husband, Mike

Alexander.

Miss Loretta was too brokenhearted to come to Pat's sentencing, but she

still had Boppo and Papa, just as she always had.

Judge Alexander looked down upon Pat and intoned, "Mrs. Taylor-as to

Count II, I will sentence you to twelve years, to serve eight, balance

probated.
 
. . . Count IV, I sentence you to serve five years,

concurrent with Count 11.
 
As to Count VI, I sentence you to ten years

to serve eight, and to run concurrently with the others.
 
. . . On

Count VII, I will sentence you to serve twelve months.
 
All of those

sentences to run concurrently."
 
Adhering to Bill Akins's request,