Poisoned Dreams Read online

  Ortega was brief and businesslike. He showed Richard the warrant and ordered the suspect out of the car; then, as Richard assumed the position against the roof of the Alfa Romeo, Ortega searched the suspect and cuffed his wrists behind him. The detectives then gave Richard his long-overdue Miranda warning, deposited him unceremoniously in the squad car’s backseat, and drove the suspect downtown to the Lew Sterrett Justice Center.

  In the jail basement, reporters and photographers—alerted, of course, by an earlier call from the police—waited with steno pads and cameras ready. As Ortega and McNear escorted Richard in from the garage, flashbulbs popped.

  Richard was booked into jail around ten in the morning; inasmuch as it was Friday, he wouldn’t see a judge until Monday morning. Likely, the timing of the arrest was the result of careful planning; arresting suspects on Friday, particularly those who have given the police a hard time, is a common practice, guaranteeing the suspects three nights in jail before they can post bond. Dan Guthrie had feared just such a happening, and had previously asked Ortega whether, if an arrest became imminent, Richard could surrender and post bond without going to jail. Ortega had agreed to the request, but now seemed to have forgotten the deal. So it was that Richard, dazed and blinking in shock, became a prisoner for the first time in his life. He was in for a long, long weekend.

  30

  By the time Richard finally stood before a judge for a bond determination on Monday morning, he had learned a great deal more about the justice system than he wanted to know. Although the police had shown experienced broken-field running in dodging around his Miranda warnings before charges were filed, now that he was in custody it seemed that every other person he saw wanted to tell him of his right to remain silent and to have a lawyer. Not only had the detectives recited Miranda, he’d heard the warning numerous times in jail processing, and not only that, had been hauled in front of a police magistrate to hear Miranda again. By now Richard could recite Miranda while standing on his head.

  After three sleepless nights in a cell so crowded he was lucky to find room to lie on the floor, he’d been rousted at five in the morning, handcuffed, and paraded from Lew Sterrett Justice Center to the Crowley Courts Building on a chain gang. He’d ended up jammed like a sardine into a holding cell behind Criminal District Court No. 4, and after waiting for three hours had been escorted into the courtroom to appear in front of the judge. Dan Guthrie stood alongside Richard, and the fact that his lawyer was shaven and smelled fresh as a daisy didn’t do Richard’s mood any good. In addition to being so tired he could barely stand, he bore some telltale marks, evidence that dandies from Harvard and street-tough prisoners from South Dallas County don’t mix really well.

  Richard had a nasty cut underneath his left eye, and the right side of his lip was so swollen that his groomed thin mustache looked like cheap makeup pasted on at a comically crooked angle. He glanced over his shoulder and spotted Ortega, dressed in a flashy gray suit, seated in the courtroom spectators’ section. The detective eyed Richard’s cuts and bruises, then showed the prisoner a sardonic grin. Humbly, his hope of getting out of jail fading fast, Richard faced front and waited for the judge to speak.

  The head man in Dallas County Criminal District No. 4 is a slender light-skinned black man named John C. Creuzot (pronounced, as in Cajun country, cruise-oh). Richard didn’t know it as yet, but the blind-draw assignment of his case to Criminal District Court No. 4 was the best break that he could possibly have gotten.

  In Texas, the state system of electing judges versus the federal system of appointing judges has been the subject of heated debate, but one veteran criminal defense lawyer puts it this way: “What the hell’s the difference? Elected judges decide every issue in favor of the prosecution because they’re afraid if anybody gets off in their court, their opponents will use it against them at election time. Appointed judges are different. Their reason for deciding every issue in favor of the prosecution is that all the prosecutors, cops, FBI agents, whatever, are the judge’s fishing buddies. That’s the end of the difference, as far as I can see. There’s exceptions, but a fair judge in this state is a really rare bird.” If our embittered criminal defense attorney is correct in his evaluation, then Judge John C. Creuzot is as rare a bird as one is going to find.

  Away from the courtroom, Creuzot rides a hog. That’s HOG as in Harley Davidson, a $12,000 custom-designed Low Rider, and the judge mixes with tattooed and bearded biker groups as well as he does with the refined ladies and gentlemen at political fundraisers. He definitely looks on defendants in his courtroom as people of flesh and blood.

  John Creuzot didn’t worry about money as a kid. His family migrated from New Orleans to Houston in the late sixties and, using a family recipe, opened a chain of fast-food restaurants called Frenchy’s Creole Fried Chicken. Frenchy’s eventually grew to eighteen locations and was listed in Black Enterprise magazine as one of the one hundred largest black-owned businesses in America. The family fortune came in handy in putting John through law school at SMU.

  Though Creuzot has no experience with being black and poor, he relates closely to indigent minority defendants. He remembers being called a “nigger” as a child in New Orleans, also recalls quite well using separate drinking fountains for “Colored,” and paid his dues as a southern black by riding the back of the bus. During courtroom breaks, Judge Creuzot often inquires as to scruffy prisoners’ well-being, though once they’re convicted, he also hands down heavy sentences to those over whose welfare he’s showed concern. A coddler of criminals Creuzot isn’t.

  The epitome of a maverick, the judge doesn’t cotton to the shenanigans of the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office and makes no bones about it, and his general distrust of the DA’s methods comes from painful experience. As a wet-behind-the-ears young prosecutor fresh out of law school, Creuzot’s reputation as a member of the “Hammer Squad” (so named for their relentless “hammering” of defendants who refuse what the DA believes to be legitimate plea-bargain deals) earned him a personal assignment from District Attorney John Vance to retry Randall Dale Adams, the drifter wrongfully convicted of murder whose case contributed greatly to Vance’s falling-out with members of the press. After Creuzot’s investigation convinced him that Dallas County had convicted the wrong man, he went to Vance and begged the DA to drop the charges. Vance refused, Creuzot resigned in anger, and the judge and the district attorney are not on speaking terms to this day. Asked if he believes that the Randall Dale Adams case altered Dallas County prosecutors’ conduct in the courtroom, Creuzot replies curtly, “Not that I can see.”

  A Democrat in a stronghold of Republicans, Creuzot owes his judgeship to Ann Richards. Ms. Richards won the governorship of Texas in a nationally publicized campaign over Republican Clayton Williams in 1990. Since she’s been in office, three of Dallas County’s GOP judges have resigned; two to run for court of appeals benches and a third, Catherine Crier, to become an anchor newswoman on CNN, and eventually to migrate to the networks as a regular on 20/20. In 1992, Creuzot was to become the only one of Governor Richards’ appointees to win reelection over a Republican candidate. In part, he owes his popularity to his presiding over the high-profile trial of Richard Lyon.

  So as Richard, beaten down from his weekend in jail, stood before Judge Creuzot at his bond hearing, he had no way of knowing that the judge was a man who lived by one fervent creed. Regardless of the case’s outcome, John Creuzot is determined that every defendant before him will receive a fair trial. And in Dallas County, Texas, that is the most any defendant can hope for.

  The law dictates in a bond hearing that the state show probable cause for filing of the charges, and since the burden on the state is roughly the same as was Ortega’s in applying to the magistrate for an arrest warrant, the showing of probable cause wasn’t much of a problem for Jerri Sims. She simply put Ortega on the stand and had the detective testify as to the findings of his investigation thus
far, and that was that. The state easily won the question of probable cause. The fight over the amount of Richard’s bond, however, turned into a real donnybrook.

  Jerri argued that Richard was affluent, that he was able to get on an airplane and be thousands of miles away within hours, and that because of the seriousness of the charges was a high risk to flee (the state, incidentally, always argues that employed defendants are affluent; the truth was that Richard was flat broke and had called on his parents in Connecticut for help in paying Guthrie’s legal fees). The state, Jerri said, was asking for bond on Richard in excess of a million dollars. Not even that much, she argued, was sufficient to guarantee the defendant’s presence at trial.

  Guthrie, on the other hand, pictured his client as a bereaved widower, a dutiful father, and a pillar of the community. Confidently articulate in the courtroom, his manner and dress the picture of style, the defense lawyer paraded a succession of witnesses to the stand who vouched for Richard’s honesty, work ethic, and devotion to his children. The defense’s request, Guthrie eloquently stated, was that Richard be released on his own personal recognizance.

  Judge Creuzot, as he would throughout the proceedings involving Richard, listened intently to both sides, and once both arguments were finished the judge made a short speech. Though the state definitely had probable cause against the defendant, Creuzot said, their request for bond in excess of a million was outrageous. On the other hand, Creuzot reasoned, the defense’s idea that a man charged with intentional and premeditated murder should be walking around, free as the air, on his personal recognizance was every bit as overlenient as the state’s request was outrageous. Since neither side had presented a feasible solution, Creuzot ignored both arguments. He set Richard’s bond at $50,000 and imposed the additional requirement that the defendant remain at home except for trips to work and for other necessities such as groceries. To insure the defendant’s compliance, Creuzot ordered, the county would lock a signal-transmitting device around Richard’s ankle, and if he left home at any time without permission an alarm would go to the county pretrial release sector and he would find himself in jail. The conditions of bond, Creuzot said, were adjustable; if Richard was showed to be a good boy, the signal-transmitting device could be removed. Richard hadn’t been formally indicted as yet, so Creuzot stated that the bond conditions would continue should the grand jury return a true bill.

  In truth, the $50,000 bond was about what Guthrie had anticipated, and the defense lawyer had already arranged with Allan and Rosemary Lyon to post collateral with a local bondsman in just such an amount. The physical posting of bail was a mere formality, and once Richard left the courtroom and returned to jail, he found that his processing for release was already under way. Around three in the afternoon, he emerged on the street, blinking rapidly against the glare from the sun. The proceedings against him had only begun. For the time being, however, he was free.

  Guthrie drove Richard to retrieve the Alfa Romeo, and once on the scene where he’d left his car, Richard hung his head. The auto’s trunk lock was in tatters; someone had broken into the parked vehicle, stolen the tape deck and whatever else was removable, then smashed into and rummaged through the trunk. His later report to his insurance company doesn’t mention the soccer ball. For Richard Lyon, things were not going well.

  31

  In spite of its listing at the forefront of defendants’ constitutional rights, a grand jury proceeding is for the most part a formality, and the outcome of grand jury deliberations is pretty much at the whim of the prosecutor. The district attorney is the only lawyer allowed inside the grand jury room, and the citizens on the panel hear only the evidence the prosecutor wishes to present. The accused has a right to testify at a grand jury hearing, but over the years that right has seldom been exercised. Since the defendant can’t have a lawyer present, defense attorneys always advise their clients not to appear, and prosecutors often take cases to the grand jury without the defense’s knowledge. Given the foregoing, Richard’s indictment was a lead-pipe cinch, but the conflict between Jerri Sims and Dan Guthrie during the grand jury proceedings developed into quite a furor.

  Jerri had subpoenaed Guthrie to testify in front of the grand jury, and simultaneously had motioned the court to disqualify Guthrie as Richard’s defense attorney. The reason given was that since Guthrie had gone on national television to state that there were three suspects in Nancy’s murder other than Richard, Guthrie had information vital to the grand jury inquiry. It’s true that Jerri’s motion and subpoena met all the legal requirements, but there was likely more than a little spite in her motive for preparing them. The police had already investigated the three “suspects” —Bill Jr., David Bagwell, and Lynn Pease—and had satisfied themselves that all three lacked either motive or opportunity. Guthrie, however, had gone public with an accusation that the police and district attorney had carried on a vendetta against Richard, prompted by pressure from Nancy’s family, and in Dallas County, Texas, one does not publicly challenge the district attorney’s office and get away with it.

  The matter of Guthrie’s disqualification all came down to a hearing during the grand jury deliberations, and in this particular proceeding the defense won hands down. It has been long established that anything told an attorney by his client is confidential, and Richard’s statements to his lawyer regarding other suspects fit neatly in that category. To force Guthrie’s testimony before the grand jury would have been a flagrant violation of the attorney-client privilege. So although the hearing itself was pretty much cut and dried, it was at this proceeding that the conflict between Guthrie and Sims came out in the open. Throughout the brief testimony the two glared and sniped at each other to the point that the judge issued warnings to both parties. Guthrie’s personal battle with Sims didn’t end with the hearing, either, not by a long shot. For the duration of the case, the air between the two would continue to bristle.

  Perhaps the most noteworthy portion of Richard’s indictment is to the untrained eye the least significant, a small paragraph seemingly tacked on as an afterthought, stating that the offense of murder was aggravated due to Richard’s use of a deadly weapon, to wit, arsenic poison. The Texas aggravated offense statute, originally passed by the legislature with the intent of punishing those committing mayhem with guns and knives, provides that persons convicted of aggravated crimes must serve a quarter of their sentence without regard to good-time credit before they are eligible for parole. It was impossible for Jerri to ask the death penalty for Richard (Texas law, revised in the seventies, provides the death penalty only for specific offenses: murder-for-hire, murder during the commission of a felony such as rape or robbery, and murder of a law enforcement officer or fireman during the performance of their duties), so Jerri had done, from the state’s viewpoint, the next best thing. Since the aggravated offense statute came into being, appellate courts have expanded the definition of a deadly weapon to include anything with which one can kill; there is actually a case on the books wherein a man murdered a barroom customer by smashing his head against a wall, and the wall itself became the deadly weapon. The maximum punishment for the murder charge against Richard was life in prison; with the addition to the indictment of the aggravated charge, he was looking at a minimum of fifteen years before parole.

  With Richard’s indictment now a reality, Judge Creuzot continued the conditions of Richard’s bond (as the matter progressed, in fact, the judge was to remove the signal-transmitting anklet restriction, and Richard was to make more trips to Austin to visit Denise Woods) and set the case of the State of Texas v. Richard Allan Abood Lyon for trial in sixty days. As opposed to most cases, which drag on for months and even years, the Lyon trial would be postponed only once; Richard was to refuse to sign a waiver of his right to speedy trial, thus forcing the state to try him within one hundred eighty days or drop the charges. It was clear that both Dan Guthrie and his client wanted to get the matter over with.

  Tw
o significant things happened after Richard’s indictment and before his trial, one that gave the state’s case a real shot in the arm and another which raised the defense’s hopes. The first happening had to do with Stefanie Bates rearranging her cabinets.

  Stefanie, a slim brunette, is, like Lynn Pease, a nanny by trade. She shares quarters with a young man named John Tedwell, and in the spring of 1991 the two were in the market for an apartment. The vacant condo at 3616 Springbrook Lane in Richardson perfectly suited their needs, and it wasn’t until they’d already moved in and set up housekeeping that they learned from Mary Ann Will, their downstairs neighbor, that the apartment had a history. At first, the fact that they were living in the same condo where Richard Lyon had supposedly plotted his wife’s murder was a topic of conversation for Stefanie and John, and nothing more.

  Life being the whirlwind that it is, Stefanie didn’t have time to put her cabinets in apple-pie order until early June, three months after she’d moved in. On the day when she firmed her resolve to make things shipshape, she started in the kitchen. She first removed everything from the overhead cabinets, lined the bottoms of the cabinets with bright new shelf paper, then stacked plates, saucers, cups, and glasses in orderly fashion. Her job in the kitchen finished, she now headed for the bathroom.

  There she stood with hands on hips for a moment, sizing up the chore, then went briskly to work. First she emptied the medicine cabinet, rearranged toothpaste, combs, brushes, headache and cold remedies to suit her, then turned her attention to the cabinet below the built-in vanity. Down on her haunches, Stefanie peered inside the shelf. She paused and blinked.