Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle (104 page)

“Defense calls Joshua Camacho to the stand.”

Several jurors perked up. This was the guy all the girls loved. This was the guy at the center of all the fuss, the center of this violent and tragic solar system.

If those jurors were anticipating a tall and handsome fellow, the man of every girl’s dreams, they were sadly disappointed. Joshua was not very big; he was kind of scrawny. Though he had what might be called a “pretty boy” face, he didn’t immediately strike anyone as God’s gift. He was sharply dressed, though, in black and white—white shirt, black vest, and tie—and wore a defiant expression on his face.

“Mr. Camacho, are you working now?” Jay Hebert inquired.

“No.” Javier had a surprisingly deep voice—gravelly, as if he’d just gargled with rocks.

“Where do you reside, sir?”

Joshua tilted his head to indicate that he either hadn’t heard the question or hadn’t understood it.

“Where do you
live
?” Hebert quickly added.

Joshua said he’d been living with his parents for the past few months. During that time, he hadn’t left Florida.

Yes, he knew Rachel Wade, since elementary school. Yes, they had dated.

Yes, he had dated Sarah.

Yes, he’d had a child with a woman named Erin Slothower.

No, he was not dating Sarah on April 14, 2009. Yes, he was sure.

“How would you describe your relationship with Sarah Ludemann on that date?”

“Friends with benefits.”

It was the defense attorney’s turn to tilt his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear that,” Hebert said.

Joshua repeated the phrase, this time just a smidgen louder.

“Could you explain what you mean by that?”

“Not dating,” the witness explained impatiently. “They could see whoever they wanted to see.”

Back to the one-word answers:

Had he ever been friends with benefits with Erin Slothower? No.

At some point in time, were he and Rachel Wade friends with benefits? Yes.

“You asked your girlfriends to fight for you, didn’t you, sir?”

“No, I did not.” He had never even talked about them fighting each other. Anyone who said he had was lying.

Hebert asked Joshua what his phone number had been at the time of the incident. Joshua said he didn’t remember. Wasn’t it true that Sarah had Joshua’s phone when she was stabbed?

Not true, Joshua replied.

“Were you aware of all the drama that was going on between Rachel and Sarah?”

“That night?”

“For the entire previous six months.”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about that.”

“They would go back and forth on Myspace or calling.”

“What were they calling about?”

“Arguing.”

“What were they arguing about?”

“About who was I going to be with.”

The witness continued to insist that he had never encouraged those girls to fight. At the time of the incident, he wasn’t dating
any
of them.

“You were playing the field, or you were having friends with benefits?”

“Friends with benefits,” Joshua replied. His voice held a hint of pride. No, he had no idea how that made those girls feel. He didn’t think they were upset with him. Just each other.

“They didn’t send you texts asking, ‘Why would you do this to me?’”

“No.”

“‘If you love me, why are you doing these things to me?’ You don’t remember any of these texts?”

“No.”

Hebert’s voice had been soothingly calm up until this point, but now there sounded an edge of frustration in it—perhaps annoyance: “You don’t remember stacks and stacks of texts and phone calls and drama, all about you and this relationship?”

“No.”

Hebert left the lectern and walked over to the defense table, where he whispered something to a colleague, then returned.

“Getting back to that last question I asked you, your testimony today is that you don’t remember any texts whatsoever from the girls about the problem or the drama, or anything like that? You don’t remember anything like that?”

“No.”

“Let me ask you this. Do you remember anything about phone calls from any of these girls?”

“No.”

“Sarah called you and said she was upset by Rachel? Rachel called and said she was upset about Sarah? Anything like that?”

“No.”

Hebert gave up, moving on. “Let’s talk about that night. You do remember that night, right?”

“A little bit.”

“A little bit,” Hebert echoed. He leaned across the top of the lectern and rested his head on his hand. “Were ya drinkin’?”

“Yes.”

Hebert stood up straight again. “And where were you drinking?”

Joshua said he was at his sister’s house. Just he and Janet and Sarah were there. He drank vodka. Maybe a “cup or two.”

“Do you remember, maybe, five shots?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember having your deposition taken in this matter?”

Judge Bulone interrupted the examination to remind Hebert that since he was the one who called the witness, he could not use previous statements to impeach Joshua. He could, however, use the earlier statement to refresh the witness’s memory.

“That is what I intend to do, Your Honor,” the defense attorney replied.

“Proceed,” the judge said.

Hebert handed a transcript of the deposition to Joshua and told him which section to read silently. When the witness was finished, Hebert asked, “Does that refresh your memory as to what you had to drink that night?”

“No, sir. I don’t remember.”

He didn’t remember being asked how much vodka he had drunk. He didn’t remember saying he had five shots. In fact, he didn’t remember giving a deposition.

“You don’t remember what you were drinking that night?” Hebert asked.

“I said vodka. I don’t remember how much,” the witness replied, now himself impatient.

Yes, he was smoking marijuana that night. Sarah was smoking, too. They smoked together.

No, he didn’t talk to Rachel that night. No, he didn’t tell Rachel he wanted to spend the night with her. No, he didn’t tell Rachel he wanted to have sex with her and sleep with her that night.

Charlie Ludemann had his glasses on his forehead and his eyes closed; his left hand gripped tightly at the handle of his metal cane. At his right, Gay was smiling, perhaps at what a piece of work Joshua was, perhaps at the notion that Rachel’s defense wasn’t getting what it wanted out of the “pretty boy” witness.

“Did you observe Janet smoking marijuana?” Hebert asked.

“I don’t remember,” Joshua replied. “Me and Sarah smoked it.”

Hebert asked permission to approach the witness. He handed Joshua a page from his deposition transcript and asked the witness to read to himself a selected passage.

“Does that refresh your memory?”

“No, it does not.”

Hebert took the transcript back and read aloud. Asked who was smoking, Joshua had said, in addition to himself and Sarah, his sister and a guy named Rob were also smoking.

Did Joshua recall saying that? He did not.

Yes, there were just the four of them in the house that night. Janet’s kids had been home during the day, but not that night.

“After you found out about this incident, you threatened to kill Rachel Wade, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

Hebert said, “That’s all I have, Judge.”

“Thank you,” Judge Bulone replied. “Cross-examination?”

Lisett Hanewicz went right to work.

No, he wasn’t there when the incident happened between Rachel and Sarah.

No, he didn’t even know what was going on.

Yes, he made that threat after he learned what happened to Sarah.

No further questions.

Hebert said that he had no redirect, but he wanted the witness to remain on standby, as he might want to recall him to the stand later in the day. Judge Bulone instructed Joshua to remain either in the witness room or right outside the courtroom until he was recalled.

Some spectators wondered what Hebert had hoped to accomplish by calling Joshua Camacho. Was the witness supposed to corroborate parts of Rachel’s story? If so, he did not do a great job. He couldn’t remember any of the drama. He couldn’t even remember his own deposition.

If the defense wanted Joshua to back up Rachel’s assertion that the insulting and threatening messages had gone both ways, Joshua was completely unhelpful—and Hebert couldn’t even establish the threats went both ways through phone records because, according to Hebert, Rachel used a “fly-by-night” phone company, which didn’t keep records.

For her testimony, Rachel Wade wore a white shirt with a large collar over a black shirt and black pants. When she was called by the prosecution, she couldn’t just get up and move to the front of the room. Because of her prisoner status, she had to wait patiently for an armed escort to the witness stand.

She took the oath with her right pinky crooked outward. She said “I do” in a tiny voice.

The full courtroom was silent, all spectators hanging on Rachel’s every word. It would have been easy to miss something. Rachel spoke quickly and softly; attentiveness was required.

In many murder cases, the defendant does not testify on his or her own behalf. But in this case, Rachel Wade’s testimony was necessary. She was claiming self-defense and needed to describe the circumstances of Sarah Ludemann’s death.

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” Judge Bulone said to the witness.

“Good afternoon, Your Honor,” Rachel replied, still sounding meek and very couldn’t-hurt-a-fly.

“Make sure your answers are good and loud so that everyone can hear,” Judge Bulone said.

“Yes, Your Honor,” she replied, turning her head briefly toward the bench, then returning to face forward, poised for her lawyer’s first question.

Hebert told her to turn toward the jury, state her name, and spell her last name. She obeyed.

“Good afternoon, Miss Wade,” Hebert said, and she returned the greeting. “You, of course, know why you are here?”

“Yes.”

“You are here because you want to tell the jury your side to the story?”

“Yes.”

Jay Hebert established that his client was twenty years old, nineteen at the time of the incident. She was born in Largo, grew up in Pinellas Park, and went to Pinellas Park High School. She’d studied on her own and received her GED in 2008. She was also working as a kennel assistant at a pet facility and at Applebee’s. She had one sibling, an older brother who was twenty-four. Her mother and father were still alive.

She met Joshua Camacho in first or second grade. They’d gone through elementary school, middle and high school together. They began dating in 2008. She had gotten her own apartment, and he moved in with her. During their cohabitation, there had been issues regarding Joshua’s relationships with other women.

Rachel said, “I found out that he previously dated a girl named Erin Slothower and he had a child with her. And he dated a girl named Sarah Ludemann. And when me and him started to date, I began to get harassing phone calls, threats, made to me.”

“You had drama, not just from Sarah, but from Erin as well?”

“Yes.”

“But you stayed with Joshua?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Are you familiar with the term ‘friends with benefits’?”

“Yes.”

“What does that term mean to you as you sit here today in your generation?”

“It means that you aren’t dating exclusively and you can see other people.”

“It means you can have sex with other people without cheating on anybody?”

“Yes.”

“Were you aware that that was part of Joshua’s philosophy?”

“At the beginning of our relationship, no. But when he continued to see and see the other girls, yes.”

“Did he cheat on you with Erin?”

“Yes, he did.”

“Did he cheat on Erin with you when he was dating Erin?”

“I’m not positive that they were dating, but not that I’m aware of, not while we were together.”

“Did he cheat on Sarah with you when he was with Sarah?”

“They were seeing each other. As far as I was concerned, they weren’t dating.”

There was clearly a distinction in Rachel’s mind between “seeing” and “dating.” Both included sex, but “dating” came with expectations—or perhaps only pretensions—of monogamy.

“That was because he told you they weren’t dating so he could see you?” Hebert asked.

“Yes.”

Rachel testified that on the night of the incident, it was Joshua’s plan to come over, have sex, and spend the night with her.

Yes, she knew his sister Janet. No, she didn’t find Janet pleasant. Rachel explained, “There were a couple of times when I went over there to the house, where he stayed with her sometimes, and spent the night, babysat her kids. But after a couple of times of that, she came over to my house and she told me I was a bad influence on him and she didn’t want me to see him anymore. And if I did, she was going to come after me.”

“Can you tell me some of the specific threats that Janet made to you?”

“She said that she was going to kick my ass, and she actually came to my door of my apartment, where I lived alone, and tried to break my door down. Other than that, she threatened me, not physically, but verbally over the phone.”

“What sort of verbal threats?”

“Just that she was going to come after me and to stay the ‘eff’ away from her brother,” Rachel said, censoring herself.

“Let’s talk about the threats that might have been made toward you by Sarah Ludemann. These threats were ongoing?”

“Yes.”

“And they went on for months at a time?”

“Yes.”

“Obviously, you’ve been sitting here in court and you’ve listened to threats you made on tape. Can you tell me some of the threats that were made toward you by Sarah?”

“She said she was going to kick my ass, same thing. She knew where I lived, that I should stay away from her man, and that I shouldn’t put pictures up on my Myspace because she had found out where I lived because of that, and she
would
come to my house.”

“Did she ever threaten to beat your fuckin’ ass?” Hebert did not censor himself.

She had, more than once, probably more than ten times, and that went on throughout the buildup to this situation. The threats she dished out were similar in tone to those she received, same kind of language. That was the way she and Sarah talked. When she talked to Sarah, it was
never
pleasant.