I arrived right before 8.30am, still pretty upset about my computer completely crashing and losing all of my work from the day before. I must have come in like a whirlwind as I went straight to the 2 lead Detectives who've been part of this case since the beginning in the 80's, retired Detectives Dennis Kilcoyne
You see, I'm not really a Blogger at all. I'm an Author. However, when my Publisher suggested I should Blog throughout the Trial which will help to lead up to the sales of my book, I took him up on what he said with full gusto. Hence, I ended up 'covering the Trial in the same details as I speak, which is a lot! Also, I am not politically correct so I say it like it is unlike most people here in California.
The following part of this Blog, up to the ***** I will be talking personally about things unrelated to the Trial, please skip ahead past the ***** if you want to go straight in to the events of the final day in Court with Closing Arguments. I don't talk about my personal life much in this Blog as I assume people who are following me here want to know about the Trial and not about my personal life. Those that follow me on Facebook know that I post more on camera work there. So please excuse me making the next page or so about me and what I've been through with certain people surrounding this Trial.
We were let into the Courtroom somewhere around 8.40am. People took their seats, the ones we usually sit in, some people were texting but I was not. I was holding my phone in my hand and looked at the side to make sure it was off which it was. The miserable Bailiff with the down turned mouth was just waiting for me to do this. I will say more about this further down. This Bailiff has waited every day throughout this Trial for a reason to throw me out. It's so funny because if this lowly Bailiff only knew how well connected I am with his superiors in the LASD and have been for over 2 decades, he might not have been so nasty to me for all these years in this Courtroom. With someone like him, I felt the little he knew about me the better I would be. Plus I am not a vindictive person at all, so I'm not even going to make a complaint about his lousy and cruel attitude. He has an attitude with everyone, especially me. So for the past 5 years (plus), since I've been coming to his Courtroom, I have always been on my best behaviour.
It's written all over his face from the start that he's a very angry unhappy man, and his resting face of a down turned mouth, completely sums that up well. Unhappy and angry people who hate themselves, don't like anyone and they really hate 'happy people' in a big way. This is something hard to conceal about myself, so I did my best to tone down my positive spirit and toned it down in 'his' Courtroom.
From the very beginning of this Trial he allowed anyone who took notes to use their computers in the Courtroom. But not me. In fact although I made no attempt to gain a media pass (as I've never needed one before), I did call media relations to make sure I could use my computer. The lady on the phone said she didn't think it would be a problem at all especially as she knew I was under Contract with my Publisher to cover the Trial for my book. When she called me back she said she spoke to the Bailiff (yes the Bailiff) and he specifically said he didn't want me.... yes me... to take notes on my computer. She even told me that she found it strange that he would not allow me to do this. The poor Bailiff didn't realize that I can actually write faster than I type as I was trained in shorthand (picture below right)
at secretarial college in London so it turned out to be better for me in the long run. However, his intent was to make it difficult for me from the very start. That's just the kind of person he is.
There is a woman who is often in the Courtroom, who also seems very unhappy. She types away on her computer daily yet she's not even being paid to be there! She's not there writing a book, in fact I am told that she is a Blogger. So this woman, who looks like she owns a large number of cats at home, is allowed by the Bailiff to type away and she's only a Blogger with no Publisher behind her.
I don't know what her Blog looks like but I'm told that she writes on various cases here in the CCB (Criminal Courts Building) and just 'roams the corridor' (according to the cops) sitting in on Trials. Some media people say she likes to write also about her troubled life and her sicknesses and falling down in her home. Heck, if I were to write about my private life outside of this Trial, it certainly wouldn't be anything negative like that! I had a lead role in a movie a month ago and had to leave the CCB, change into a long dress in a car, and get driven to the Premier night to walk the red carpet. Plus every time I wasn't in Court I was working as a spokesmodel somewhere in or out of town. Again I never mentioned this when I was writing about the Trial. I feel people are there to read about the case and only the case not my glamourous jobs or events and certainly not about this 'woman blogger' being so ill or falling down. I wish someone would let me know the name of her Blog as I cannot find it. I'm not going to mention her name here as I wouldn't want her to see this, but she was a woman, that just hated me from the start. It makes sense as it seems very clear that she's not the kind of person who looks like she enjoys life very much. Therefore she is no threat to this Bailiff. She even wanted to Defend Amster a number of times which I just couldn't listen to.
She looks like just the type of woman who will be voting for Hillary Clinton. So I had to deal with the Bailiff, this woman and another woman (I won't mention her name either), just giving me evil looks throughout the Trial. This was very hard for me because, outside of this Courtroom, everywhere I go I am well liked. The friendships I made when I moved to America 21 years ago, are all still my dear friends to this day. Business relationships of mine continue to be business relationships to this day and I don't fall out with anyone. This was tough to be on the receiving end of such jealousy and spite. The women might have felt this way because they know I'm the only one that Lonnie Franklin will talk to outside of his wife and family. I know at least one of these 2 women have tried a number of times to interview Franklin and he has declined them. I have the 'exclusive' interviews with him and those interviews will be used in the other half of my book. I fail to see why anyone keeps trying to interview with him because it's not going to happen.
Continuing on with what happened when I was thrown out for looking at my phone, which I was placing into my handbag and the Bailiff said to me, "You. Out"! I told him that I was just making sure it was off and it was. He pointed to me, still with his mouth in a downward position, and said again firmly, "You get out"! So I thought it was a bit rude as clearly my phone was off and now in my bag, so I assumed he meant for me to go out and really make sure my phone was off before I could come back in. I followed his instructions and went outside. There was dear Detective Dupree in the corridor waiting for Enietra Washington to arrive. He reassured me that the Bailiff would probably not be throwing me out for the whole day especially as we weren't due to start for another 20 minutes. Detective Dupree is such an incredibly good hearted person that he would have had no idea what I had dealt with with this monster of a Bailiff from the start. I don't talk negatively so I didn't tell him. At times when I've been picked on continuously, I certainly try to explain the situation which is what I am trying to do now.
It's strange as people have had their cell phones ring in Court and he always makes the person go outside to turn it off and then they are allowed to go back in. Others have been seen to be texting, he shouts at them and makes them put the phone away immediately and never throws them out. But with me, I've never texted in the Courtroom, my phone has never made a sound, I've never even looked at the time on my phone, but at 8.40am, 20 minutes before Court was in session and long before the Judge came to the bench, I just looked at the side of my phone to make sure it was off and I was thrown out and not allowed back for the rest of the day.
I immediately burst into tears (as I wear my emotions on my sleeve) but I don't think he saw me cry because I held it together until I was by myself and away from everyone. Unhappy people love to crush the spirit of those who are happy and he did just that to me but it lasted only a full 10 minutes. It was clear that everyone was rallying around to either get me back into the Courtroom or help me in hearing what was going on inside. I'll get to that in a minute.
The really nice Sgt, gave me a chair to sit on right outside the door so I could hear the Proceedings. He even said to me "I wish I could do something to help you but the Bailiff went to the Judge and she gave the Order. I'm so sorry but not even I can go above the Judge". It's not Judge Kennedy's fault as she must have trusted what the Bailiff said that I did when she wasn't even there. After sitting for a while and taking notes, I stood up to see (and hear) what was going on through the little window as I really wanted to see how crazy Amster would be on the Closing Arguments Day. He was. He was shuffling back and forth between the Lectern and his seat as he always does. He was looking for documents under things as usual and he would flail his arms around a lot and hit very high octaves when he was describing fairy tale analogies of how he feels The People are basing their evidence.
******
Then he suddenly screamed in a high pitched voice, "Maybe he was a good marksman"! Ouch that hurt all of our ears and we all looked at each other (this was the first day of Closing Arguments so I was sitting in the Courtroom that day), "and maybe he wasn't. But the bullets were there first and then he drew the circles around them. Then he called his neighbours and said, 'Look at my barn'. He didn't give them all the facts, he didn't tell them what came first. They didn't ask questions. They said 'Wow, he's a great marksman'. And maybe he's a good marksman and maybe he's not, but without the proper inquiries you really don't know. And that... is the problem... with a pattern. If you don't have all the information, if you don't make all the proper inquiries, then you don't know: Is it a true pattern or is it an illusion? Is The Peoples' case a true pattern or is it an illusion"?
Oh God, that was what he was getting to! After all that drivel he was leading up to a point? What utter nonsense that we had to listen to as if we were listening to a nursery rhyme from a dreadful teacher in kindergarten, just waiting for them to finish. Then he gets to his point and it made absolutely not a blind bit of sense to anyone.
Amster: "Is there something of deception that is not the science that it should be? That looks like something that it should be, but it is not. That is the inquiry. Those are the questions we would like you to do. Don't be like one of those ranchers. Just because you see bulls eyes you must ask the questions: Is he truly a good marksman or is this an illusion that is not what we think it is?
"Because ....." Amster raised his voice very loudly and went up at least 2 octaves with this line, for whatever reason, none of us knew. "Because Lonnie's a , I mean the Defendant, works as a sanitation engineer then he's not... he works... ummm... because... I mean he works with a garbage truck therefore he knows where all the dumpsters are! But wait a second, he worked from around 1985 to 1989. He knew where all the routes were and the dumpsters were, yet he's leaving bodies in alleys? Not in dumpsters for them to be collected by the routes of the sanitation trucks? You can't say you've got a pattern but exclude parts of the pattern"!
He reached a vocal peak now, squawking like an angry bird with his hands flailing as he shouted this at such an elevated level. He continued...
"..... So if you're working as a sanitation engineer and you know the routes and you want to get rid of the bodies, well it's easy to just put that body in a dumpster and then put it in the garbage truck and take it to the dump then that's the end of it. No! This is an illusion. Doesn't mean he didn't do it..."
Again 2 octaves higher with this one word: "Noooo"!
Back to normal level of speaking finally. "But it doesn't mean he did it either. It's just a part of a pattern that really doesn't exist. And then they say it's a 'body dump'. So what! All that tells us is that this crime occurred someplace else. It doesn't really tell us who did it. Then there are differences in the crime scenes, some are under mattresses, some are not. But it really doesn't make a difference because it could be just sufficient evidence for culpability or lack of culpability. The issue is not that it was a 'body dump', the issue is what do we have to show who did the crime.
A 'body dump' doesn't matter, because the Government has chosen to try this case under the theory that the Defendant is the actual killer. That means to find him culpable, to find him guilty of 1st or 2nd degree murder, you have to prove that he's the actual killer. So you have to abide by their decision and find him guilty of the actual murder".
Amster went on talking about the Defendant's DNA being found on some of the bodies yet so were other peoples DNA also found on those bodies. He talked, or rather shouted, about the fact that "So what if the Defendant is obsessed with sex and a lot of women made it easy for him to have sex. He wanted to take pictures of various women in states of undress but it doesn't make him a murderer". Eluding to the fact that this had nothing to do with the fact a lot of them were found to be murdered and/or shot and lived like Enietra Washington. He mentioned his friend Ray Davis, who was put on the Stand last month, he had said that he saw Lonnie with lots of girls. He didn't call the police on Lonnie because he never saw anything wrong with what was going on.
Amster: "These were Lonnie's girls. Lonnie would give clothes to girls". You cannot believe this, he even said that the DNA was probably transferred on to the nipple from the bra that these women wore after Lonnie gave them the bras to wear. Wow, that was a ridiculous statement I might say.
Amster: "How can you determine that malice aforethought existed in each of the cases when you do not have an eye witness? Or you don't even know where the actual crime occurred or who all was present? If multiple people were present, you have to determine.. who... pulled.. the... trigger.. in ... this... case"?
I don't know of any time in history when there was an 'eye witness' that saw a serial killer kill his victims. It just doesn't happen. It is always based on all the evidence collected but Amster was trying to dismiss this by saying another crazy statement. He went on emphasizing to the Jury that they must base their decision on all the evidence in this case, they must make sure it is beyond a reasonable doubt. When Amster started to shuffle around, for no reason, the Judge asked if it was a good time to end the day. So we ended the day a few minutes before 4pm before returning at 9am the following day on May 3rd.
*****
May 3rd ~ 2nd day of Closing Arguments
This was the day I was thrown out by the Bailiff as I was holding my phone. I explained this event above.
Taking notes from right outside the door, I could hear Amster was going on and on about Enietra Washington where she described the suspect as approximately 20 years of age (Franklin was in his 30's at the time). He said that this case is simply a 'circumstantial evidence' case. He spoke of there being a phantom nephew who picked up Enietra Washington and drove to her to his 'Uncle's house' to get something. Amster made up an imaginary person who drove to Franklin's home and that it really wasn't Franklin at all. How far fetched can he possibly be!
He brought up yet again about the neighbours of the rancher in his marksman analogy. Asking the Jury, "Are you going to be the neighbours of the rancher and make your decision based on illusion and deception"? He even had the audacity to then say "The Government didn't use proper science"! What a bloody nerve!
He went on and on about this 'mystery man' and also referring to 'the nephew'. He said the picture of Enietra Washington, which was found behind a wall in Lonnie Franklin's garage, was probably 'accidentally' dropped there. He even said because there were so many items seized from Franklin's home over those 3 days in July 2010, that maybe the picture was placed there or maybe it wasn't even found in the garage at all! Really? Maybe it's that 'mystery man' again who likes to spend time in Franklin's garage and place pictures behind walls and use his guns. In fact, maybe the 'mystery man' stole Lonnie's DNA and put it on the bodies of the victims. He said that with Enietra Washington there was the DNA of 9 different individuals but none of them were from Lonnie Franklin.
Then Amster suddenly started screaming again, in a high pitched wail like a dying cat, while trying to discredit the 9 law enforcement officers and investigators from the Coroners office in the Janecia Peters case.
Amster: "HOW MANY LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS DO WE HAVE THERE? ONE... TWO... THREE.. FOUR... FIVE... SIX... SEVEN.. EIGHT... NINE! DID ANY ONE OF THEM EVER THINK, FOR ONE SECOND, WHY WOULD WE PUT THIS GARBAGE BAG THAT MS. PETERS WAS IN, WRAPPED AROUND WITH A LARGER BAG? WHY DON'T WE DO THAT BEFORE TRANSPORTATION? WHY DON'T WE PRESERVE THE EVIDENCE? WHY DON'T WE MAKE SURE THAT BEFORE WE FLIP THIS AND HAVE IT TOUCH ALL OF THIS OTHER GARBAGE, FOR POTENTIAL TRANSFER OF DNA, WHY DON'T WE MAINTAIN THE INTEGRITY OF THE ITEM? AHHHH IS THAT A REACH? YEAH, IT PROBABLY IS A REACH! I'LL GIVE YOU THAT. BUT I'LL TELL YOU THIS MUCH. WHY NOT? THAT... IS ....THE.... PROBLEM.... IN ... THIS ... CASE.. THERE'S NO CONCERN TO MAINTAIN THE EVIDENCE....."
He continued to yell and scream, flap his arms around, pace and shuffle around the floor, saliva shooting out of his mouth and going red in the face. His yelling just started to blend in after a while along with his statements making very little sense.
We went for lunch recess and when I returned I was told by the Sergeant that my situation just got worse. Apparently I was seen talking to a Juror and now I am not allowed back on any day of this Trial. What? When did I talk to a Juror? So many people asked me why I was standing outside and I responded to each of them the same way, "I was thrown out"! That's 4 innocent words. There are so many people in that Courtroom, especially on important days, that people just blend into me unless I know them. Apparently one of the people who asked me why I wasn't inside, was a Juror. I wouldn't even know if it was a male or female Juror who spoke to me, as I don't remember because so many people asked me why I was outside. Either way, I sincerely doubt that with my 4 word answer it's highly unlikely that it will sway their decision as to whether or not Lonnie Franklin is a serial killer or not! Really, for 5 years and 10 months I haven't been in trouble once in that Courthouse, yet today I was in trouble twice! I felt like I was back at boarding school in England, when I was always in trouble. Not a good feeling at all.
Apparently my name was brought up so it's all 'on the record'. How would any of the Jurors even know my name? I never spoke to any of them, at least to my knowledge I didn't. In fact, because I don't have the transcript and I also wasn't in the Courtroom, I really don't know who stated my full name but I'd like to find out. I bet this made the Bailiff's day. However when I caught glimpses of him, he still had his mouth turned down, even on a day like today when he should be happy that I was not allowed back into the Courtroom. How sad that not even having everything go his way (with me now being permanently 'thrown out') could he turn his mouth up the correct way.
Amster went on and on about the 'reasonable doubt' there should be in all of the evidence which The People brought in. He even had the nerve to say, yet again, about the Scientific evidence was 'inferior and not up to standard'! He then recapped on all of his nonsense with the following.
Amster: "One, we have stated the DNA evidence in this case leads to reasonable doubt. Furthermore we have stated that reason why Enietra Washington's testimony leads to reasonable doubt. Furthermore we have given you our reasons why ballistic evidence leads to reasonable doubt.
It is our position, that the Scientific analysis, done by the Government in this case is based on inferior technology in Science and we've given our reasons concerning the ballistics and the DNA evidence. Furthermore it is our position that mistakes made during the search of Lonnie Franklin's home does not cause the evidence ceased there to be absolutely viable. That is for YOU to use your inquiring minds to ask the questions as to how much weight you put on the evidence that was gathered during that search".
And he went on and on and on...
"This is a 'circumstantial evidence' case you must consider all these interpretations of the evidence. It is the Governments' job to eliminate all these interpretations that point to Mr Franklin's innocence. This they cannot do. Why? Because the mystery man, with the mystery DNA and the mystery gun. Your job as stated so many times is to follow the Law. It's not easy. Do your job by analyzing evidence and the testimony you heard and following the instructions you have been given. Make your decisions based on the law. You have been a dedicated Jury and I thank you for taking the time out of your lives.......".
This utter nonsense went on and on and on.
To be continued...
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