22
A BUMPY ROAD
To say that Hans Almgren was “steamed” on redirect did not do justice to the word. But it was a kind of slow-burn steam, and he began his questioning by asking Michelle Lasher, “Who was there at that meeting on Friday with you?” (The meeting, just before she was to take the stand happened only a few days previously.)
Michelle stated that it was herself, her attorney, Hans Almgren and Investigator Paul Kimes.
Almgren asked, “What was one of the first things I told you at that meeting?”
“I can’t recall,” Michelle replied.
“Do you remember me telling you to tell the truth?”
“You had me confused,” she responded.
“I brought the immunity papers there and you were extremely upset with me. And we spoke for about five minutes. When you walked out, you were extremely angry with me. Correct?”
Michelle said, “I was very nervous. And I was confused as to what you were saying to me because I thought, you thought, I was refusing to testify.”
Almgren then had Michelle read the paper she had signed. After she was done, he asked, “You were very agitated with me then?”
“Yes. I was afraid you were going to do a psychological attack on me.”
“Didn’t I ask you to slow down and read it? And you signed the immunity paper and threw it back at me. I told you then it was for your own protection. Didn’t I tell you in front of Mr. Gregory (her lawyer) and Mr. Kimes that I was concerned about you lying in front of this jury?”
Michelle spit words back at Almgren. “What I heard you do was tell me to lie!”
“I told you to lie?” Almgren asked with disbelief.
In an almost hysterical, shrill voice, Michelle replied, “Yes! I was threatened by Ron Zonen in 2000. My rights were not given to me. I was threatened by lawyers! I’m so traumatized, I’ll never be the same! I’ve been through so much, I’ll never be the same!”
Even Judge Hill’s admonition for Michelle to calm down and compose herself fell on deaf ears. By now, she was hysterical, and without any question pending, Michelle blurted out, with a mixture of tears, anger and emotion, “I’m very afraid! I’m just sitting here to tell the truth! I’m scared!”
Finally Judge Hill sent the jury out as Michelle Lasher had a breakdown on the witness stand. Her body shook with convulsive sobs and she buried her face in her hands. For many veteran court observers, they had never seen a witness have such a complete meltdown.
On the morning of Tuesday, June 2, 2009, Michelle Lasher was back on the witness stand, and more composed. But she was definitely not happy to be there. When Judge Hill addressed her and said, “Good morning, Ms. Lasher,” her reply to him was “Hey.”
It took less than ten minutes for Michelle’s composure to erode. To a question about the police first speaking with her, she said once again, “They told me if they found Jesse, they would shoot him down like a dog!”
And then in a panicked voice, Michelle added, “I can’t do this all day again, today! I’ve been harassed for nine years. I can’t do this again!”
Judge Hill responded, “Ms. Lasher, you have to take a deep breath. But you have to answer questions.”
Even as she answered new questions, Michelle’s hand fluttered around above her head like a distressed bird. It appeared that at any moment she might jump out of her chair.
Asked about the detectives she dealt with in August 2000, Michelle said, “I spoke with a female detective and a male detective. I was sitting in a room and a lot of people were coming and going. The interview lasted for eight hours.”
By that point Michelle was practically spitting her words at Hans Almgren, and Judge Hill leaned over toward her and said, “Ms. Lasher, we are not going to have you behave in an insolent manner, or we’ll have to bring you back tomorrow.”
Almgren asked, “Would you consider yourself to be Jesse Hollywood’s girlfriend to this day?”
Michelle responded, “Yes.”
“Did you ever call any police and say that Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Office deputies had threatened to shoot Jesse Hollywood?”
In a very loud tone, Michelle replied, “No! I was afraid of the police!”
Judge Hill had Almgren move on to a different topic, since Michelle was nearly becoming unglued by that point.
Almgren asked, “What was in that blue accordion-type envelope that Jesse gave you in Colorado?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I didn’t look inside.”
At one point Almgren asked if Michelle was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Before he went any further, Judge Hill spoke up and said, “Are you sure you want to go down this road about PTSD?”
Almgren looked momentarily surprised, then answered, “Your Honor, it sounds like I don’t.”
This was greeted by laughter in the gallery, and even among some of the members of the jury.
Almgren moved on to a different area of questioning, but like a recalcitrant child, Michelle crossed her arms and refused to answer the question before her. Instead, she said, “By now, my brain is dead, sir!”
Almgren just shook his head and asked, “Have any police agencies, besides the one you mentioned, threatened you?”
“Yes!” Michelle nearly shouted. “When they were at my house with a search warrant!”
James Blatt started on recross to explore this area of alleged threats by police officers upon Michelle Lasher. Blatt asked, “Tell me about the search-warrant search at your parents’ house.”
By now, Michelle was crying without cease. “They pulled me naked out of bed! And they had a gun to my head!”
At that point she completely broke down, sobbing and wailing. Even Judge Hill could see that asking her further questions was useless. Finally after days of grueling, and often frustrating and chaotic questioning, Michelle Lasher was through as a witness.
Since Michelle Lasher had accused Hans Almgren and Investigator Paul Kimes of telling her to lie to the jury, Almgren had Kimes on the stand as his next witness. Almgren got Kimes to speak about the meeting with Lasher just before she was a witness in the present trial.
Almgren asked Kimes, “Did I ask her any questions about this case?”
“No,” Kimes replied.
“Is it true you didn’t appreciate her throwing the immunity document and pen at me?”
“Yes.”
Alex Kessel asked Kimes on cross, “Did you take any notes at that meeting?”
He answered that he hadn’t.
“Did anyone ask if she understood what she was signing?”
Kimes replied, “She was asked if she wanted to talk to her lawyer before signing the document, and she said no.”
“Was she told that if she lied to this jury, she was in a lot of trouble?”
Kimes said, “She was told that if she lied, she would be charged.”
“How did she react to that?”
“She was upset.”
At least the next regular witness after Michelle Lasher was as composed as Lasher had been erratic and emotional. The witness was Jesse Hollywood’s old Colorado boyhood friend William Jacques. He told the prosecution of how Jesse Hollywood suddenly showed up in August 2000, and related what happened then. Almgren asked Jacques, “Would you say that Jesse Hollywood was a follower or a leader?”
Jacques replied, “A leader.”
“Why?”
“Because people would follow him. Even on the baseball field, he was a leader.”
Stephen Hogg was a very important witness for both the defense and prosecution. It was the prosecution’s theory of the case that Jesse Hollywood decided to have Nick Markowitz murdered after he learned from Hogg that kidnapping for ransom could get a person life in prison.
Hogg began by testifying that even before the important meeting of August 8, 2000, Jesse Hollywood had come to see him concerning all the problems he was having with Ben Markowitz. Jesse often referred to Ben in that meeting as “Bugsy,” modeled after the name of Jewish gangster Bugsy Siegel.
Hogg said, “Jesse spoke with a lot of fear about Ben. He said this guy was crazy. A gang member. He’d damaged Jesse’s property and killed one of his dogs. Jesse didn’t want his parents to know about all of this, because his younger brother was scheduled for heart surgery. I agreed with Jesse that it was a good idea for him to move. After that meeting I didn’t suggest that he go to the police about Ben. I’ve learned over the years that restraining orders aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.
“Then on August 8, 2000, in the afternoon, Jesse was suddenly at my door. We went in the backyard and he said, ‘Friends of mine have snatched Bugsy’s brother. They have him far away from where we are.’
“Jesse didn’t say where they had the boy. I asked him a series of questions, but he wouldn’t really answer. So I didn’t press him. One of my questions was ‘Is he tied up?’ Jesse said no. He didn’t give me any specifics, but everything he said was [as] if it was currently going on. He didn’t tell me the person’s name, but he seemed to know who the person was.
“Jesse did say that after the initial kidnapping, the boy was smoking pot and playing video games with the others. He was partying with these guys. Even with that, I thought the situation could become serious. Something might change these guys’ attitude, and that Jesse’s mere presence could get him indicted.
“When kids tell you that their friends are doing something, there’s a good chance that they are involved as well. In my mind I thought this was a possibility with Jesse. At the moment I was just factoring in what he said.
“I suggested that Jesse should go with me to contact the police. He said, ‘No, they’ll kill my family.’ By this, I thought he meant Bugsy and his friends.
“Jesse was very agitated. He would sit down and then stand up. He smoked three cigarettes while he was there. And he was only there for ten to fifteen minutes. Because of what Jesse said about the kid smoking pot and partying with the others, I didn’t think he was in grave danger at the moment. I’d never heard of a kid being kidnapped and partying with his kidnappers.
“I started questioning Jesse very specifically about what he had communicated to the other people. I didn’t ask specifically if he had been at the initial kidnapping, but I got the idea that he had been. I told him, ‘If your friends hurt this kid, or ask for money to release him, they could get life.’ I was trying to stress to him how his friends could be in serious, serious trouble.”
At this point Jesse Hollywood did not take off in a hurry, according to Hogg now. This was in variance to what Ron Zonen and others had been stating as a fact, for years.
Instead of running off, Hogg said, Jesse Hollywood was still agitated, but talking to him at that point. Hogg said, “We were sitting there, and I told him again that it would be best if we went to the police. Once again he said, ‘Don’t you understand? They’ll kill my parents.’”
Then Hogg added, “Just before he left, Jesse said to me, ‘I’m going to make those guys take him back, or put him back.’”
Joshua Lynn said, “Why are you bringing that up for the first time now? That comment has never come up before.”
Hogg said that it had, and that he’d mentioned that comment from Jesse to one of the DA investigators in the spring of 2009.
Lynn asked, “Did Jesse Hollywood tell you why these people took Bugsy’s brother?”
Hogg replied, “I didn’t ask.”
This was important. If Hogg had said that Jesse told him that the “others” had taken the kid because of a debt owed by Ben Markowitz, then that was kidnapping for ransom. And it was almost a foregone conclusion by now that the jury would realize that Jesse Hollywood had been part of the initial kidnapping. Any mention of a debt being owed would have placed Jesse Hollywood right in the middle of a kidnapping for ransom, and it could cost him the life in prison that he had been so worried about in his conversation with Stephen Hogg on August 8, 2000.
As to what Hogg did after Jesse Hollywood left that day, Hogg said that either he contacted Jack Hollywood, or Jack Hollywood contacted him. He couldn’t remember the exact sequence of events on that score. But Hogg said that he realized how serious the situation could be, and he tried paging Jesse four or so more times. Hogg said, “Jesse had never failed to answer my pages before. But he did this time. I quit paging him around seven P.M.”
Lynn asked, “After you quit paging him, did you call the police?”
Hogg responded, “No.”
On cross, asked if it was Jesse Hollywood who brought up the possible sentencing for aggravated kidnapping, Hogg replied, “No, I was the one who brought it up.”
“You weren’t advising him because the boy was being held for money?”
“No. I was just trying to show Jesse the seriousness of the problem.”
“When you told Jesse about the penalty, how did he react?”
“He really didn’t react at all right then. The reaction was later.”
Once again, this went against the common perception in the newspapers and on television news that once Jesse Hollywood heard about the possible sentence for aggravated kidnapping, he split right away. That scenario was certainly what Chas Saulsbury had indicated.
To counteract Saulsbury’s further claims of wrongdoing, Kessel asked Hogg, “Did you ever advise Jesse that because he was in trouble, he should kill the kid?”
Hogg emphatically answered, “I did not!”
“Did you ever advise him to commit a crime or further a crime?”
“No.”
Lynn asked Hogg numerous questions on redirect, and there was one objection after another from the defense table.
Lynn started to ask, “Extortion is the same as asking for ransom, isn’t that—”
Another objection came, and Lynn snapped, “Can I finish just one question, Your Honor!”
Judge Hill told the defense to wait until Lynn had made complete and full questions before objecting.
So Lynn asked Hogg, “If you had told the police about the situation that you’ve described to us here, you don’t think they would have done anything?”
Hogg replied, “I don’t know what they could have done. I didn’t know where the boy was.”
Since Jesse Rugge and Ryan Hoyt were not going to testify, and Chas Saulsbury, Brian Affronti and Richard Hoeflinger had been beaten up pretty badly by the defense, the prosecution hoped that Graham Pressley would be their star witness. In the end they would get more than they had hoped for from Graham. No longer the geeky-looking “pothead,” of August 2000, Graham now looked like a young, albeit thin, Johnny Depp. With his curly dark hair, stylish clothes, and aviator sunglasses dangling from his collar, Graham exuded a “Hollywood-like aura” that many of the other witnesses had lacked.
Pressley also exuded a calm confidence, so lacking in Saulsbury. Graham started off by saying that he hadn’t known Jesse Hollywood before the summer of 2000. It was that year that Graham said he started hanging out a lot with Jesse Rugge and smoking marijuana every day. Most of the information Pressley gave about the crucial days of August 7, 8 and 9, 2000, was not new, except to this jury, who was hearing it for the first time. Pressley’s delivery was both calm and convincing.
Graham spoke of the important topic of Jesse Rugge telling him that Jesse Hollywood had offered Rugge money to kill Nick Markowitz. And, of course, as he’d revealed before, Pressley had passed that information on to Kelly Carpenter and Natasha Adams. In this version Graham said that “Natasha immediately confronted Rugge. She wasn’t crying or argumentative, but she was very serious when she confronted him.
“Rugge said, ‘Yeah, I’ve had it! I’m putting Nick on a bus or a train.’
“After this, everyone heaved a collective sigh of relief. Things went back to normal.”
Lynn asked, “Why didn’t you go to the police then?”
Graham replied, “It was because at the time I was engaged in illegal activities. I avoided law enforcement like the plague.”
Pressley spoke of how he, Rugge, the two girls and Nathan Appleton went to the Lemon Tree Inn and added, “It wasn’t unusual then for us to rent a motel room, party and go swimming in the pool.”
Pressley testified to smoking marijuana with the others at the room and going swimming with Nick. Asked about this, Graham said that he and Nick met some girls there and joined them in the Jacuzzi. Asked why he and Nick went back to the room, Pressley said, “No more girls.”
As to why Graham Pressley stayed at the Lemon Tree Inn, when Kelly Carpenter, Natasha Adams and Nathan Appleton left at about 10:30 P.M. on August 8, Graham said, “Rugge turned to me and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you stick around. We’ll smoke some more weed.’”
For Graham Pressley, the decision to smoke more weed was the costliest of his life. It still haunted him nine years later.
Pressley answered questions about Hoyt coming to the Lemon Tree, and seeing Hoyt there with a gun in a blue duffel bag. Once again, as he had done in other trials, Graham spoke of being ordered to go with Hoyt up to Lizard’s Mouth and ordered to dig a hole there. He repeated about Hoyt telling him to do it quickly, “or else.” And once again, Pressley spoke of Nick’s last ride up to Lizard’s Mouth, and being walked up the trail by Rugge, Hoyt and himself. What varied from his previous testimony was Pressley’s very detailed account of walking up the trail until they heard a young man and woman coming down the trail. These two were in good spirits, and as they passed the four young men, who had moved off the trail to let them by, the couple said “good-bye”as they passed. Pressley said that he had been sitting on a rock, and at that moment “I lost it. I refused to go any farther. I knew what was going to happen.” According to Graham, the others moved on, and he could see the beam of Hoyt’s flashlight as they moved up the trail. And then they were lost in the darkness. Fifteen minutes after they left him, Pressley heard a quick succession of gunshots.
Lynn asked Pressley what he did in the days after the murder of Nick Markowitz. Graham said, “I smoked a lot of weed after Nick was killed. I lied when I saw Kelly Carpenter and Natasha Adams. I lied about what had happened. I told them Nick was okay. That he was still alive. I was afraid that if I told the truth, they would come after me. I knew these guys could easily find out where I lived.”
Asked who “they” were, Pressley answered, “Hoyt and Hollywood.”
Then he testified, “Three or four days after I left the Lemon Tree, I saw Jesse Rugge. I can’t remember everything about which day that was because it was such a blur. Rugge invited me to a barbecue, and Nick’s body hadn’t been found yet. The barbecue was at the same park where I had talked to Natasha and Kelly. I went there and found out from Rugge where I fit in with his friends Ryan Hoyt and Jesse Hollywood. He told me that I would be in danger from them if I told anyone about what had happened.
“Rugge gave me some details about the killing of Nick at that time. He was very nervous, very intoxicated, but very clear. Then Rugge asked me if I was going to be cool about all of this. If I wasn’t, then I might become a liability.”
Because Judge Hill had let in some information from Graham Pressley to the jury that Alex Kessel thought was not appropriate, Kessel, on cross, asked for a mistrial. Kessel said, “Mr. Hollywood cannot get a fair trial.” This motion was summarily dismissed by Judge Hill, and Kessel continued his cross-examination of Pressley. In his usual style Kessel began firing off a rapid succession of questions.
Kessel: |
Did you lie at your other trials? |
Pressley: |
No. |
Kessel: |
Did you ever intend to kill Nick? |
Pressley: |
No. |
Kessel: |
You were afraid of Hoyt and Hollywood. Correct? |
Pressley: |
Yes. |
Kessel: |
And you were so terrified that you said you weren’t going to tell anyone? |
Pressley: |
Yes. |
Kessel: |
Then you just lied to this jury? |
Pressley: |
No. |
Kessel: |
Oh? You told Kelly and Natasha about them after Nick was dead. |
Pressley: |
I didn’t say anything incriminating about them. |
Kessel: |
Didn’t you tell them that Jesse James Hollywood came up to the Lemon Tree Inn? You said that in your other trial. You said he came there with his TEC-9 and started slapping Nick around. |
Pressley: |
I don’t recall saying that. |
Kessel’s rapid-fire questions had turned Chas Saulsbury into a rattled, quivering witness. It got to a point where it seemed that Chas would answer almost anything in the way he perceived Kessel wanted it answered, just to get off the witness stand. But this tactic did not work with Graham Pressley. Despite Kessel’s animated nature, Pressley stood his ground, and he calmly answered each and every question. The person who seemed to become visibly upset as this went on was Judge Hill. Numerous times he told Alex Kessel to keep his voice down. In fact, it got so bad that at one point Kessel was practically shouting at Pressley, Lynn was shouting at Kessel, and Judge Hill had enough. He cautioned both lawyers that they were out of line, and to keep their voices down.
Despite all this heated testimony, Lynn had to have been glad at the way Graham Pressley was conducting himself. Perhaps originally, Chas Saulsbury was to have been the prosecution’s star witness. But in the end it was Pressley who filled that role.
Even by the third day of testimony, Kessel could not sway Pressley’s resolve or calm demeanor. When Kessel said to Pressley, “You probably watched Hoyt pull the trigger, didn’t you?”
Pressley replied, “No, I didn’t. I stand by what I’ve always said.”
Not as crucial as Pressley had been, or subjected to the same barrage of questioning, Natasha Adams-Young had few new things to add to what she already had testified to in other trials. She did, however, stick to her story of talking with both Graham Pressley and Jesse Rugge on August 8, 2000, and said that Rugge had told her about being offered $2,500 from Jesse Hollywood to kill Nick Markowitz.
By the time Ben Markowitz was called as a witness, the courtroom was packed in anticipation of not only what he might say, but how he might act. And they had a lot to ponder, when it was learned, outside the presence of the jury, that Ben had contacted Jack Hollywood on the day before he was to testify. The defense was furious about this, and they wanted Ben severely reprimanded by Judge Hill.
Hill did tell Ben not to contact any members of the Hollywood family, and Ben said that he would follow the judge’s orders. When the jurors finally did see Ben Markowitz, he looked nothing like the intimidating skinhead of the year 2000. Wearing blue jeans and a sports jacket, he conducted himself with restraint on the stand. Speaking of the way he used to be, Ben said, “I was a dickhead back then. I walked around with a chip on my shoulder, and if you looked at me sideways, I’d kick your ass.”
Unlike many others, Ben said that Jesse Hollywood got his marijuana from his father, Jack. Ben declared that Jack Hollywood supplied Jesse with “good-quality bud.” And as far as the situation that started the feud between himself and Jesse, Ben now said that he didn’t drive down alone to San Diego to get money owed to Jesse Hollywood. Ben said that Jesse accompanied him and they took guns and baseball bats. Ben added that the person in San Diego was actually one of his friends, so he tried defusing the situation. Ben declared that this friend told them he knew someone who sold Ecstasy, and he gave them information who the guy was, in exchange for being let off the hook as far as his debt went. Ben then added that he and Jesse cooked up a plan to rob the dealer of his Ecstasy.
In carrying out that plan, they met the Ecstasy dealer, took the pills, then “scrammed” without paying him. It was at that point that Ben got greedy. He said that instead of just handing the pills over to Jesse, worth about $2,000, Ben decided to try and sell them himself. He expected to make $4,000—$2,000, which he would give to Jesse, and $2,000, which he could keep himself. Much to Ben’s surprise, however, the pills turned out to be fakes, and now he owed Jesse Hollywood $2,000.
As in his past renditions, Ben told of giving Jesse Hollywood $600, which he had on hand, borrowed $200 more from his dad, and gave that to Jesse, and still owed him $1,200. Ben said he had every intention of paying Jesse the rest, until Jesse and Michelle Lasher showed up at the restaurant where Ben’s girlfriend worked, and stiffed her on the bill. “It all went sour from there,” Ben said.
Ben admitted that he left several threatening phone messages with Hollywood, including one where he said, “You’re a fucking little punk, and you’re not gonna get a dime from me!”
Then something else new came up. Ben said that after this phone call, he returned from work one day to see Jesse Hollywood and Ryan Hoyt standing outside his apartment building. Knowing that Jesse often traveled around with a gun, Ben took off without returning home. Within a day he moved out of that apartment. He also did one more thing—he bought himself a gun. Then he left a message with Jesse Hollywood, “I know where you live. I know where your family lives. Two can play this game!”
Some new information came up as well. Ben said that after Nick was murdered, he kept on living his wild lifestyle. After the murder he committed a robbery on a couple, was caught and convicted, and served a year in prison. Not long after he got out, he said, he assaulted Casey Sheehan for being part of the group that had killed his brother.
On cross-examination Blatt got to the robbery incident that had occurred in December 2000. Blatt asked Ben if he’d drawn a gun on the people, and he said that he had. Then Blatt asked, “Did you make that couple take off their clothes?”
“Yes,” Ben replied. “But I stole drugs from them, not money.”
“Why did you have them take off their clothes?”
“I did it to embarrass them.”
“Oh, it wasn’t enough to just take their drugs? You wanted to beat them down, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Ben replied.
As far as the TEC-9 went, Blatt wanted to know why Ben said in one of the previous trials that he had seen that gun at Ryan Hoyt’s grandparents’ house. Now he was claiming he never saw it there. Ben said that his recollection of things about the year 2000 was better now than it had been during that trial.
All in all, Ben had conducted himself with restraint on the stand. There were none of the crazy and dangerous antics that he was known for in his previous years.
Casey Sheehan was a witness important to both sides. Sheehan testified that he remembered Jesse Hollywood and Michelle Lasher coming to his house on the afternoon of August 8, 2000. Asked if he knew who Hollywood loaned his Honda Accord to that evening, Sheehan said no. He didn’t learn about who had it until later, he declared. As far as comments Hollywood made at the Outback Steakhouse later that evening, Sheehan said that Jesse talked a little about Nick Markowitz being in Santa Barbara and the situation there. And then, according to Sheehan, Jesse Hollywood said, “Everything with Nick is good. The situation has been taken care of.” This comment came sometime between 10:00 P.M. and midnight, when Nick was still alive.
Joshua Lynn got Sheehan to admit that he saw three guns at Jesse Hollywood’s house, and one of them was a TEC-9. (Yet, during the defense phase, Sheehan contradicted this statement and said that he only saw a gun bag there.) Once it was time for Lynn to ask questions on redirect, he wanted to know why Sheehan had changed his story. Finally Lynn got Sheehan to admit, once again, that he had seen guns at Jesse Hollywood’s house, and not just a gun bag.
In fact, Sheehan seemed to be so “pro–Jesse Hollywood” that Lynn got Judge Hill to categorize him as an “adverse witness.”
Kessel asked what Sheehan recalled of Jesse Hollywood blowing up at Ryan Hoyt on August 9, 2000. Sheehan said that he remembered Hoyt saying, “We fucked up!” And by that, Sheehan thought that Hoyt meant himself and Jesse Rugge. The statement, according to Sheehan, did not include Jesse Hollywood.
Kessel asked, “Did anyone ever tell you that Jesse Hollywood ordered either Jesse Rugge or Ryan Hoyt to kill Nick Markowitz?”
“No,” Sheehan replied.
Done with Hollywood’s friends and associates on the witness stand, Joshau Lynn next questioned Lisa Hemman, a crime scene investigator for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff ’s Department. She had not only helped uncover Nick’s body, but had taken numerous photographs of the crime scene as well. Hemman spoke of recovering a TEC-9 semiautomatic pistol from beneath the boy’s body. She was also allowed to show some photos of a deceased Nick, despite the strong objections from both Blatt and Kessel.
Next was Marilyn Harris, a forensic investigator for JPMorgan Chase & Company. Harris testified that Jesse Hollywood had closed out six accounts on August 8, 2000, for the amount of $25,250. He eventually wrote two checks for a lease on a new Lincoln Town Car. Lynn made a point that all this activity took place just before, and just after, Nick Markowitz died. Lynn suggested that it was done by Jesse Hollywood because he was already thinking about fleeing the area.
Dr. Robert Anthony, a forensic pathologist from Santa Barbara County, spoke of all the wounds that Nick Markowitz had received. Using a prop, where the bullets had entered Nick’s body, Anthony showed the jurors the angle each bullet had taken. He also pointed out numerous wounds that would have been fatal to Nick.
Scott Perry was the next witness on the stand. He was general manager of the Lemon Tree Inn. Perry testified that it was Jesse Rugge who registered at the Lemon Tree on August 8, 2000, and paid $152 for the room. Perry also noted that between 6:01 and 9:55 P.M. on that date, there had been sixteen phone calls made from the room.
With the conclusion of Scott Perry’s testimony, the prosecution was done with its lengthy witness list. It had indeed been a mixed bag for them. Many witnesses had done credible jobs, Chas Saulsbury had been a disaster, but Michelle Lasher, as an “adverse witness,” had actually helped them, but not in the way she might have hoped.
Rumors were rife before the defense called a single witness that movie stars would be taking the stand. James Blatt let it be known to Judge Hill that he wanted to call not only Nick Cassavetes as a witness, but Justin Timberlake and other actors as well, who had been in the movie Alpha Dog. In the case of Timberlake, Blatt noted that Timberlake had gone to see Jesse Rugge in prison before the filming of the movie began, and Timberlake had talked to Rugge there. Judge Hill took this under advisement and then ruled that he didn’t see the relevance of either Nick Cassavetes or Justin Timberlake testifying.
Thwarted in this area, the defense next wanted to put Jesse Hollywood’s seventy-year-old second cousin, Jerry Hollywood, on the stand. But because of some new information that Jerry Hollywood supposedly had to tell, he was questioned first outside the hearing of the jurors.
Jerry Hollywood had been a real estate agent in August 2000, and Jesse Hollywood came over to his office to sign some papers concerning his house on Cohasset Street on August 8, 2000. (This occurred before Jesse’s meeting with Stephen Hogg that day.) The real point of contention now was that Jerry Hollywood said that Jesse told him a little bit about some friends who had kidnapped a boy. Joshua Lynn asked if Jesse had told him that story, why hadn’t Jerry phoned the police? Jerry answered that the details were vague, and “I wasn’t in his (Jesse’s) world.”
Jerry continued that on the night of August 8, Jesse phoned him about the Cohasset Street house once again, and Jerry asked how the situation was with the kidnapped boy. According to Jerry, Jesse told him that the situation had been resolved. The boy was going home.
Looking into this matter, Joshua Lynn told Judge Hill that the defense investigator had “helped” Jerry Hollywood remember this alleged phone call. Jerry Hollywood admitted that statements he made concerning August 8 were accurate in a report, “but they just weren’t my own words.”
Judge Hill finally said that he would let the jury hear what Jerry Hollywood had to say, and they could decide if he was telling the truth or not. Before Jerry Hollywood got to testify, however, Joshua Lynn questioned defense investigator Ashley Fauria. Lynn was very dubious that Fauria had only “helped” Jerry Hollywood “recall” events of August 8, 2000. Lynn was adamant that Fauria had essentially put ideas into Jerry Hollywood’s head about his interactions with Jesse Hollywood on that key date. Fauria, however, said that the only thing used to jolt Jerry Hollywood’s memory was mentioning the date of August 8, 2000.
Once Jerry Hollywood actually testified, he said that at 10:22 P.M. on August 8, 2000, he received a phone call from Jesse Hollywood. Jesse was calm at the time, and asking some more questions about his house. Jerry asked Jesse if he’d heard any more about the situation in Santa Barbara with the boy who had been taken. According to Jerry, “Jesse said yes. ‘Someone is taking the boy home.’”
This was the strongest statement so far by any witness that at a time when Nick Markowitz was alive and at the Lemon Tree Inn, Jesse Hollywood told a person that “someone is taking the boy home.”
After Jerry Hollywood testified, many in the gallery were stretching and talking during a break, with the jury out of the courtroom. There seemed to be some confusion at the defense table as to who would be their next witness. One of the court observers, who had been at the trial every day, was named Jennifer. She was talking to her friend Rene when Blatt indicated who the next witness would be. Jennifer said later, “We heard who Mr. Blatt said he was putting on the stand and we couldn’t believe our ears. It was going to be Jesse Hollywood!”
Dressed in a black suit, dark tie and gray shirt, Jesse Hollywood looked nothing like the photo that Joshua Lynn kept showing the jurors earlier of how Jesse Hollywood looked in 2000. Jesse started off by telling of his feud with Ben Markowitz in the year 2000. Getting to the part about the abduction of Nick on August 6, 2000, Jesse, in essence, admitted to kidnapping by saying, “I jumped out of the van, pinned Nick against a tree and yelled at him, ‘Where’s your brother? Where’s your brother?’” Then Jesse said that he and William Skidmore “ushered” Nick into the van.
Jesse claimed that he never once told Nick that he would be held until his brother, Ben, paid a debt. Rather, Jesse said, the taking of Nick took place because he was so angry at Ben breaking out his windows and threatening him and his family. On the ride up to Santa Barbara, Jesse said that neither he nor anyone else laid a finger on Nick. And when he discovered that William Skidmore had placed duct tape on Nick, at Richard Hoeflinger’s house, Jesse said that he made Skidmore take the duct tape off. In fact, Jesse said, Nick was soon free to walk around the house, and that he and Nick sat on the couch, playing video games.
Jesse declared that to defuse the situation even further, he sent Brian Affronti and William Skidmore back in the van to Los Angeles. This left him without a ride, and he made several phone calls from Hoeflinger’s, trying to get a ride back home for himself. Jesse eventually declared that he got a ride home with a friend with the last name of Green.
As far as August 7, 2000, went, Jesse said that he came up to Santa Barbara with Michelle Lasher to pick up $500 that Rugge owed him for marijuana. Jesse did not mention going out to lunch with Jesse, as Rugge had claimed, and Jesse adamantly denied ever offering Rugge money to kill Nick. In fact, Jesse claimed, “At that point I didn’t believe there was any danger to Nick.”
Jesse then spoke of meeting with Jerry Hollywood before noon on August 8, to sign some papers about his house on Cohasset Street. And he admitted to going to see Stephen Hogg that afternoon. But Jesse declared that it was only to “seek advice” from Hogg, and that he did not make plans to have Nick killed after hearing that the kidnapping could get a person life in prison.
Jesse said of the meeting with Hogg, “My attorney advised me to take the guy home and go to the police. I wasn’t going to call the police because of my business. But I was going to get the kid home!”
Asked about all the phone calls between himself and Jesse Rugge on August 8, 2000, Hollywood said that Rugge wanted a ride back to the Los Angeles area, since Rugge had a suspended driver’s license. Jesse claimed that because he and Michelle were going out to dinner that night, to celebrate her birthday, he borrowed Casey Sheehan’s car, and sent Ryan Hoyt up to Santa Barbara to get Rugge. Jesse added, “Hoyt was supposed to bring Rugge and Nick back to Los Angeles. He was going to take the kid home.”
Hollywood testified that he went by Casey Sheehan’s house at about 4:30 P.M., along with Michelle. Since Ryan Hoyt was boxing up items at Jesse’s Cohasset Street home, Jesse said, he went by there to check on how it was going. When he got there, Jesse said, he asked Hoyt to drive up to Santa Barbara, and gave him the keys to Casey Sheehan’s car. Once again, Jesse declared, “I told Ryan to take Nick home. Hoyt agreed and said that was fine.”
Jesse claimed that he had no idea on August 9 that Ryan Hoyt had actually murdered Nick Markowitz. In fact, Jesse said that he assumed that Nick was back home by then. He did admit that he leased a new Lincoln Town Car, but that was because his old car had been in and out of the shop so much recently.
Jesse stated, “I had a brief phone conversation with Ryan Hoyt that day about the situation in Santa Barbara. He told me everything was fine. It wasn’t until later, just before his birthday at Casey Sheehan’s house, that Ryan came up to me and said, ‘We fucked up!’
“I asked him what he meant, and he said that they had killed Nick.
“I said to him, ‘Are you kidding!’
“He said he wasn’t kidding.”
Jesse declared that after that pivotal moment, “I was stressed out and worried and very concerned that what he told me was true and whether this was going to turn into something very bad.” Jesse said he wasn’t sure if it was true or not, because Hoyt was always coming up with wild stories.
Hollywood said that on August 11 he went to see his mother, because of what Ryan Hoyt had told him. If it was true, Jesse said, “I wanted to see my mom, because it might be the last time I saw her for a long time.”
Jesse drove to Palm Springs in his Lincoln, with his mother as a passenger, and they met up with Michelle Lasher there. Jesse claimed that he did not discuss with his mother anything about the kidnapping of Nick, or the supposed murder of Nick by Hoyt.
Jesse’s recollections of the next couple of days were not exact, and said that they were kind of a blur now. He did say that after Palm Springs he and Michelle went back to the Los Angeles area. It was probably on August 13 that he and Michelle were over at William Skidmore’s house. Skidmore had just read a newspaper about Nick’s body being discovered and told Jesse about it. Hollywood said that at that moment he knew that what Ryan Hoyt had told him was true.
Jesse testified, “At that point our little world became everyone’s world. It dawned on me there was going to be trouble, for sure. I told Skidmore, ‘I’m ghost.’”
Asked what he meant by that term, Jesse said he meant that he was leaving town in a hurry.
Jesse basically reiterated what Michelle Lasher had said about their journey to Las Vegas and Colorado. He spoke of visiting Coach Richard Dispenza there, and his friends William Jacques and Chas Saulsbury. After putting Michelle on the plane back to Burbank, Jesse said that he hung out with his friends. He did change one detail, however.
The common perception had been that Jesse had left Coach’s house to get a pack of cigarettes, and when he walked back toward the house, he saw police cars there, and just walked away. Jesse now said that he was in a motel room when Coach phoned him and told him there were cops at his house, and not to come over. Jesse said at that point he just walked away from the motel and his new leased car, and began trekking down the road. It was a road that eventually led him to Chas Saulsbury’s house.
Then Jesse added another new revelation. He said that Chas didn’t drive him to Los Angeles out of loyalty. Jesse said that Chas drove him there after demanding $3,000, which Jesse gave him. On the way to Los Angeles, Jesse said, Chas called a lawyer, and found out from that person that the authorities were already declaring they were going to seek the death penalty against Jesse Hollywood, and they were calling him a “child killer.”
Of this latest revelation, Jesse said that he was extremely scared on the way back to Los Angeles. “I was definitely praying, crossing myself and asking God for help. I thought I had lost my life.”
Jesse then spoke of the failed attempt to meet up with his father in Calabasas, and being driven to John Roberts’s house by Chas. Jesse added that as soon as he was out of Chas Saulsbury’s view, Chas took off, along with $8,000 that Jesse still had in Chas’s car.
Jesse agreed with John Roberts’s story that he’d turned Jesse down when he’d asked for help in getting a passport and fake ID. And Jesse also said that Roberts told him to turn himself in to the police. What Jesse added now, which had not come up before, was that Roberts gave him a manila envelope with $10,000 inside.
Instead of turning himself in to the police, Jesse said that he contacted a friend named Donner, who lived out in the middle of the Mojave Desert. According to Jesse, this friend took him out to his trailer there, a place so isolated and rough, Jesse testified, “the post office wouldn’t even deliver the mail there.” Jesse claimed that he spent the next two weeks surviving on “frozen dinners, cigarettes and beer.” Then he added that he watched television in the trailer and repeatedly saw himself on the news and even on America’s Most Wanted.
Of this news coverage, Jesse said, “I felt that the media had already convicted me. I was scared to death.”
One of the most bizarre incidents while Jesse stayed there was watching on television the SWAT team bombard John Roberts’s house with tear gas. The authorities, of course, thought Jesse was inside that house. Instead, he was out in the Mojave Desert watching the incident on television, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes.
After two weeks in the desert, Jesse said, he decided to catch a plane to Seattle, Washington. Even after all the news coverage about him, Jesse stated that it was fairly easy going through security at Los Angeles International Airport and catching a flight. This was, of course, before the tightened security after 9/11.
Jesse testified to staying two weeks in Seattle before bribing someone to take him by boat to Canada. For the next six months, he bounced all over Canada—from Vancouver to Quebec, then to Calgary, Montreal and back to Vancouver. Jesse added that he was astonished when he turned on the television one day in Canada and saw himself on America’s Most Wanted up there. He had no idea that Canadian television ran that program.
Then one day he watched a movie called Blame It on Rio. Jesse claimed, “The idea just popped into my head to go to Brazil.” It was the ultimate irony of Jesse Hollywood, emulating Hollywood. After obtaining a very good fake passport for $1,000, Jesse said, he flew from Canada down to Cancun, Mexico. He spent two days there, and then got a flight to Rio de Janeiro. Once in Brazil, he learned enough Portuguese to get by, and even got a job in an office. It was in Rio de Janeiro that he met Marcia Reis. Despite their age difference, they began dating, and then she moved into a house with him in Saquarema, on the Atlantic coast. Of his time with her, Jesse said, “The relationship was a good one.” He now referred to her as his wife.
Joshua Lynn had plenty of questions of Jesse Hollywood on cross-examination, and it was obvious that he believed very little of what Jesse had just testified to on the witness stand. Lynn began by showing Jesse a photo of Nick Markowitz and asked Jesse if he knew who that was.
Jesse replied, “Yes.”
Then Lynn asked, “Do you know what you’re on trial for?”
Jesse replied, “Because I’m accused of a serious crime.”
“Do you think you did anything wrong?”
Jesse responded, “I do, and I feel terrible. It was wrong to push Nick up against a tree and take him away from his home.” Jesse would not admit to kidnapping for extortion, or having anything to do with the murder of Nick Markowitz.
Lynn was less than enthused by Jesse’s answers, and he asked him point-blank, “Why did you have Nick Markowitz killed?”
“I didn’t,” Jesse replied.
If Lynn hoped that his questions would rattle Jesse Hollywood, the way Chas Saulsbury had been rattled on the stand, it didn’t work. Jesse often answered, in a low, measured voice, “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir” to Lynn’s questions. After a while, Lynn was calling Jesse “sir” as well. It was almost as if there was a duel to see who could sound more polite.
By the second day on the stand, Jesse was still holding up under a barrage of questions. Jesse was very restrained in his answers, until the questioning got around to his marijuana business. Even now, he sounded proud of what he had accomplished by the age of nineteen. He boasted that he had an excellent credit score of 780 back then, and he was making $7,000 to $8,000 a month. He said that he didn’t sell low-grade, hamburger-type marijuana. He sold “New York steak.”
Trying to trip Jesse up, Lynn, out of the blue, asked, “Why did you offer Jesse Rugge two thousand dollars to kill Nick?”
Jesse calmly replied, “I didn’t.”
“That never happened?” Lynn asked with skepticism.
“Never, sir,” Jesse responded.
One area of testimony that differed greatly from what Casey Sheehan and Michelle Lasher had said concerned their time at the Outback Steakhouse on the evening of August 8, 2000. During that dinner, Sheehan testified, Jesse had told him about what was happening in Santa Barbara. Sheehan related that Jesse said, “The situation with Nick has been taken care of.” And Michelle had testified that Jesse said, “The situation became unwound.”
Jesse now said that he never mentioned Nick or Santa Barbara at all, while at the Outback Steakhouse. And he also disagreed about what Chas Saulsbury had testified to concerning the gun that had been found in Nick’s grave as a TEC-9. Jesse said that Chas must have read that in a newspaper, because he claimed he didn’t have a TEC-9 in August 2000. Jesse added that he had deposited the TEC-9 over at Hoyt’s grandparents’ house in 1999. The reason he did so, Jesse claimed, was because he and Hoyt and Ben Markowitz had fired that fully automatic weapon at a firing range one day in 1999. An employee there told them that an altered fully automatic weapon could get them arrested, so Jesse decided to get the gun out of his house, and Hoyt took it.
But Lynn was able to prove that newspapers only referred to a “gun” being found in Nick’s grave when Chas first spoke to authorities. And Lynn also brought up the fact that even Jesse’s friend Casey Sheehan testified to seeing the TEC-9 at Jesse Hollywood’s house in March 2000.
As to why Jesse Hollywood had gone to see lawyer Stephen Hogg on the afternoon of August 8, 2000, Jesse said that he had done so because he considered Hogg to be a “wise man,” and he only went there for advice.
Lynn retorted, “If Hogg was such a wise man, why didn’t you answer any of his pages that evening?”
As many witnesses had done before him, Jesse uttered the words “Because I was scared.”
Jesse also had no concrete reason as to why Ryan Hoyt, who was chronically broke, suddenly had enough money to buy new clothes at the 118 Board Shop the day after Nick was murdered.
Getting to Hollywood’s time in Brazil, Lynn asked, “Had you heard that if you had a child by a woman in Brazil, you couldn’t be extradited?”
“I had heard that,” Jesse answered. And then he added about his wife and their son, whom he named John Paul, that he loved them.
Court observer Jennifer glanced over at Susan Markowitz at that moment. Jennifer said later, “When Jesse mentioned the name of his son, named after a pope, Susan shot daggers at him from her eyes.”
By day three of testimony, Joshua Lynn and Jesse Hollywood were still verbally sparring. But it wasn’t the raucous, often cantankerous sparring of Lynn versus Lasher, or Saulsbury versus Kessel. Many answers Jesse gave were either “Yes, sir” or “No, sir.”
Lynn kept pounding on Jesse’s meeting with lawyer Stephen Hogg on the afternoon of August 8, 2000. Lynn asked, “Did you tell Chas Saulsbury the ramifications of that meeting?”
“No, sir,” Jesse replied.
“Didn’t you tell Chas Saulsbury the things you had done might get you a life [sentence] in prison?”
“No, sir.”
“Didn’t you tell Chas Saulsbury that you ordered Ryan Hoyt to kill and bury the boy?”
In a strong and loud voice, Jesse answered, “No, sir, Mr. Lynn. I never did!”
“So what is your responsibility for this situation?”
“I feel moral responsibility for this situation. But I did not have Nick Markowitz killed.”
“When did your responsibility end?”
Jesse replied, “Nick was free to go when I left Richard Hoeflinger’s on August 6, 2000.”
“So when you left Richard Hoeflinger’s house, your responsibility ended?”
“Yes. When I left Richard Hoeflinger’s, Nick was safe.”
It seemed that Lynn was almost done, and then he asked, “Why did you sign some letters from jail after you were arrested, ‘Alpha Dog’?”
Before Jesse could answer, James Blatt objected, and it was sustained.
There was only one person left that the defense called as a witness, Investigator Paul Kimes. To a bombardment of questions from Alex Kessel about pages and phone numbers, and as to whether he had contacted those people, Kimes answered to most questions, “No.”
Asked why not, Kimes replied they either weren’t relevant, detectives had contacted those people, or they just plain couldn’t be found.
And to the all-important alleged conversation between Jesse Rugge and Graham Pressley, when Rugge first told Pressley that Jesse Hollywood had offered him money to kill Nick, Kessel wanted to know when and where this had supposedly taken place.
Kimes looked at his notes and said that it had occurred on August 7, 2000, in Jesse Rugge’s kitchen.
Kessel then asked, “Did you ever contact Jerry Hollywood about the phone call he received from Jesse at ten twenty-two P.M. on August 8, 2000?”
“No,” Kimes responded.
By this point Alex Kessel was getting so worked up that his voice became louder and louder. Judge Hill finally said, “Whoa! Wait a minute! You have to keep your voice down!”
Kessel did for a short period of time, but before long he was just as animated as before. Paul Kimes seemed to be amused by the constant reminders from Judge Hill to Alex Kessel to lower his voice. In response to the wry smile on Kimes’s lips, Kessel suddenly said, “Do you think it’s funny that my client is on trial for his life?”
Kimes said he didn’t think it was funny, but the wry smile stayed on his lips nonetheless.
By the end of June 2009, the long parade of witnesses was over. Closing arguments by both the prosecution and the defense did not differ radically from their opening arguments—except to highlight the statements of witnesses who had been good to their cause, and brand as “liars” those witnesses who had not been favorable.
Joshua Lynn told the jurors, “There is a mountain of evidence against Mr. Hollywood and justice has waited nine years. When Jesse Hollywood testified, he looked you in the eye and lied to your faces.”
As to the large number of witnesses who had spoken for the prosecution, Lynn asked why all of them would put themselves in jeopardy by lying. Lynn said, “What would be the motive for everyone to get on the stand and lie? Jesse James Hollywood is as guilty as sin! I would urge you to usher Mr. Hollywood into his new status as a convicted kidnapper and child killer. Convict him.”
At the end of his argument, Lynn showed the jurors three photos of Nick lying in a shallow grave near the Lizard’s Mouth. Nick’s body was riddled with bullets. Lynn declared, “Look at Nick Markowitz. That is what is left of Nick.”
Alex Kessel countered in closing arguments, “What the prosecution told you is not credible. It doesn’t even rise to the level of thinking about it.” Kessel argued that both Chas Saulsbury and Graham Pressley lied to detectives to make themselves look less involved than they were. Kessel then asked why his client, who was a bright individual, would have Nick Markowitz killed, after so many people had seen himself and Nick together in Santa Barbara. It didn’t make sense, Kessel argued, as he argued that Jesse Hollywood was a rational, organized person.
The one person who was not rational or organized, Kessel said, was Ryan Hoyt. According to Kessel, on August 8, 2000, Hollywood sent Ryan Hoyt up to Santa Barbara to pick up Nick and bring him back home. Instead, Hoyt got some crazy idea into his head that he could gain status by killing Nick. It was Hoyt’s own illogical reasoning that led to the murder of Nick, and it had nothing to do with his client.
Kessel said of the prosecution, “They’re trying to take a square peg and fit it into a round hole. You can’t let emotion drive your decisions. You can’t fill the voids of the people’s case with pictures of Nick Markowitz in his grave.”