“And as if that ultimate horror were not enough, since the container is really a little too small for a human body—I know this is horrible, but we’re talking about murder now, and there’s a lot at stake here—maybe a chain saw or the like was used on Mrs. Graham. And then the fire, the attempted incineration of the body.
“What took place is chilling testimony to the capacity for absolute evil in some human beings. Whoever committed this incredibly horrendous murder—and I say Buck Walker and Buck Walker alone did it—had to have been rotten to the core. Rotten and bad and vicious right down to the soles of his feet.
“You’ve all heard the expression that a tree is known by its fruits. The thorn and the thistle do not bear delicious cherries. And I say that a life of compassion and peacefulness like Jennifer’s does not suddenly produce a harvest of unspeakable horror. I submit to you that the strong evidence we offered of Jennifer’s character for nonviolence is very meaningful evidence of her innocence.
“I guess one could say at this juncture in my argument, ‘If the prosecution’s case is as weak as you say it is, Mr. Bugliosi, aren’t you belaboring your point? Why continue to argue additional points?’
“That might be a valid conclusion if the rest of Jennifer Jenkins’s life were not hanging in the balance, and if there were not two other people in this equation. They sit stoically at the counsel table, taking notes. And when I get through, one of them, Mr. Enoki, is going to get up and tell you why he still feels you should convict Miss Jenkins. They’re not about to fold their tent and say, ‘Let’s go home. We agree with Mr. Bugliosi.’ They still intend to go on. And that’s why I must.
“In addition to, number one, the unscathed testimony of Jennifer, and number two, the uncontroverted testimony of the character witnesses, there are various pieces of evidence in this case that point to a consciousness of innocence on Jennifer’s part. And I want to enumerate them for you.
“Just as guilt leaves the psychological mark which we call consciousness of guilt, innocence leaves a mark we can call consciousness of innocence.”
I was about to attempt to turn the tables on the prosecution, using an argument that they (and Len Weinglass) didn’t think could possibly be made in this case—that beneath the topsoil indications of guilt in all Jennifer said and did, much of her conduct and many of her statements actually pointed, upon closer scrutiny, in the direction of innocence.
“When a person is guilty of a crime,” I began, “he acts the way we would expect a guilty person to act. Guilty. But now and then, even though the person is guilty, there may be one act of his that inexplicably and strangely enough appears to be the act of an innocent person. I’m not referring to a guilty person feigning innocence. That happens all the time. I’m referring to a genuine act that appears to be an act that only an innocent person would do. It’s not frequent that you will find this phenomenon, but now and then you might find one such act, and in rare situations, possibly even two or three such acts.
“But ladies and gentlemen, when time and time again, as I will shortly point out to you, a person acts in an innocent way, doesn’t it stand to reason that they are innocent?
“In our case here, although Jennifer did several regrettable things that were induced by the circumstances in which she found herself, on occasion after occasion she acted in a way that only an innocent person would have acted. Guilty people simply don’t do that. If they did, they wouldn’t be guilty.
“Some of the points I’m going to mention are not the kind that hit you over the head, as it were, with their obvious nature. However, though they are more subtle, they nevertheless furnish us with snapshot glimpses of an innocent mind.
“First, there’s Jennifer’s diary. If one committed a crime and made entries in their diary, I would think it would be for one of two purposes. Number one, to write to themselves; that is, for their own eyes only. If this were their purpose, chances are they would want to tell the truth. You can’t fool your own self.
“Obviously, there’s nothing in Jennifer’s diary stating or even remotely implying that she was involved in the murder of the Grahams.
“The second purpose would be to write the diary not for your own eyes, but for other people’s eyes; that is, to deceive, or to cover up, as Mr. Enoki says. And I say that if Jennifer were involved in these murders and made the entries in her diary for other people’s eyes, she obviously would have written them in such a manner as to try to eliminate all suspicion and cast herself in a good light. With that state of mind, if you know, for instance, that you’ve written whole paragraphs in your diary on common, everyday events, such as baking a cake, or a pie, or reading a book, as Jennifer did in her diary, you’re certainly not going to write less about the loss of human life!
“Jennifer wrote just one word, ‘Tragedy,’ about the apparent death of the Grahams. There’s simply no attempt by her to deceive, and thereby cover up. Why? Because she had nothing to cover up.
“Another point on this same issue. If Jennifer were involved in these murders and her diary entries were meant for other people’s eyes, wouldn’t she have dramatized her anguish over the death of the Grahams? Instead, there’s no attempt to dramatize in that diary.”
I now attempted to explain and possibly even turn to our advantage Jennifer’s September 4 entry (“We all grow fatter and fatter on ham and cheese and pancakes and turkey and chili and all the things we hadn’t had in so long”). Len felt the entry, just a few days after Mac and Muff’s death, was “dreadful. It contradicts everything Jennifer has said. It makes her look terrible.”
“The other characteristic we could expect her diary entries to have if she were involved in these murders and these entries were meant for other people’s eyes would be a tone of considerable sensitivity. She never in a million years would have depicted herself as somewhat insensitive, as her entry about eating the Grahams’ food arguably comes across as being. Never in a million years.”
But even given the surface insensitivity of Jennifer’s September 4 diary entry, I asked the jury to ponder for a moment.
“What was Jennifer supposed to do? Not eat the Grahams’ food? Let it rot, and try to live off the fish in the ocean?”
Although, if I had had my druthers, I would have preferred not resorting to it, there was one somewhat indelicate way to force the jury to personalize what Jennifer had done, a reality I felt virtually every juror had experienced.
“If you still feel it was insensitive, what about the rather common phenomenon of even close relatives of one who has just been buried eating the finest foods at family gatherings just an hour, if that, after the funeral? Is that a fact, or is that not a fact? Think about it. This is not to suggest that there is no deep and profound grief. But the eating of fine foods at this seemingly inappropriate time is a fact.
“Looking from a different aspect at that September 4 diary entry about enjoying the Grahams’ food, if Mr. Enoki argues that it shows no grief on her part over what happened to the Grahams, then what about the August 30 entry, written by the same person, Jennifer, that says, ‘Tragedy’?
“If he argues that the September 4 entry really reflects the essence of Jennifer, the way she felt, then why shouldn’t the August 30th entry also really reflect the way she is and the way she viewed the death of the Grahams? And if she viewed their deaths as a ‘tragedy,’ she wouldn’t be likely to be the murderer, would she? In other words, Mr. Enoki cannot pick and choose.
“I say that when we apply common sense and simple logic to our analysis of the diary entries, the very nature of those entries is circumstantial evidence of innocence. If Jennifer Jenkins were guilty, those entries would not read the way they do.”
Another point indicating a consciousness of innocence, I observed, was that if Jennifer had been involved in the murders and had fabricated her story about believing that the Grahams had met an accidental death when their Zodiac capsized in the water of the lagoon, “even a child would know it would be much more
consistent with her fabricated story if she had said they found the capsized dinghy somewhere in the water of the lagoon. But Jennifer, from the very beginning, has said that no part of the dinghy was in the water. The fact that she did not say they found the Zodiac in the water shows an unmistakable consciousness of innocence.
“She told you she found the Zodiac on the beach, with no part of it in the water, because that’s exactly where she found it. And Jennifer’s testimony is corroborated by the prosecution’s own witness, boat expert Ken White, who testified that there was no salt in the Zodiac’s motor. It was completely clean. The reason for this, of course, is that the dinghy never overturned in the water of the lagoon.
“The most reasonable inference is that Buck Walker overturned the dinghy himself on the shore, after dropping the bodies in the lagoon.”
To be extra convincing to Jennifer, why, I asked, didn’t Walker overturn the dinghy in the water of the lagoon? “If he had, how was he supposed to get to shore? By hitching a ride from a passing shark? Remember, people feared the sharks in that lagoon.”
There was further consciousness of innocence, I argued, regarding the Lorraine Wollen incident: “If one had been involved in the murder of the owners of a boat, would one be likely to invite a casual acquaintance—someone you obviously could not expect to protect you from the authorities—on board that boat, as Jennifer did with Mrs. Wollen? Particularly when the pictures of the murder victims are still on the wall, and it’s at least possible that the visitor will ask, as Mrs. Wollen did, who they are? I don’t think so.
“Also, Jennifer wanting to keep pictures of the Grahams on the boat, and otherwise keep the interior of the boat as they left it, is evidence of how she felt about them. That obviously is not the state of mind a killer would have toward his victims. All of this reflects a consciousness of innocence.
“Some of you might say, ‘Well, Buck was also on the boat when Lorraine Wollen came over. We know Buck is guilty, yet he also apparently went along with those pictures of the Grahams being on the wall. Doesn’t that dilute the argument?’
“Well, number one, Jennifer, not Buck, invited Lorraine Wollen over. Secondly, Buck had a real problem. As much as he could afford to, he had to appear innocent to Jennifer. He had to maintain the myth that the Grahams had died an accidental death. I think we can assume that if Jennifer had been involved in these murders with Buck, those pictures would have come off that wall.
“Going on, there is more evidence showing a consciousness of innocence on her part. And remember, I believe that other than a guilty person feigning innocence, guilty people don’t act innocent. They act the way they are—guilty.
“The act of reregistering the Sea Wind was the single most affirmative act to conceal the fact that the Sea Wind did not belong to Buck and Jennifer. That was the official change of ownership on that boat.”
Buck Walker, guilty of the murders, had every reason to reregister that boat, I added. “Jennifer, being innocent, had no such compelling reason, and she refused Buck’s request that she do so.
“These are the registeration papers of the Sea Wind,” I said, holding them up in front of the jury. “‘Owner: Roy Allen. Co-owner…’ There’s nothing there. And the acquisition of this boat was obviously the very reason why these murders were committed. But Jennifer’s name does not appear on these papers.”
I admitted that the next point I was going to argue smacked of high camp. “But it’s a major, major point which demonstrates Jennifer’s consciousness of innocence,” I said.
I went over Jennifer’s learning from Joel Peters, on the morning of October 29, that the authorities were looking for Buck and her; their rowing to shore; their hearing Buck’s dogs barking on the deck of the Sea Wind; Jennifer’s suggesting they go back to the Sea Wind, put the dogs below, and bring Joel’s laundry back to him; and Buck’s exclaiming to Jennifer, “Are you crazy? Leave me off at the dock first.”
“So, Jennifer drops Buck off, goes back to the Sea Wind and puts the dogs below, then takes Joel’s laundry back to him. As you know, Joel Peters testified that Jennifer did, in fact, return his laundry, and shortly thereafter, he became aware of her being pursued in the harbor by the authorities.
“Could this set of circumstances possibly show a stronger consciousness of innocence? If Jennifer had been involved with Buck Walker in the murder of the Grahams, under these circumstances, even returning to the Sea Wind to put the dogs below would have been completely out of the question. It would have been preposterous.
“But bringing someone’s laundry back? As the expression goes, ‘Give me a break.’ Maybe, maybe someone who in their mind is only guilty, like Jennifer, of having aided and abetted a fugitive from justice might do this. But not someone who is guilty of having committed two murders.
“There’s no clearer, more dramatic, more unequivocal example of the difference between Buck and Jennifer in this case than what happened at this moment. Buck, knowing he had committed murder, did precisely what anyone in his shoes would have done. He had Jennifer drop him off at the dock, and he took off.
“Can there be any question that if Jennifer had also been guilty of these murders, she would have gotten off the dinghy with him?
“We’re all aware that the right picture speaks much more eloquently than any words. The Berlin Wall comes to mind because there was a picture of it recently in the newspaper.
“You know, whole forests die every year to feed the printing presses on both sides of the Iron Curtain—trillions of words being written to sell the virtues of democracy vis-à-vis communism and vice versa.
“But the Berlin Wall, which the Communists erected, tells the whole story without one single word being written or uttered. The concrete wall, with barbed wire and armed guards on top, is there not to keep people from getting in, but to keep them from getting out.
“Need anything further really be said?
“Likewise, no words of mine could evoke the picture I ask you to visualize in your mind’s eye. The authorities are in pursuit of Buck and Jennifer, and she knows it, yet there she is, rowing the dinghy to return someone’s laundry. Doesn’t that say quite a bit, folks? I mean, I think it does. I think it does.
“Jennifer returned that laundry because—isn’t it so very obvious?—she was not running away from any murder.
“Even if you don’t accept that reasoning, which, I submit to you, is inherently sound in its logic, don’t you at least have to accept the following:
“Would a human being who has such an exquisite and uncommon concern for a fellow human being that even when her own welfare is in jeopardy, she still finds it within herself to worry about returning another’s laundry, of all things, would she be the type of person who would sit down and cold-bloodedly plan the brutal murder of two precious human beings?”
I allowed the question to hang in the air a moment. “The answer is almost too obvious to state. It’s a loud, ringing, unequivocal, no, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. The answer is no,” I shouted out.
I charged that the prosecution throughout the trial had sought to portray Buck Walker and Jennifer Jenkins as a Pacific Islands version of the legendary desperado pair of the thirties, Bonnie and Clyde.
“Well, Buck Walker turned out to be a Clyde Barrow, but Jennifer Jenkins ain’t no Bonnie. It just didn’t work at this trial. It was like trying to rivet a nail into a custard pie. It didn’t stick.”
I spelled out, slowly, what the charges in this case really meant. “The murders are alleged to be premeditated murders. At a minimum, this means that with cold reflection Jennifer planned, she planned to eliminate Mac and Muff Graham. That she helped make the decision on the time they would die, the place, the deadly instruments to be used.
“Premeditation means she knew, in advance, the horrible, ghastly death that Mac and Muff Graham would suffer, and in effect, she said: ‘I don’t care. Let’s do it to them.’ That’s what premeditation means.
“This young woman who
cared enough to return someone’s laundry even though she was being pursued by the authorities didn’t care if the lives of Mac and Muff Graham, people she liked and was friendly with, were snuffed out like ants on a sidewalk.
“Can the ineffaceable mark of guilt be placed on the head of Jennifer Jenkins? I say that such a thought is a perversion of all the principles of logic and common sense that we know.
“Let’s go on,” I said, amplifying on Jennifer’s consciousness of innocence.
Her conduct during her interrogation by the FBI on the day of her arrest was that of an innocent person, I maintained. “Not only doesn’t she want to talk to a lawyer, not only does she not remain silent, not only is she not closed-lipped and evasive, she can’t wait to blurt out what happened on Palmyra. She wanted to tell Shishido what happened. She was so eager she even interrupted him when he was advising her of her rights.
“Jennifer not only spoke freely to Shishido, she also gave an interview to the reporter from the Honolulu Advertiser. When I asked her on the stand why she talked to the reporter, she said, ‘Because he wanted to talk to me.’ I’m sure if the League of Women Voters had called her up, she would have talked to them, too.
“Snapshot glimpses, ladies and gentlemen, of an innocent mind.
“Another piece of evidence pointing to Jennifer’s innocence is this. Chances are the bodies of the Grahams were disposed of in the lagoon in the same area as where the remains were found. A heavy container would not be likely to be floating in all types of directions in the lagoon. We know there wasn’t too much motion or energy in that lagoon, the lagoon being placid even when the surrounding sea was tempestuous.
“Mr. Shishido testified that on October 29, 1974, Jennifer told him the location where the Zodiac was found overturned. And lo and behold, seven years later, Sharon Jordan finds Muff Graham’s remains in the same general area.
“Now, if Jennifer knew where the bodies had been disposed of, would she have directed the FBI to the location where the bodies were likely to be found? If someone commits a murder and hides the body, do they turn around and tell the authorities where the body might be?”