MANISTIQUE — Dead silence hung in the courtroom Monday after defense attorney Jason Elmore fired a chilling question at Thomas David Richardson’s son.
Richardson, 46, is on trial for murder and manslaughter in the death of his wife Juanita, who was killed in a 140-foot fall from the Pictured Rocks Cliffs on June 22, 2006.
Levi Richardson, 20, called as a hostile witness by the prosecution, was being cross-examined by Elmore.
Turning toward the witness box, Elmore asked, “What is the likelihood your father killed your mother?”
With Thomas Richardson sitting up in his chair at the defense counsel table, the hushed courtroom hung on his son’s answer.
“I don’t believe it,” Levi said. “I don’t.”
The testimony came Monday during the 13th day in the trial, which is scheduled to last six weeks. In all, four witnesses took the stand, including Levi Richardson’s older sister Lindsey, 21.
Prosecutor Karen Bahrman had her chance to captivate the courtroom when she questioned Lindsey about her mother’s death and her father’s guilt or innocence.
Bahrman asked whether Lindsey could ever forgive her father, if he was guilty of murdering her mother.
The courtroom again fell silent.
After saying Thomas Richardson would always be her dad and that she loved both her mom and dad and wouldn’t want to choose one over the other, Lindsey answered the prosecutor’s question.
“I couldn’t tell you straight up,” she said. “I’d be pretty pissed off at him.”
Both Lindsey and Levi Richardson said they have been “searching for the truth” in the death of their mother. Both said they are now convinced of their father’s innocence.
Lindsey said to change her mind she would need “hard, factual, evidence,” like a videotape showing her father committing the crime, along with DNA matching the person on the videotape with her father.
Lindsey said she originally “tossed around the idea” of whether her dad could be guilty.
“Now, I’m 100 percent sure he’s not capable of this,” she said.
Levi Richardson conceded under questioning by Bahrman that his personal search for the truth “pretty much involves taking everything his father says at face value,” coupled with listening to testimony of other witnesses in the courtroom.
How likely would he be to change his mind about whether he thinks his dad killed his mom?
“I would rate my openness as not very open,” he said. “I don’t think he did it.”
Both Levi and Lindsey Richardson said neither one asked their dad questions about the numerous conflicting stories he told police, relatives and friends in the hours and days after their mother died.
“He was having a hard enough time telling us what was going on, with the details he did give us,” Levi said.
Levi said his father was “crushed” when he came home from Alger County. When Thomas Richardson arrived home, his family was waiting in the driveway.
“We were basically hugging, trying to keep each other together,” Levi said.
Lindsey said her father “looked like hell” when he got out of the car.
“His eyes were puffy and red,” she said. “He looked like he had run a marathon.”
Lindsey said her father fell into the arms of his family.
“He was gasping for air,” she said. “He was a wreck.”
A short while later, inside their house, Lindsey went to her bedroom having overheard only part of her father’s story of how her mom died.
Lindsey said she had to leave the room after she heard her mother had said, “Oh, my God,” when falling off the cliff.
She grabbed a quilt her mother had made for her. She wrapped up in it in her room and cried in her bed.
At this point in the courtroom, Thomas Richardson broke into sobs as his daughter choked up while testifying.
Levi said he had wanted to ask his father whether his mother’s death was instant, did she hurt and how far she fell. But he didn’t when his dad arrived home because, he didn’t think it was the right time.
Lindsey said that to this day, she has never heard a full account of her mother’s death from her father because she walked out of the explanation that day at their house.
Both Levi and Lindsey Richardson testified they had received some money from their mother’s life insurance proceeds, after their father divested himself as an interest.
Lindsey said she kept $5,000 for her rent and, like her brother Levi, gave $20,000 to help pay her father’s legal expenses.
Lindsey testified that she never saw her father threaten her mother. Bahrman said three of Lindsey’s friends contend she told them her father once chased their mother with a baseball bat and said that he would kill her. Lindsey doesn’t remember telling them this.
She said those allegations “could have been placed in their (friends’) heads by the prosecution.”
Testimony resumes in the trial at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Among the witnesses scheduled is Levi and Lindsey’s sister Laceine.
