My journal from 1993, continued...
February 2, 1993
Wait. Wait. Wait. Woke up this morning at 7:30 to be there in time for the (supposed) 10AM start. Got there by 9:30 or so and waited until 11:00, bullshitting with the other jurors. Skip (#4) and Jim (#2) and Rudy (#6) and I (#5) talked about every small subject imaginable. What the hell will we be able to dig up for conversation if this trial goes on for 2-3 months? The possibilities boggle the mind. We finally filed down to the courtroom, somewhat edgy and giddy. After being seated, the judge spoke to us again about appreciating our service, and instructed the clerk to read the statement of charges. I listened to them with a new intensity, placing each incident within a time frame in '89. It still amazes me how many charges we will have to rule on.
The prosecutor began his opening statement. We were brought up to speed on the entire case against (Charles Arnett) Stevens and (Richard) Clark. It started with the two of them getting together in high school as friends. After that time Clark joined the Army Reserve and Stevens worked at a pawn shop. The DA contends that Clark and Stevens met up around early '89, and that the two of them exchanged knowledge. Clark about effective killing methods and Stevens the sophisticated weapon, namely an Israeli-made handgun called the Desert Eagle. (I was right in my recollection of the weapon).
Clark and Stevens then supposedly went to an apartment complex on Chetwood, in Oakland, and by some means lured a young woman to the vehicle they were in, where Clark used three rounds fired from the passenger side toward teh driver side to mortally wound her. ((Leslie) Noyer is her name). He then allegedly gets out of the car and stands over her, bringing the weapon to within 18 inches of her head, and administers two shots as the coup de gras.
The DA shows us the horrible photo of her body, the skull cap blown ten feet from her body by the force of the last two shots. The photo doesn't affect me too terribly, what with my experiences seeing things like that (and worse) through the various photo labs I've worked in. It does visibly shake some of the jury members, and one or two people get up from the gallery and leave, probably to get some air. He shows us the weapon, the shell casings found at the various scenes, slugs taken from the bodies of the victims, and attempts to tie them all to Stevens. He shows us maps of the Oakland area, with red dots for murders and blue dots for attempted murders. He relates the circumstances of the shootings:
Two women returning home after a party, driving on an Oakland street. Their car is riddled with bullets. Neither is seriously injured. The casings matching the "tool marks" of a Desert Eagle are found at the scene. The area of the gunman is shown in its proximity to Stevens' home: down a driveway, across a church parking lot, over a fence from the apartment of Stevens. Noyer was killed just blocks away from the same point. The DA tries to show the ease of escape for Stevens from both points.
Then we hear about (Lori) Rochon. She was the first actual killing on (Interstate) 580. A single round was fired into her from (her) passenger side, mortally wounding her. She was able to stop the car without crashing, but died of the wound shortly thereafter. I then remembered hearing about that the morning it happened, knew that she was driving a white Mustang. Sure enough, the DA showed us a picture of the car and it was that Mustang. I remember that I felt glad that I was still driving the 24 Freeway to work and didn't have to pass the scene. The traffic reporter said that it was being treated as a potential homicide, and that sent a shiver through me.
I think that's when I started feeling edgy about being shot on the freeway. People were getting shot down in L.A. around the same time, and my fear was that my semi-aggressive driving habits might get me killed as well. Funny what you imagine...
Then we hear about two other incidents where shots were fired, but nobody was killed. A van was shot up at the 24/580 westbound merge, then three minutes later a man named DaSilva was slightly injured when (the windows of) his LeCar was shattered by several more shots. A fellow who read about this shooting walked down to the scene and found one of the shell casings bearing the same tool marks as the Desert Eagle. Imagine! How many people really have the wherewithal to go search a crime scene on their own just to "see what they can find"? Maybe I'm naive about this, but I can't see legions of people crawling about on all fours near every other shoooting in Oakland.
Oh, I put this one out of context: A 16-year-old boy was shot in the head three times in an outlying area of Oakland, He was, as the prosecutor put it: "...a drug dealer, as so many young men today are..." Well! The bot was taken by surprise, and three rounds were pumped into his skull at close range. We saw another graphically gory photo of him, showing the "stippling" effect of gasses and lead particles around the wound indicating weapon proximity. Again, a casing from a Desert Eagle was found. Whoever, and I stress not using the defendant's name here, used that gun was crafty but stupid. Leaving the brass at the scene of all these shootings was going to do in the shooter sooner or later, unless the person just tossed the weapon in the Bay and picked up another one.
Part Two Real Soon...
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