Chapter Thirty-four

“This is too quick,” Hennis whispered to Richardson. “I’m not ready for this.”

Neither was Richardson. His stomach knotted and he prayed.

Beaver wasn’t ready, either. He wanted a chance to cross-examine Ron Oakes about WHJR. The misconduct hearing had just started to get really good. Beaver had begun to think the state was going to solve the case right there on the witness stand.

As the jurors filed in, courthouse clerks and lawyers scrambled to fill empty seats in Courtroom 401. Even veterans of hundreds of verdicts appreciated the drama of a decision in a case like Hennis’.

The Hennis family held hands on the front row. Judge Ellis warned everyone that he would not tolerate an outburst after the verdict was read.

Linda Priest, the clerk who cheerfully read Hennis’s guilt and death verdicts three years earlier, stood up and asked foreman Charles Leighton to stand.

She began reading, fighting back tears.

“Mr. Foreman, in the case of State of North Carolina versus Timothy Baily Hennis, 85CRS22175, the jury has unanimously returned as its verdict that the Defendant is not guilty of first-degree murder as to Kara Sue Eastburn.” The next sound was Angela gasping and bursting into tears.

“Is that the verdict of the jury?” Linda Priest asked.

“Yes, it is,” the foreman said.

Tim Hennis slumped into his chair, resting his head on clenched fists. It was over.

It had been 1,435 days since Jack Watts pounded on his door at 1 A.M. and led him away in handcuffs. Now, it was over. His wife had sought welfare, his mother had aged beyond her years, his father had lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and his baby had grown into a little girl without him. He’d slept with murderers longer than he’d slept with his wife.

As Linda Priest read the rest of the verdicts, Tim cried softly, holding hands with Beaver and Adele Delph, the secretary who’d sat next to him. Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.

Billy Richardson turned and found Bob Hennis, smiling and weeping at the same time. Of all the people he felt sorry for, Richardson felt sorriest for Bob. The young lawyer broke down. He looked in the back of the courtroom and found T. V. O’Malley, the investigator he’d come to trust with the most important case of his life, and gave him a thumbs-up sign. O’Malley got up and left the courtroom before he cried like the rest of them. It was the lawyers’ moment. They had proved something to themselves after three years of doubt.

Gary Eastburn arched his back and let out a long, slow sigh. It was over for him, too. He had nothing left to give—everything had already been taken.

Juror Mary Demko looked over at him and felt bad. She thought about how he had to live with this, not knowing what really happened or who did it.

Judge Ellis told the lawyers to approach.

“I guess we can stop this hearing?” he whispered.

“No, I want to go on,” Beaver said.

Richardson clamped Beaver’s arm. “What are you talking about?”

“Goddamn it, I want to go on. This is awful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“What’s he gonna do now, Jerry, slap them on the wrist? It’s over.”

“He ought to throw them in jail. Tim spent three years on Death Row because of those sons of bitches.”

Richardson reminded his partner there would be other cases with the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney. “Let it drop,” he said.

Beaver reluctantly let go of it. A not-guilty verdict would have to be good enough. Judge Ellis quietly dismissed the misconduct hearing.

“Mr. Hennis,” the judge said, “you’re free to go.”

His sister, Beth, was the first to hug him, the first time she’d touched him since he’d been condemned to die. Angela turned to her mother. “Go get Kristina,” she said. “She needs to be here.”

Hennis made his way to an empty jury room behind the courtroom. His parents came by and he hugged both. In four years, he and his father had learned how to hug.

Then Angela came inside. Tim looked at her and they embraced. This time they wouldn’t have to let go.

Marylou walked back into the hall and hugged Gary Eastburn as hard as she could. Neither one said anything, causing Marylou to wonder if she was doing the right thing. After she let go, she finally said the only thing she could think of. “Good luck, Gary.”

A bailiff stepped inside Tim’s room.

“Tim, we need to take you back to the jail so you can get your stuff,” she said. “But the judge told me to tell you that we’ll go only when you’re ready to go.”

Then she smiled, the first time a cop had smiled at Tim Hennis in some time.

Soon the reporters came, but Tim didn’t have many answers for them. They wanted him to put it all in perspective, but it’d be years before he could do that.

“It was very hard to deal with. I missed my wife and daughter, especially my daughter,” he told them. “There were important years for her that I missed.”

Bob had brought his video camera from his car, trying to get as much of Tim and Angela on film as he could.

“How does it feel to have everyone say you’re guilty?” a reporter asked.

“I just don’t know if I can put it into words right now,” Tim said. “I’m just thankful to the jury. Thankful and glad.”

Another reporter asked about the state’s criticism that Tim was a little “too cool.”

“Unfortunately, the Army teaches you to control your emotions and button your lips. You can’t talk back. One of the things you learn in the Army is to be quiet.”

Tim looked out the window. April 19, 1989, was a perfect spring day in Wilmington. The dogwoods and azaleas were in full bloom. Someone had just cut grass near the courthouse. “It’s good to be able to see sunlight, smell flowers and grass,” Tim said.

Captain Gary Eastburn stood in the hallway working on a piece of gum, a dry-eyed and patient interview. Photographers hovered nearby in case Hennis came out of his room and the two crossed paths, but they never did.

“Coming back was a major interruption in my life,” Gary said. “I didn’t want to do it. I came back with the attitude of if we lose, it’s over.”

“Do you still think they tried the right man?”

“Yes, I think Hennis did this. The whole case rested on Patrick Cone. The jury either believed him or they didn’t.”

“In 1986, you said you couldn’t forgive Hennis.”

“That still holds.”

As Gary gave interviews, many of the jurors took turns hugging him and telling him they were sorry. He calmly told them he didn’t agree with them but respected their decision.

At the beginning, four of them hadn’t been able to bring themselves to turn Hennis loose. “What if he’s guilty and we let him go?” they said during deliberations.

“Well, what if he’s innocent and we send him to the chamber?” others replied.

One juror had a particularly hard time. “They have not proved him innocent,” she said.

“That’s not the way you have to look at it,” another responded. “He’s innocent when he walks in the door.”

“Yes, but they didn’t prove he was innocent.”

Nobody wrestled with his guilt, but only his innocence. The state’s case was mentioned, but the jurors questioned every part of it. “Being a layperson and not a policeman,” foreman Charles Leighton said, “I just don’t understand how anybody could kill three people like that and not leave a trace of himself in the house.”

They scoffed at Patrick Cone and barely talked about Lucille Cook. After three votes, the holdouts agreed they couldn’t convict anyone on that evidence, regardless of the circumstances of letting him go.

Charlotte Kirby’s testimony was crucial, but the two factors that brought everyone around to voting not guilty were the neighborhood walker and the testimony suggesting that the baby-sitter was involved in drug deals.

“Which would you think it to be more of, some drug-crazed person or a guy who got mad at his wife?” juror Ken Wells said. “They needed to answer those questions before we hang this guy.”

None were totally convinced—they may never be. After the verdict was read, Mary Demko fought an urge to walk up to the defendant, grab him by the lapel, and say, “My God, you better be.” But the jurors felt good about their decision. Many agreed to be interviewed, a rarity in a capital murder case.

“I hope they find out who did it,” juror Debbie McDowell said. “They shouldn’t try to pin it on him, because he didn’t do it.” The turning point in the trial, she said, “was when they brought the walker in. That raised enough doubt.”

About a half-hour after the verdict. Tim was ready to check out of jail. He nodded to the bailiff and waited while she unlocked the door to his holding cell. “Shall we?” he asked.

“Just one more time, Tim.”

The Hennises waited for Tim to emerge from behind bars for good. Bob had his video camera rolling, trying to recapture the reunion of father and daughter.

There was some apprehension. Kristina hadn’t hugged her daddy in three years and hadn’t seen him at all in several months. Would she remember him? How would she react to him? No one wanted something heartbreaking on a day like this.

The jailer’s key rattled the lock and the door swung open. A shriek came from the room. “Daddy!” Kristina said.

The four-year-old ran right up and hugged him, her head not quite reaching his waist. Tim Hennis bent over and picked up his daughter.

When he got outside, Tim found a crowd of photographers, reporters, and, oddly, jurors. Some wanted a hug or handshake. Some just wanted to wish him good luck. One of them told Bob he’d picked up a dog through the classified ads a few weeks earlier and he and the woman had never exchanged names. “They kept making a big deal out of that,” the juror said. “I’d just done it.”

From across the street, Richardson watched his client carry his daughter in his arms as jurors, photographers, and Beaver tagged along. It felt good. Tim Hennis was wearing his ring.