Final Analysis (5 page)

“You give me the impression that you feel I’m harassing you when I ask for this stuff, but I can’t really proceed without it. How well we do in this case depends on both our efforts. I won’t even raise the issue of how often you have ignored my advice.”

On the evening of Saturday October 12, Felix took his sons to a horror film,
The Ring,
and afterward, he spent a second night in the Miner Road guesthouse. At the crack of dawn the next morning, Felix drove Adam back to UCLA and Gabe went along for the ride.

Felix and Gabe stayed to watch the Sunday afternoon Oakland Raiders football game on TV before beginning the four-hundred-mile drive back to Orinda sometime after 3
PM
. During the trip, Gabriel sensed his dad was worried about his mother’s repeated threats, but these concerns were not strong enough to entice Felix to find alternate accommodations. Distracting each other with idle talk about sports, they decided to attend the Giants’ playoff game the following night.

I
t was almost 8
PM
on Monday, October 14, and still, there had been no word from his dad. As Gabriel climbed the steps to the guesthouse, the darkness enveloped him. There were three entrances to the cottage, but he was hesitant to go in, scared of what he might find. The door he tried—the one everyone used—was locked, and he didn’t check the other doors. Besides, there were too many light switches and he could never figure out which switch worked which light. He returned to the main house and went back upstairs to his room where he stayed for about an hour, trying to figure out what to do; he was beginning to think that he would need the police if his dad didn’t turn up in the next hour.

It was exactly 9
PM
when Gabriel dialed 911 to get the number of the Orinda police department’s nonemergency line. Even though his gut told him something was wrong, he didn’t want to make a fool of himself by calling authorities if there was nothing to report. He would try to locate the officer who had come to the house several days earlier to see if he’d heard anything. Perhaps his dad had been in a car crash, he thought.

“Nine-one-one,” said the female dispatcher who answered the call.

“Hi, can I get the nonemergency number for the police department?”

“What is it that you’re reporting?”

“Um, I just need to talk to an officer there,” Gabe said.

“Okay, about what, sir,” the dispatcher asked.

“Do I need to tell you?”

“Yes, you do. You called me on 911. We don’t give out numbers on 911. It’s for emergencies only, and I can maybe help you on this line depending on what you need to report.”

“Fine, I’ll just call the police department,” Gabe said.

“Okay, thank you.”

Grabbing a flashlight, the teen went back downstairs with the phone number for the Orinda police department tucked in his dark-colored shorts. On his way out the door, his mother stopped him.

“Why did you call the police?” she asked.

“I didn’t call the police!” Gabriel snapped, and continued outside to the upper carport where his mom kept her car. The house had two driveways; Susan preferred the one at the top of the property that was reached by a neighboring street, while Eli and Felix used the lower one that was accessible from Miner Road. Gabe wanted to check Susan’s Volvo wagon for any traces of his father. A grisly thought had crossed his mind: maybe his mother had used the car to transport his dad’s dead body somewhere. But upon inspection, the car yielded nothing out of the ordinary.

“What are you doing?” his mother yelled out to him.

“Nothing,” he called back. Gabriel was barefoot and shirtless as he walked down the steps to the cottage in an attempt to hide from his mother. With the main door locked, he went to another door that faced the house, entering through the galley kitchen and proceeding down the narrow darkened hallway to the balcony area that overlooked the living room. Shining his flashlight into the blackened space, he saw his father lying on the ground with blood covering his near naked body.

The sight was too much for the fifteen-year-old boy, who quickly left the cottage and shut the door behind him.

Gabriel’s heart raced as he returned to the main house. Without saying a word to his mother, he rushed to the bedroom, grabbed the cordless
phone and ran back outside, sprinting up the path that led to a hidden area of the property where the family kept the trashcans. He could hear his mother calling as he ducked behind the wooden carport that housed her Volvo. He dialed 911.

Barely seven minutes had passed since he first called that number. He recognized the female dispatcher’s voice when she answered.

“Uh, murder,” he blurted out.

There was a moment’s hesitation, as if the dispatcher was processing the declaration. “Where at?”

“At 728 Miner Road.”

“Okay, what happened?” she asked, switching on the police radio to alert units in the field. Orinda is one of five unincorporated cities in the county that contracts patrol services from the Contra Costa Sheriff ’s Department.

“Um, I think my mom…my mom shot my dad.”

“You think your mom shot your dad?” the dispatcher repeated.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, stay on the phone, I’m going to connect you to the fire department. Do not hang up,” the officer instructed.

There were several beeps, and then ringing, as the call was transferred to the fire department’s emergency line.

“It’s a possible shooting,” the sheriff ’s dispatcher said, briefing her counterpart at the Contra Costa Fire Department.

“Okay, what’s your name, sir?” the fire dispatcher asked Gabe.

The teen spelled it twice.

“Where’s your mom at now?”

“She’s still in the house,” the teen responded breathlessly.

“Does she still have the gun?”

“I believe so.”

“Where is your dad at?”

“He’s dead,” Gabe shot back.

“Where is he at, do you know?”

“He’s in my cottage.”

“In your cottage?”

“Yeah.”

“Does your mom still have the gun?”

“I believe so.”

“Do you know when this happened?”

“No, no idea.”

“Do you know where your mom is in the house?”

“No, I don’t.”

“How do you know she’s still in the house?”

“Because I was just in the fuckin’ house,” the teen’s voice was beginning to waver, as though he was fighting back tears.

“Okay, where are you now?”

“I’m outside,” Gabe’s voice grew softer.

“Okay, what’s your mom’s name?”

“Susan. She’s got a mental illness.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Polk.”

“How old is your mom?”

There was no response.

“Gabe. Gabe? Are you still there?” The dispatcher asked.

The line went dead.

Gabriel’s attention had shifted to the sound of a door opening. He could tell it wasn’t coming from the main house. Peering around the carport, he was certain that it was his mother opening then closing the door to the guesthouse.

“Hey, did you see that?” she yelled up to him.

Gabe didn’t respond. He wanted to get as far away as possible. Bolting down the hill and onto Miner Road, he flagged down an arriving fire truck. Panting furiously, he remained with the firemen until police units arrived just after 10:15
PM
.

I
t was after 1
AM
on the morning of Tuesday, October 15, 2002, when Contra Costa Sheriff ’s officers Jeff Moule and Jeffrey Hebel finally sat down with Gabriel Polk in a small interview room at the Field Operation’s Bureau in Martinez. They had left the teen alone in the tiny space for nearly thirty minutes, watching and recording his movements on the hidden video camera in the ceiling. Gabriel still had no shirt on.

The officers who would be interviewing him were members of the county’s Criminal Investigative Division (CID). They were responsible for follow-up investigation of all reported felony offenses in the 521 square miles of the unincorporated areas in the county. Before placing the visibly shaken teenager in a patrol car, they performed a gunshot residue test on him to determine whether he had recently discharged a firearm. The test was negative, and now they needed some answers from the distraught teen.

Gabe told the officers that his mother was “crazy and delusional,” and that she had tried to buy a shotgun after threatening Felix during the Montana trip. Although Gabriel was pointing the finger at his mother, the officers were reserving judgment. It was standard protocol to look at everyone in a homicide investigation, and the teenager was no exception. He was not under arrest, but he remained under scrutiny.

Officer Moule took the lead role in questioning the boy. He started with some background information.

“Right now, you are going to, what’s the name of the school you are going to?” The teen was sitting hunched in a chair with his elbows resting
on a small round table; his head cradled in his hands. Without making eye contact, he explained that he was currently attending the Del Oro continuation school in Walnut Creek.

“Did you go to Del Oro the whole time you lived in Orinda?”

“No, I went to Miramonte,” the teen replied, referring to the city’s public high school.

“How come you dropped out?”

“My mom encouraged me to stay home from school,” Gabe replied in a mumble.

“Why did she want you to stay home from school?”

“She is crazy, and so she thought that all the teachers were like, against me, or something. And so I missed a month and a half at the end of the year.”

Taken aback, Officer Moule repeated the boy’s explanation. “She kept you home?”

“Yeah.”

“All right,” the officer said, shooting his partner a look. “Have you been in trouble with the law?”

“No,” Gabriel replied. Officers would later learn that the teen was not being completely truthful. While he had never been arrested, Gabriel, like his two older brothers, had been in his share of trouble over the years.

“Okay, you say your mom is crazy,” Officer Moule prefaced. “Tell me about your growing up, things that she has done that justify you saying that she is crazy.”

“My mom was fine up until about five years ago, when—I don’t really—I am not clear on what happened, but she had memories of her childhood. And her parents were real scumbags.”

Gabriel repeated Susan’s allegations about being abused as a child. “Apparently, at that time, and she was put on medication for a few months. And after that, I don’t know the name of that medication. But it was for, to stop her from being so delusional and paranoid,” the teen explained, while staring blankly at the table.

“I think her and my dad went to a bunch of psychologists and she eventually stopped taking the medication. And then, in a few
years, she, like, directed all of her delusions, and paranoia toward my dad.

“And what my dad said is that she got him confused…with her father. So she had all this anger toward my dad, which was actually the anger toward her father, which was probably pretty scary for my dad. And so these last four years have been really, just, arguing, just at each other’s throats.”

“Five years ago, when she had these memories about her father, did she tell you herself?” Officer Moule asked.

“Yes.”

“She told you about that?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You were about ten years old?”

Gabriel paused, and stared at the ceiling as if recalling the exchange. “No, I was older.”

“You were a little bit older?”

“And when was the last time she told you about it?”

“She told me about it up until today.”

The officer wore an astonished look. “She’s been telling you about it?”

“She told me about it up until today…not today, but like the present day, she talks about it often.”

Officer Moule again glanced at his partner, “So for the last five years she’s been acting out? Would you tell me what kind of stuff she does do?”

“Ah, it’s crazy shit,” Gabriel replied, readjusting his slender frame in the simple wood chair. “Do you want to know stuff she says about her father?”

“Sure, what does she say about her father?” Officer Moule prodded.

“Well my dad is like…I don’t know…. I don’t really know a lot of stuff,” Gabriel replied, before hesitating. “I don’t know too much about her family and everything.”

“What does your dad do for a living?”

“He is a psychologist.”

“Has he ever hit you, or anything like that?”

“No,” the teen answered.

“Did you ever see your dad hit your mom?”

Gabriel paused. “Um-um. I have seen my dad, like, slap my mom. It’s like, she’s totally out of her mind, and I could see a reason for it. She can act perfectly normal, too. And she does for the most part. But she just has a distorted reality.”

“You use some pretty good-sized words for a fifteen-year-old man.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“All relative to psychological stuff.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Is that because you’re…why is that, you have a good vocabulary, but it’s just kind of unusual,” Officer Moule solicited. “Are those terms that you discussed with your father about your mom’s condition?”

“I have discussed it with my father, I have discussed it with my brothers, and I have discussed it with a psychologist.”

“You go to a psychologist to help you out dealing with your mom? Or do you have…”

Gabriel jumped in. “I did for a while, for like a few weeks. I didn’t like the psychologist, though. So I quit.”

“So, you’ve had this, this has been going for about, everything was okay for the most part until five years ago?”

“My mom and dad loved each other.”

As the conversation continued, Moule prompted the teen to discuss his parents disintegrating relationship, leading Gabriel to recount the story of the family’s tumultuous trip to Disneyland and the memories that his mother uncovered during the vacation.

Officer Moule sat back in his chair. “Has your mom ever been hospitalized?”

“No. Well…she tried to kill herself in Yosemite,” Gabriel replied dryly, recalling his mother’s trip to the national park in central California.

The officer leaned in closer to the teen. “Well how long ago did that happen? Two years, three years?”

“Actually, no, it was after our other house, so it was one and a half to two years ago.” Gabriel was speaking about the family’s move from Piedmont to their current, more expansive Orinda address.

“Were you there when she tried?”

“I was at home when she called.”

“So, who was with her in Yosemite?”

“She went by herself.”

“She just drove there? By herself?” Officer Moule asked.

“She didn’t drive there by herself. She just took a bus and tried to kill herself,” Gabriel casually replied, as if attempting suicide in the national park at the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains was an ordinary occurrence.

“Well, how did she try to kill herself?”

“Overdosed on pills.”

“And then she called home and told you guys what she did?”

“She called home and wanted to talk to my dad, and this is, like, supposedly, what she told my dad. And she says that she loves him and that she’s really sorry that she tried to kill herself, and that she’s, like, dying, or whatever.”

Officer Moule stared at the teen. A veteran at concealing his reactions, he remained stone-faced. “So, then what happened?”

“My dad called the police,” Gabriel casually explained. “And they picked her up, and she was put in a…she was at the hospital, and they were interviewing her for a…just a mental examination. And they felt like she was perfectly sensible. Like I said, she can act perfectly sane most of the time.”

“Have the police ever been out to your house?”

“Hmm-mm. Many times,” the teen replied without hesitation.

“Well, when was the first time?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Was it in the house at Piedmont?” Officer Moule asked.

“Yeah, for stuff like…mostly for my brothers to try and break up parties and shit.”

“Did Piedmont PD ever go to your house because your parents were arguing or your mother was acting strangely?”

Gabriel shook his head, indicating no.

“How about Orinda PD?”

“Orinda PD, definitely,” Gabriel nodded.

“How many times?”

“Three to five.”

“What happened the first time, if you know.”

“Oh, there were just so many complications, I can’t really remember.”

“Just pick one out,” Officer Moule nudged. “When was the last time they came out?”

“The last time they came out was last week.” Gabriel was referring to the call his father had made to 911 on October 9, when Susan moved him from the main house to the guest cottage.

“Last week?”

Gabriel went on to tell Moule the story of the previous Wednesday when he had helped his mother move his father’s belongings to the guesthouse, and the ensuing argument that led Felix to call 911. As he told the tale, his feelings toward his mother became more and more apparent, with Gabriel describing his mother as “nuts” and referring to his own life as “pretty unstable.”

As the interview progressed, Gabriel displayed signs of stress. He had difficulty sitting still in his chair and avoided direct eye contact with the officers. At times, he seemed close to tears, and other moments he appeared detached and spoke in a monotone.

“Did she talk about killing him while she was in Montana?” Officer Moule inquired.

Cupping his forehead with his hands, Gabe paused for a moment as if to think. “I’m not sure,” he uttered. “She said she was taking care of business. It sounded like it was about dad. She wanted to handle dad, I don’t know how…. To get money and stuff.”

Gabriel went on to say that his mother had actually spoken of killing his father.

“Did she say how she would kill him?” the detective asked.

The teen sat back in his chair. “Drugging him, and drowning him in the pool,” he replied. “Maybe run him over, or tampering with his car.”

“Why was she telling you all this?”

“I don’t know. She thought that, like, I agreed with her or whatever, when I was going along with what she was saying, or that, I don’t really know why she told me. She just trusted me, trusted me.”

“Did you kind of agree with her?” Officer Moule asked.

“No.”

“Did you and your dad get along all right?”

Gabriel paused. “Fairly well.”

Gabriel claimed his mother had been talking about murdering his father on and off for weeks, most recently when he was eavesdropping on the October 7 phone conversation between them during his mother’s return trip from Montana. “When she was coming back from Montana, she actually called my dad and told him what she was going to do. She threatened to shoot him with a shotgun.”

“So how did she phrase, what did she say?”

“She just said that, oh yeah, that if he didn’t let her stay in the house with me—she wanted him to be out in the cottage, and if he didn’t let that happen, let her in the house, she would kill him.”

The teen’s eyes grew wet as he recounted his father’s fear. Gabriel said his father had been so frightened by the conversation with Susan that he arranged to have police waiting at Miner Road in anticipation of her return, but after several hours, it grew too late in the evening and the officers left the property. When his mother finally arrived, “She walked right in the house. They had a nice talk. Not a nice talk, but they were calm. I was there for the whole thing,” he said.

“What were they talking about?”

“Money. And that she thought it was not fair that they had a court hearing without her.”

“And what did your dad say to that?”

“I don’t know, but it was calm. Then my dad was just trying to deal with her.”

Two days later, however, it was a different story. It was then, after Susan had Gabriel move all of Felix’s belongings to the guesthouse, that she threatened to kill him.

“What did she say? How did she phrase that?”

“She whispered something in his ear. I didn’t hear it, but…my dad got excited and called the police.”

“How do you know that she threatened to kill him?”

“Because my dad isn’t alive.”