“Did there come a time that night when you received a call from dispatch telling you and your partner to investigate a possible disturbance at 1792 Addison Street?”
“It was about 11:30. Officer Pancetti and I were close by, so it only took a couple of minutes to get to the address.”
“And what did you observe when you got out of the patrol car? What did you and Officer Pancetti do?”
“The lights were on. I could hear a vacuum cleaner running. I went up the steps and knocked on the door. The vacuum kept going, so I knocked harder. The vacuum stopped, and whoever was inside told us to hold on. We waited a minute, and the door still didn’t open, so Officer Pancetti told me to go around back. I jogged to Eighteenth, took a right, and then took a right down Waverly, which is the little street behind Addison. I got to 1792 just in time to see a tall man bolt out the back door. He saw me and sped up as he ran down Waverly. He was pretty fast, but I caught up and tackled him.”
Devlin pauses to let the jury take in the picture painted by Kujowski. “And is the man you saw running out the back door here in the courtroom?”
“Yes, sir. He’s sitting right there.” The patrolman looks at our table and points at David.
“Let the record reflect,” Walker says, “that the witness has identified the defendant.”
“No doubt about it,” says Kujowski.
“Please tell us what happened next,” Devlin asks.
“Well, I cuffed him. Then I helped him up and took him to the back of the house. As I was walking the defendant, I called Officer Pancetti on my radio and told him to come to the back. So I’m standing there with the defendant, and he says, ‘This isn’t what it looks like,’ and I say, ‘Yeah? What does it look like?’ and he just kind of looks away and clams up. Officer Pancetti arrives and sees the door is open, so he goes inside. He comes out a minute later, tells me there’s a dead girl in the house and I should call for backup. Then he goes back inside.”
At the first mention of the “dead girl,” I see some of the jurors glance at David and me. They’re looking to see how he reacts to the testimony, see if they can spot signs of guilt or innocence. I’ve instructed David to keep a poker face throughout the trial. Even the slightest reaction can be misread by a juror as proof of guilt.
Devlin continues with Kujowski for another forty minutes, going from the arrival of backup to secure the house to the handoff of David Hanson to Detectives Tredesco and Cook.
Now it’s my turn.
“So, if I heard you right, Officer Kujowski, the very first thing Mr. Hanson said to you was that it wasn’t what it looked like?”
“That’s correct.”
“Nothing that would have amounted to any sort of admission?”
“Uh . . .”
“He didn’t say ‘I couldn’t help myself,’ or ‘She came at me,’ or ‘I can’t believe I did it,’ or anything like that?”
“He didn’t choose to incriminate himself, that’s correct.”
I smile. Devlin has coached the young patrolman well.
“I’m sorry, what did you say? That he didn’t choose to incriminate himself?”
“That’s correct.”
“Come on, Officer Kujowski. This isn’t the first time you’ve arrested someone at a crime scene, is it?”
“No, sir.”
“And doesn’t it often happen that the person is upset and blurts out whatever it is that’s happened?”
“Well . . .”
“The person will say exactly the type of thing I asked you about earlier. He’ll say he couldn’t help it. He can’t believe he did it. Even that he’s sorry. You’ve heard all of those things, haven’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“But Mr. Hanson’s message to you, at the crime scene, before he spoke with any lawyers, was that it wasn’t what it looked like. Meaning that he didn’t kill her, correct?”
“After he ran out of the house, yes, that’s what he said. Or wanted me to believe.”
I ask a few more questions, then return to the defense table.
Devlin stands. “Officer, the defense counsel asked you questions about how other suspects reacted when caught immediately after a crime. But this wasn’t immediately after the murder, was it?”
“As it turned out, no, sir.”
“Ms. Yamura had been dead for quite some time. Time enough for the defendant’s emotions to cool, to think, to plan. To speak with an attorney, perhaps?”
I object. Judge Henry sustains the objection, but the damage has been done. Some of the jurors are now looking at me, probably wondering whether David called me between the time of Jennifer’s murder and the time he was caught by the police at her house.
“And one more question, Officer. Since defense counsel brought up this notion of suspects being distraught and upset, what was Mr. Hanson’s emotional state at the scene of the crime?”
Kujowski looks directly at the jury. “He was cool as a cucumber.”
Walker’s next witness is Officer Pancetti, whose testimony overlaps and corroborates Kujowski’s. Pancetti is the one who went inside the house, and Walker has him testify about the vacuum cleaner sitting in the middle of the floor, the running dishwasher, the lemon Pledge and Windex sitting on the coffee table.
When Pancetti is finished, Walker asks him, “Did you reach any preliminary conclusions?”
“Well, yeah. He was tampering with evidence, trying to wipe the place clean of prints, hair, and everything else.”
I object, but the judge overrules me. It is what it is, his face tells me.
Walker wraps up by having Pancetti describe where he found Jennifer’s body. Then Devlin obtains the court’s permission, walks up to the witness box, and hands Pancetti a photograph.
“Does this photograph, Commonwealth Exhibit 1, accurately depict the location, position, and condition of Ms. Yamura’s body when you first observed it?”
Pancetti says it does, and the photograph is admitted into evidence. Devlin has his trial technicians pull up the photograph on the large screen they’ve set up in the courtroom. This is the first of the many gruesome dead-body photographs the jury will see, and it impacts them. Some of the jurors stare at the picture, transfixed. Some look away immediately, gather their courage, and then look back at it again.
Devlin lets the moment hang in the air until the judge presses him to move forward. “Do you have a question, Mr. Walker?”
“Yes, Your Honor. Thank you.” Devlin turns back to the witness. “Was her body exposed like this when you arrived?”
Jennifer Yamura is fully clothed in the picture. But there’s something very private, almost obscene, about her dead body. No person would want themselves to be seen by others splayed out like she is on the steps.
“That’s how she was,” Pancetti answers.
Devlin pauses, then looks at the jury. “He didn’t even bother to cover her up? Put a blanket over her? This woman he’d made love to—how many times?”
I object, and the judge sustains me. But the point has been made, and I see fury in some of the jurors’ eyes.