...And Never Let HerGo

explain to the jurors why the defendant often ate bagels and sipped water as the trial progressed.
    Dr. Neil Kaye, the psychiatrist who monitored her prescriptions and saw Anne Marie on the last afternoon of her life, testified that she had made the decision to rid herself of the man who was “freaking her out” by calling her every half hour and sending her endless E-mail. But Kaye admitted she had never told him the man’s name.
    Curiously, Dr. Kaye wore a wooden hat to court. It was very expensive, and meticulously carved from a single block of wood, so that it appeared to be an actual half fedora, half cowboy hat. He set it carefully on his knee as he testified. When Oteri asked him about his hat, he acknowledged that it was somewhat unwieldy and hot, but said he collected wooden hats and a trial was as good a place as any to display them. Dr. Michelle Sullivan knew the name of the man Anne Marie feared. It was Tom Capano. And she told the jury about her patient’s determined struggle to break off with him.
    I N sidebar conferences, the defense attorneys fought to keep out of the jury’s hearing statements Anne Marie had made to her friends about Tom. They submitted to Judge Lee that much of what Jill Morrison, Siobhan Sullivan, Jennifer Haughton, Jackie Steinhoff, Ginny Columbus, and Kim Horstman might say would be hearsay or even triple hearsay. They claimed it would show “prior bad acts” of their client. The prosecution maintained that her friends’ testimony would validate Capano’s stalking behavior.
    Judge Lee finally decided to let their testimony in because it would show Anne Marie’s state of mind. There was no other way to do that. “I think her state of mind becomes important,” Lee said, “for a number of reasons because somehow we now know that she died in his house—the defense has indicated that in its opening argument. . . . And we are told that this was a very tragic, ill-defined accident. . . . In order for the state to approach the concept of there being some intentional homicide—because they are not interested in proving an accident occurred in the house—they have to show a change in their [Anne Marie and Tom’s] relationship that made it more toxic. And that this pattern of calling her under circumstances that were inconsistent with the E-mails, inconsistent with the portrait of domestic tranquillity . . . is important in balancing the emotional condition of their relationship at this time.”
    Judge Lee ruled, however, that Jill Morrison could not tell about the time Tom made Anne Marie tear up all the pictures of her old boyfriends while standing over her as she tearfully complied. Nor could Jill testify about how he flew into a rage if Anne Marie spoke to anyone in the office when she was on the phone with him. “He’d tell her she was to talk to him and no one else,” Jill had told Wharton. But the defense objected to testimony about these incidents because Jill was unable to pinpoint the time they had occurred.
    Allowed now to speak for Anne Marie, her friends followed one another to the witness stand. They spoke to the jury of the hovering, smothering presence Tom had become in their friend’s life. They recalled his incessant phone calls, his unexpected visits, his continual E-mail, and his rage when Anne Marie began to date Mike Scanlan. Jill Morrison testified about her friend’s anguish when Tom drove his Jeep Cherokee slowly by Mike’s house, and his inevitable calls to Anne Marie later to tell her the exact times he’d seen her car there.
    The prosecuting attorneys moved through their witnesses, some talkative and some speaking haltingly because of stage fright or emotion. The presentation flowed effortlessly. Now that all the componentsof the case were assembled, no one listening could ever have known how hard they had worked to put them together.
    The gallery and the media waited eagerly for particular witnesses. Everyone wondered if Tom’s brothers would actually take the stand and repeat the information that had led to Tom’s arrest. Could Gerry and Louie look Tom in the eye and say the words that might bring him the death penalty?
    Joe Oteri had claimed to be looking forward to cross-examining Gerry. “Gerry and I will have some good times,” he said, smiling and almost licking his lips.
    G ERRY was the soft spot in the strong Capano front. He had idolized Tom from the time he could talk and he was reportedly agonizing about testifying against