EIGHT

The barmaid, Susan Peters, who answered the call on the pay phone behind the bar just after Judy had left on the night of her murder, was prepared to testify that the caller was a woman. I gave considerable thought to the admissibility of that fact, and asked that all counsel meet with Judge Young in chambers to discuss the matter.

MR. BUGLIOSI: “I am going to urge upon the jury the good possibility that the person who called Alan was the killer. If the jury accepts that, this could conceivably hurt Sandra Stockton. So my point is this: I could instruct Susan Peters in advance not to blurt out that it was a woman. This would involve coaching a witness, but I feel it is necessary.”

Terry Callas naturally agreed with my position, but Dave Goldin had a very good point in opposition to us.

MR. GOLDIN: “The District Attorney is going to go into the force of the injuries, the beating on the head. I think these are injuries that would have been more likely to have been caused by a man than a woman. If he is going to argue it was the killer who called, I want to point out to the jury that it was not the killer. That the caller was a woman.”

Personally, I did not think the brutality of Judy’s murder was beyond the power of a woman, but I had to admit to Judge Young that Dave Goldin was correct about the inequity of foreclosing his right to cross-examine Susan Peters on the gender of the caller.

Whichever way we proceeded, one of the defendants was going to have his (her) rights impaired, but my feeling remained that the prejudicial impact against Sandra was the greater of the two evils. Judge Young sat on the problem for several days and finally ruled that the gender of the caller could not be disclosed to the jury. Dave, unhappy, had no choice but to accept the ruling and I, in the meantime, instructed Susan Peters to be extremely careful of her wording while on the stand. Even a small slip such as, “She asked to speak with Alan,” could result in Terry Callas, on behalf of Sandra, demanding a mistrial.

Susan Peters, a small, brown-eyed woman in her mid-twenties, testified that the Grand Duchess Bar had been open for business for only two weeks prior to Judy’s murder. During the first week, Alan had come in every other day, she said, but during the seven days leading up to the night of the murder, he had not been in at all. The place had been left in the hands of his manager, Gus Pilich.

If Alan had anticipated being accused of murdering Judy himself, he obviously knew that the Grand Duchess, at nine miles from the Castillian Apartments, would be a far more persuasive place for an alibi than the Burbank bar, which was only a matter of blocks from the Castillian.

Q. BY MR. BUGLIOSI: “How would you describe Alan’s disposition the two weeks prior to April 20th?”

A. “He wasn’t himself.”

Q. “In what way was he different?”

A. “He was jumpy, nervous.”

Q. “Much more so than usual?”

A. “Yes.”

Peters, still Alan’s friend and employee, added that she believed Alan’s edginess was attributable to the poor business the new bar was doing. I would later argue to the jury that was an unlikely reason for Alan’s frayed nerves. Any business is slow going at the beginning. Alan had already been through one such period when the Grand Duke in Burbank first opened. After six or eight weeks under Alan’s new management that bar began to do fine, and by the time the new Grand Duchess opened in Sunland, the first bar was grossing $4,500 a month. A Dun & Bradstreet financial check on Alan, run by Detective Strickland, revealed that in February, 1968, only two months before Judy’s death, Alan had liabilities of only $6,000 and assets of $30,000.

Mrs. Peters testified to the conversation with Judy on the night of the murder in which Judy told her she did not know what had been bothering Alan of late, but that she had been thinking of going back to live with her parents. She also admitted that after serving a few beers and talking with Judy for a while she heard Alan say to Judy, and quite firmly: “It’s time for you to go now.”

Alan walked Judy out to the car, and, per Susan Peters, was some “ten or fifteen minutes” in coming back into the bar. Alan had told the police that the only thing he could remember saying to Judy outside the bar was to tell her to get the Jaguar filled with gas on the way home. I wondered what else was discussed in the parking lot during the other “ten or fifteen minutes.” Had Alan, wanting Judy to be vulnerable when she parked the car at home that night, given his wife some story about why the convertible’s top should remain down that night? The Standard gas station attendant, who filled the Jaguar’s gas tank on that chilly evening, would later testify to Judy’s having been driving with a blanket across her knees and a scarf about her head.

If Alan did convince Judy to leave the convertible’s top down that night, it was then logical for him to instruct Judy to park the car in the carport rather than on the street, as she so often did. The carport area gave cover—cover from rain and cover for a murderer lying in wait.

When we reached the point in Susan Peters’ testimony concerning the phone call for Alan, the sex of the caller was scrupulously avoided, and all that the jury heard was that the call was short, lasting no more than two or three minutes. Peters went on to testify that after the call, Alan resumed a game of pool with the bar’s bouncer, Gary Deaton, until approximately forty-five minutes later, when he received a second call (the one from Pete Morris relaying Mrs. Miller’s message to call her at the Castillian).

MRS. PETERS: “He got the phone call and all I heard Alan say was, ‘What happened? Where? Oh, my God. When?’ And he had a very shocked look on his face.”

On cross-examination, Dave Goldin worked in a piece of quite clever questioning concerning the first phone call.

Q. “Did Alan receive many calls at the bar?”

A. “Quite a few.”

Q. “It wasn’t uncommon for him to receive calls?”

A. “No.”

Q. “Was there an ad being run for barmaids at the time?”

A. “Yes, there was. I believe there was.”

With that one question, Dave had accomplished his objective. The fact that an ad for barmaids was being run in the paper at the time suggested that Alan would have been receiving a number of phone inquiries from women. Moreover, just by the fact that Susan Peters answered his question that an advertisement for barmaids was being run, and did not add, “but this call was from a man,” the conclusion the jury might easily come to was that the call had, in fact, been from a woman. While obeying Judge Young’s ruling about not asking about the sex of the caller, Dave had managed to get before the jury an inference of precisely what he had wanted.

In addition (and perhaps as a by-product that was unintentional), Goldin’s implication that the caller was a woman who was answering the barmaid ad, if believed, eliminated the possibility of prejudice to Sandra.

Bar bouncer Gary Deaton’s testimony about that Saturday night was virtually identical to that offered by Susan Peters. Gus Pilich, the Grand Duchess’ manager, had given the police a similar version of the night. Alan thus had an airtight alibi for his whereabouts at the time of the murder.

Theresa Condi, the other barmaid and the one possible employee of Alan’s who was present that night who could contradict Alan’s alibi, had not resurfaced after disappearing from Los Angeles shortly after the murder. Three weeks before our trial ended, word came back to DA investigator Dave Correa that Miss Condi had been located by the Utah Sheriff’s Office. She had checked into a motel in Utah, where she was living under an alias. All she would say under questioning was that several days after the murder she had received an anonymous warning to get out of L.A. The day after she related this to the Utah authorities, Theresa Condi disappeared a second time and was never heard from or located again.

For the jury’s sake, whenever feasible I tried to maintain a sense of continuity by calling witnesses in the chronological sequence of the events about which they were to testify. Robert Jenner, the young Standard station attendant who gassed up Judy’s Jaguar around 11:00 P.M. that night, testified that Judy was “talking quite a bit and smiling.” She gave no indication she thought she was being followed, nor did Jenner see anyone following her.

Larry Beauregard, tenant at the Castillian, then testified to his hearing, two or three minutes before 11:30 P.M., the three rapid-fire shots: “I can’t remember exactly if it was one, two, three or one, and then two, three, just with one slight delay.”

In either case, his testimony about the gunshots was somewhat puzzling in that the police’s only explanation for the two unexpended rounds of ammunition found at the scene was that the murderer had had to take the time to twice manually work the slide of a malfunctioning automatic, thereby ejecting two unfired cartridges. This would have caused two pauses. Beauregard, however, seemed sure of his memory.

John Miller, the Castillian’s resident manager, testified to his finding, at 11:30 P.M., Judy in the Jaguar, its motor, lights, and radio still on.

MR. MILLER: “I wouldn’t say she was conscious or unconscious. She was just in . . . well, it’s . . . I really couldn’t say. It’s . . . ” Mr. Miller swallowed thickly, obviously distressed at having to recall that night. “I think you would have to have a doctor to tell you that. I tried to talk to her but she . . . she couldn’t tell me anything.”

The first time John Miller saw Alan after Judy’s death was early Sunday morning, around breakfast time.

Q. BY MR. BUGLIOSI: “Did you get any impression as to how he was taking it?”

A. “Well, when I first met him, Alan was outside. He had a cup of coffee and he was walking up and down the street, kind of shaking his head. When I started to talk to Alan, well . . . to me he just didn’t seem like a man who just lost his wife.”

Q. “Didn’t act bereaved?”

A. “Other than he had his head bowed down, kind of half shaking it.”

Miller stated that Alan asked him that morning if he had seen anyone suspicious the night before. Miller told him no. The next weekend Alan came to Miller, requesting to be moved to a different apartment in the building, and again Alan asked if Miller had seen anyone that Saturday night. A few days later, Alan asked the same question for a third time.

Q. BY MR. BUGLIOSI: “Had you been ambiguous at all, or had you told him clearly the first and second times that you did not see anyone?”

A. “I clearly told him I did not see anyone.”

Q. “But he nonetheless asked you three times?”

A. “Yes, three times. I don’t remember if he asked me any more.” I suspected the defense would argue at the trial’s end that Alan had merely been acting as a distraught husband, desperate for a lead. My theory for his dogged, perhaps worried questioning was, of course, a bit different.

After testimony from officer George Wood and inspector Robert Wells as to the physical evidence at the scene of Judy’s murder, Dr. Holloway, who conducted the autopsy on Judy, testified to the cause of death being cerebral concussion and hemorrhage due to skull fractures caused by the two gunshot wounds to the head. Autopsy pictures revealed the gunpowder tattooing around both wounds, indicating, as with the murder of Henry Stockton, that the muzzle of the gun had been quite close to Judy’s head when fired, almost at skin contact range. The multiple blunt force injuries to the head Holloway cited merely as “other conditions.”

I had Dr. Holloway draw an anatomical diagram on a blackboard for the jury. He stated that the fatal bullets had taken a slightly front to back and upward path.

With Judy seated in a low sports car, the killer would have had to almost shoot from the hip for the bullets to have taken an upward path. A more likely explanation, I thought, was that Judy had been leaning over to reach the gun in her purse, thus putting her head at an angle that would have made the bullet paths appear as they did.

Mrs. Miller testified to her having called Pete Morris at the Grand Duke in Burbank and telling him that Alan’s wife had been in an “accident.” She related how she subsequently learned that Judy had, in fact, been shot and when she told this to Alan when he called her, he had merely repeated the word: “Shot?”

Q. BY MR. BUGLIOSI: “Did he sound distraught in any way?”

A. “No. He was calm.”

Q. “Mrs. Miller, do you consider yourself an enemy of Alan Palliko’s?”

A. “No, of course not. I didn’t even know him that well. He was just a tenant.”

MR. BUGLIOSI: “No further questions.”

Following Mrs. Miller, James Warner, the L.A. Sheriff’s Office firearms expert, gave testimony about the murder weapon’s probable manufacturer, the caliber of bullets, etc. The fact that three out of the five bullet casings were stamped “WW,” Winchester’s more recent insignia, would tie in later when the jury would hear Capt. Warren King’s testimony that the partially empty box of .25 caliber cartridges found in Alan’s apartment was of this newer “WW” vintage.

Perched nervously on the stand, Alan’s former barmaid Paula Boudreau was in mortal fear of him and his friends, though she would not admit it in court. When I asked her about her conversation with Alan that she had related to Strickland and Vandergrift, I found that pinning Paula Boudreau down to a straight honest answer was like trying to rivet a nail into a custard pie.

Q. “About a week prior to Judy being shot, when you and Alan went out looking for girls to be barmaids, did you stop for coffee and have a conversation with Alan?”

A. “Yes.”

Q. “Would you please tell the Judge and jury the substance of that conversation?”

A. “Well, could you be more specific?”

Q. “Apart from discussing barmaids, what did he say to you and what did you say to him?”

A. “Just conversation.”

Q. “I am interested in what that conversation was.”

A. “Well, it varied to a lot of things.”

Glancing over at the jury, I saw forklift operator Wes Knudsen look at me with a sympathetic smile, as if for the first time in his life beginning to appreciate his own line of work.

Q. “Mrs. Boudreau, you understand that you are under oath?”

A. “Yes.”

I finally got her to admit that the topic of guns and killing for hire “somehow” came up.

Q. “Who brought this subject up, Mrs. Boudreau?”

A. “Well . . . ”

Not looking at me, Mrs. Boudreau moistened her lips as if about to answer, but then fell silent, as though hoping the question would simply go away.

Q. “Did you have any intention to pay someone to kill somebody for you?”

A. “Not hardly.”

Q. “Isn’t it true you told two officers that Alan Palliko started the conversation about killing for hire?”

A. “Somewhat.”

Q. “Talk up, Mrs. Boudreau. Don’t be afraid.”

A. “In somewhat.”

Q. “What did you say?”

A. “In somewhat, but just talk. I asked about it—it was just conversation.”

Q. “You brought up the subject?”

A. “Umm—”

Q. “Do you know what I mean by ‘brought up’? Who initiated the conversation about guns and a killing for hire? Who originated the conversation? Who started the conversation, Mrs. Boudreau?”

A. “I’d say I did.”

Q. “Is that what you told Detective Strickland and Lieutenant Vandergrift?”

A. “Yes. I said I asked Alan how people got away with that type of thing—it was just conversation.”

I had Mrs. Boudreau draw on a piece of paper and explain to the jury Alan’s diagram on a napkin of how one gets away with a killing for hire. The diagram was hardly scientific, I thought to myself, but after an evening with his type of friends and a couple of stiff bourbons, Alan must have flopped into bed some nights feeling like a genius.

Q. “Did Alan Palliko tell you during the conversation that in a week or two you were going to see just how cold and cruel life could be?”

A. “No. He said within the next two weeks that something may happen that I might think was very cruel.”

Q. “Did he add that some things just had to happen?”

A. “No.”

Q. “You didn’t tell Detective Strickland and Lieutenant Vandergrift that?”

A. “No.”

Mrs. Boudreau reiterated from the witness stand what she had told the Burbank detectives—that she interpreted Alan’s “cruel” statement as meaning he would have to close down one of the bars and fire the employees.

Q. “The night Alan called Janet Turnbull at the bar from jail, did you see Janet writing anything on a note pad?”

A. “Just scribbling writing.”

Q. “What did you see her write down?”

A. “Nothing specifically that I would remember correctly. Something about a gun. But I don’t know what kind.”

Q. “Do you recall telling the police that you saw Janet write down ‘.22 caliber’ (Henry was killed by a .22) and then put a circle around it?”

A. “No.”

Q. “Do you know Gus Pilich?”

A. “Yes . . . yes, I do.”

Q. “Did Gus Pilich come see you about a week ago at the Surfside Bar, where you work now, and tell you he didn’t want to see you get hurt?”

A. “Just because he liked me and had known me for a long time.”

Dave Goldin stormed to the bench, demanding a mistrial.

MR. GOLDIN: “What has happened now is that the District Attorney has been allowed to put on Gus Pilich indirectly, without calling him to testify, that if anyone testifies against Alan, harm will come to them.”

MR. BUGLIOSI: “I am going to put Gus Pilich on next. He’s in the back of the courtroom. He’s a very close friend of Alan Palliko’s and I am going to call him to the stand.”

Judge Young denied the motion for a mistrial, but when I got back to the counsel table I discovered there was a quality trial lawyers would do quite well to possess—eyes in the back of their heads.

Q. “Mrs. Boudreau, do you see Gus Pilich in the courtroom right now?”

A. “No.”

I turned and faced the rows of spectators.

MR. BUGLIOSI: “Is Gus Pilich in the courtroom?” There was no response. While we had been at the bench, Pilich had sneaked out. He remained in hiding for the duration of the trial.

After Paula Boudreau, I called Detective Strickland, who testified to each and every part of Boudreau’s conversation with Alan which she had related to him but had denied in court. He told of her obvious fear of Alan.

“All Alan has to do is make one phone call from jail,” Strickland quoted her statement to the police.

I then called Raymond Byrne, a fellow deputy district attorney who also happened to be a personal friend of Mrs. Boudreau and her husband. Byrne had visited their home only a week earlier, trying to coax Paula into testifying to all she knew.

MR. BYRNE: “She said she had an intense fear of both Alan Palliko and his associates. She named one particular person, a person by the name of Pilich.”

I had little doubt that twelve intelligent jury members could add things up and realize exactly what had been going on backstage in Paula Boudreau’s life.

Jason Simcoe and Donald Whalen had known each other since childhood, or as Whalen put it during his testimony: “We runned around together a little in Detroit.” They wound up in the same child guidance center, and twelve years later would be caught for committing the armed robbery of Herman Siegel at his residence in Van Nuys. Although Alan’s buying some of the property stolen in the robbery was irrelevant to the charges against him, and was not introduced at the trial, what was very relevant were the statements Alan had subsequently been foolish enough to make to these two men he had double-crossed.

Jay Simcoe, a compact fellow with a face as pale and pasty as prison food, and a small, telling scar to the side of his eye, testified not only to Alan’s comment, “The police haven’t found the gun yet and they never will, so I ain’t worried,” but also to another incriminating statement Alan had made to both Simcoe and Whalen. It was in October of 1968 that all three had met up in a holding tank at the Hall of Justice. Alan told them both at that time, according to Simcoe’s testimony, “I hear they don’t like snitches up at the state joint.”

Goldin, as I knew he would, had a field day in attacking Simcoe’s credibility. Simcoe, an ill-educated but not unintelligent man, had to walk a thin line between being vague enough about his own criminal history so as not to harm his own chances for an early parole, and yet trying to establish the honesty of his testimony about Alan.

Q. BY MR. GOLDIN: “Have you ever been convicted of a felony, Mr. Simcoe?”

A. “Obviously I have; I’m in the penitentiary.”

Q. “The offense of which you are convicted, that involved pistol whipping somebody, didn’t it?” Dave asked, knowing very well the circumstances of the Siegel robbery.

A. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t part of my conviction. I was convicted of armed robbery.”

Q. “Did the offense involve pistol whipping somebody?”

A. “I didn’t plead guilty to that, sir.”

Q. “Your memory has blacked out for those events. Is that right?”

A. “If I didn’t plead guilty to it, it is, yeah.”

Q. “Then it didn’t exist?”

A. “Obviously it didn’t.”

Q. “And you, of course, are telling the truth under oath on the witness stand right now. Is that right?”

Alan, sitting up and smiling, was enjoying Simcoe’s limbo dance.

Q. “It would never occur to you to take the stand and lie. Is that right?”

A. “Only if it was in my own behalf. Have to be awful high stakes.”

Q. “How about the fact that you hate Alan; isn’t that kind of a big stake?”

A. “No.”

Q. “They can’t punish you for perjury, can they? You are not afraid somebody might put you in jail if you tell a lie on the stand, are you?”

A. “I’m already in jail, pal,” Simcoe replied, not without a touch of panache.

MR. GOLDIN: “No further questions.”

I was glad Simcoe acknowledged that he had nothing to lose were he to lie about Alan. This type of candor could only help his credibility with the jury.

When Donald Whalen took the stand, he testified to Alan’s “snitch” comment; that Alan told him, like Simcoe, that the police would never find the gun; and to Alan’s having added that that was a “hole” for him to stand in. Whalen related further that while riding on the prisoner bus between the County Jail and the Hall of Justice he had asked Alan if he had really killed his wife. According to Whalen, Alan responded: “With two and a half murder counts over my head, you don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?”

Alan had sneered, Whalen stated, that it would not matter if he squealed about selling Alan the stolen gun because, according to Alan, “it was a Spanish .25 that killed Judy.”

Although I believed Simcoe and Whalen were telling the truth, I could not really have blamed the jurors if they had not believed a single word of two convicted felons who had reason to seek revenge against Alan. Their testimony was strongly corroborated, however, the very next day. Gary Booker, the bailiff in our trial, approached me with the information that he too had heard Alan make his warning about snitches. While he was leading a file of chained men, among them Alan and Donald Whalen, back to the holding tank several weeks earlier, Alan and Whalen had started to trade some belligerent comments. It was then that Booker heard Alan repeat his warning about snitches. Realizing that Whalen was going to testify in Alan’s case, Booker instituted what is called a “keep away.” Whalen was transferred to a different jail and kept out of contact with Alan.

Immediately after Booker testified to having heard Alan’s warning, it was necessary to replace him as bailiff for the jury for the duration of the trial, since Booker had now become a witness for the prosecution. It is, after all, the jury bailiff who has more daily contact with the jury than any other officer of the court.

To further bolster Simcoe’s and Whalen’s credibility, I also called to the stand Simcoe’s attorney, Paul Mostman, and Whalen’s attorney, David Quan, for their testimony that no clemency or deal of any kind had ever been offered their clients for their cooperation in the case against Alan.

My purpose in calling Nick Tagli to the stand was for his testimony that Judy had stopped in at his restaurant (and according to what she told Nick, at Alan’s request) around 11: 15 on the Saturday night of the murder, and that Nick saw no one follow her when she left around ten minutes later. My theory of why Alan sent Judy to Nick’s restaurant was graphically demonstrated for the jury when I had Detective Strickland bring photographs to court showing Strickland simulating a potential killer as he peered over the five-foot-two-inch lath fence of the Castillian Apartment’s pool area (only twenty-four feet from carport 17), looking directly at the front door of Nick Tagli’s Hearthside Inn at 2100 Glenoaks Boulevard across the three street (Grismer, Bonita, and Glenoaks) intersection.

Little did I know, however, when I first called Nick Tagli to the stand that Dave Goldin was about to suggest to the jury that if Michael Brockington was not Judy’s murderer, then Nick Tagli was.

Goldin had obtained information, as had I, that assault with a deadly weapon charges were pending against the restaurateur. A fight had broken out in the Hearthside Inn some weeks prior to his testifying and Nick had allegedly reached for a gun and fired a shot. Goldin attempted to plant the seeds in the jurors’ minds that a dangerous and armed man, namely Nick, was in the restaurant the night of Judy’s murder. When he asked Nick in front of the jury if he was awaiting trial on an assault with a deadly weapon charge, I objected strongly. A lawyer can impeach a witness by asking about a felony conviction against him (as Goldin did in the case of Simcoe and Whalen), but he is not allowed to ask a witness about pending charges against him. Goldin was well aware of this basic rule of evidence, and Judge Young sustained my objection. The jury, however, even without Tagli’s answer to Goldin’s question, undoubtedly inferred that the criminal charges must have been pending against Tagli.

Goldin was not finished with this new stratagem of his. That same day in court, I called Captain Warren King to the stand for three specific areas of testimony: first, to a number of points concerning the Burbank P.D. interview with Michael Brockington (that Brockington was never considered a suspect in Judy’s murder, that he was initially protecting Palliko, etc.); secondly, that Alan did not appear upset and that he kept avoiding King’s eyes when he came to the station Sunday morning to accompany the police to the Davises’ residence to inform them of their daughter’s death; and finally, that Alan had admitted that Judy often parked on the street, and that King had measured the closest possible street space to be only fifteen feet from the Pallikos’ apartment door, much closer than the carport (and therefore a more probable place to park if a space were available). This too played into my theory that Alan had given Judy a number of instructions that night which altered her routine and set her up for the murder.

On cross-examination, Goldin asked King if the area surrounding the Castillian Apartments and Nick Tagli’s Hearthside Inn was not a high crime rate district. King answered no, that the area, in fact, had a particularly low crime rate. Goldin persisted by asking if there had not been several reported shootings over the past couple of years, and to that King answered yes.

Q. BY MR. GOLDIN: “Nick himself shot somebody in his bar, didn’t he?”

MR. BUGLIOSI: “Your Honor, this man here knows that this is improper.”

THE COURT: “Just a moment.”

MR. BUGLIOSI: “And I want the jury to know that he knows—”

THE COURT: “Just a moment, Mr. Bugliosi.”

MR. BUGLIOSI: “I am fed up with this nonsense.”

THE COURT: “Just a moment, Mr. Bugliosi. Approach the bench, please. I won’t tolerate outbreaks in court by counsel.”

MR. BUGLIOSI: “I am fed up with this man’s nonsense.”

I knew I was risking a possible contempt citation with that last parting shot, but I wanted the jury to know just how improperly Goldin was conducting himself in this matter. At the bench, Judge Young warned me against making further comments against counsel in open court, and warned Goldin to cease asking obviously improper questions.

No more than ten minutes later Goldin did it again. He asked King if Nick had ever been a suspect in this case to which King answered no, never.

Q. “Judy stopped by Nick’s bar just before going home. Isn’t that right?”

A. “As far as what he told me, yes.”

Q. “And there were other witnesses at the bar who said the same thing; isn’t that correct?”

A. “Yes, sir.”

Goldin, I had an inkling, was referring to one pathetic old barfly in particular, a woman by the name of Thelma Dewton who kept pestering the police with calls, trying to, in her words, “break the case wide open” for them.

Q. “And at least one of them said that she suspected Nick. Isn’t that right?”

Dave Goldin was not only asking for blatant inadmissible hearsay, the hearsay was of the most serious nature imaginable—that of an out of court declarant who expressed the belief that someone, other than the defendant on trial, had committed the murder. Even if the declarant had been on the witness stand herself, this would be an inadmissible opinion. It was one of the most flagrantly improper questions I had ever heard in a courtroom.

MR. BUGLIOSI: “Your Honor, I again ask the Court—”

MR. GOLDIN: “If you have an objection—”

MR. BUGILOSI: “My objection is to you, Mr. Goldin.”

THE COURT: “Just a moment. Counsel, approach the bench.”

The fight continued at the bench.

MR. BUGILOSI: “Is there any way to stop Goldin? Is there any way to stop this man?”

MR. GOLDIN: “All you have to say to shut me up at any time is, ‘I object.’”

MR. BUGILOSI: “Oh, no.”

MR. GOLDIN: “And I stop. I never finish the sentence—like you.”

MR. BUGILOSI: “No.”

There was really nothing I could do at that point; Goldin’s mission had been accomplished. Judge Young was upset with Goldin for what he had done, but was dismayed at me as well for my loss of temper. Young demanded that Goldin ask absolutely no more questions that called for obvious hearsay, and then reprimanded me for my ‘objection is to you’ comment. I did not need the reprimand. The instant the words had spilled out of me I knew I was wrong. The comment was unprofessional and disrespectful of a court of law. The next day, in open court, I made an apology to Dave Goldin and to the jury.

That Dave and I were able to resume our friendship after the trial was over, in fact have lunch together the day it ended, was nothing unusual in the practice of law. It is not that lawyers are feigning their hostility for the sake of the jury. The intensity of a trial is real. But as with professional football players, the mauling ends after the final whistle.

It came back to me four years later that in another case, while Dave was discussing a point of law at the bench, my name had come up and Dave had casually spoken of me in very favorable terms. The judge asked, “Didn’t Bugliosi once object to you as a person?”

Dave, ever witty, just shrugged and said, “Yeah, but the objection was sustained.”

It seemed every time I reinterviewed potential witnesses in my office they had something new and important to tell me that for various reasons they had failed to mention in previous interviews. Michael, in particular, kept my head spinning the entire trial. I joked with Gail that I was beginning to tense up every time I saw him in the doorway to my office.

The one witness, however, who more than any other sent the trial ricocheting off in a brand new direction, emerged almost at the end of the prosecution’s case. The day I had been assigned the Palliko-Stockton trial I had read through the police reports and had come across a very brief, one paragraph interview of a Mr. Walter Wasson, a tenant at the Castillian Apartments. Wasson had stated to Officer George Wood that as he had pulled into the Castillian’s alleyway at about 11:30 P.M. on the night of the murder, his headlights had picked up the figure of a man walking hurriedly out of the alleyway and onto Bonita Avenue. The man, wearing a light jacket, had paused and half turned his head toward Wasson’s headlights before continuing up the street. Either his hair was white or he was wearing something white around his head. Wasson had not seen the face.

I had never discarded the possibility that the man Wasson had spotted could have been the murderer. But for all practical purposes, Wasson’s observations shed virtually no light on our attempt to find Judy’s killer, and the Burbank police had never contacted him again. The man he saw could have been anyone. I told Dave Goldin I did not plan to subpoena Wasson, and Goldin responded that if I did not, he would, not explaining to me, however, why he thought Wasson’s testimony would be of much use to either side in the case. Knowing Goldin’s sentiments, I went ahead and subpoenaed Wasson on my own.

When I arrived at my office at 8:30 the next morning, Mr. Wasson was already seated in a chair across from my desk, waiting for me. Walter Wasson, a man of about sixty, was a plain spoken, salt-of-the-earth worker, a lingering picture of an Americana I had last seen in my hometown of Hibbing. Dressed in his faded railroad jacket and coveralls, his old visor cap resting on his knee, he sat forward in his chair a bit nervously. He declined my offer of coffee and before I could ask a second question he said, “Y’know, a few days after you fellas last talked to me, I had just gotten home from work and my wife says to come watch the TV news because this case was on. Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. Bugliosi, when I seen them walk this man Palliko into court I just about fell out of my chair. The same walk, I tell you. That funny kind’a shuffle. And the sloping shoulders, and that slow way he turns his head toward the camera. But the walk, never seen one like that before. I’ll be darned, Mr. Bugliosi, if he ain’t the man I seen that night!”