Joseph Wambaugh - Echoes in the Darkness

“Use your common sense. Why in Gods name would Jay Smith want the body to be left outside the Host Inn? In the very city within a mile or so of where he was to appear for sentencing? If there was any reason, you come up with it, I can’t.

“And that woman wasn’t just murdered for the purpose of collecting insurance proceeds. She was disgraced . She was left nude in the fetal position in the back of her car, and the hatchback was left up, three rows from the front door. Who, psychologically, had this character of disgracing and demeaning women? William Sidney Bradfield.

“And where was Rachel for thirty days prior to the murder? And Chris Pappas, ladies and gentlemen. I don’t know where that guys coming from. They practiced shooting silencers. They practiced tying each other up. Make no mistake about it, ladies and gentlemen, he knows more. Rachel knows more. Sue Myers knows more, and if the prosecution would quit defending them they might find out what happened on that weekend because they know more.

“Does Smith have an airtight alibi for that weekend? Not even close. But neither do I. And neither do you. And I can guarantee you that each and every one of you has a brown hair in your house on the floor that matches Susan Reinert’s. And the chances are good that every one of you has red fibers in your house.

“But you see, ladies and gentlemen, Jay Smith didn’t know he was going to need an alibi, and when he first gave his recollection of that weekend to a federal agent he wasn’t real clear where he’d been three months earlier. Make no mistake about it, Grace Gilmore was there that weekend, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“ ‘I went to see my wife every day that weekend,’ he told them. But they said no, he was too busy murdering Susan Reinert and chopping up her kids and throwing them in the ocean or burying them in the woods or throwing them in graves. That’s hogwash!

“The alibi of William Sidney Bradfield going down to the shore with Chris Pappas, Sue Myers and Vince Valaitis is only a good one if you believe them all . But if you don’t believe one of them, the alibi is done.

“And Sue Myers at one point in time turned over every scrap of paper to them, and by God, they came up with a receipt from the A and P in Phoenixville dated Saturday, June twenty-third, at six-eighteen P.M. And instead of grabbing all those people and starting all over, they lost the receipt.

“Then there’s the letter to his brother. You’ve got to remember this guy’s been in jail at that time for sixteen months. He’s a self-proclaimed jailhouse lawyer. So he wrote his brother and told him to invoke the Fifth Amendment. He said to say as little as possible. And in his letter of October thirtieth he tells him that on Sunday, June twenty-fourth, 1979, ‘You came sometime in the late morning and left in the early afternoon. I believe you had your granddaughter with you.’ His brother said, ‘Well, that’s not true. I wasn’t there. And I’m not testifying.’

“And if you want to believe that was Jay’s recollection in 1980, fine. I’d like to believe that. I don’t. It appears as though Jay was trying to tell his brother to say something for him about that Sunday morning. That’s what they came up with, ladies and gentlemen, out of fifty-three files they took from that man when they arrested him on June twenty-fifth, 1985.

“Fifty-three files. They invaded his most sacred communications. They took his letters to his brother. They took his letters to his lawyer which is the most sacred privileged communication we sanction in this country, and they read them to you.

“Raymond Martray showed up in 1981 and said every time Smith had conversations pertaining to the murder, they were in the grandstands of the prison. The first time Smith told Martray, ‘I took care of her.’ The second and third times Martray was told, ‘I killed the fucking bitch.’

“They had problems with Raymond. Big problems. They turned him over to the FBI. Constant attempts were made to pin down Martray concerning specific statements made to him by Smith concerning the Reinert killing, and Martray became more and more general rather than specific in his answers.

“You heard those tapes yourselves. Jay Smith talked to you, ladies and gentlemen, and you learned what he knew and didn’t know about the death of Susan Reinert.

“I was worried about the fact that the crime was a savage one. Everybody gets angry, and it was an ugly crime, but my concern was never over the evidence against Jay Smith because there isn’t any. Once you get rid of Martray that leaves them back where they were in 1980. With this new comb. What’s that prove? Nothing.

“There wasn’t a trace linking her body to anyone. It was professionally done. We’ve got the pin and the car of Jay, wiped clean. We’ve got everything that Bradfield said before and after. But use your common sense. William Sidney Bradfield is the biggest liar that ever walked the face of this earth. The comb was clean. The pin was clean. The fibers and hair mean nothing.

“Ladies and gentlemen, you have the power to render the only appropriate verdict in this case based on the evidence we’ve all heard. And this is that Jay Smith is not guilty. It’s in your hands. Thank you.”

When Costopoulos got back to the defense table, he whispered to Jay Smith, “How’d I do, teach?”

Jay Smith said, “The semesters not over yet.”

In the afternoon session it was the turn of the prosecutor. Guida rose and said, “Thank you, Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen, seven years ago, on a very cold summer morning, Trooper John Holtz left his bed and went to the Host Inn parking lot. Since that time, the most massive police effort in the history of Pennsylvania has been continuing to try to solve the Reinert murder case.

“Four and a half years ago I joined the office of the attorney general. My first assignment was this matter. Today it’s over. Today, all of the effort expended by the prosecutor, by the defense, by the FBI, all comes down to you.

“In this case, the law is not complex. Mister Costopoulos said in his opening argument, and I agree with him, that this is a case of murder in the first degree, or it is nothing. The commonwealth is alleging that this defendant cold-bloodedly and brutally killed a woman and her two small children. Why? We’ll talk about motive in a while.

“In this case the commonwealth has presented two types of evidence: direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence is someone coming into the courtroom and saying the defendant confessed to him. In this case we have a man by the name of Raymond Martray who says that.

“The rest of the commonwealths case is what is called circumstantial evidence, a group of facts, none of which in and of themselves is sufficient to prove the defendant guilty.

“Lets wrap up the defense case. During the first day of the case a retired trooper took the stand. He’s worked for the defendants private investigator. On cross-examination he suddenly talks about her feet, about some grains of sand. Mister Costopoulos said it was like pulling teeth getting him to say it. It was more like pulling out dentures. A big smile came over his face. He said that gritty particles could have been sand.

“You found out that early in the investigation when the state police were exploring the possibility that Mrs. Reinert might have been to the shore, they called him to a meeting to determine that, and what did he say? Nothing. It’s a sad commentary on what was a decent career with the state police. What value did his testimony have for the defense? Zero. Nothing. As a matter of fact, it might tell you something else .