Read Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle Online
Authors: Michael Benson
Michael Benson's True Crime Bundle (70 page)
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Afterward, Mike never said anything about it. He didn’t say he was just kidding. He didn’t say it was a joke. He never even acknowledged that it had occurred.
“And when did the chain saw incident happen?”
“During the summer of 1988,” Gary replied. That meant that the witness was twenty-two and the defendant was seventeen. Gary said he saw to it that his parents never found out what happened.
“Let’s move forward in time now, Mr. King, to late 2007. Did there come a time when Mike came back to Michigan to visit?”
“Yes, in January of 2008.”
“At that time, was Mike acting paranoid?”
“Yes, there was something about wolves in the woods. He thought they were chasing him. Around that time, he also complained that he’d been harassed by an automobile that was trying to run him off the road.”
“Mike was no longer a boy, right?”
“Oh, no. He was a man in his thirties.”
“And this was at your parents’ home, correct?”
“Yes, in a farming community in Michigan.”
“Were there times when Mike was nonresponsive?”
“Yes, Mike sat there for eight hours in a trance and didn’t move. We would say, ‘What’s wrong?’ And he would say, ‘Leave me alone.’ I tried to communicate with him, but he sat there like a vegetable. He was in a trance. My girlfriend tried to joke with him, but he didn’t laugh or show emotion. His face was white, like a ghost. He was upstairs in bed, in a trance. Eventually he did come downstairs, but he just stood there. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he didn’t know.”
Gary remembered thinking that Mike was getting worse, that the same head problems he’d had as a kid were still there—only now, they were worse. The same buzzing in his head was there, but now was worse. Gary felt helpless. He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t think of a way to help his brother.
“Was he like that all the time, or were these episodes you saw?” Schlemmer inquired.
“Sometimes he was just talking, but he couldn’t really hold a conversation because he didn’t understand what you were trying to say. He didn’t get it.”
“Was there a time when [your] brother Mike and your nephew Matt came to live with you?”
“Yes. For a short time, I went to work with Mike to kind of help him out. Everyone loved Mike. He tried to do the best he could.”
Carolyn Schlemmer had no further questions.
On cross-examination, Lon Arend asked the witness if there was anything else he thought the jury should know. Gary said there was: another example of how reckless Mike was. He recalled a time when Mike was riding a motorcycle with a throttle wide open—no clue that the smallest bump in the road could have killed him. “He had no concept of danger,” Gary said, adding that he believed all of the mental problems and strange behavior was caused by the snowmobile accident. Gary felt bad because the injuries Mike suffered when he was six and a half impacted so negatively upon the rest of his life.
“You said Mike was normal, like society wants you to be... .”
“Because he doesn’t drink or do drugs. I guess Mike was square in some people’s eyes.”
“You said earlier that everyone loved Mike... .”
“Yes, as a worker, everyone loved him. He didn’t make waves. He did the best he could.”
“He was a hard worker?”
“We were raised to do our very best.”
“You clearly love him.”
“Yes.”
“And you wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him, right?”
“No, sir.”
Arend wanted to know if Mike was a good plumber. Gary said he was, although sometimes Mike would try to go too fast and would make mistakes. He never tried to take advantage of anyone. Others sometimes tried to take advantage of him.
“But you knew him to work and have jobs?”
“Yes, but not very many. He dealt with things from day to day.” Gary explained how Mike got himself into financial difficulties. He bought a house and then remortgaged it in order to pay for his wife’s education. His wife then left him and he couldn’t pay his bills. Regarding Mike’s ex-wife, Gary said, “Mike loved her and wanted to be with her, but she was in her own world, with men on the computer.”
Arend wondered how Mike managed to get so much credit when he didn’t make that much money. Gary explained that creditors adored Mike because he had cars and four-wheelers, and he figured the wife was helping him with all that, the paperwork and the like.
“You’re saying she took care of that?”
“Yes.”
“You have said that you looked up to your brother Mike. Is that correct?”
“Yes. He was doing what a person was supposed to be doing in society.”
“In January 2008, were there any other examples of Mike having hallucinations?”
“Well, I remember he told me how much he loved California and visiting the redwood forest. I had to tell him that he’d never been to California in his life. He said, in this life maybe he hadn’t. It might have been a previous life.”
“You knew him never to be violent with women?”
“Yes, he would get upset with his ex over playing on the computer and not paying her bills, but never violent. She took the money she was supposed to use to pay the bills and used it to buy new clothes. But Mike remained in love, even after she left. He said he would take her back in a minute—but it didn’t work out that way for him.”
“Would he get upset because she refused to do any housecleaning?”
“Yeah, but Mike dealt with it. He loved her.”
Arend then shifted the subject back to the sledding accident, an incident he clearly believed had been—at the very least—exaggerated. There weren’t even medical records to corroborate that it had occurred. Yes, Michael hit at forty to forty-five miles per hour; yes, the doctor said there was nothing they could do but ice it and keep him from sleeping.
“Did they tell you what to do if Mike did slip into a coma?”
“The doctor said in that case bring him back to emergency.”
Gary reiterated that Mike’s symptoms grew worse, until they peaked in January 2008 “when it was like [a] rubber band in his head snapped.”
Regarding the chain saw incident, Arend found it curious that no one called the police; no one tried to get Mike psychiatric help; no one even told the teenager’s parents. Again, as was the case with the accident, there was no official paperwork to back up the witness’s credibility. The jury just had the brothers’ word for it.
“It wasn’t that big of a deal. I wasn’t worried about him hurting me. I didn’t take him to a hospital because I didn’t want to get him in trouble,” Gary said.
“You say that he was in a trancelike state in January 2008?”
“Right.”
“Did you see Mike on January 17, 2008?” Arend asked, referring to the day of the murder.
“No.”
“Do you know if he was in a trancelike state on January 17, 2008?”
“No.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.”
Because of logistical problems, Rodney King, the defendant’s youngest brother, testified from Michigan via video. Rodney, questioned by Carolyn Schlemmer, said he was thirty-six years old, unemployed, and living on disability.
There were a couple of reasons why he was teleconferencing his testimony—he had a few serious health problems, including lung and kidney disease. He couldn’t be there because he was on breathing medications, a nebulizer.
He was testifying from his father’s house, where he was trying to help out as much as he could, do a little yard work now and again. Dad recently had a triple bypass; and once he recovered from that, he was scheduled for more surgery because he had another blockage.
Today, Rodney was glad to say, was a pretty good day for him. He had three kids—sixteen, fourteen, and eight—and had been married for sixteen years.
He remembered that Mike was held back a grade in school, but wasn’t sure if he repeated second or third grade. Rodney’s parents held Rodney back at that time as well, because they didn’t want the two of them in the same class. They didn’t want people making fun of Mike because his little brother caught up with him in school. Mike was held back because he “wasn’t getting anywhere” and “didn’t understand.” Rodney admitted that in junior high, both he and Mike were in special education.
Schlemmer asked if Rodney recalled Mike’s sledding accident. Rodney did, because around that same time he had hurt his chin. He and Mike went to the same doctor. Mike’s accident was traumatic for Rodney. He remembered how bad it felt wondering if Mike was ever going to wake up.
Rodney explained that he always remembered those events in the order they happened. He got stitches in his chin; then after, Mike got knocked cold. He saw it happen, and it really affected him badly. The three brothers were having fun: Gary driving the snowmobile; he and Mike taking turns on the sled being dragged around in the snow. Mike could hold on better than Rodney, so Gary drove faster with Mike on the sled. When the accident happened, Rodney was standing in the snow, waiting his turn. Then Mike’s head hit the shed and “that stopped him in his tracks.” How fast was the snowmobile going? “Eighty-nine miles per hour,” Rodney guessed. Nobody really knew. The snowmobile had no speedometer. There was so much blood coming from Mike’s mouth, where his teeth were mangled, that they didn’t even know at first that he had a serious nosebleed as well. Rodney approached tentatively, in shock. Gary took charge and tried to wake Mike up. Rodney was too scared to think. Gary picked up Mike and carried him into the house, where they told their mom what had happened. Rodney didn’t recall his dad being there. Dad came in a few minutes later, and it was then that they began to put ice on Mike’s swelling head. Frozen hamburger and chops were used to slow the swelling. Dad said it was time to go to the hospital, so they all piled into their “Brady Bunch station wagon,” the one with the wood-grain panels on the sides. Rodney recalled that at first the roads were bumpy. Then they were on a main road and went to a doctor, the same one who put stitches in his chin. After that, Rodney wasn’t sure what had happened. He got stuck in the waiting room. The next thing he remembered, they were on their way home. His mom was saying that they had to keep Mike up and continue icing his head. Mom said they had to check on Mike every twenty minutes, half hour, to make sure he was awake. After that, Mike had regular nosebleeds. Real gushers, too. He’d be fine, and then, in a snap, blood would pour out for no reason. Mike would have to lie on his back with a bloody washcloth on his face.
“Did Mike like to go to doctors?”
“No, he hated it. He was always too scared.”
Once they took Mike to the family doctor, where they wanted to take a blood sample to perhaps help determine why Mike was getting the nosebleeds. Mike saw the needle and ran right out of the office, got in the backseat of the family station wagon, and refused to come out—so the tests were never done.
But Mike did go to dentists. Rodney was the scaredy-cat when it came to dentists. Mike had to have his wisdom teeth out, and he took it bravely.
“When Mike was growing up, did he ever exhibit any bizarre behavior?”
Rodney recalled the days when Mike and he rode their bikes through a stretch of woods, as a shortcut, on their way to and from school. One day, Mike refused to go that way. He was too scared—claimed there was a witch after them. He would act weird sometimes.
Once, Mike showed him a pair of trees next to each other. Mike would point up there and say that was the spot where the witches hung up their victims, and that was what was going to happen to them if they kept taking the shortcut. One time, he took his rifle, and made Rodney bring a BB gun, and they went in the woods to shoot the witches. Mike, Rodney testified, told him never to tell their parents about the witches or they would be in trouble. Eventually, it seemed to Rodney, they just forgot about the witches and continued to ride their bikes through the shortcut.
Sure, Mike complained of buzzing in his head. He always related it back to the accident. But his brothers never thought it was an issue. His head was constantly buzzing for no reason. They didn’t know it was bothering him that bad.
Rodney gave his version of the chain saw incident. He remembered the cover-up as clearly as the event. They made desperate attempts to air out the house so it wouldn’t stink of chain saw smoke when their parents got home. He’d lopped off a bunch of tree branches out by the garage, and those had to be hidden as well. Gary and Rodney did the cleaning up. They kept waiting for Mike to say he was just joking, but that never happened. In fact, Mike never even knew what was going on. Rodney had thought about the chain saw incident a lot in the years since it occurred, but it still made no sense to him. Mike suffered from memory loss. You couldn’t automatically assume that he was going to remember something he should remember.
Rodney gave the jury his version of the bow-and-arrow incident. That happened sometime in the 1980s. They had a big bow, and the arrows had rubber tips. Mike would shoot the arrows at Rodney. Sometimes he would “get brave” and take the rubber tips off before shooting the arrows at his little brother.
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