1789 when the Bastille was stormed and the prison doors thrown open.”
Fleisher had recently helped exonerate a man falsely accused of murder in Little Rock, Arkansas. After Fleisher appeared on
Fleisher asked two renowned VSM profilers to examine the case file—Walter and FBI special agent Gregg McCrary, who had handled many major cases, including the Sri Lankan massacre of thirty-three Buddhist monks in 1987. After the profilers confirmed Fleisher’s suspicions of the dishwasher’s innocence, the lawyers for the accused won an acquittal in forty-five minutes. “Teresa Baus is an American hero,” Fleisher said. “That’s how justice is supposed to work.”
But the Vidocq Society’s greatest victory in a springtime of good news was its least known.
On Friday, May 16, as Haskell Askin prepared to testify in the Megan Kanka trial in New Jersey, Richard Walter sat in the Lubbock County Courthouse in Lubbock, Texas, anxiously waiting with Jim and Barbara Dunn, waiting for justice to be served, at last, to Alicia “Leisha” Hamilton for the torture-murder of Scott Dunn. Minutes earlier, a cheer had erupted from the jury room and spilled through the thrown-open door and down the hallway; deadlocked for four hours, the jurors had reached a decision.
Hamilton stood erect and proud in the center of the courtroom, wearing a conservative blue dress that complemented her long, dark hair. Judge William R. Shaver, his square jaw and silver hair set off smartly by his black robes, had asked her to stand to receive the verdict. Now the judge frowned as loud murmurs raced through the overflow crowd.
Hamilton appeared confident and at ease as she had been throughout the four-day trial. That morning she had laughed and joked with her parents and attorney, and tossed a big smile at the jurors, especially the handsome young man she’d been hitting on with her big green eyes for four days. According to testimony, she had told an ex- lover, “There’s no way I can be convicted because there’s not a body and there’s not a weapon.”
Judge Shaver pounded his gavel for quiet. “I don’t want any of the spectators to forget that this is a court of law,” he said sternly. “I want absolute silence in the courtroom.” The courtroom fell hushed in the dull light of late afternoon slanting through tall drapes.
Richard Walter, in his crisp blue suit, leaned forward in anticipation. Jim Dunn wore his best dark suit and tie, with a pocket handkerchief that was more than decorative. Barbara wore a lovely matching dress, and clutched Jim’s hand. It was almost six years to the day since Roger “Scott” Dunn had been last seen walking with Hamilton into their apartment and was never seen again. Walter believed in the notion of proper revenge, which had fallen out of favor but the Greeks knew was essential to a civilized life. This was their chance. Their long wrestling with angels and demons had distilled to a moment.
At the state’s table, Rusty Ladd, the lanky assistant district attorney in cowboy boots, nervously leaned forward. The case had been a prosecutor’s nightmare, with the years of delays allowing memories and evidence to go cold. The first grand jury hadn’t found sufficient evidence to indict; the district attorney who brought the case was bounced out in an election; the new DA had a conflict of interest—his old law partner had once represented Hamilton’s alleged collaborator Tim Smith. So the DA reached out to Ladd in another county to be special prosecutor. A new grand jury labored over the case, and Ladd wrestled for eight months to get it to trial with its epic limitations: For one of the few times, if not the first time, in history he believed the state was asking a Texas jury to convict for murder without a body or weapon. It had been a daunting challenge to meet the most basic standard that a crime had been committed, to prove corpus delicti (“body of the crime”). In an arson case corpus delicti usually meant producing a burned building; in a murder case, producing the body. The jury needed to accept the psychological nuances of Hamilton’s Machiavellian revenge—and in a terrible blow to Ladd’s case, Walter, the profiler who could explain Hamilton’s psychopathic charm and murderous rage, had been unable to testify. Judge Shaver ruled that a “profile” of an accused murderer was speculative and not worthy of his court.
In the third row, Walter was still quietly fuming over the slight. His esteemed testimony had been accepted around the world. Who was this West Texas wig, this country gavel jockey, to stand in judgment of him, an international expert?
The judge was unfolding the piece of paper the jury foreman handed to him. He held the paper in front of him, cleared his throat, and read, his voice booming through the courtroom: “We, the jury, find from the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant is guilty of the offense of murder as charged in the indictment.”
Murmurs swept the length of the courtroom. Jim and Barbara Dunn turned and looked at each other for a long moment, holding hands, then Jim threw his arms around Barbara and held on, tears streaming down his face. Walter was thrilled to see husband and wife, now his good friends, emerge into light with one swift embrace. But he couldn’t take his eyes off Hamilton.
Hamilton’s mouth fell open, uncomprehending, then she raised her chin defiantly and closed her eyes, before she bowed her head and began to cry. “I will never, never, never forget it,” Walter said. “The good psychopath was absolutely convinced she was going to be found not guilty. She was standing proud when she stood up to hear the verdict, and her head just flipped up, instead of down in a submissive position, flipped up in contempt and disbelief. How could anybody ever do this to me? You can see the pathology continues—in her refusal to accept justice, boundaries, her contempt for anyone who would put restrictions on her.”
Judge Shaver sent the jury back to deliberate on a sentence. Even with a murder conviction, they had wide latitude in punishment—they could send Hamilton away for life, or only five years. Two hours later, the jury came back with a sentence. Hamilton stood in front of the judge, head high and proud. He opened the paper and read it: The jury sentenced her to twenty years in prison. Again, Walter noted, Leisha’s face collapsed, as if it were inconceivable she would be locked up.
Outside the courthouse, nine of the jurors, all women, approached Dunn and eagerly told him they’d desperately wanted to give her life. “Oh, God, they hated her,” Walter said. “They didn’t know the word ‘psychopath’ but they knew the type and they said they saw the evil in her. However, they had to compromise because of Billy Bob, Mr. Macho, who just couldn’t believe that a woman could kill a man.” Yet it was satisfying to Walter that his judgment matched that of the community.
The handsome young man Leisha had tried to influence with her big green eyes introduced himself to Dunn. He’d voted resolutely to convict. He told Dunn he was frightened by her charm, and he easily could have ended up like Scott; “There but for the grace of God go I.” Walter, chopping the words with a cigarette on his lip, commented, “That’s fitting. She’d gotten everything before by lying on her back. Not this time. It puts her where she belongs.”
Walter sensed a great weight lifting from Dunn. He had grown red-faced with rage even being in the same courtroom as Hamilton. He’d stalked out of a room when Hamilton’s relatives or supporters appeared. It was time, Walter felt, for him to bury some of his anger. Vengeance is normal, healthy, and sweet to contemplate, Walter counseled him. “In fact, you MUST feel the need for revenge, sweet revenge, deeply.” The just society does not repress it. It’s important to feel the fury of being wronged and the deep pleasure of imagined revenge, the “wrath,” as Aristotle noted in
“Then let it go,” Walter said. “The virtuous man feels the proper anger for the proper things for the proper amount of time. It’s important that he controls himself, moderates it, listens to the law, friends, family, standards of decency.” For Jim Dunn, the time was coming. The time to let go.
Yet the father was not satisfied. Before leaving Lubbock, he had erected a fresh granite tombstone, engraved with Scott’s yellow Camaro, in the Dunn family plot. Bowing his head before the vacant grave, he vowed he would not rest until his son’s body was found and properly buried. Walter was certain that the young man’s body had been completely destroyed to cover up the crime. Scott would never be found. But he could not convince Dunn of the truth. Recognizing the father’s powerful need, he suggested Dunn bury a piece of blood-soaked carpet in the grave. “Remember what the courts decided, Jim. The blood is the body. His blood is Scott.” Dunn agreed.
That evening, the Dunns and Walter celebrated Hamilton’s sentencing at a local restaurant. Wine and
