Catherine Crier: Final Analysis

It didn’t make sense to Gabe. Why didn’t she complete her chores while they were out?

The car keys jingled in her hand as Susan ran back out to the silver Volvo and took off down the driveway. She later told police that she went to Blockbuster Video to return an overdue movie and pick up another film, Scooby Doo, for Gabe. As Susan left for town, Gabe went to the home gym the family had set up in a small outbuilding adjacent to the pool house. He planned to attend a baseball game with his father that night, a date made the night before during their drive back from Los Angeles. Though it was Columbus Day, Felix was going to see a few patients that morning, but he assured Gabe that he would be home by 3 PM, in time to make it to Pac Bell Stadium for the playoff game between the San Francisco Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals.

By late afternoon, Gabe began to worry. Though Susan had returned home just before 3 PM, Felix had not returned or even called to say he was running late. In addition, there was something odd about the way his mother was acting. She was doing housework and preparing dinner as usual, but despite the normality of it all, her behavior just didn’t feel right.

Gabe placed a call to his dad’s office. There was no answer. By seven-thirty, he had made at least a half-dozen calls to his father’s phone numbers with no success. It was time to go downstairs and find his mother.

“Mom, where’s Dad?”

“I don’t know,” Susan replied coolly.

Gabriel didn’t like the way she answered the question. She fluttered her eyelids—something he had seen a million times. This reaction usually accompanied a lie. Gabe repeated the question to see if she would do it again. She did. Now he was certain that something was wrong, but he wasn’t sure what to do, so he decided to go back upstairs and wait one more hour. If his dad didn’t turn up, he would call the police.

Just before 9 PM, Gabriel questioned his mother once again. “Where’s Dad?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” Susan’s eyelids flickered.

“Where’s my dad?” Gabriel barked at her. “Where is my dad?”

“I don’t know. Have you seen him? Have you talked to him?”

His mother’s odd responses were annoying him. She had been acting strangely for a long while, ever since a family trip to Disneyland five years earlier during which she had an emotional breakdown, Gabriel thought to himself. It had all started at dinner one night, as she cried and told the whole family she suddenly remembered that her father abused her as a child. With everyone seated around the table, she recounted the events in some detail, insisting that her mother and older brother had abused her as well.

That same evening she claimed to recall that her parents had murdered a police officer and buried his body beneath their home. The stuff she was saying sounded crazy, and Gabe had looked to his dad for answers. Felix excused her behavior, explaining to his sons that their mother may have been molested as a child and was experiencing what he termed “repressed memories” of the events. These allegations have never been substantiated and have been denied by all parties.

After the Disney trip, Gabriel was told that a doctor examined his mother and had deemed her “sane.” This seemed to be the case; Susan appeared perfectly normal most of the time. Yet, “20 percent of the time,” to quote Gabe’s older brother, Adam, she was just nonsensical, even scary. Gabriel had seen more of that behavior of late. In fact, just five days earlier she threatened to kill his father if he didn’t transfer $20 million into her bank account, a sum he most certainly did not have. She had promised to blow his brains out if he didn’t give her the money.

Gabe heard these threats by eavesdropping on a call Susan placed to his father during her drive back from Montana on Monday, October 7. She threatened to shoot Felix with a shotgun if he didn’t move into the pool house and let her live in the main house with Gabriel, a warning that sounded real enough to the teen.

The warning also sounded real enough to Felix. Eventually he became so frightened that he called the police, arranging to have them come to the house for Susan’s return, but after hours of waiting, the officers left the property, instructing Felix to call if trouble arose.

It was after 11 PM when Susan pulled into the driveway in Eli’s Dodge Ram truck. Gabe and his dad were on the couch watching TV when his mother strode into the living room.

After a brief discussion with Felix, Susan slept in the master bedroom, and Felix stayed in the spare bedroom/office on the first floor. Things seemed okay until Wednesday, October 9, when Felix returned home to find that Susan had enlisted Gabriel to help her move all of Felix’s belongings to the redwood guest cottage. The first few minutes after Felix entered the house were riddled with tension, and Gabe had no idea what would happen. He began to relax when his parents sat down and engaged in a reasonably civilized conversation. Susan told his father that she did not want him to stay in the main house, and shortly thereafter their discussion turned to the recent court hearing while she was in Montana in which his father had won custody of him and control over the Orinda house. A Superior Court judge signed the order on September 27, 2002.

Not surprising, things quickly heated up, and at one point, Susan asked that Gabe leave the room. He didn’t move; he just stayed on the couch watching a program on the giant-screen TV his mom had bought when his dad had first moved out in November 2001. It was one of the first big purchases she made on her own without Felix’s approval, since he had long opposed the idea of an entertainment center in the living room. Still, Felix enjoyed it in Susan’s absence.

Gabe grew worried as his parents’ voices began to rise. He heard his father tell Susan that if she threatened him, he would call the police. Suddenly, his dad began yelling, then grabbed the phone. But he returned the handset to its receiver and tried to speak calmly to Susan. Still, the threats continued. When Susan whispered something in Felix’s ear, he jumped up and dialed for help. Gabe was too far away to hear what she said, but it was clear from the look on his father’s face that it was serious.

Gabe watched his father enter 9-1-1 on the phone.

“Can I talk to somebody about a domestic dispute, please?” Felix said.

“Okay, what’s going on?” the dispatcher on the other end of the line inquired.

“I’ve been residing at 728 Miner Road with my son. And my wife came and kicked me out of the house, and I am not interested in being kicked out of the house.”

“Okay sir, is your wife there at the house with you?”

“She’s right here.”

“Okay, is it physical?”

“No, it’s not physical but it’s…”

The dispatcher jumped in, “but she’s kicked you out the house.”

“Well I’m standing in the house, but she says I have to leave, which I’m not going to do.”

“Was there a reason that she gave why you have to leave?”

Felix responded curtly. There was annoyance in his voice, as if he expected the dispatcher to know the problem and understand the urgency. The mere fact that he was dialing 911 was sufficient. “She was living away, she decided to come back,” he blurted. “I have custody of the kids, I have legal custody of the kids and…”

“Okay, do you live there?” the dispatcher didn’t need the particulars, just the reason why this man felt he needed emergency personnel at his home. “Are you guys still married or are you separated?”

“We’re still married.”

“So you both live there?”

“No, she vacated, and I took over the house, and take care of Gabriel the kid here, and we’ve been living here.”