Brian Lane - Mind Games with a Serial Killer

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Here are a few words on some of the players in this drama: Elizabeth Ann Suff Mead is Bill’s mom. You call her “Ann”. She looks you in the eye, always returns your phone calls, and if some joint says it’s “No Smoking”, it means “No Ann”. In a world without movies, Ann’d be Barbara Stanwyck. Another time, another place, another family, and she’d’ve been a star. Here, she’s hardscrabble. Her favorite expression is: “You’ll get over it.”

Other than Bill, the Suff Kids are Bob, Don, Ken, Roberta, and stepsisters Deena and Bernice. They’re mostly redheads and wiry, and none of ‘em ever stops talking. They’re like a flock of chicks cheeping and jumping all over themselves when they see you coming with the feed. All the boys have had problems with the law, but: “They’ll get over it”.

Paul Zellerbach is the Riverside district attorney who prose-cuted the case against Bill. Considering all the media attention, he thought it would be his stepping-stone to the big time. What he didn’t realize was that when you get handed a case you “can’t lose”, it’s also a case you “can’t win”. Marcia Clark and Chris Darden made millions by screwing up; Paul Zellerbach got forgotten because he made his job look too easy. Next time he’ll remember to heighten the drama. Zellerbach now says that the Suff case opened his eyes—after years of prosecuting hookers, of looking at them as “lost” or “bad” or just plain “criminal”, he discovered that they were real people, good people, from good families, and their choice to sell their bodies was born of desperate circumstance. Nonetheless, his office still prosecutes hookers.

Floyd Zagorsky was Bill’s first lawyer. Floyd’s a public defender, and he was willing to go to any length to defend Bill, who he knew could not get a fair trial in Riverside. Zellerbach got Zagorsky thrown off the case by pointing out the conflict of the public defender representing Bill when that same office had previously represented the now-dead hookers who had previously been tried by Zellerbach for hooking. Got that?

Frank Peasley, Esq., and Randy Driggs, Esq., were the private-sector attorneys appointed by the County to take over Bill’s case. Neither man wanted the appointment, but you can’t turn down one appointment if you ever expect to get another.

Both men knew that, more than anything else, this case would be about surviving this case. To their credit, as of this writing, both men are still around.

Peasley is a quiet man who always managed to make sure he was gone whenever I came by. The only times I ever saw him were in court. He gives the impression that he believes that if he lowers his eyes and bows his shoulders, then you can’t see him looking at you. He keeps his hands jammed in his pockets so they won’t get picked. I am told he is actually a very nice man but shy. He’s also a damn fine defense lawyer, and maybe that’s precisely because he gives nothing away.

Driggs couldn’t be more opposite. He’s voluble, funny, erudite, got that Florida drawl goin’, and he’s flamboyant without being showy. Randy knows how to work a room, but he comes across as genuine when he’s doing it. In fact, he is genuine; and, like me, he likes Bill. Randy likes a lot of people. When we sat down to talk about this case, he was free with facts and opinions, and he steered me in all the right directions except one. The one thing he told me that was wrong was when he said: “You know, Brian, I’m just sorry that Bill Suff isn’t more interesting.” I look forward to having lunch, fine wine, and going through this book with Randy once it’s published.

Tricia Barnaby was Bill’s lead defense investigator. She is not merely the stereotype of the “private dick”, she is the caricature. Craggy-faced, with nails in her eyes. Squat, solid, stolid. She can take it, and she can dole it out. One can only imagine what it must have been like being a female private investigator in macho shit-kickin’ frontier-town Riverside, but Tricia avoided that problem by being a man. I was shocked to learn that she was once married and had a kid. My sense is that if you were her kid and came to her with “Mom, I gotta tell you something—” she’d cut you off with her own “I already know, and I’ve got pictures to prove it.” You’re not her kid, you’re a dossier. But I could be wrong. In any event, she was Bill’s most stalwart supporter, not so much because she thought he was innocent but because she knew he was getting a raw deal. She may even have had a certain affection for him, and she still writes to him—I know that right now as he sits on Death Row, he is certain that he is in love with her and only recently realized it. Since Bill tends to fall in love only with women who he believes are already in his thrall, this tells you something about the Bill-Tricia dynamic. For that reason, Tricia would never give me the time of day—she was sure I was out to betray Bill.

Bonnie Ashley was, off and on for years, Bill’s girlfriend in Riverside. She’s blonde and pretty and successful in business and what the hell was she doing with this guy? Bonnie does “personality color charts” that tell her who her friends should be. Bill must’ve come up the right color. I wonder, was it blood red?

Teryl was Bill’s first wife, Cheryl his second, and both were minors when he first dated them. Teryl was on the cutting edge of high style for her time and financial status, Cheryl was a Plain Jane. They both stood by while Bill beat their babies. No doubt he chose these women because he believed they would not know how to fight him. I am the last person to judge people who stay in relationships that have become destructive, because I know firsthand how easy it is to be the supreme apologist for a partner who’s gone wrong. Somehow you internalize your partner’s guilt and make it all your fault. Unfortunately for themselves and their babies, Teryl and Cheryl never escaped from Bill. They were like prisoners of war—when the Allies showed and threw open the doors to the concentration camps, the survivors were reluctant to walk out. When horror has become your life, you lose all perspective and all hope. You are dead, but alive. Where do you go when there is no place to go?

On our list of players, last precisely because she is not least is Karen Williams, the model-beautiful, African-American paralegal who coordinated the Suff case for Peasley and Driggs. Karen knows more about this case than anybody, and she has it in perspective better than anybody. Somehow she was able to memorize every detail of this case, scan every picture, absorb every horror, and not let it bother her. Home to her husband and child every night, and leave the case behind, yet she was and is the “go to” person for anyone who has any question about anything that happened during all those years before, during, and after the trial. She’s amazing, and she saved my bacon many a time not just by answering my questions but by interjecting an “Oh, please!” and then volunteering her opinion as to what was really going on in people’s minds and behind the scenes. Karen is simply the most trusted person involved in this whole sordid affair. She’s the rock. Her personal network extends to the district attorney, the police department, the witnesses, the victims’ families, everyone. And if she vouches for you, you’re okay. You need something done? Consider it done. You want to spin out sick theories as to the significance of the mutilations? She’s got theories of her own, and they’re none too complex. No point in fighting against reality by trying to explain it. Just accept what is. See the whole picture, but live the day one hour at a time. I once asked Karen if she wanted to write a few words for this book, to explain her role or express her feelings about having been a part of this important piece of criminal-justice history. Her response? “Get a life.”