TAKING a step back, it seems worthwhile focusing on the obvious inconsistencies, mainly those of Patricia and Arletta Wright.
If Slaughter was a regular visitor to the camper, then surely at least one of Slaughter’s dabs, a fingerprint, or a palm print, would have been discovered in the interior? They had not been found.
Despite the statements given by Larry Wright and Gerald Singleton – both statements being retracted as soon as these two men were released from jail – not a shred of physical evidence was found to say that Slaughter had ever been in the camper. Indeed, there was just the print on the outside door mirror to say that he had even touched the vehicle.
The police now started digging deeper. One not insignificant issue that caught their attention was Patricia Wright’s unusual behaviour shortly after Willie Jerome Scott disappeared.
The first hint of Patricia Wright’s unusual behaviour came from Larry Wright who told police that, within a day of Jerome’s disappearance, Patricia started calling various hospitals trying to locate him. Larry claimed that this all seemed strange because Jerome had a habit of vanishing for several days, indeed weeks at a time, and that Patricia Wright had never seemed concerned about his whereabouts until the day he went off to wash his van.
A family friend called Betty Joyce Hill had told detectives that, on the day Jerome disappeared, Patricia had phoned her to say that Willie had gone off to wash his camper and hadn’t returned. Patricia said she was worried about him.
Betty Hill’s recollection corroborated Larry Wright’s observation.
Detectives interviewed Lillian McConico who claimed that Patricia had phoned her, too – not once, but on two occasions, asking if her former husband was with her. He was not, but this was highly unusual behaviour for a woman who knew that her former husband would disappear for days, even weeks at a time, and had never concerned herself before.
If the police were going to tie this somewhat creaky case up, it would be finding proof of a motive for the killing.
Larry Slaughter and Patricia Wright say they certainly were not lovers, while other members of the family say they were. Nevertheless, this matters little because Willie and Patricia had already parted company before the murder, and there was apparently no animosity between them.
Sniffing around, although somewhat belatedly, the police finally got wind of the insurance payout to Patricia. This alleged motive supposition was slightly rocky at the outset, for why murder a man who was suffering from terminal cancer with a few months left to live? Nevertheless, when detectives made more thorough enquiries at New York Life, the company who had issued the policy, they were surprised to discover the existence of a second double-indemnity policy – No. 37645648 – a policy that, to this very day, the Wrights argue never existed.
The police officers’ suspicions were further aroused when they learned from New York Life that Patricia Scott had made the claim on the first policy with somewhat indecent haste on Tuesday, 23 September 1981 – the second working day after the murder – and before Willie Scott was cremated on Monday, 28 September at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale.
She picked up a cheque for $30,352.81 less than a month later, so the first insurance policy had been paid. When I asked Patricia Wright how she had spent the money, she wrote to say that she had reinvested it into an annuity and, with the balance of $10,000, she had bought a car. This was a complete lie.
We know of Patricia’s unusual concern about Willie’s whereabouts the day after he vanished – she had never worried before. We also know of the anonymous 911 call alerting police to the body. I asked myself, could this call have been made by Patricia Wright or Larry Slaughter, who wanted the money as soon as possible?
In investigations where circumstantial evidence plays a large part in justice being meted out, a jury takes into consideration acts indicative of guilty consciousness or intent; the anonymous 911 call and Patricia’s unusual concern for Willie most certainly fit into this category.
Scanning the second policy application, the detectives took down the details and followed up a few leads. It transpired that James Alley, the insurance agent who sold the policy, hadn’t actually seen Willie Jerome Scott complete or even sign the application form.
Alley, who knew Patricia and Willie, took Pat’s word that Willie would sign the form when he returned later in the day. However, Patricia Wright forged the signature and passed it off as genuine.
And, as a further example of the integrity of public-spirited Patricia Wright – probably due to an innocent oversight – she conveniently failed to tick the appropriate box indicating that Willie was less than 100 per cent fit. In fact, as we know, he was dying of cancer with just a few months left to live!
The homicide investigators also noted that the second double-indemnity life policy – this time to the tune of a $55,189.77 payout in the case of accidental death or murder – had been taken out on Wednesday, 26 August 1981, a year after the couple’s divorce and just 24 days before the man’s murder.
The investigators learned that it was Patricia Scott, not Willie, who had paid the first and only premium payment. Coincidentally, too, she was the sole beneficiary. She had received the full payout of $55,189.77 on Friday, 21 January 1983, and not told a soul.
Further detective work proved that she had reinvested $30,189.77 of this money back into an annuity with New York Life, and had spent the balance on, among other things, a mini-van.
Technically, and this is a vital red flag, Patricia and Arletta Wright are correct when they say that ‘the second policy never existed’. I have since confirmed that the second insurance policy document was not issued before Willie Scott’s murder. Indeed, the document was never issued at all because, by then, the man was dead and cremated.
However, despite their knowledge to the contrary, what the Wrights conveniently failed to point out to the police, or me – and they most certainly have not informed their thousands of supporters – is the fact that Willie’s life was covered under New York Life’s ‘Temporary Conditional Coverage Agreement’ from the date of signature and the first payment. In her own letter, she states, ‘The DA said I had two insurance policies, yet they could not find a second insurance policy anywhere because there was always only one.’
Obviously, and crucial to her claims of being an innocent woman, Patricia is trying to hide from everyone the existence of the second policy taken out shortly before the man’s murder, because the payout sum of $30,352.81 is closer to the figure of $30,000 – that of the first policy. But in arguing this she has made a fatal mistake, an irrevocable error in which she foolishly admits the lie. Patricia Wright claims specifically that, using the $30,000 payout from the first policy, she purchased the mini-van for $10,000 and used the remainder for the annuity.
However, the insurance company’s records are accurate. They prove beyond any doubt that Patricia Wright only purchased one annuity with them and this was done on payment of the second policy. If so, she could have given the money to Larry Slaughter as suggested by Singleton.
In a document supplied to me by the Wrights, dated Wednesday, 19 March 2003, item # 34, Arletta Wright poses this interesting question: ‘Why would Patricia Wright want to murder her husband – in fact, they were divorced – knowing that he was the sole financial source of income for their two children and herself at the time?’
This observation was somewhat disingenuous because Willie Scott did not support his family at all. Patricia was receiving $705.40 a month in social security benefits.
Of course, we recall that the claim on the first policy was made just three days after Willie Scott’s murder and, maybe because of financial hardship, Patricia did need the money urgently. And we know that Willie Scott had terminal cancer, so why did she and Slaughter kill him? The answer can only rest with the ‘double-indemnity’ clause. $30,000 would only be paid out if cause of death were accidental bodily harm or homicide. If Willie Scott had died through natural causes, and he had terminal cancer with just months to live, then the payout would have been a mere $15,000. The very existence of a second double-indemnity policy being taken out under extremely dubious circumstances merely sets Patricia Wright’s motive for murder in stone.
It has since been confirmed by several witness statements, and supported by police documents, that Larry Slaughter paid a number of unannounced visits to Patricia Wright’s residence directly after the murder, demanding that some of his clothes be returned. When he turned up, she hid behind locked doors.
Patricia Wright had never washed Slaughter’s clothes in the past, although immediately after the murder she had washed a pair of his trousers, a sweatshirt and a lightweight jacket. Arletta and Patricia further confirmed this in letters, as did Slaughter and Singleton in their police statements.
The suggestion is that these items could have only been the bloodstained clothes worn by Slaughter at the time of the murder. However, this being the case, one has to ask why Patricia did not give them to him, rather than hide behind closed curtains. Indeed, Slaughter was extremely keen to have his clothes returned to him because they had been contaminated with physical evidence that tied him to the murder and he was fearful that the cunning Patricia Wright – as another form of insurance – might use this against him.
But it was not just his clothes Slaughter wanted. He needed his cut of the first insurance payout and this dovetails somewhat neatly into the statement given, then retracted by Gerald Singleton, who told detectives that, after his release from prison in 1981, and after the payout of the first policy, that he ran an errand for Patricia Wright, to deliver ‘clothes’ in a brown bag to Slaughter.
Singleton also claimed that Slaughter later confessed to the murder, adding that the bag had also contained his split of the insurance money.
Whether the $20,000 figure is correct, we may never know. However, with Slaughter having got his slice of the action, Patricia Wright would have been left with just $10,000 from the first policy payout and, as she herself admits, she used the $10,000 to buy a car, which was a lie. She bought the car after the second policy was paid.
While Patricia Wright had possibly been plotting the murder of Willie Scott with her accomplice for some time, she would have been wise not to inform Slaughter of the second policy she had discreetly taken out just 24 days before Jerome was murdered.
Indeed, until this very day, Patricia has apparently convinced her family, as well as her supporters, that a second policy never existed. Technically, she is correct, but as we now know she had reinsured Willie’s life anyway.
Patricia Wright claims she is a good woman, and wouldn’t you say you were an angel if you were trying to extract yourself from a life sentence? She says that she loved Willie and that she would never have harmed him. But the fact remains that whoever conspired to murder Willie Jerome Scott for the purposes of collecting his life insurance, and other monies, as well as the expensive jewellery, were very devious, manipulative and evil people indeed.
Having completed my investigation into the case of Patricia Wright, out of courtesy I emailed a copy to Arletta Wright for her comments, and the results were truly amazing.
She stated that I was ‘absolutely 200 per cent right’, and that she [Arletta] had written all of her letters to me, and compiled her meticulously presented files ‘believing 200 per cent’ that the information she had received from Patricia Wright was honest. She added:
Please forgive me if you feel I have deceived you. I didn’t mean to be taken that way. I have asked my sister how much insurance she got and she guaranteed me it was only $30,000. She said someone else must have cashed it [the second policy].
Arletta Wright in a letter to the author
All of which proved that, even at such a late stage, the duplicitous Patricia Wright was still denying the existence of a second policy.
When I pointed out in reply that for someone else to cash in the policy was impossible – the insurance company’s records were accepted by both prosecution and defence as totally accurate, and that Patricia had cashed both policies because the money had been deposited in her bank account – Arletta had to concede:
I agree. I believe you 100 per cent … my sister should have been straightforward right up front … It makes me look like a fool, to go to bat with my sister if I don’t have the truth. It definitely hurts a lot … Patricia should have been straight from the beginning and said ‘Yes, I got the insurance but I didn’t kill him.’
Arletta Wright in a letter to the author
I reminded Arletta, a deeply religious person who quotes scripture in her letters, that she had obviously carefully studied the court transcripts because she always had any other information I required at her fingertips. Surely, I suggested, she must have noticed the discrepancy over the insurance policies; she had been a fraud investigator for a telephone company in the past. Did she not attend the trial and hear all of this before? Obviously, I suggested, motive for financial gain lies at the root of the matter.
Arletta’s reply was interesting:
I didn’t get a chance to read the transcripts all the way through, though I do my best. I had my hands full for the past two years … my daughter had a baby girl. I didn’t read all the transcripts. But I believe in my sister’s innocence. I strongly believe the truth will come out.
The truth will set Patricia free. This is the first time I have heard about my brother Larry Wright confessing to a murder. I have never ever heard of such. Where did you get that statement from? My brother was a little boy when Jerome died.
Arletta Wright in a letter to the author
I told Arletta that this statement had come from none other than Patricia Wright, who had told me in a letter that Larry had confessed to the murder.
Arletta’s reply was immediate. ‘My sister never tells me what she writes in her letters.’
Like an insect struggling to extricate itself from a Venus Fly Trap, Patricia Wright is also fighting for her freedom. However, in doing so she attempted to conceal the truth, not only from me, but is still concealing the truth from the people who believe she is innocent – including the person she claims to love above all others, her sister, Arletta.
First, Patricia lied about the insurance policies and, it seems, deceived Arletta into the bargain. Then she lied about Larry Wright admitting to the murder, and that all the family knew that Larry had confessed, when he had not and they did not.
At the time of writing, Arletta says she is deeply shocked, especially as for years she has convinced herself of Patricia’s innocence, and has gone to considerable lengths and financial expense through well-meaning efforts to prove it. Indeed, such is the deep-seated belief in Patricia’s innocence that, even now, Arletta says she holds out hope that her sister is telling the truth and prays to God that this is so.
In one of Patricia Wright’s letters to me from prison, she states, clutching at straws, ‘There was no physical evidence, real or imagined, to say that I had committed this murder.’
On the face of it, Patricia Wright seems convincing enough; however, a closer look under the covers reveals that she was convicted on overwhelming circumstantial evidence.
It is the cumulative effect, the ‘arithmetic of circumstantial evidence’, which causes so many juries to say that, even though the evidence before them is entirely indirect, they are ‘satisfied beyond any reasonable doubt’ of the safety of convicting, as was the case with Larry Slaughter and, at a separate trial, that of Patricia Wright.
Patricia Wright’s final plea to me was:
I am fighting for my life. I simply received insurance money, now long gone, because of his death. I never wanted him gone or dead. We had loved each other. We have a son who needs both his parents. We stayed friends till the end. I did not commit murder. I am innocent. I am a good person. I don’t deserve this. Please help me.
Arletta Wright in a letter to the author
In desperation, Arletta phoned her sister in prison. During the short conversation, Patricia finally admitted to the second policy, and Arletta confirmed this in an email dated Friday, 30 May 2003:
Chris, thank you, I appreciate your help. I spoke to my sister Patricia Wright on Wednesday by telephone. I advised that I needed the truth. My sister did say that, yes, she got all the insurance money. And I knew all along.
Arletta Wright in an email to the author
Having seen the meticulously presented files and documents sent to me by Arletta Wright, and having received much correspondence from her and speaking with her over the telephone, I am sure she is, or was, convinced of her sister’s innocence. ‘And I knew all along’ might also refer to her strong suspicions.
Like a visitor viewing one of Monet’s grand works, and as the closest relative to Patricia Wright, Arletta, a God-fearing woman, stood too close to the larger picture and, through no fault of her own, she couldn’t see the wood for the trees.
Arletta Wright comes from home-grown and simple stock, and it is not uncommon for relatives – even when faced with the obvious fact that one of their family is guilty – to revert to denial. They simply cannot allow themselves to imagine that someone they love and hold dear to their hearts could commit such terrible crimes for such cold-blooded reasons. I am of the belief that Arletta is no exception. For years, her thoughts and feelings would have cemented into one of almost total belief in Patricia’s claim of innocence. She has been surrounded by citizens, various journalists and lawyers who have supported Patricia Wright, and all of this has combined to strengthen Arletta’s resolve. But herein lies the problem.
Arletta, and all of Patricia’s supporters, have been predisposed – for their own personal reasons – towards this woman in prison. They have, in effect, their own well-meaning agendas. The newspaper articles reporting on the case are most certainly biased towards injustices perceived – rightly or wrongly – to have been carried out by a largely white California law and criminal-justice system upon the black community.
Larry Wright insisted that he wanted to help his sister get out of jail. Then, in his second letter to me, he said he would only do so for $10,000 – cash up front! I believe that, in desperation, Arletta Wright turned to me in an honest attempt finally to uncover the truth. She offered payment at the outset. I declined, saying that, if I took the case, I would remain unbiased and I did not want to be influenced in any way. I explained that the chips would fall as they may, and that my findings would be published for the public record, either to support Patricia’s claim of innocence or to confirm her guilt.
I have no feelings either way for Patricia Wright, who now sits in a cell at Chowchilla Women’s Facility in California. I do, however, wish Arletta Wright all the best for the future.
This chapter is based upon 1800 case documents and personal correspondence.