Not Everyone Ends Up Happy

If Mary Anne Henry could take any comfort in the judge’s ruling, it was from Schulz’s refusal to buy into what she considered unfounded defense allegations. “I was happy the Judge could wade through all the legal rhetoric by the defense and see their lies and misrepresentations,” Henry said after the ruling.

Not so happy were the families of the Investor victims. “I’ve been real disappointed in the way that judge has been handling it,” said Irene Coulthurst’s grandfather. “Somebody gets arrested for rape in Seattle and they throw him right in jail. They let this guy out to have hamburgers up here. Have you ever heard of anything like that? Very few people have. It’s a dirty, lousy deal.”

“They let this guy out to have hamburgers up here… It’s a dirty, lousy deal.”

Irene Coulthurst’s grandfather
happy
Ruth Moon, left (courtesy Bellingham Herald)

Ruth Moon, meanwhile, was even more bitter. “I knew the court system wasn’t very fair or very just,” she complained. “But now I know just how unfair and how unjust it is. To let him go on one technicality doesn’t say very much about the court system.” Her only consolation, she said, was the possible re-indictment of John Peel. “I don’t think it will be long before there will be a second grand jury and Peel will be right back where he was,” she said.


John Peel’s lawyers, meanwhile, reacted as might be expected. Weidner and McGee lauded the judge’s decision and said they hoped the Ketchikan grand jurors would prevent another “misguided and myopic” effort to bring Peel to trial in the Investor killings:

“Mr. Peel and his family hope and pray that the citizens of Ketchikan will not allow these abuses to re-occur and will insist that all of the true facts are brought to light, undistorted and unmanipulated by the prosecution,” Weidner said in Anchorage as he read from a prepared statement.

Reporters also heard from defense attorney Michael Tario in Bellingham. His take was slightly different than his northern counterparts. Both Peel and his family, Tario reported, “were elated” at news of the ruling. “They’re really happy. This has been a tragedy for many and Mr. Peel is one of them.” Then Tario sounded a realistic tone.

happy
Michael Tario (courtesy AP)

“I would assume they would try again,” he said of possible prosecution attempts to re-indict his client. Tario also served notice that the defense was going to keep the pressure on. If the prosecution sought a new indictment, Tario insisted, they had an obligation to present all their evidence to the next grand jury. That meant presenting evidence which favored John Peel as well as that against him. That alone would make them happy.


It was another defense request, however, that raised the biggest stink. It wasn’t addressed to Judge Schulz. That distinction was reserved for a letter the defense sent to the prosecution. Addressed to Mary Anne Henry and signed by Weidner, McGee and Tario, the missive announced that, “this letter is being sent you within one hour of our receiving notice of Judge Schulz’s dismissal, and a copy is being hand-delivered to the District Attorney’s Office in Anchorage with the request that they telecopy the documents to your office.

happy
Phillip Weidner (l) and Mary Anne Henry, Ketchikan Superior Court
(copyright Hall Anderson)

The letter was a declaration of war. The defense made no excuses for its distrust of the prosecution. “Given the importance of the issues involved, and the fact that we cannot ensure that you will abide by these requests,” the letter continued, “we are simultaneously filing a motion with Judge Schulz requesting that he order the relief requested in this letter, with an appropriate motion for order shortening time with regard to same.”

Their requests, moreover, read more like demands — with thirty-four points of sometimes bitter charges directed against the state. First on the list was their request that a special grand jury be called to hear the charges against Peel, so that jurors were not influenced by the “actions of Mr. Blasco and some of the officers which may have tainted prior grand jury testimony, may be tainting any re-presentment, and further, which constitute motive for bias.”

Also on their list:

  • A request that authorities be forbidden from contact with grand jury witnesses if defense attorneys weren’t present.
  • A request that the defense be given advance notice of all evidence to be presented to the grand jury, so they could lodge preemptive objections.
  • A request that the grand jury be “specifically informed of all failures of the prosecution to preserve relevant evidence,” which included an alleged failure to preserve the remains of the deceased.
  • A request that the alleged “prior inconsistent statements” of witnesses be presented to the grand jury.
  • A request that Peel’s “protestations of innocence” be revealed.
  • And a request that the grand jury get pre-session instructions on the “defense theory of the case.”

So strongly did the defense team feel about their case that they called a news conference for the very next day. And that was another part of the problem. Not only had the defense aimed everything they could at the state, but Mary Anne Henry still hadn’t seen the letter from the Weidner team. Henry had only heard about it in the news media.

She was not happy.


Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale. That manuscript, started in 1992 and based on court records from the Alaska State Archive, served as the basis for “What Happened in Craig.”

Copyright Leland E. Hale (2019). All rights reserved.


Craig

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