*****
In the Light of Day
The Counselor
Andy and Elaine Wilkerson had lived in Sandy Oaks, South Carolina in Polk County for the past two years. Andy was from Chicken Branch, a small town about thirty miles east of Knoxville in the Appalachian Mountains of east Tennessee. Elaine was from Ten Mile, Georgia in DeKalb County where the Goose Creek crossed over Henry County in to DeKalb County. They met at the college in Sandy Oaks and started dating their sophomore year. After they graduated in 1961, they got married and had two children, Roger Dale and Jo Alice. Andy was an architect and he was on the road a lot traveling to big cities designing buildings for big companies. Elaine was a librarian and a full-time dad and mom since Andy was gone a lot. They were your typical family; they had their problems and troubles like everyone else. Sandy Oaks was a small town just outside of Charleston. It was a laid back community of southern comfort with a slow pace and had plenty of long, hot lazy summer days. They had been married about ten years. Elaine wanted to move back to Ten Mile because her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and she wanted to take care of her. Elaine’s daddy died when she was four years old. She had a sister, Maggie, who lived at home but she couldn’t be counted on because she was a party girl. She was younger than Elaine and still had a lot of growing up to do. Andy didn’t care too much for moving to Ten Mile at first. He wanted to stay in Sandy Oaks. But, he finally gave in because he understood how much it meant to Elaine to be there for her mother.
Ten Mile was about twenty-eight miles west of Macon. It was a small town almost identical to Sandy Oaks. It was very laid back and relaxed. The tall Georgia pines kissed the rising morning sun and brought comfort and serenity to the soul.
There was not much Elaine could do for her mother except spend time with her and comfort her. Andy stayed on the road a lot and was gone weeks at a time, sometimes even months. Maggie, her sister, wasn’t much help at all. She was more of a problem. She liked to hang out in the bars, party all the time with her boyfriend, Brad Graves, and sleep all day. Maggie tried to get Elaine to party with them. She told her all the time to get out, enjoy life and live a little. But, Elaine wasn’t interested in the party life. Besides, she didn’t have time for it. Her family came first. But, as time went on, the hardships, her mother, her children and her marriage began to take a toll on her and get the best of her. She and Andy slowly drifted apart. The distance between them slowly wore her down. Their marriage and love slowly faded away. She believed, but didn’t know for sure, he had someone else. With each passing day, she struggled to stay on top of things. She often thought about Maggie’s suggestion that she get out some and was beginning to believe she might be right. She needed an outlet from all the stress. She knew she was going to have to do something because she was beginning to break down. Elaine’s mother died a few months after they moved back to Ten Mile; she took it hard. Andy came home for the funeral to help comfort Elaine and the kids. After the funeral, she told him they had to talk because things needed to change. But, the talk only led to an argument. The time and distance between them made it hard for them to work things out. There seemed to be no way of breaking through the barrier that stood between them. A few days after her mother’s funeral, Andy left and went back out on the road. Elaine stood at the door with the children and watch him leave. My Lord, what has happened to us, was the prayer on her heart.
Not long after her mother died, she took her sister’s advice. She started to get out some. At first, she was hesitant but as time passed she enjoyed it more and more. The excitement of the world was sweet to her; she enjoyed it more than she ever thought she would. Her loneliness led her to seek solace in the honky-tonks and bars with her sister and Brad. Monday through Thursday, she stayed at home with the children. But, she longed for the weekends. Friday through Sunday, the children stayed with a babysitter while she partied. As the week and months passed, she enjoyed her life more and more. Andy was still gone a lot and he wasn’t aware of what was going on at home. He came home for a day or two every once in a while but it wasn’t enough to mend their broken marriage. Little did he know, things were about over to the point of no return. The next time he came home, Elaine broke down and told him what she had been doing and that she wanted a divorce. But, Andy didn’t want a divorce. He didn’t want to break up their home because of the children. He made good money and was a good provider. However, he was so wrapped up in his job he failed to see his marriage failing. He wanted them to move back to Sandy Oaks to see if it would help heal their marriage since they had been so happy there. But, she was not interested. She wanted to stay in Ten Mile. Nothing was settled between them before he had to go back out on the road. In the back of his mind, he thought they could eventually work things out. However, to her it was over.
A week later, on a Friday evening, she met Brad in the bar for a few drinks. After getting a little too tipsy, she and Brad went to Macon to get a motel room. It wasn’t something they planned; it was one of those things that just happened. Little did they know, Maggie had also gone to Macon. Later on that evening, Maggie was on her way back home when she passed the motel and saw them getting in Brad’s car. She quickly turned around and confronted them in front of the motel. Maggie was so upset, mad and angry. She didn’t give them a chance to explain before she jumped back in her car and headed back home. Brad and Elaine followed behind her. When they got back home, they picked up where they left off at the motel. Brad pleaded with her but Maggie packed her things and moved out. Elaine tried to talk to her and explain things but she wouldn’t listen to her either. She told Elaine she hated her and told Brad to stay away from her. About a month later, Maggie and Brad broke up. She blamed Elaine for it and was out for revenge even though what Brad and Elaine did was nothing but a drunken mistake. In the meantime, Brad introduced Elaine to one of his buddies, Ben, and they immediately hit it off and began seeing each other on a regular basis. Also, during that time, Elaine filed for divorce. When Andy received the papers, he was so upset. He came home to try to talk her out of it but it was too late. To make matters worse, while he was at home, Maggie told him about the one night stand Elaine had with Brad. Andy confronted Elaine about it and she didn’t deny it. They got in a huge fight over it. The affair was the last straw for Andy. He left and moved out. Days later, he threatened her and told her he was going to take the children away from her. However, deep down inside, he still wanted to make things work. He told her he would give up his job and they could move anywhere she wanted. But, no matter how hard he tried, it didn’t do any good. He still loved her and wasn’t willing to let her go. He felt partly responsible for the affair and realized he helped push her in to another man’s arms. He didn’t want to break up the family and he was going to do everything imaginable to work things out. He begged her to forgive him and give him another chance. Still, no matter how hard they tried to talk and work things out, it always ended up in an argument. Deep down, Elaine still loved him but the two could not seem to work things out.
After a couple of months, Ben and Elaine had become a hot item. However, she didn’t love Ben; it was only infatuation. She often thought about the good times she had with Andy even though she knew they could never have what they once had. Elaine dated Ben for about four months. They had fun together but deep inside she was still unhappy. She thought time and time again about trying to work things out with Andy but on the other hand she didn’t see much hope in that because their marriage and home would never be the same. Elaine and Ben were in their fifth month of dating when she unexpectedly broke it off with him. She didn’t want the party life with Ben anymore and she didn’t want Andy. In fact, she didn’t know what she wanted. She knew Ben was not going to let her go so easy since he had become obsessed with her. He didn’t understand why she ended their relationship. He tried his best to get her back but she didn’t want to see or t
alk to him anymore. Unknowingly to her, Ben was stalking her; he knew her every move.
Late one Friday evening when the children were at the babysitters, Andy went to Elaine’s house to convince her to give their marriage another chance. The neighbors were sitting out in the yard as Andy pulled up. He got out of his car, spoke to them and then knocked on Elaine’s door. She answered the door and invited him inside. About fifteen minutes later, the neighbors heard them arguing. Andy walked out of the house about twenty minutes later, got into his car and drove off. About two hours later, the neighbors were getting ready to go inside when they saw Andy pull back up at Elaine’s house. This time he didn’t know; he just walked on in. As the neighbors peeped out the window, they saw Andy rush to his car and speed off. They thought his behavior was a little bizarre but they didn’t think anything about it. Early the next morning, Maggie decided to visit Elaine to try to make things right. Besides, they were sisters. She knocked on the door several times but Elaine didn’t come to the door. She figured she was probably still asleep so she checked to see fi the door was unlocked and it was. She eased the door open, went in and called out for Elaine. Still, there was no answer. She called Elaine’s name again but there was no answer. As she was about to call her name again, she saw Elaine’s bloody body lying on the floor. She left out a blood curdling scream and ran over to see if she was okay. Elaine laid in a puddle of blood; she was dead. The neighbors heard the terrifying scream and ran over to Elaine’s to see if everything was okay. When they ran in, they were horrified when they saw Maggie kneeling and crying hysterically beside Elaine’s body. They immediately called the police. Within a matter of minutes, the police arrived. The police look the crime scene over while Detective Gary Hall and Detective Frank Finney talked to some of the neighbors gathered at the scene to see if they saw or heard anything suspicious. Paul and Brandy Davis told the detectives they were just getting home from out of town when they saw all the commotion and was only curious about what was going on. But, Richard Allen and Andrea Henson told the detectives the last person they had seen at Elaine’s house before they went to bed was her husband, Andy.
“We were sitting out in the yard when he came by. About fifteen minutes after he arrived, we heard them arguing. He came out of the house twenty minutes later and left. About two hours later, we were going back inside the house to go to bed when he came back. He got out of his car and went in. A few minutes later, we saw him get in his car and speed off. We didn’t think anything about it,” Andrea told the detectives.
Maggie eventually calmed down and was able to talk with the detectives. She told them Elaine and Andy were in the process of getting a divorce because they had been having a lot of trouble the last couple of months.
“Elaine wanted the divorce but Andy didn’t,” she said as she broke down again and started crying. “I can’t believe Andy would do such a thing. I just can’t believe it.”
Elaine appeared to have been stabbed several times with a knife. However, after a thorough search of the inside of the house, no weapon had been found. The search for the murder weapon continued outside in the yard and the woods behind the house. Within a few minutes, one of the officers found a bloody knife in a bush next to the front porch. Detective Hall went over to where the officer was, picked it up with a handkerchief and put it into an evidence bag to send to the crime lab. He and Detective Finney speculated the killer accidentally dropped it on their way out and probably didn’t realize it.
After processing the crime scene, the detectives headed back to the station to put out an APB on Andy Wilkerson to have him picked up for questioning. Six hours passed before he was picked up and brought in for questioning. When Detective Hall and Detective Finney was escorting him to the interrogation room, he denied killing Elaine. He told the detectives he was at her house earlier that evening. He admitted they got in a heated argument but said he left before it got out of hand. Later that evening, after he had cooled off, he stated he went back to her house to try to work things out. But, when he got there she was already dead.
“Why did you leave the scene and not call for help?” questioned Detective Hall.
“I was afraid,” he said. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“Do you have an alibi?” Detective Hall asked.
“No, I don’t,” he replied. “When I left the first time, I was headed back to Memphis because that’s where I’ve been working for the last month. The longer I drove, the more I thought about how much I wanted my family back. I pulled over to the side of the road, turned around and drove back to try to save my marriage and home once again. I was alone; I have no alibi.”
“What about those blood spots on your shirt and pants?” asked Detective Hall.
“I…I don’t…”
“Not only have the neighbors placed you at the scene of the crime but other people saw you around town that evening.
“Of course they did. I told you I was at the house. I don’t want to say anymore until I talk to a lawyer,” he said.
“That’s fine but you are being arrested for the murder of your wife.”
“You’ve got the wrong man, detectives! Her killer is still out there.”
Andy was fingerprinted and booked for the first degree murder of Elaine. He was allowed to make a phone call to a lawyer before being taken to a cell. He had been in his cell for about two hours when Attorney Benjamin Linville, a local lawyer in town, came to see him. He assured him he would do his best to clear his name.
About a week later, the results on the murder weapon and blood spots from his clothes came in from the crime lab. The lab report confirmed his bloody fingerprints were on the knife and the blood spots on his clothes were Elaine’s blood. As soon as Benjamin got the results, he went to the jail to question Andy about the evidence against him.
“How did your fingerprints get on the knife?” Benjamin asked.
“When I went in and found her, I was so concerned about her so I knelt down beside her. Without thinking, I picked the knife up, dropped it, wiped my hand on my shirt and pants and took off. I know it was a stupid thing to do. But, I was so tore up when I saw her in that condition. She was so bloody. I just didn’t think,” he explained.
“Well, Benjamin, the District Attorney, William Berghorn, has a hard case against you. It doesn’t look good. You were at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder, you have no alibi, your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon, her blood was found on your clothes, the neighbors heard you fighting the night of the murder and there are several witnesses who will testify that you threatened her. Also, the DA knows about the affair she had with Brad Graves which leads him to believe jealously was the motive behind the murder.”
“It’s not true,” he cried out. “I didn’t do it. You got to believe me. This is crazy. Yes, the affair was a big part of our marriage troubles. And, yes, I did threaten her. But, I didn’t kill her. She was the one who filed for the divorce. I wanted to make our marriage work, especially for the kids. When I left the first time, she was alive. When I returned, she was dead. Counselor, you do believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes, I do believe you. However, I want you to know up front it doesn’t look good. It’s going to be a hard case to prove and it looks like the prosecution it holding all the cards.
Three days later, they went before Judge Theodore W. Brown to get a bail set. The judge denied it and a court date was set. Over the next couple of months, Benjamin worked on the case trying to find a way to get Andy out of the mess he was in. If he ever needed a miracle, he needed one now.
Three months after the murder, Andy went to trial. The courtroom was packed. It was one of the biggest trials they’d had in a long time. Over the next week, the trial went on. The prosecution presented its case, their evidence and witnesses and so did the defense. The jury found Andy guilty of murder and he was sentenced to life without parole. Two weeks a
fter the trial, Andy was taken to Langford State Prison in west Arkansas to serve his time. He tried for years to get an appeal. Finally, after ten years he won an appeal for a new trial. He hired a new lawyer out of Memphis to take his case. His new lawyer, Attorney Jim Fields, was one of the best counselors and trial lawyers around at the time. He worked on the case with his team for six months. They went over all the court papers, evidence and talked to the few witnesses they could find; the days were long and trying. A lot of the witnesses had died or moved away. But, their hard work did turn in their favor when they talked to Richard Allen’s and Andrea Henson’s son, Jason Henson, who was only a small boy at the time of the murder. He told Mr. Fields on the day of the murder that he was in the backyard playing when he saw a man come through the woods behind Elaine’s house and go in the back door. He told them he never thought much about it at the time. Plus, he was only seven years old then and didn’t think it mattered. He never even told his parents. It was the big break Mr. Fields had been looking for to help clear Andy and it would most definitely assure him a new trial. It took about four months before they were granted a new jury trial. Counselor Fields and his team had enough new evidence to make a difference in the case and hopefully set Andy free. During the trial, Counselor Fields asked Jason Henson to take the stand. After he was sworn in, Mr. Fields began his questioning.
“Jason will you please tell the court what you saw the evening of Elaine Wilkerson’s murder.”
“I saw a man come out of the woods behind her house and go in the back door. The man was in the house for a pretty good while and when he finally came out he ran back into the woods and disappeared.”
“Did you recognize the man?”
“It was just getting dark that evening. At first, when he went in, I didn’t get a good look at him. But, when he left, he turned and looked at me.”
“Do you know who he was?” asked Fields.
“It was Benjamin Linville,” he replied.
“The lawyer?”
“Yes.”
Then Fields asked to address the court on some other evidence pertaining to the case. The judge granted it. After Jason was cross-examined, Mr. Fields was allowed to call Mr. Linville to the stand.
“Mr. Linville, did you and Mrs. Wilkerson have an affair?” asked Mr. Fields.
“Yes, for about four months,” he replied.
“Did you end the relationship?”
“No, sir. She did.”
“How did you feel about that?”
“I wasn’t happy because I was in love with her.”
“Would you say you were obsessed with her?”
“No, I just didn’t want to let her go.”
“The day she was murdered, did you go through the woods and slip in the back door?”
“I did but her husband was there and they were arguing in the living room. I hid in the kitchen until he left and then I confronted her. I tried my best to make her change her mind about us but she wouldn’t.”
“Mr. Linville, did you kill Mrs. Wilkerson?”
“No, I did not.”
“Mr. Linville, I believe you left and came back later that evening and stabbed her to death with a knife from her own kitchen.”
“That’s speculation, Your Honor,” his lawyer said.
“Over-ruled,” the judge stated. “You may continue, Mr. Fields.”
“In fact, Mr. Linville, you had just killed her when Mr. Wilkerson returned and found her bloody body. You saw him when he picked up the knife and put it back down. After he left, you took the knife and tossed it in the bushes out front. You knew his fingerprints would be the only ones on the knife because you were wearing gloves. Then you went back inside the house, went out the back door and ran through the woods. Isn’t that true, Mr. Linville.”
Benjamin dropped his head in his hands and cried out, “She was going to leave me. She was going to go back to Andy and I couldn’t let her do it.”
Gasps filled the courtroom.
“Order in the court,” demanded the judge.
The judge ordered the court officer to take him in to custody. He was taken out of the courtroom and arrested. Next, the judge called for a brief recess and asked the counselors to meet him in his chambers. About forty-five minutes later, the judge re-entered the courtroom and dismissed all charges against Andy Wilkerson. With Benjamin’s admission of guilt, the case was closed.