to the Superior Court judge. “I do not consider Felix to be a member of my family, nor myself a member of his.
“I do feel responsible for Eli’s violation of probation,” she continued. “I worked hard to persuade him to do so. He was obeying his mother.”
Susan alleged that she had convinced her son to “hide” with her in Orinda for the summer. Her letter did little to change the judge’s opinion. To the contrary, Susan infuriated Judge Kolin with her defiant behavior at the disposition hearing, where the judge sentenced Eli for two counts of felony assault. Her outburst, and her refusal to remain in the courtroom until the hearing was over, promptly landed her in jail, but not before she was handcuffed and dragged away.
Judge Kolin called a break. When the family returned for the afternoon session, Felix Polk asked to address the court.
“Thank you,” Felix said, rising from his chair. “My son Eli will have a problem with some of this. My perspective is the truth; over the four years we lived in an environment of paranoia at home.”
“With mother?” the judge asked.
“Yes, and she in so many ways is wonderful, and that’s also true. It’s just the way it is. The kids have all been affected by that. The kids, Eli maybe especially, is loyal and protective of his mother, which is one of the things that you just saw represented. My youngest son, Gabriel, is also like that. They both protect her, and they love her and protect her. So there’s been a lot of stress in the family,” Felix continued.
“My son Eli has great values. He’s a good kid and has, like the rest of us, been affected by that. Each of the three boys have [sic] been affected in that way. Eli is. And so that’s just a background to the kind of behavior I think, from my perspective, in terms of what Eli needs.
“Ideally, he would get counseling. He is in counseling right now. He needs more of that. And ideally, his mother and I both should be involved in that as well,” Felix said. “And he acts out when he just has had it. It’s too much stress for him. It’s been going on for four years. That’s a long time. All of this has been a long time. So I respectfully request that that be a consideration in his disposition.”
Susan was certain that Felix pulled strings to get Eli sentenced to the Boys’ Ranch. She felt he was hard on their middle son; however, a review of the official court record indicated that Judge Kolin simply followed the recommendations of the probation report when he sentenced Eli to time at Byron.
“Will I be able to attend my father’s funeral?” Eli asked Detective Gruenheid.
“You’ll have to work that out with the staff at Byron,” one of the officers replied. The detectives pressed on with the interview. “What about previous domestic violence in the house?” Gruenheid asked.
“There have been a couple of physical altercations,” Eli replied. He described them as “mutual combat,” claiming that both parents had been responsible for instigating the fights and recalling one argument in which his mother was actually arrested. Eli told the detectives that he hadn’t seen what transpired during that fight. A subsequent check of the police report indicated that, in fact, he was witness to the incident, labeling his mother as “the aggressor” at the time of the arrest.
“My mom did not murder my dad,” Eli told the officers. “It’s very important that you know that my mom is a very mellow person. She wouldn’t do it. She would just never do it, that’s a fact.”
Eli’s willingness to cooperate ended when the female detective pushed him to respond to a question that might portray his mother in a bad light.
“I don’t feel right answering any more of these questions,” he asserted. “I would never do anything to put my mom in jail and that is where this is leading.”
Springing from his chair, Eli terminated the interview for the second, and final, time. “I think it’s rude and extremely stressful,” he mumbled under his breath as he exited the room and returned to his dorm at the Boys’ Ranch.
Later, officials at the juvenile hall told Detectives Warne and Gruenheid that Eli had asked to call his mother in Montana on October 10. Eli’s probation officer at the facility said he was nearby when Eli placed the call. After ten minutes, the officer asked Eli if he could speak with Susan.
Taking the receiver, he introduced himself as Eli’s probation officer and asked if she had any questions regarding her son’s program at the ranch.
“No,” Susan replied, and hung up on him.
THE INVESTIGATION BEGINS
Chapter Eleven
THE CHILDREN UNRAVEL
Susan’s hands-off parenting style had long been a point of contention with Felix. Whenever there was a problem with one of the boys, Felix was quick to blame Susan, charging either that she was too lenient or that the children were taking after her side of the family. After all, he said, she was the one who dropped out of school in the ninth grade, and it was her household that had been dysfunctional, a comparison that Susan deeply resented. She was upset that Felix would dredge up things she had confided during their therapy sessions at his Berkeley office.
In truth, Susan prided herself on giving the boys space and allowing them their independence. While other mothers were congratulating themselves on how “obedient” their children were, Susan was chuckling at her sons’ displays of strong will. She believed in free will and self-determination and hoped that by giving her children room, they would find that on their own. She wanted her boys to think things over for themselves, and unlike other mothers, she didn’t want to tell them what to do. To Susan, so much control could only lead to “a society of storm troopers or Spartans.” She was about self-expression. The idea of controlling her children went against all that she believed and all that she experienced under the tyrannical Felix Polk.
There was another reason, too. She didn’t want to be like Felix’s mother—completely controlling about everything. According to Susan, Johanna “Joan” Polk was a micromanager, and Susan resented her intrusiveness. Johanna’s approach was quite different from the hands-off style Susan had known with her mother. During her visits to Susan and Felix’s house, Johanna was compelled to comment on things big and small, even on the way Susan washed the dishes. Although he resented his mother’s overbearing nature as a child, now Felix saw no problem with her behavior, hoping that her presence would influence Susan’s parenting. He made no secret of his disapproval of Susan’s skills, constantly insisting that she needed “to train the kids.”
Susan never liked the sound of it. Training was something people did with animals, not people. Nevertheless, the lack of structure and rules in the household continued to be an issue for the family, and Felix was not the only family member to take issue with Susan’s parenting. Adam had problems with her child-rearing abilities as well, going so far as to accuse his mother of fostering a pattern of antisocial behavior by allowing his younger siblings to blame their troubles on others instead of demanding they take responsibility for their part. In a letter to the court dated September 10, 2004, Adam noted that, when called up to school to deal with misconduct on the part of Gabe or Eli, Susan defended her sons—pointing a finger at administrators for their failure to carry out their duties properly. When the boys were arrested for various infractions, she accused the other party or police of “inappropriate” treatment of her and her sons.
The letter went on to point out that, as far as Susan was concerned, it was not her children’s fault when things went awry. When Eli was caught with marijuana, it was only because he was “holding it” for someone else. When he struck a schoolmate with a flashlight, breaking his nose and causing a great deal of bleeding and facial cuts, Susan claimed Eli didn’t even have a flashlight in his possession that night.
The information in the letter was tough medicine, but it contained a number of legitimate complaints. Yet it failed to address other crucial problems, such as Susan’s distaste for authority. Indeed, her openly hostile treatment of authority complicated matters for her and her sons during difficult situations with the police or probation officers.
