Everything She Ever Wanted (67 page)

"Obviously," Weathers later said, "I was convinced in my own mind that

Patricia Allanson did it or I would never have tried the case .
 
. .

but I was still trying to get it in the form of tangible proof.
 
It

took going back and looking at the old liquor bottle, the nuances-just

building on minutiae to try to put together a chain of facts.
 
If you

looked at each fact independently-if you looked at the wills being

changed-" With his new knowledge about the action of arsenic poisoning,

Weathers hoped to be able to pick up on the "little mistakes made by

the defendant.

If, indeed, she had made any.

The white marble Fulton County Courthouse took up the entire block and

was constantly being refurbished and expanded, so that its bulk

hunkered over sidewalks and seemed I about to burst into lanes of

traffic.
 
There were six huge columns on the Pryor Street side and wide

steps leading to three double doors.
 
Bronze pedestals supported a

profusion of round white lights, and sheriff's cars and vans nudged the

curb in front.
 
Tom's trial had been held there and now it was Pat's

turn.
 
But Tom had been locked up; at least she was free on bail.
 
The

day Pat's trial began, Monday, May 2, 1977, promised to be hot as

summer, and the air was humid and thick.
 
High above bustling Pryor

Street, Judge Elmo Holt presided over courtroom 808.

Pat Allanson looked wonderful.
 
She had put on weight once her hip

finally began to heal.
 
She had made all new dresses for her trial.

She chose a deep garnet-colored sheath for the first day of jury

selection, and she wore a large cameo on a gold chain, cameo earrings,

and a cameo ring.
 
Her hair was perfect, and her makeup was subdued but

elegant.
 
Her cane added just a hint of vulnerability, and she

occasionally touched her handkerchief to her forehead and lips as if

she felt ill.
 
Although her aunts could not all be with her, Boppo and

Papa were there, and so was Susan.

On this first day of his wife's trial, Tom Allanson was brought over

from Jackson and into Judge Holt's courtroom.
 
In exactly one week, Pat

and Tom would celebrate-if the word fit considering the

circumstances-their third wedding anniversary.
 
They had lived together

as man and wife for exactly seven weeks and six days.
 
Their

anniversaries since had been marked by disaster rather than happy

remembrance.

The jury had yet to be picked and Tom was present to answer possible

questions in pretrial motions.
 
It was rumored that he might testify.

He stared at Pat and she gazed back.
 
And then Dunham McAllister

signaled Pat to follow him.
 
She left the courtroom to meet with her

husband and they talked for two hours.

Being together was not the same.
 
It never would be again.

Despite the publicity surrounding Tom's trial only a little over t two

years earlier, a jury unfamiliar with that case was picked on Monday

afternoon-five men and seven women, nine whites and three blacks,

white-collar and blue-collar.

The witnesses listed were predictable.
 
For the state, there would be

investigators, forensic scientists, toxicologists, Jean Boggs, Paw

Allanson's attorneys, the bankers who had notarized Paw Allanson's

"confession," and Paw and Nona themselves.
 
For the defense, there

would be those people who had always defended Pat: Mrs. Clifford

Radcliffe, Colonel Clifford Radho cliffe, Debbie Taylor Cole, and Miss

Fanny Kate Cash (w had postponed surgery to be present).
 
There were

whispers that said Patricia Radcliffe Taylor Allanson would take the

stand in her own defense.
 
With the prospect of such a happening,

courtroom 808 was packed.
 
This might not be a "passion killing," but

then again, there were many in the courtroom who remembered Pat at her

husband's trial two years ago.
 
They had wondered then what kind of

woman she really was; perhaps now they would find out.

Pat looked even more beautiful the second morning of trial as opening

arguments began.
 
She wore an emerald green dress that precisely

matched her eyes.
 
She sketched and scribb ed on a yellow legal pad as

Andy Weathers presented the state's position g arguments; her face only

occasionally betrayed a in openin slight drift of annoyance.

Weathers had won his plea to introduce to the jury in ormation on Tom

Allanson's conviction-a most important legal coup.

Now the jury listened but gave no sign of what t ey thought as Weathers

described Pat's takeover of the elder Allansons' affairs following her

husband's conviction for the murder of their son and daughter-in-law.

"There will be introduced into s. These documents gave Patricia court

.

. . various document Allanson complete power of attorney to sign

anything as if they themselves were signing it-gave her complete access

to all the bank accounts, papers .
 
. . loud provoked "Arsenic."

Saying the name of the poison out a ripple in the gallery.
 
Andy

Weathers promised the jurors proof -scientific proof-that the old

people had had their body fluids and their hair and their fingernails

infiltrated with the deadly poison.

Dunham McAllister's opening statement promised that the evidence would

show something entirely different.
 
The confession was real enough, he

said, dictated by Mr. Walter Allanson to Pat.
 
"She doesn't take

shorthand, but she wrote it down in longhand, a lengthy statement which

we expect the state to introduce.
 
And this statement was, in fact,

notarized.

"He signed it," McAllister said emphatically.

Both the state and the defense were going to utilize the same evidence,

but each would maintain that it supported its own case.

Yes, McAllister agreed, there was arsenic, a bottle of it, but the

liquor in Paw and Nona's house had come from Jean and Homer Boggs.

"We expect that the state will have failed to carry its burden of proof

of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Pat Allanson is guilty of

anything."

Weathers was continually surprised at the civility of the cast of

characters in this trial.
 
Colonel and Mrs. Radcliffe were gracious,

if reserved.
 
"They were there every day, and they'd come up and talk

with me," he recalled.
 
"I really believed that they were sincere in

their belief that she didn't do it-at least I believed the colonel.
 
I

believe there was a history of mentalstuff .
 
. . but the defense

didn't know how to use it.

Maybe they i;@ couldn't have used it-it doesn't usually work in a

killing for profit, especially when you have chronic arsenic dosage.

.

. .

Still, there was something about the dynamics of that trial," Weathers

mused, remembering that sometimes it seemed like a very proper social

reception, despite its real purpose.

Margureitte Radcliffe was, first and foremost, a lady.
 
And the colonel

was what he always had been-absolutely correct.
 
In public, they never

broke; they never even bent.
 
And above all, they were never rude.
 
To

many in the courtroom, it seemed inconceivable that their daughter

stood accused of a terrible crime.
 
Pat was a lady too, but as the

prosecution moved into witness testimony, the picture evolving of Pat's

complete control of the elderly Allansons' assets was devastating.

When Dr. Lanier Jones took the stand, Nona and Walter Allanson were

wheeled into the courtroom so he could identify them.
 
Nona was used to

a wheelchair, but it was an ignominious thing for the old man to have

to be wheeled anywhere.
 
His feet and lower legs didn't work

anymore-the nerves were permanently damaged by arsenic poisoning.
 
Nona

waved at her doctor with her one good hand, smiling but confused by the

courtroom scene.
 
When they had left the courtroom, Dr. Jones compared

the robust old man he had known with the comatose patient he had

examined on June 13, 1976.
 
He repeated more than once that he had been

a "suspicious doctor."

Dr. Everett Solomons described the corrosive action of arsenic on the

human body, and Weathers moved on to the contents of the whiskey bottle

Pat had given Dr.
 
Jones.

"Would you state for the jury the results of the test of that

bottle?"

"When we received the bottle, it contained approximately half a

millimeter of liquid-3.63 milligrams."
 
arsenic?"

"Arsenic.

Weathers then called the associate chief medical examiner of Fulton

County, Dr. Joseph Burton, and asked his opinion on what was wrong

with Walter and Nona Allanson at the time of their hospitalization in

June 1976.

"Arsenic intoxication.
 
Arsenic .
 
. . when introduced into the body-by

whatever means, acc-dental, suicidal, or by a homicidal person-it has

certain actions it takes.
 
. . . It's rapidly absorbed into the GI

tract.
 
It appears in the blood twenty-four hours after ingestion.

Within twenty-four, forty-eight, fifty-two hours, on e will begin to

get urinary arsenic excretion, and, if tinue for seven to ten days

there is a single dose, this may con until the arsenic is cleared from

the system.
 
After about twenty-four to seventy-two hours, this arsenic

also will appear in the hair and nails of the individual.

"Now, the hair grows at approximately a half a millimeter per month.

the nails grow approximately a tenth of a millimeter per month.

per month.
 
The white part of your nail is the active growing site that

the arsenic would be deposited in.
 
. . . If one finds arsenic in the