Читать книгу I'll Be Watching You - M. William Phelps - Страница 39

I

During a hearing before Superior Court Judge James Madden, Ned addressed the court. Standing in front of the bench, he looked like an eighteen-year-old high-school senior. With his blond hair and blue eyes, small frame and baby face, he embodied an innocence that showed how easily Mary Ellen could have fallen into his web.

Ned said he understood the charges against him, but didn’t “know why [he] assaulted the women.” He had no explanation. It was something that had come over him, he seemed to say. Some sort of change.

Mary Ellen had seen it. Ned had gone into her bathroom one person and had come out another.

Those in the courtroom were unaware that during the past week Ned and his lawyer had made a plea agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office. But that’s not what had stunned everyone in the courtroom that day. It was the word “women.” The plural form Ned had used while addressing the court.

Wasn’t it only one—Mary Ellen Renard?

Women? What is he talking about?

Ned said he had no words to describe his actions. No excuse.

But clearly, in saying so, he had admitted to both crimes.

Fred Schwanwede asked the court to order a psychiatric evaluation before Ned’s sentencing date, which was scheduled for May 13, 1988.

II

Under the plea agreement offered to Bruno, Ned faced a maximum of twenty years, minimum of ten, a sentence that, of course, shocked both Mary Ellen and family members of Ned’s first victim. Even more outrageous to both was that with good behavior, Ned could be eligible for release—not parole—inside eleven years.

Eleven years.

A little over a decade behind bars for murdering one woman and savagely, cruelly, attacking a second, nearly killing her, too.

Fred Schwanwede and the Middlesex County people wanted to close the Middlesex murder they believed Ned was responsible for. The problem with charging Ned with the crime—he had never been indicted for it—was that he knew the victim. He had dated her months before the crime took place. That meant, Schwanwede perceptively pointed out, that any trace evidence connecting Ned to the murder would ultimately be thrown out of court. Ned had every reason to be with the woman. All he had to say—and he was an expert at manipulating people and situations—was that he and the victim had reunited. They were talking about getting back together.

All that being said, there wasn’t a lot of evidence against Ned. Thus, the best way out of it all was to offer a plea. Having him admit to the crime would be a major coup.

“The family had suspected him all along, but they never had what they needed to close the book on it,” Schwanwede said. “To have him admit that he did that was helpful to them. For us, it wasn’t so much about closing out a cold case, but bringing some peace to the family.”

The thing that surprised Schwanwede most was that Bruno had allowed Ned to plead the case out the way it had been written: aggravated manslaughter. Generally speaking, as time goes on, a case against a suspect grows colder. The Middlesex case was already pushing five years. Ned was likely never going to be arrested for it. That was clear. Yet, he admitted to killing the woman, stabbing her to death. Why wouldn’t he fight for a lesser charge instead of signing the plea the way it was written?

This baffled everyone.

What no one knew, of course, was that Ned Snelgrove had a plan himself.