Читать книгу No One Can Hurt Him Anymore - Scott Cupp - Страница 11

CHAPTER 5

Jimmy was Jimmy—retired NYPD—and not afraid to voice his opinion, whether you wanted to hear it or not. He would tell you like it was.

—Detective Michael Waites

The morning after A.J.’s body was found, a woman named Connie Mason called the sheriff’s office and asked to talk to a detective in reference to Jessica Schwarz. Jimmy Restivo went to her home in Lake Worth to interview her.

Mason told Restivo that on April 19 she had attended a group counseling session with Jessica, and had had a very disturbing conversation with her about A.J.

Restivo: Would you tell me some of the things you remember her saying about A.J.?

Mason: She first caught my attention because she said she had a little “Jeffrey Dahmer.” After a few minutes, she said it again and I questioned her on it and she started telling me how he was abused by his original mother—and that he was uncontrollable. She talked a good twenty to thirty minutes about him.

Restivo: Just about A.J.?

Mason: Just about A.J.

Restivo: Did she ever say anything about hurting him because he dunked one of the girls [under the water]?

Mason: She stated, I believe, that he held one of the girls under and she grabbed him by the throat and pulled him out of the pool, slammed him up against the fence, and said that she would “kill him and cut him up in pieces if he ever touched one of her girls again.” Jessica said that she’d call the cops and turn herself in and go to prison for the rest of her life, but he would never hurt her children again.

Restivo: Did she tell you about something she had told a judge?

Mason: She stated she told the judge that if A.J. ever—I think this might’ve been in reference to molesting the girls—because I did ask about that. Was she afraid that he would do that to one of the girls and she, ah—

Restivo: You mean sexually molest?

Mason: Yeah. ’Cause he had been—she said that he had been. She said that she would kill him. She said, “I even told the judge I would kill him if he hurt one of my girls—and he still gave me custody of the kids.”

Restivo: When she was saying these things, did you believe her? What was your reaction? Honestly?

Mason: I wanted to help her help the child—that’s how I felt. That I could probably—by talking to her—help her love the child, as he needed more love. I felt like he needed more love, ’cause he was far from getting it, with her calling him a Jeffrey Dahmer. That’s the wrong way.

Restivo: But she did talk about killing this little boy?

Mason: She said she’d kill him—several times. She said—not only the incident when she told him that she’d kill him—but she said to the whole meeting that if he hurt her girls, she would kill him. She said another thing about waking up in the morning. I wish I could word this right. She said everybody just had to leave her alone until like ten o’clock in the morning, as she was mean—extremely mean—in the mornings. And that A.J. just didn’t comprehend that she was mean—to leave her alone. Sometimes he just didn’t get it through his head.

Restivo: Did she ever indicate that she’d hurt him in the morning?

Mason: Not that I recall.

Restivo: Did she talk about her husband?

Mason: I know his name is Bear. I know she said he was big and she did talk—I just don’t know what was said right now. It might come to me later. She did talk about him—I don’t know. I believe he’s on her side. You know, as far as taking control of A.J.

Restivo: Did she mention about how he would treat A.J.?

Mason: No. No. Not that I—

Restivo: Anything else come to mind, Connie?

Mason: The abuse, I say, would be from her.

Restivo: Excuse me?

Mason: I’m saying the abuse—I could tell it was being done by her. So, whatever she said about her husband, it didn’t hit me like he was [abusing A.J.]. I thought she had a good husband because they had their home and a pool. I figured she had someone taking care of her family.

Restivo: Anything else come to mind?

Mason: I just think she held him under there.

Restivo: You think she held him under the water?

Mason: I do.

Restivo: Why do you get that feeling?

Mason: It just hit me in the gut when I seen it on TV.

Early in the afternoon on Wednesday, May 5, Detective Waites met with Ilene Logan (A.J.’s natural mother) and Patsy (A.J.’s half sister) at their home in Fort Lauderdale. Ilene told him that her ex-husband David Schwarz had been given temporary custody of both Patsy and A.J. because of an abusive situation that had occurred with another ex-husband. She said Patsy was the victim of the abuse and claimed that A.J. had not been abused. David had been given temporary custody, with the court intending for both A.J. and Patsy to be returned to her.

She had since regained custody of Patsy and claimed that three weeks before her son’s death, she had asked a judge for an emergency hearing to get A.J. back, but the request was denied.

Patsy told the detective that while she was living with David and Jessica, A.J. was fed only bread and water and sometimes was forced to eat bread off the floor. If he didn’t clean the garage “good enough,” he was not allowed to eat at all.

When he cleaned the kitty litter box, if he didn’t do it right, “his face would be put into the litter box.” He also had to clean dog feces from the backyard using his hands, but he was allowed to wear gloves.

Patsy told him about other incidents, including ones in which Jessica struck both her and A.J. She explained that she lived with Jessica and David from November 1990 until February 1992—when HRS removed her from their home. Arrangements were later made for Patsy to give a sworn statement in front of a court reporter—with Ilene present.

Later that day, Waites served a subpoena on the custodian of records for Indian Pines Elementary School for school records pertaining to Andrew J. Schwarz. The records showed that A.J. was just below normal in IQ testing. The principal of the school advised him that A.J. did not qualify for special learning disability classes, as had been requested by his stepmother.

Chris Calloway returned to Triphammer Road that afternoon to interview more neighbors. There he talked to an older woman, Shirley Leiter, who told him that every Thursday morning for the past year she had seen A.J. collecting aluminum cans from yellow recycling bins that the residents of the Concept Homes area put out in front of their homes for collection. The last time she saw A.J. was on April 29 when he stopped by her house to pick up additional cans that she had saved for him.

A.J. told her that he had been up since 4:45 that morning and that he was hungry. He couldn’t go home and eat unless he had “a whole bunch of cans,” and his stepmother would “put him in jail” if he didn’t bring enough of them home.

Leiter had given him three doughnuts.

She had become very concerned after talking to him and, about 8:00 that morning, called the CPT. She was referred to a 1-800 number. She spoke to a man named Dave Davis, who told her to call Palm Beach County Truancy. Instead, she called the Indian Pines Elementary School and spoke to a lady whom she believed to be the principal. The woman told Leiter that the school would be taking care of the problem.

Three days later, A.J.’s body was found floating in the aboveground swimming pool.

Detective Calloway next talked to Ronald Pincus Sr., the father of the young man who had seen A.J. walking his dog in the wee hours of the night. Pincus Sr. told the detective that he had heard Jessica Schwarz verbally abuse A.J. on many occasions. The weekend before A.J.’s death—on Saturday—he heard A.J. saying, in a loud voice, “I have a big mouth. I get people in trouble. I’ll never do it again.” The boy was standing in front of his own house, but Pincus Sr. could hear him inside his home.

A.J. had been repeating the phrase for two hours when Pincus Sr. left at eleven o’clock in the morning. When he returned four hours later, A.J. was still standing there, repeating the same phrase, and continued until five o’clock in the evening.

He had also heard Jessica call the boy “Jeffrey Dahmer.”

Pincus Sr.’s twelve-year-old stepdaughter, Jennifer Sullivan, told the detective that she had been in the Schwarz home at least ten times since January 1993. One of the times she was over there, she had heard Jessica tell A.J. that he was to be home by 2:10, and if he didn’t make it home by then, she would “tie him up with duct tape, throw him in the road, and run him over.”

On two different occasions, she had seen Jessica strike A.J. About a month earlier, she had been over there playing in Lauren’s room and heard Jessica say, “Come here, young man.” Jennifer walked out into the living room and saw Jessica strike A.J. on the side of the face and he went into his room and cried. When she saw him later, his eye was red.

In January of that year, she was playing in the pool in the backyard of the Schwarz home. She looked into the kitchen area of the house after she heard A.J. cry out, “Don’t do this! Please don’t!” She saw Jessica strike A.J. in the eye three times with her hand. When she later talked to A.J. about it, he told her not to tell anybody or he would get in trouble.

During Scott Cupp’s time in Live Oak—the seat of Florida’s Third Judicial Circuit—he prosecuted a case against Luz and Guillermo Hernandez, charging them with criminal responsibility in the death of their four-year-old daughter, Sonia. Sonia had suffered from birth with severe brain disorders that left her unable to sit up, nearly deaf, blind, incontinent, vegetative, and prone to fevers and infections. She died of pneumonia in 1990. The problem was that her parents hadn’t taken her to see a doctor for the two years prior to her death.

The prosecution alleged that the reason they didn’t was because they had joined the End Timers, a religious cult led by Charles Meade. The End Timers espoused faith healing instead of doctors. The cult, Meade, and the manslaughter/ child neglect case against the Hernandezes captured the attention of the Miami Herald, ABC’s 20/20, and the fledgling Court TV, which covered the trial live.

The trial brought Dr. Joseph Burton to town. The chief medical examiner for several counties in metropolitan Atlanta, Georgia, he specialized in pediatric pathology.

Largely because of him, the jury compromised and found the couple guilty of the medical neglect charge—but acquitted them on the manslaughter charge. The doctor convinced everyone that the child was well cared for by the parents and, in retrospect, Cupp felt that the jurors made the right decision. Little did he realize that one year later, their paths would cross again. But this time, if everything worked out the way he planned, Cupp would be asking him direct questions—instead of cross-examining him.

What Scott Cupp remembered most about Dr. Burton—from when he took the witness stand in Live Oak—was his presence and his demeanor. It was as much how he said things as it was what he said. He had an open, warm approachable manner, and Cupp couldn’t help but like him.

His credentials were outstanding and he had a reputation for testifying for defense attorneys—as well as prosecutors. That told Cupp that he was brave. If he came to an opinion in a case, he wasn’t afraid to say it—regardless of whom it helped or hurt.

After the Benz fiasco, Cupp felt as if all eyes were on him. Everyone involved in the investigation of A.J.’s death knew they needed a second opinion, but whose? They began making calls to various other medical examiners in Florida. Cupp didn’t say anything, but his gut told him that everyone in Florida was going to back Dr. Benz.

And Cupp didn’t just want a second opinion—he wanted a second autopsy.

How were they going to do it? Could they do it? He never had. At that point in Cupp’s career, he had been involved in only a few homicides, and the Hernandez case was the first one in which he had been the lead prosecutor.

He began by telling Detective Waites, and Waites’s superiors, about Burton—but Burton was in Atlanta. How could this be accomplished? What would state attorney Barry Krischer say? He had been in office just long enough to get the furniture in the right place—and Cupp was going to tell him he needed to go toe-to-toe with the chief medical examiner in a purely circumstantial-evidence homicide? Not only that, but the man he wanted to do the second autopsy was in Atlanta!

Cupp started by looking at the statutes, and what he found was Florida Stature 925.09, AUTHORITY OF STATE ATTORNEY TO ORDER AUTOPSIES: “The state attorney may have an autopsy performed, before or after interment, on a dead body found in the county when he decides it is necessary in determining whether or not death was the result of a crime.”

He would later refer to this law as “the state attorney trumps the medical examiner” law. It didn’t say anything about the autopsy being performed within the state, so maybe they could pull it off. Cupp decided to approach Krischer.

He knew he had a fighting chance. Krischer had a true commitment to improving child abuse prosecution in Palm Beach County, and had made it an issue in his campaign. When he took office, there were only three prosecutors doing child abuse for six criminal divisions. Krischer planned to give Cupp enough positions so that they would have one per division. Additionally, his background was solid.

Prior to becoming the state attorney, Barry Krischer had been the attorney for the Child Protection Team. It was obvious that when he spoke about legal issues involving child abuse, he knew what he was talking about. But how would he react to this? One could easily envision all sorts of very bad—and very public—endings. The media hadn’t done much with A.J.’s death at that point, but they would. They were watching and waiting. Scott Cupp was hearing—which meant Krischer was hearing—that HRS “had really dropped the ball” this time.

Cupp had already been present at the hastily called meeting at the PBSO, attended by a rather large number of HRS personnel. He knew that was significant—for two reasons. First, it was at the sheriff’s office—and not at HRS. Second, it was attended by a man from the inspector general’s office in Tallahassee—an agency whose task was to conduct internal investigations of state agencies like HRS.

Many things were going on behind the scenes and probably none of them would be primarily designed to make the prosecution of A.J.’s killer any easier. They would have to move quickly.

The morning he planned to approach Krischer with the letter he wanted him to sign, Cupp arrived for work early. From here on out, he would be arriving for work early most mornings. He was surprised to find Krischer already at work in his office. No one else was there yet, so Cupp had his undivided attention.

Krischer asked, “What are you doing here so early?”

Cupp could tell from the look on Krischer’s face that he knew it had to do with A.J.’s case. It was important to him that right from the beginning he didn’t pull any punches. He wanted to convey very clearly that this case had enormous potential—if not handled correctly by everyone involved—to go very, very badly.

Cupp replied, “We need to talk.”

“Okay.”

Barry Krischer had a way of quickly reading a person’s demeanor, and when necessary, he took on an almost fatherly tone and attitude. That would make them tell him everything—sometimes more than they had wanted.

This was one time Cupp held nothing back. He, quickly but thoroughly, told Krischer about the various meetings that had already taken place. Saying it to Krischer made Cupp realize just how extraordinary the case already was. Although it was only a few days old, it was already consuming many, many hours of a lot of people’s time.

Scott Cupp could tell by Krisher’s reaction that he was not surprised in the least about Benz’s behavior. They spoke about HRS’s role and the possibility of investigating them at some point.

Finally Cupp presented the letter he had prepared for Krischer’s signature. He told him about the power he felt Krischer had—under the statute—to order a second autopsy. He told him about Joe Burton and how strongly he felt that a second autopsy—if Krischer would order it—had to be done by someone with no official ties, not only to Palm Beach, but to Florida as well.

Cupp told him there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that Jessica had murdered A.J. And after viewing the tape of her at the sheriff’s office, he knew—if given the chance—he could make a jury feel the same way. Not just convince them—but also make them feel the same way he was feeling.

The meeting didn’t last as long as Cupp thought it would, and it didn’t involve as many people as he thought it would. After twenty or thirty minutes, Krischer seemed to know all that he needed to, but he was intent on making sure that Cupp was okay with his own decision.

“Are you sure this is what you want to do?”

“Yes, sir.”

Cupp’s formality with Krischer told him that he was firm in his resolve to go forward—not just professionally, but personally as well. He was letting him know that he would do what needed to be done and see it through to the end.

Few state attorneys would want to inform the chief medical examiner that they were taking custody of a body and ordering a second full autopsy to be done. And, chances are, none of them would have signed the letter after barely reading it and making no changes—and without having a chief assistant state’s attorney or deputy lend their counsel to the situation. By putting his personal and political trust in Scott Cupp, Krischer galvanized Cupp’s resolve even more.

Five days after his tragic death—and four days after the first autopsy—A.J.’s body was packed in dry ice, placed in a container specially made for such things, and flown to Lawrenceville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, to have a second full autopsy performed on him.

It was on Friday, May 7, that Detective Michael Waites had the somber duty of accompanying the body—transported by the Aviation Unit of the sheriff’s office—at the request of the state attorney’s office.

After Dr. Joseph Burton examined the body and performed the second autopsy, which took three to four hours, he advised Waites that the victim had been abused.

As Dr. Benz had done earlier in the week, Dr. Burton listed the cause of death as drowning, but he left the manner of death undetermined, pending microscopic examinations of standards recovered from various bruises on the victim. A complete copy of the autopsy report would eventually be provided to the sheriff’s office, the Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office, and the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office.

Scott Cupp would never forget A.J.’s second autopsy, which he had orchestrated successfully. As Joe Burton performed his work, Cupp was at home playing with his two daughters, four-year-old Kaity and two-year-old Elizabeth. He was trying his best to enjoy the evening. It was his thirty-seventh birthday.