Empty Promises

the departments from which they were recruited.
    Assistant Attorney General Stephen Keutzer was from the Lane County district attorney’s office in Eugene, and Assistant Attorney General Robert Hamilton had once been on staff in the Marion County D.A.’s office in Salem. Between them, they had a great deal of experience in prosecuting homicide cases. Now they responded to Clackamas County’s request for help in the investigation and prosecution of Tom Brown.

    Robin Marcus’s many statements suggested that she might be a good candidate for Sodium Amytal (truth serum) and the grand jury requested an examination by Dr. J. H. Treleaven, head of the Psychiatric Security Unit of Oregon State Hospital, to see if the drug might unveil hidden areas in her mind.
    Treleaven’s conclusion was that the young widow would probably reveal nothing more under truth serum. He determined that she had been subjected to classic brainwashing during the time she was held captive after her husband’s murder. All the elements were there: psychic shock, isolation, programming, the promise of reward and, for Robin, the need to alleviate her guilt that she had been responsible for Hank’s death.
    The shock of hearing her husband was dead and seeing her dog shot before her eyes would have been profound. The wilderness of the Mount Hood National Forest was as isolated as a place could get. And over the three days Robin was held captive, Brown systematically programmed her to believe whatever he told her about the “accident.” Robin’s promised reward was that she might escape with her life. Perhaps more important to her, she wanted to believe it had all been accidental. That would relieve her of the burden of knowing Hank had died because this stranger desired her sexually and was willing to kill to get her. In her mind, she would have felt responsible for the death of the man she loved more than anyone on earth.
    Robin Marcus was, after all, only sixteen years old. She was suggestible and pliable. Before her ordeal, she had been an exceptionally trusting person. She was deeply religious, and she had only her Bible for protection against the stalking killer.
    Now Keutzer and Hamilton and their team of investigators would start from the beginning, reviewing all the evidence on the case, the conflicting statements, and the circumstances of the killing. Optimally, a homicide case is easier to prepare when the prosecution team has been at the crime scene within hours of the event, just as the time element in solving a murder is so vital. The more time that passes after a killing takes place, the less likely investigators are to solve it.
    Hank Marcus’s family was distraught, crying for justice. Robin Marcus only wanted to forget. What she had experienced was so disturbing that she could not bear to go over it again. She was distraught that she had been asked so many questions, and forced to relive her terror so many times. She was jittery at the thought of testifying before a jury.
    Robin had been hammered with questions and linked to the leads of lie detectors so often because her original statement was in direct opposition to what she had later told the Clackamas County detectives. They had no choice but to keep questioning her. Predictably, she was not the most cooperative witness a prosecuting team could hope for.
    One of the first things the team from the attorney general’s office did was to review the past record of Thomas Brown. When he said he had a long criminal history, he hadn’t been exaggerating. Brown had an incredible background of violence—seemingly for its own sake. He had first come to the attention of Oregon lawmen when he was barely sixteen years old, after a wild shooting incident. The Clackamas County sheriff’s office had been called after a young man was critically wounded by a gunshot while he was standing in the window of his own home. Witnesses had identified the gunman as Tom Brown, who was arrested almost immediately by a deputy who saw Brown as he was getting out of a pickup truck with a rifle in his hand.
    With Brown in custody, the deputy raced to the house of the victim, who was only nineteen. He was still standing, but his hand was pressed tight over his stomach in a vain attempt to hold back the blood that gushed out between his fingers. The wounded man was taken to the hospital while Brown was questioned.
    “Did you shoot him?”
    “Yeah,” Tom said. “I wanted his car, and I was willing to