Catherine Crier - Final Analysis

I don’t know how to get out of the dilemma I am in. Joining is impossible. I will not become an actress like the members of F’s disgusting family, pretending all the time, shaming kindness and humanity when underneath there is nothing but betrayal, sadism, and in the best of them, a kind of robotic obedience. F is evil and he is a traitor.

The letter then spoke about the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Susan claimed to be a medium and that she had advised Felix on world events related to Israel through visions she experienced while in a trance:

I am not happy about being a medium,

the letter concluded:

First of all, I am only partly conscious of what is happening when I do what I do, and sometimes, I am not conscious at all until later when I get flashbacks. I don’t know whether this is because F hypnotized me so frequently when I saw him as a patient. (It was under hypnosis that this ability was discovered by F and instructed me not to remember, or whether it is a function of being a medium.)

Later that evening, a canine search and rescue unit was dispatched to the Miner Road crime scene. Investigators were hopeful that dog handler Eloise Andersen and her scent dog Trimble could sniff out some clues. It was after dark when Anderson and Trimble set off from the driveway at 728 Miner Road as investigators recorded the dog’s movements. But it was soon obvious that the direction the dog tracked “was consistent with the way any occupants of Miner Road would go if proceeding to the Lafayette area” and the search was called off.

Interviews with the Polks’ neighbors yielded no witnesses to the murder. Indeed, the neighbors knew very little about the Polk family. One Miner Road resident told police she had met Susan Polk twice since moving onto the block that past June. In response to questions, she said that both she and her husband were at home on October 14, but didn’t see or hear anything suspicious. In fact, she hadn’t seen Dr. Polk in months. Because of the age difference between Felix and Susan, she assumed that he was Susan’s father.

Another woman on the block recalled that the Polks moved onto the street about two years ago, but she thought that Felix Polk had moved out of the residence. Eli Polk had once backed his car into their retaining wall; Felix had paid for the repair.

The woman assured officers she never saw or heard any domestic abuse occurring at the Polk house, although on Monday, the fourteenth, at about 8:30 PM, she did hear “some yelling.” She described the yelling, “as not being out of anger but just in the background” and attributed it to the Giants baseball game on TV.

In the days after the murder, Susan steadfastly maintained her innocence, even as police accumulated evidence of her complicity. Detective Costa had no doubt about Susan’s guilt. All the elements were there: strands of her hair in Felix’s death grip, a bloody footprint on the floor of the guest cottage that matched Susan’s shoe size and panicked calls to 911 from Felix in the days before the murder.

Susan had the means, the opportunity—and the motive. Her alimony had just been reduced by nearly five thousand dollars a month, and Felix was awarded custody of their minor son and the Orinda residence. Costa had the right suspect in jail, and he was determined to build a solid case. This was not the first homicide he had handled in which a battle over family finances had spurred a spouse to murder.

As part of his investigation, the detective reached out to Janna Kuntz, the realtor that Susan hired to assist in her relocation to Montana. He found a business card for Kuntz during his search of the Miner Road house, and in a telephone interview, Kuntz confirmed that she had shown Susan a number of properties during her two visits to Montana.

According to Kuntz, she met Susan in the late summer of 2001, when Susan came to Bozeman to look at homes. Kuntz took an instant liking to the fortyish woman from San Francisco who was soft-spoken, intelligent, and interesting. The realtor was intrigued by this woman who was tired of city living and wanted to slow down. Susan loved nature and the idea of residing in the country where she could hike and spend lazy afternoons honing her skills as a writer. When they first met, Susan was living with her two sons in a small cabin she rented in Gallatin Gateway, a small farming community about twenty minutes outside Bozeman. Susan liked the country setting, but Eli and Gabe complained bitterly about being so far from town. For them, the location was too remote.

Kuntz had few details about Susan’s first stay in Montana. She and Susan got to know each other better when she returned the following September accompanied by her yellow Labrador puppy, Dusty. After years of abuse, Susan and her husband were splitting up, and she was eager to settle in Montana and “enjoy a quiet life,” the realtor told Detective Costa. Susan had just sold some apartments in California and had $225,000 to put down on a home in the Big Sky area. She wanted to stay in that price range.

While out viewing properties, Susan received a number of calls on her cell phone, mostly from her children. She was proud of her three sons and spoke of them often. In fact, she told Kuntz that she wanted to buy a condo near the ski slopes of Big Sky for them to enjoy. Susan envisioned taking the boys on lengthy treks and spending quiet days reading and discussing literature.

When Costa asked about Susan’s emotional state, Kuntz said she seemed to be taking the bad news in her divorce with a mix of disappointment and frustration. “Can you believe this?” Susan would say, as she related each new development about the couple’s finances and custody battles. Susan appeared calm, seeming more bewildered than angry, Kuntz recounted.

“Did she ever make any statements about wanting to hurt her husband?” Costa asked.

“No. Never, not even after the phone call from her lawyer informing her that she was ‘losing’ the divorce case,” she said. “Susan was upset, but not enraged by the news.”

Kuntz was referring to an in-chambers conference that took place in Contra Costa Superior Court on October 1. Neither party was present at the closed-door meeting that resulted in the temporary reduction of Susan’s support payments, pending a review of the couple’s finances by a court-appointed accountant. Attorneys for the couple appeared on their behalf.

As Costa spoke to Kuntz, it became clear that the timing of that decision couldn’t have been worse. Susan had just plunked down a one thousand dollar deposit on a small two-bedroom condo near Big Sky. Now, she was being forced to make a trip back to California to deal with the fallout. Had Felix left things alone, Susan might have signed the deal and quietly moved out of state, but faced with a reduction in spousal support, Susan would no longer be able to afford such a move. The realtor told Costa that she begged Susan not to return to the West Coast. While Susan never mentioned her husband by name, she had related enough horrific details of alleged abuse that Kuntz feared for her client’s safety. Susan was stoic, assuring the realtor that she intended to pack her belongings and return as soon as she could.

Once en route to Orinda, however, her plans seemed to have changed. Susan called Kuntz from the road. “She phoned to cancel the purchase of the property; a problem had arisen and she needed to take care of some business before she would be ready to buy something in Montana,” the realtor recalled.

Susan promised to call again when she was ready to return.

“Did Susan look at any sporting goods stores while she was there, specifically to purchase a shotgun?” Costa asked.