Worth More Dead

from Durall’s computers.
    Even after Baird argued that the defense had had access to those disks for the past year, Judge Fleck went by edicts of discovery that said she had to grant the delay. She announced that court would reconvene the next Monday.
    Jeff Baird was as frustrated as those in the gallery, a group that included relatives and supporters of each side. “This is a question about a defendant who has cold feet about testifying and, frankly, I think it’s time for him to fish or cut bait,” Baird said. “I don’t think he’s fooling anybody.”
    Judge Fleck urged the defendant and his attorney to make up their minds whether Durall would testify on Monday. Don Minor answered only that he couldn’t promise. “On his way to the witness stand, he might change his mind,” he said, a hint of resignation in his voice.
     
    It was Monday, July 31, and the courtroom was hushed, everyone waiting to see whether Bob Durall actually would take the stand.
    He did. What followed was one of the most stunning demonstrations ever seen in a courtroom. It’s unlikely that even Don Minor knew what his client was about to reveal.
    Bob Durall’s testimony veered completely away from the evidence that had thus far been presented. He said that even he couldn’t be positive about what had happened to Carolyn and then explained why. He discussed the night of August 6, 1998. “Nothing happened I consider way out of the ordinary,” he told the jury in a calm voice. There was no fight, no talk of divorce. They awakened early on Friday and he saw her only briefly before she left to go to work.
    Yes, he admitted that he told her worried coworkers that he didn’t know where she was or why she hadn’t come to work. But he actually suspected that she was with another man. He had desperately searched for her van in motel and hotel parking lots but couldn’t find it anywhere. “In my mind, I knew she was somewhere with somebody.”
    He had called the police later that day and attempted to file a missing persons’ report, but he was still thinking that she was cheating on him with another man.
    He didn’t want to disappoint his children, and he wanted to be with them, so he had gone alone to the San Juan Islands to spend the weekend with his three youngsters and his mother- and father-in-law. When his 9-year-old son asked where his wife was, he said he had gently told him, “We can’t find Mommy right now.”
    So far, Durall hadn’t deviated much from the story he originally told the Renton detectives. Then Bob Durall suddenly began an incredible tale with a whole new cast of characters.
    He testified that had returned from the San Juan Islands on Monday, August 10, in the early morning hours. (This would have been several hours after police had called to tell him that they had located Carolyn’s van two miles from his house.) That was when he had become involved in a terrifying situation. While he was standing in his bedroom, a man with a gun had appeared. The man had held a gun on him, Durall said, and tied him up in a bathroom, all the while threatening to shoot him.
    Everyone in the gallery, not to mention those at the defense and prosecution tables, stared back at the man on the witness stand, bemused and bewildered.
    Durall continued to tell the story of what “really happened.” Next, he said he was forced to drive several miles—he wasn’t sure how many—to a place where they met a second man, who was waiting in a parking lot somewhere in Issaquah. The second man was shorter and quite tan and had bushy hair. He was sitting in a large SUV. Both men forced the still-bound Durall into the SUV and drove for what he estimated was about two hours until they came to a forested area off I-90. (It would not take anywhere near two hours to drive from Issaquah to the region Durall was describing; it was only about twenty-four miles east.)
    It was of course the place where Carolyn’s body was found. The mysterious strangers dumped a large bag there, which, he said, contained Carolyn’s body, but he didn’t ask.
    Durall testified that he could not describe either man in detail, but knew they were both Caucasian. The one with the gun was taller and partially bald, while the other had a thick head of hair. “Bushy hair.”
    One of his captors told Bob Durall, “There wouldn’t have been a problem. She should have kept her promise. She got caught on the phone.”
    He didn’t ask about that either, apparently