Empty Promises

that occurred as the killer was in the process of committing a felony. In this case the felony was assault in the second-degree.

    Kristin Richardson rose to present the final argument to the jury. Dark-haired, with a calm manner, Richardson had been impressive throughout the State’s case. Now she could not keep the scorn from her voice as she spoke of Steve Sherer’s “squalid, voyeuristic life.”
    She began by stressing that fear was Steve Sherer’s weapon. “He had tight control over other people: his mother, his in-laws. He threatened that he would take Jami and Chris away from them. And finally, Jami.”
    Kristin Richardson told the jury that sometimes a prosecution team cannot offer them a situation where there is no doubt about the guilt of the defendant. “We can’t always have an eyewitness or a videotape or a diary. But you don’t have to have a body to convict,” she stressed. “If you’re smart enough about where to put a dead person—the bottom of a lake, the base of a tree, a hole somewhere in the wilderness, you can get away with murder. We will probably never know the last minutes of Jami’s life. We may never know why she stayed with him or how he got rid of her body.
    “But the body is not the case. [The case is] the final picture of the little pieces of a puzzle—the forest made up of the single trees.”
    Richardson explained the elements of a murder case: Did this murder take place in the state of Washington? Yes. Was there an intent to kill Jami Hagel Sherer? Yes. Premeditation, she explained, means that intent was present for more than a moment in time, even a minute or two before the murder itself. Was there premeditation? Yes.
    “Look at Steve’s treatment of Jami: control,” she said. “The first time they met, he picked her up in a bar and talked her into leaving her friends and coming with him. He sent her a dozen roses. He was forceful. He gave Jami a full-court press. He was quickly in control of her. Jami’s biggest mistake? Moving to California with him. He threatened suicide with a knife. And Jami said, ‘It wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t love me so much.’ He put a sign in their yard, ‘I love my wife!’ He sent her roses to Microsoft. He gave her diamonds.
    “And then”—Kristin Richardson’s voice rose—“he embarrassed her. He called her stupid, worthless. He put her down in the Balderdash game. That was the way it was going to be. He missed her labor by two hours. All she wanted to be was a mommy, but he discussed the most private moments of their sex life. He was happy to talk about his sex life to anyone who would listen. He kept sex photos of her, her underwear.
    “He made her have a boob job with the money from insurance fraud. At their wedding, he bragged that ‘all the guys had hard-ons.’ Jami was the proverbial inflatable doll to him.”
    Richardson made no effort to deny that Jami had indeed engaged in three-way sex with Steve and Lew Adams, but she pointed out that it was at Steve’s coercion. “Lew said that Steve called him into the bedroom, saying, ‘I need help here.’ Steve was undressing Jami, who was just roused from sleep. Steve was taking her bra off. Steve couldn’t maintain an erection. Jami told Lew later that she was humiliated.
    “Steve wasn’t working. He spent his time obsessing over whether her job was lessening his control over Jami. He had no concern at all for Jami. Jami would do anything to avoid a fight, but she was unable to break the cycle, although everyone pulled out the stops to get her free of him.”
    Kristin pointed out what Steve had said the night before Jami vanished: “If I ever catch her cheating, I’m gonna kill her.”
    And Jami had finally cheated on him, going out with Lew Adams because, in Jami’s words, “Lew listened to me and gave me the courage to leave.”
    “She asked her dad, ‘Daddy, can I come home?’ She took the ring,” Kristin submitted. “It was a metaphor—the final payment to her, a symbol of her value to him. She taped it under her car seat.”
    Kristin Richardson gave a timetable for September 30, 1990, the last day she believed Jami was alive:

7:30 A.M. : Steve calls Judy Hagel and says, “Jami’s home.”
    Before 8:00 A.M. : Jami is at Judy’s. Steve calls, calls, calls. Judy prevails upon her to speak to him. Jami agrees to meet Steve at the Samena Club. Steve grabs her purse.
    8:40 A.M. : Jami calls Judy. She’s just getting clothes together for