CHAPTER 30
A
ll of the Shaws' friends and relatives were grief-stricken by Lila's sudden death. That was evidently not the case with Karri, however. The very next day, on April 2, she pulled up to the drive-through window at the bank and presented the teller with a check that appeared to have been signed by Lila Shaw in the amount of $2,000.
Karri's big mistake was picking a bank teller who not only knew Karri, but also was aware of the account changes under way and had also learned that Lila Shaw had died the day before. The bank called Billy Shaw to ask him if he was aware of the check and if he had given permission for it to be cashed. He was naturally very upset to have this situation occur on the day following his wife's death; he refused to authorize the check.
On the next day, April 3, Billy Shaw was back at the bank finalizing the transfer of all his accounts into ones that Karri could not access. As her bad luck would have it, while he was present at the bank, Karri attempted to use one of the credit cards she had obtained in her mother's name to charge $1,800 to Billy Shaw's Chase account.
Perhaps because he was distraught and in mourning for his wife, or perhaps because he loved Karri and did not feel like dealing with her financial shenanigans at a time when his wife was about to be laid to rest, Billy Shaw allowed Karri's transaction to go through.
On April 4, Billy Shaw returned to the bank and this time he brought along Kim Dalton, Karri's older sister. The final paperwork had been completed, with Karri's name completely deleted from all of the accounts, and Kim was now the person who would be authorized to sign for access to Billy's personal and business funds. There was no longer any way Karri could gain access to any of the family funds; she had been completely and finally cut off.
This information must have been kept from Karri at the time. On April 11, Karri tried, once more, to pass a check on the old Shaw Saddlery account, and it was refused. This must have come as quite a surprise to her, since she had been draining funds from the account successfully for such a long time. This would be the last time that Karri would ever attempt to gain access to the Shaw Saddlery funds. She now knew that trying any further to get money from any of the accounts would be fruitless.
Some money had been left in the Shaw Saddlery account in case there was a need to cover any legitimate checks that might come in. However, on April 17, Billy Shaw transferred the last of the funds from the old account into the new one.
This would be the last banking transaction he would ever make. On April 22, Karri stopped by his house on her way home from work, supposedly to check on him. Her real mission that day, however, was to end his life so she could get her hands on her inheritance.
The prosecution's theory as to why Karri killed her stepfather had much to do with her being cut completely off from any access to the family's money. Perhaps a greater motive for murder, however, was the fact that Billy Shaw had made a will in 1998 outlining the division of his estate, which at the time of his death was estimated to be over $400,000. It was to be equally split three ways, with Karri getting one of the shares.
That amount might not have made much of a dent in the bankruptcies, the bad checks, and what was evidently Karri's out-of-control spending, but she was overwhelmed by her boundless greed. After days of careful plotting, Karri felt that she had come up with what she believed would be a foolproof plan to get her hands on the money from Shaw's estate.
District Attorney Mike O'Dell said that Karri's scheme could probably have been successful if blood and urine samples had not been taken when Billy Shaw had been found following what the authorities believed had been a routine unattended death. He speculated that it could have been “the perfect crime,” and said, “We were one sample away from letting it slip away. Her admitting to taking the drugs was the last piece of the puzzle.”
O'Dell added that the prosecution, thanks to the hard work of his investigative team, headed by Investigator Wade Hill, had been able to disprove every single claim that Karri had made in her own defense. O'Dell stressed that Karri “loved to talk” and eventually had provided his investigators with all the information that they needed to complete their case against her successfully.
CHAPTER 31
B
ruce Gardner, Karri's defense attorney, grudgingly acknowledged that there was no doubt that Karri had taken drugs from her workplace at the Chattanooga Surgery Center, and there was also no doubt that she had then carried the drugs to Billy Shaw's residence. He himself had no doubt of Karri's explanation of what had happened on the day Shaw died, he claimed. However, Gardner also admitted that he could understand how her version of the events that led to Shaw's death could possibly have looked suspicious to the authorities.
The defense was prepared to present the jury with a different scenario as to how Billy Shaw had died, Gardner said, and it would have been based on the opinion of the defense's expert witness about what the actual cause of Shaw's death had been. Gardner pointed out that Shaw had been embalmed and buried for a year before the autopsy had taken place, which he claimed had changed many things.
“We would have said that they couldn't claim that the acute propofol intoxication was the sole cause of his death,” Gardner said. He said the defense was prepared to present evidence, through their expert witness, that the cause of death could be disputed because of the postmortem pseudoephedrine redistribution throughout Shaw's body.
Gardner also claimed that he was prepared to show that in spite of the serious money conflicts taking place within the family, Karri's parents had remained on good terms with her, leaving her in place on the board of directors of the saddlery even after they had begun to realize she was taking large amounts of money. However, he admitted that there was probably some strain in their relationships because of the financial problems, and acknowledged that “there was a time when Mr. Shaw got fed up with it.”
Gardner said that it would be “pointless to deny there was friction there,” but he said that it was nothing that would have ended the relationship between Karri and her stepfather. He said there were people who could have testified for the defense that Karri and Billy Shaw were still on good terms with one another at the time of Shaw's death.
Unfortunately for Karri's defense team, their hard work on her behalf had come to nothing when their client stood in court apologizing to her shocked followers before admitting to the judge that she was guilty of murder. Once the guilty plea had been entered, all the claims of a cordial relationship between the victim and the confessed murderer were for naught.
CHAPTER 32
W
hen Karri Willoughby left the DeKalb County Jail on her way to Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women in Wetumpka, Alabama, she left like a departing celebrity. She exited, smiling, waving, signing autographs, and presenting some of the jail staff with signed photos of herself. It is likely she did not realize what a different world she was en route to, on her way to a place acknowledged as being one of the worst prisons in the country, notorious for its conditions and repeatedly investigated by several federal entities.
When the U. S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigated conditions at the Alabama prison, their findings were reported in January 2014 to Governor Robert Bentley in a shocking thirty-six-page letter stating that the prisoners at Tutwiler “universally fear for their safety,” and saying that the facility had a “history” of “unabated staff-on-prisoner sexual abuses and harassment.”
The report stated that the prisoners lived in a sexualized environment and were subjected to repeated and open sexual behavior, with sexual abuse taking place between prisoners and prison staff, a New Year's strip show that had been assisted by staff to take place, verbal sexual harassment and profanity, and viewing of prisoners showering and using the bathroom by both male and female staff.
These conditions, the Department of Justice stated in their report, violated the prisoners' Eighth Amendment right to be protected from harm. Then the DOJ stated its intent to expand its investigation to include other issues in question at Tutwiler, including medical and mental-health care for prisoners.
In 2012, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a private, nonprofit organization, reported a litany of problems at the facility. Kim Thomas, the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) commissioner, claimed efforts had been under way since that time to correct problems noted in that report. Thomas claimed she did not think the conditions at Tutwiler were unconstitutional, but she did not respond to any of the specifics named by the DOJ report.
“I think they are off-base in their findings,” she said, “but I don't want to respond to any one part of the findings.”
Thomas said the Tutwiler administration would look “very carefully” at the contents of the report, and said that she looked forward to working with the DOJ “to understand the valid complaints that they raise and hopefully finding resolution without the necessity of imposing some court action.”
Bryan Stevenson, the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, said he found the report to be troubling and felt that quick action by the state was imperative, calling the DOJ report a “serious indictment of the conditions of confinement that exist at the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.
“I think it's a very thorough and troubling set of findings that ought to warrant a very significant response from the governor and the department to immediately remediate these very serious problems at Tutwiler.”
CHAPTER 33
W
hen the EJI findings were reported in 2012, they had asked the DOJ to conduct an investigation and a report was issued by the National Institute of Corrections, a part of the DOJ. A team had been sent to Tutwiler at that time and found numerous instances of abuse of inmates by staff, as well as problems with the way inmate complaints were handled.
Kim Thomas claimed that her administration was not being given enough credit for the work that she said was being done to correct the problems listed in the reports. Thomas said she was surprised that the agencies were giving so much credence to what she considered to be unfounded allegations.
The DOJ investigators had spent four days at Tutwiler in April 2013 and conducted interviews of dozens of prisoners, as well as staff. They reviewed incident reports, disciplinary reports, and investigative reports, as well as 233 letters from current Tutwiler prisoners about a variety of complaints.
As a result of the investigation, the DOJ released what they called a “number of factual determinations” about the conditions at Tutwiler, saying that for nearly two decades, the Tutwiler staff had sexually abused and harassed inmates with no fear of disciplinary action. Staff members had raped, sodomized, fondled, and coerced prisoners to engage in oral sex, the report said. Prison officials discouraged inmates from reporting such abuse, placing them in segregation if they complained. Thomas claimed this practice had since been stopped.
Prison authorities did not adequately investigate the inmates' claims of sexual abuse and harassment, the report said, and stated that allegations had been verified by paternity tests, lie detector examinations, and statements by other prisoners. A set of measures was included in the report, which the DOJ called minimal remedial measures. This included complying with the Prison Rape Elimination Act, which is a federal law, and making sure that appropriate investigations took place when prisoners complained of sexual abuse or other misconduct. The report also said it was necessary to recruit more female corrections officers to work at the prison.
Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said efforts had already been put into place to recruit female officers, and said other remedial measures were also under way. The agency had worked hard to implement the recommendations in the EJI's 2012 report, Commissioner Thomas said, including proper training for prison staff in managing female inmates and installation of additional security cameras in the prison.
“We've never downplayed the importance of these concerns,” Thomas added, saying that the ADOC had been actively addressing the issues from the very beginning.
“I'm going to do everything within my power, with the resources that are allocated to us,” the commissioner said, “to make sure that we afford the best living conditions and the best environment for our female offenders.”
It was apparent, however, that despite the claims of reform, conditions at Tutwiler were a far cry from those at the DeKalb County Jail. Inmate Karri Willoughby was in for a very rude awakening when she became a resident of the state prison system.
CHAPTER 34
J
ulia Tutwiler Prison for Women is housed in a facility that has changed little from its 1940s original construction. It was built to house four hundred inmates; currently the number is over nine hundred. Inmates say the buildings are cold and drafty in winter, sweltering in summer, and beset with bugs that the inmates try to swat as they crawl on the floor and up the walls. Medical facilities are reported to be substandard, and until recently, HIV-positive inmates had been kept in isolation for years.
When new inmates, like Karri, arrive at the prison, they are given a physical and dental exam and are interviewed and given psychological testing. Mental-health specialists use those tests to determine what the inmate's classification, counseling needs, and job assignments will be.
The Alabama Department of Corrections female inmate handbook says that all inmates are supposed to have access to health care services while at Tutwiler to meet “serious medical, dental, and mental-health care needs,” but a nurse who worked in the infirmary while she was an inmate at the prison told of women who had undergone surgical procedures being denied pain medication and getting sent back to their dorms before they were ready. Other inmates had complained of painful dental work being done without sufficient Novocain prior to drilling or pulling teeth.
One inmate wrote a very interesting account of how to get along in Tutwiler. According to her, some of the inmates were okay; some were terrible:
Some are in for life and they don't give a damn, and some are institutionalized and it's all they know.
Newcomers would be able to tell who's who, and whether or not they were someone they would want or need to associate with.
If not, just stay to yourself,
she said. There was absolutely no privacyâ
but you might as well accept that,
she wrote.
As far as sex acts between inmates or between inmates and guards:
You may see some of it going on in the showers and stuff but just mind your own business and you'll be okay.
The writer listed the toiletries that were issued to the inmates each month: six rolls of toilet paper, two bars of state soap, thirty sanitary pads, and a tube of state toothpaste. A razor was also allowed, but it had to be turned in each month in order to get a new one. Other items could be bought through the store, if the inmate had family that provided limited amounts of store credit, or if they worked in the sewing plant, where they could make a few cents per hour sewing prison and jail uniforms for Tutwiler and other facilities throughout the state.
The writer finished by saying it was lonely and it was hot. There were no air conditioners; there were only floor fans that had to be rotated every four hours.
The days can be as short or as long as you want,
she wrote.
Mostly just follow the rules, mind your own business, don't be too soft-hearted or generous; inmates will take advantage of you very quickly. Learn to say “no” nicely, and keep to yourself.