THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
- P. Krishnamoorthy
The court room in the City Court, located in Harrison Street, Cook County, Chicago was packed with people who were waiting for the presiding judge to be present. In a few minutes, Judge Hamilton entered the court hall and acknowledged the courtesies offered by the assembled crowd. They were all eagerly looking forward to the proceedings of the criminal case of Susan Hayward who was alleged to have committed the murder of her husband, John Smith. The Judge, after listening to the opening statements by both the prosecuting and defense attorneys, asked the prosecuting attorney to proceed with his arguments. The prosecution categorically argued that Susan Hayward willfully committed the crime of shooting Smith. With the instances of hatred between Smith and Susan over a period, she decided to put an end to this permanently and thus she got rid of Smith forever. The fact that she got the gun with her at the scene clearly proved her intention to do away with Smith. In view of other circumstantial evidence, she was guilty as charged and the maximum punishment should be awarded to Susan Hayward. The judge made a note of the points raised by the prosecution. After a brief pause, Judge Hamilton asked the defense attorney to present his arguments.
The defense attorney’s arguments were based on a clear perspective that Smith had very closely approached Susan with a knife to kill. Susan shot Smith to defend her own life. Smith’s ferocious and violent qualities at that time, undoubtedly established his definite determination to kill Susan. The evidence included exchange of harsh words between Smith and Susan over their long-standing personal issues, prior to the shooting recorded in the cell phone. Susan’s substantiation that during their heated words, Smith was targeting her to kill. Holding a sharp knife and with a fierce and aggressive mood, Smith approached very close to stab her. To save her own life, Susan triggered the gun pointing at Smith.
The enraged circumstances between them were responsible for Smith’s determination to kill Susan. His words “I will kill you” demonstrated his intended action, and clearly proved that he was in his mind set to kill Susan. Left with no choice, Susan’s shooting Smith had to be only for self-defense and not with any other intentional ulterior motive. She had no criminal record whatsoever at any time earlier in her life. Her legal fight to get rid of Smith through divorce, was in a protracted process, and his harassment of her comprised of violent beating and other forms of torture. Based on Smith’s past reactions in many earlier instances, it was well evidenced that he was holding his grudge and bitterness for quite long towards her. To sum up, Susan certainly deserved impunity from any punishment of any kind, as she did the shooting for her own self-defense. The judge ordered adjournment and requested the jury to give their verdict.
After a few hours when, at the reconvened court session, the judge asked the jury whether they had reached any verdict. One of them confirmed with a positive assenting answer and read their verdict. “The jury unanimously reached a verdict that Susan Hayward was not guilty”.
It was a strange coincidence that a similar emergency call was also received by the police control room around the same time from a number located in the same neighborhood, next door to Susan’s home. The caller had identified himself as Robert Lucas and informed the police that his wife Catherine was stabbed in the stomach and her pulse rate was sinking. Also, her respiratory system failing rapidly despite his massaging to revive her. But by the time Lucas finished the call with the police, Catherine died.
The investigating police team had questioned Lucas about the details. Lucas responded that he was away in a nearby grocery store to buy milk and vegetables. By the time he returned home, he found Catherine was stabbed, but was alive and sinking. Lucas removed the knife from her stomach area and tried to massage her to revive her respiration. With tears amid sobbing, he was narrating the scene to the police and his expressive words had mirrored his emotions. Responding to a query by the police whether anybody visited their home on that day or on prior days, Lucas replied that there was none. However, the police, after extensive investigation arrived at the conclusion that Lucas only murdered Catherine for her insurance money and created a scene as if somebody had stabbed Catherine. On further probing, they found more circumstantial evidence to support their conclusion. Hence, they remanded Lucas to await trial.
The prosecuting attorney argued that Lucas had an alibi of a visit to the nearby grocery store and his married life with Catherine was a happy one. Nonetheless, he was in heavy debts due to his frequent race going habit. To clear the debts, he was planning to use the insurance money through his wife’s death. According to autopsy report, the death had occurred at a time before his visit to the grocery store; whereas, according to Lucas, on his return from the grocery store, he saw her heavily bleeding due to stabbing in her stomach area and was alive but in sinking stage. Immediately he tried to massage her to revive her respiration. It was clear that there was a disparity and contradiction about the time of her death that elucidated a scenario to commit the crime by Lucas and then he visited the store. Further, the extensive investigations also indicated to support that, as there was no one hostile to them committing that murder for any reason. In view of this, the prosecution confirmed that Lucas was alone responsible for the murder as charged. Therefore, he requested that the maximum punishment be given to Lucas.
The defense attorney argued that the time of death in the autopsy report could only be an approximate time and not precisely the exact time. It was very clear that Lucas had an alibi in the grocery store and on his return, he found Catherine alive with stab injury and sinking stage. Because she was alive, Lucas initiated massaging procedure for her revival. Both were a happy couple and the allegation that he killed Catherine for insurance money to clear his debts, was a hypothetical theory. There was no other valid reason or motive for Lucas to kill her. In conclusion the defense attorney emphasized that the benefit of doubt in the variance of death time, be given to Lucas and dismissed the case. Lucas’ personal charisma greatly wowed the audience.
The jury returned to the court room. The judge asked whether they had reached a verdict. A lady juror responding to the judge, confirmed they had reached a verdict - “Robert Lucas was not guilty as charged.”
Both these trials ended in the dismissal of their charges. Both Susan Hayward and Robert Lucas were happy at the court’s decisions. Susan got rid of Smith’s harassments forever and Lucas got the insurance money.
Susan’s jubilation was short-lived as the cloud of misfortune had set in. She could not understand the reason for her mental agony. Her instinct had warned her that something drastic was going to happen in her life. She was recollecting the grueling days with Smith that were nothing but nightmares. During that time, her emotional dynamics frequently led her to devastating depression. The insecure feeling of her life was due to Smith’s aggressive behavior and physical abuse. Her thought process often impelled her even to seek a remedy through suicide. Though she was feeling a sigh of permanent relief from Smith’s torture, her happy erstwhile living with him for some time after marriage, made a sentimental illusion of missing a life partner. Occasionally she also felt remorse for him.
The police were bent upon opening the case of Robert Lucas. They had maintained that Lucas only killed Catherine. But they must prove it with evidence in court. After all their efforts failed, they got a surprise lead. One plumber, who was working on a job in Lucas’ residence, found a cell phone inside the toilet tank, fully wrapped in a plastic case. When he dialed the number stored in it, the response came from Susan Hayward. Since the plumber was aware of Susan Hayward’s sensational case, he got scared and handed over the phone to the local precinct. They, in turn, contacted the concerned detective and gave it to him. The detective was immensely pleased with the phone, as it contained elaborate evidence which he was looking for to open the case.
On a detailed analysis of the various messages in the cell, the detective found that there were calls made and exchange of text messages between Robert Lucas and Susan Hayward. This established their long illicit intimacy had come to Smith’s attention. He warned Susan many a time about this, but she continued her ‘love affair’ with the neighbor. The various text messages also indicated Smith’s assassination was a preplanned by Lucas. On the day of shooting, based on the suggestion of Lucas, Susan got the gun concealed with her during her vehement argument with Smith. Lucas had suggested to her to provoke him during their talk, when he would be impelled to kill her. Accordingly, during their conversation, she purposely incited Smith with derogatory words. But Smith’s expectation was, by such threatening to kill her, Susan would change her mind and stop her illicit intimacy. With this thought when Smith made a move, Susan mistook his advancing towards her was for killing. Hence in self-defense, she shot Smith.
After a few days, one day a messenger delivered a communication to Susan from the court asking her to be present on a particular day. She called her attorney to find out the details of this new development. He clarified to her that the court would like her personal testimony on some missing points. His clarification was more a puzzle to her when she had already got a jury’s clear ‘not guilty ‘verdict.
Robert Lucas was very regular in contacting the police department and the investigating detective whether they found any information of the ‘killer’ in Catherine’s murder. This he was doing constantly so that the investigating team and media would not doubt him as the killer of Catherine. With the insurance money, he enjoyed his life very happily, spending more time with Susan Hayward. Their proximity as neighbors was very handy to continue their clandestine intimacy. But his happiness also was short lived as he also got a court summons to appear on the same day as Susan.
The reconvened court was in full session with the same Judge Hamilton presiding. The Judge ordered the prosecuting attorney to present his case. The prosecuting attorney had requested the honorable court to reopen the earlier two cases of Susan Hayward and Robert Lucas and tried again concurrently, as new evidence found relating to both. They clearly indicate both Susan and Robert were directly involved in the killing of Smith and Catherine. Then the prosecution produced the cell phone of Robert, that was found in the water tank of the toilet in Lucas’ residence. From various mutual conversations recorded between Robert and Susan in the cell, it was clear that they had illicit intimacy for long and Smith’s knew about it. Despite his several warnings to Susan to put an end to their illicit relationship, she continued with it. This was responsible for his violent behavior with Susan, and in his frenzy mood he had threatened to kill her. Smith thought that such serious threatening would stop her intimacy. Instead, it was counterproductive and made Susan shoot Smith to continue with it. After the shooting, she even suggested to Robert to do away with Catherine, so that they could be free to their life partnership. All these were exchanged in various text messages and conversations found in Robert’s cell phone. The prosecution then handed over the cell phone to the Judge for his scrutiny. As both the murders were preplanned and executed for their personal gains, the prosecution requested the maximum punishment be given to both Susan and Robert. With clear evidence now produced, the defense had to be silent and offered with no comments.
The Judge immediately ordered remanding both and adjourned the case to the next day for judgment. Considering various factors including the state law against death sentence, the judge gave his verdict of life sentence to both without parole.
In the end, though Susan and Robert had the same old proximity of neighbors even in correction facility, they could not achieve their long-cherished ambition of life partnership in the rest of their lives.
