> News > Front Page News

Email: "Re-enactment swayed jurors toward verdict"
*To:		<--TO Email REQUIRED!
*From:		<--FROM Email REQUIRED!

MANISTIQUE — An autopsy photo showing thigh bruising and a pair of jury room demonstrations swung all uncertain jurors in favor of a first-degree murder conviction Wednesday in the trial of Thomas David Richardson.


Jury foreman Jeff Bolm — who was elected spokesman on behalf of the seven women and five men who deliberated Richardson’s fate — said jurors saw the autopsy photo showing bruises on Juanita Richardson’s thigh.


“It was a medical examiner’s picture that ended up playing a very large role,” Bolm said. “It was a picture of the back side of her thigh, there was a bruise on there.”


In trial testimony, pathologist Randy Smith said the bruises were likely caused by something striking, but not breaking, the skin in between the two contusions. Smith said the marks were caused by one blow, and could have been made by something like a rod or a stick.


“We weren’t sure how the bruise got there,” Bolm said. “It was mentioned that maybe, maybe it got there from a kick.”


One witness had testified Richardson had martial arts training in kicks and chokeholds. Prosecutor Karen Bahrman argued Richardson may have used such a technique to cause his wife to fall to her death from the Pictured Rocks Cliffs.


“One of the jurors volunteered to be kicked in that area,” Bolm said. “Another fellow juror lightly kicked him in that area, a karate-type move. At this time it was two male jurors. And just a very light kick propelled this guy three or four steps and everybody sort of looked at one another. It was silent in the room.”


A female juror, about the size of Juanita Richardson, then agreed to be kicked.


“Similar results,” Bolm said, choking up, tears welling up in his eyes. “And we had to take a break. It got pretty emotional in there.”


After the 10-minute break Wednesday afternoon, Bolm said he asked the jurors if that’s what they thought happened to Juanita Richardson.


“Everybody said, ‘yeah,’” Bolm said. “We believe that we just came upon something pretty big. When we saw it happen, when we saw the re-enactment like that, it made your hair stand up. It was eerie.”


Bolm said he then asked the jurors if they thought it was appropriate to take a vote on guilty or not guilty. A vote early in the deliberations Tuesday had jurors split 7-5 in favor of guilty.


“They wanted to vote. Even the people that weren’t sure at the beginning said ‘guilty,’” Bolm said. “It was unanimous. We went through the criteria of what was needed for it to be first-degree murder. I read it aloud right from the judge’s instructions and we all agreed it had to be first-degree murder. We voted again and it was unanimous.”


Bolm said he waited a few minutes before he signed the paper to be given to the judge, making sure everyone was secure in their decision.


“I announced it that, unless somebody has something else, I’m going to sign this,” Bolm said. “They all wanted me to sign. They said, ‘Yeah. We had a decision.’”


Bolm said jurors thought a lot of the testimony heard during the trial was redundant, with a lot of character witnesses describing Richardson and his relationship with his wife the same way.


He said jurors began their deliberations by going through their notes and discussing the testimony of each witness. They only took the two votes at each end of their deliberations.


Bolm said the variations in Richardson’s stories to police and friends about what happened to his wife were more compelling to jurors in their decision than issues of Richardson’s character.


“A lot of the witnesses were told a story of how it happened and I think we heard at least six different stories,” Bolm said. “The prosecutor said, ‘An innocent man doesn’t have to lie,’ and the first thing he did was lie and then lie again. And then his stories would have little variations on it. We heard a lot about a head injury that as it turns out had nothing to do with his memory loss — experts testified to that.”


Bolm said the jury disregarded the idea Richardson suffered symptoms of acute stress disorder.


“His mental state was fine,” Bolm said.


Bolm said the jurors agreed Richardson planned to kill his wife.


“A lot of seeds were planted, a lot of excuses, you know, the head injury, ‘Oh, I can’t remember anything now,’” Bolm said. “He told a certain woman that his wife would be dead by Christmas. He told another person that he would put a ring on this lady’s finger if anything happened to Juanita. I don’t know if any one thing stood out more than the rest. But there was just so much of it. That played a big part as (to) planning it.”


Bolm said the jury found the testimony of Richardson’s children as largely truthful, but perhaps not fully forthcoming. The jurors understood the children’s predicament: having lost their mother and now being faced with their father on trial for murder.


But like Richardson’s positive or negative character issues, Bolm said the testimony of the Richardson children “really didn’t have a huge bearing on the outcome of the case.”


Bolm said the jurors — who ranged in age from those in their 20s to others in their 80s — worked well together. Jurors who hadn’t already known each other at the start of the trial got to know each other well before it was over.


Giving up six weeks to the trial was a struggle for several members of the jury. Bolm said one man had to work 36 hours on a weekend in between days of hearing testimony.


Bolm said he expected to be back at work at the veneer mill today.

 

Subscribe to The Mining Journal

Share: