Catherine Crier - Final Analysis

“I am clear about that time line,” Hebel said. “I want to go back and talk about some other stuff about your background. I understand several years ago you kind of had some recollection about some abuse from your childhood and that caused some tough times for you. Is that correct or am I getting bad info on you?”

“Well, you are hearing it from my children.”

“If you tell me something, I am not going to them and say this is what your mom said,” Hebel assured Susan.

“Partly, it’s a story that my husband cooked up for the kids as to what was happening,” Susan said. From there, she went on to recount how the story of uncovering past trauma was how Felix manipulated the truth in order to avoid informing the boys of Felix and Susan’s marital difficulties. As the detectives hung on her words, Susan once again offered her version of the last twenty years, explaining that she threatened a divorce several times over the course of their marriage. Sitting in the room, Susan coolly told the detectives how her threats to leave him were often met with death threats from Felix, who had even gone so far as telling Gabriel that he would kill Susan if she left. On another occasion, one that Susan later documented in their divorce papers, Felix made another threat on her life, this time in front of Adam and Eli. Coming in 2000, during a time when Eli’s allegiance was to his father, the threat was in response to an ongoing quarrel Susan and Felix were having over his office. Like so many of their fights, this one ended with Susan telling Felix that she wanted a divorce. His response was quick.

“He [Felix] backed me up all the way across my room,” Susan explained to the detectives, “and he said, ‘You make me so mad, I could kill you. I feel like punching you in the face or punching you.’”

But unlike past occasions where Felix had hit Susan, this time he did not get the chance. As he raised his fist to strike her, Eli stepped in first, punching his mother hard on her lip. The reaction was instantaneous as blood began to pour from Susan’s nose and mouth, dripping off of her face and onto the floor. Later, in addition to her eyes severely swelling and the side of her face bruising, Susan received several stitches on her lip that would leave a scar.

Having witnessed the entire drama unfold, Adam excitedly told his father and brother that this constituted abuse and called 911, a move that made Eli fearful of going to jail. Susan was also worried that Eli’s punch would land him in police custody, so in order to avoid seeing Eli in jail again, the family concocted a story in which Susan had hit her face on the bed. Like so many of their lies, this one covered up the painful realities of the family’s life, but still it worked. Eli was never reprimanded for the attack on his mother.

According to Susan, while her repeated attempts to exit the marriage were rebuffed, at one point, she even went so far as to try and obtain a restraining order against Felix. But her efforts stalled in March 2001 after Felix allegedly incited a physical altercation with her and later claimed, with Eli as a witness, that she kicked him in the back. Once again the police were summoned to the house on Miner Road and while there, Susan apparently attacked Felix again, this time in front of the officers. The incident landed her in handcuffs and promptly ended her attempts at getting a restraining order. Though Felix didn’t press charges, the damage had been done.

As Susan told her side of events, the detectives continued to remind her of the evidence that was rapidly mounting against her and the fact that she was their number one suspect.

“We were at your house all day today and the scientists, they’re still there,” Moule said. “They call themselves CSI, crime scene investigators…. We collected all of your shoes…and there’s a shoe present. It’s not the same shoe, I’m not going to say it’s the same shoe…but it’s the same size shoe, it’s your size in the blood, okay?”

“There is no way that I went in there,” Susan said, referring to the guest cottage where Felix’s body was found.

“I’m not saying you had some big grand plan and you thought about it for a year. Things happen for different reasons…you had a struggle with him. There’s DNA in his hand. You have injuries on your face consistent with injuries on his body. You were in a struggle with him.”

“No, I was not.”

Hebel jumped in. “Your DNA is in that room.”

“You’re done,” Moule announced. “Your footprint, your DNA. It’s not about an interest, it’s about what happened and about your future right now…. Be honest.”

“I was not in there,” Susan maintained.

“Susan, this isn’t going away, you’re not getting out of jail. You need to give your side of this so that we can tell the court. Our job is just fact finders.”

“Well, then find the facts. Find out who did it.”

“We found the facts,” Moule said.

“We’re done,” Hebel added.

“We have to know why,” Moule said.

The detectives kept after her, but even under the intense questioning, Susan maintained her innocence. When they brought up the possibility of using a polygraph test, Susan adamantly refused, claiming that if it’s not reliable in a courtroom, then it’s simply not reliable.

As Susan sat there denying any involvement, it was unclear what, if anything, was her strategy. Susan was a very intelligent woman, and as such, her continued profession of innocence in the face of the evidence against her was baffling. While Moule and Hebel were trying to elicit a confession, the other investigators were in the process of building a substantial case against her. Still, she maintained her innocence, almost as if, in her mind, she really had not been involved. As Susan had on so many occasions, she seemed to be shaping her own version of reality, a version that had removed her involvement in Felix’s death. It was a harmful proposition in any situation, but in Susan’s case it had a profoundly negative impact. Eventually investigators and prosecutors would use these denials and lies to demonstrate the cold-blooded nature of her killing, arguing that her attempt to cover up denoted premeditation, making this a case of first-degree murder.

Now apparent to Detective Hebel that his current strategy was ineffective, he changed tactics, insinuating that the scratches on her eyes were a result of the deadly fight she had with Felix in the guesthouse that night. Susan said she’d been roughhousing with the family dog when he bit her.

“I’ve been doing this a long time,” the detective smirked. “That’s not a dog bite.”

Detective Moule jumped in. “Susan, how did you sustain this mark right here on your right eye?” he asked, pulling at his moustache. “Do you want me to get a mirror and you can look at it yourself, and maybe it will jar your memory?”

Susan didn’t crack a smile. “I fool around with the dog all the time,” she insisted. “The dog jumped in my face.”

“Okay,” Moule grinned. “You have a little bit of darkness under your left eye, your left eye right here, a little bit of darkness. Did you also sustain that from the dog?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you mind putting your hands out again?” Detective Hebel instructed. “Can you stretch them all the way out.”

Susan complied.

“On your left hand there’s some scratches right in here and some redness right here,” Hebel noted, pointing a finger at Susan’s hand. “And on your right hand near your right index knuckle, there’s…it almost looks like bruising or redness. It’s light bruising.”

“Uh-huh,” Susan acknowledged.

“Can you roll them over,” Hebel directed. “You have some cuts on your left hand near the pad under your small finger.”