Empty Promises

had been dating Maine for about a year, described a phone call she received from him at about nine o’clock that evening while she was baby-sitting in the uncle’s home.
    “We talked for about five or ten minutes—just a casual conversation. But then he said to come out on the porch or he would start shooting!” The witness said she did not go out on the porch but instead hung up and called the Seattle police. The murderous duo left the area then and headed south. On the Oregon coast, according to one motel manager, they attempted to register at his establishment but when they gave him incomplete information, he asked the wild-haired pair to leave. Although the Snohomish County jury would not hear the name Samuel Ledgerwood until the penalty phase of the defendants’ trial, it was just after this incident that the kindly salesman met his killers.
    Weeks of testimony in the first phase of the trial were coming to a close. Neither Hale nor Bailey called any witnesses for the defense.
    Prosecutor Metcalf summed up his case by reviewing the voluminous testimony presented, and then said, “By use of force and fear, this girl was kidnapped, killed, and robbed. The state has proved its case. The defendants are guilty as charged.”
    Bailey, the attorney for Braun, challenged the prosecution by saying, “There was no motive for this killing. Thomas Braun didn’t even know Deanna Buse. You must decide if he intended to kill her.”
    Samuel Hale, in defense of Leonard Maine, hit hard at the concept that Maine had been a frightened, unwilling pawn in the hands of his traveling companion. He recalled testimony where Maine told California officers that Braun had pointed a gun at him just before the two stopped Deanna Buse’s car.
    On rebuttal, Prosecutor David Metcalf deplored Bailey’s argument that there had been no motive. “I don’t know why murders are committed. I don’t know why kidnappings are committed. I don’t know why robberies are committed.” He stressed that the reason for Deanna’s brutal murder did not matter; it had been committed. Hale’s contention that Maine had acted under duress and fear for his own life prompted Metcalf to point out that Maine had many opportunities to get away from Braun, yet had remained with him.
    On November 19, after twenty-seven days of testimony, the jury retired to deliberate. In seven hours, they returned with a verdict. Thomas Braun and Leonard Maine remained stoic as they heard the decision of their peers. Ten times the word “Guilty” was repeated. Each of the defendants was found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping, robbery, grand larceny, and possession of a dangerous weapon during the commission of the murder, kidnapping, and robbery.
    Judge McCrea polled the jury as the defendants sat stone-faced. All of the jurors affirmed their decisions.
    After a weekend’s rest, the case moved to the penalty phase. For Braun, already under the death penalty in California, his sentence seemed academic. He could only be executed once. If he was given the death penalty in Washington, a successful appeal to the Supreme Court on the California death penalty still wouldn’t save him. For Maine, whose much lighter sentence in California made the Washington trial crucial, the jury’s decision could be disastrous.
    Now all the evidence and testimony previously barred concerning the crimes against Susan Bartolomei, Tim Luce, and Samuel Ledgerwood was placed before the jury, beginning with a chronology of events that linked the attacks.
    Snohomish County had taken the missing persons report on Deanna Buse on Saturday, August 19. Then word had come from Portland that Sam Ledgerwood, an automobile salesman, had failed to return from a fishing trip to the Oregon coast. The last call from him came on Sunday, August 20. When his body was found days later, the police also found Deanna Buse’s burned Buick. Next came the kidnapping of Susan Bartolomei and Tim Buse in Hopland, California, on Monday. The time line was unassailable.
    In addition, the jurors heard testimony from a Seattle hotel proprietor who told of events on the Friday evening of August 18, 1967, the day before Deanna Buse was murdered. The hotel owner described a young man who had requested a room. “But then I saw a shadow in front of me,” she recalled. “I looked up and he was pointing a gun at me. Then I screamed and stepped into an adjoining room and shut the door.”
    She identified Thomas Braun as