years didn’t prepare him for the skin-crawling viciousness of his client.
The “Hollywood Video Murders” is also a famous Albuquerque case Mitchell and Pfeffer worked together in the mid-1990s. Their client was convicted of being an accessory to the murders of three employees in the store. While the murders were occurring, the unsuspecting grandparents of one of the victims were waiting in a vehicle outside the store to pick up their grandson from work. The store was about to close.
The murderers made off with about $136,000.
Then they spotted the grandparents. The killers notched off two more killings on their belts after they forced the grandparents out into the hills and killed the witnesses. Pfeffer’s client was convicted.
The day Mitchell and Pfeffer drove from their offices in Ruidoso they strutted into Farmington in cowboy boots, their hats tilted perfectly in that “Evening ma’am,” cowboy-polite fashion. At least a foot taller than everyone else, they were quite a pair. Mitchell wore his golden-brown mustache thick, his knowing, hazel eyes appearing innocent. Pfeffer’s baby face contrasted with his large, powerful body. Lord, Titus thought, they’re going to get killed for sure. First for being intimidatingly annoying. Then, they had the nerve to go against the flow and believe in the “impossible”—that Monica killed herself with a shotgun.
It’s hard not to like Mitchell if you meet him. His country drawl and reasonable questions make most people who aren’t on his side feel at best uncomfortable, at worst, stupid. It’s unclear if he means to terrify people into spilling their guts with his innocent face or if he doesn’t realize how his appearance affects people. However, this time Mitchell asked the wrong questions to the right people and managed to anger police and prosecutors immediately. Titus didn’t care what the attorney’s personality was. Whatever it was—cowboy charm or horseshit—Mitchell was good. Titus felt like he took his first non-shaken breath since being told of Monica Dunn’s death.
Mitchell wasted no time. Next he brought in ballistics expert Nelson Welch of Cochiti Pueblo outside of Santa Fe. These experts look at guns, pictures of wounds and piece together what happened at crime scenes. They look for signs of who did the shooting and how. Welch and Pfeffer spent most of one day searching the Dunn home, looking for clues the police overlooked. While Mitchell described Welch as honest, police officers and prosecutors have said he’s just a hired gun. Welch, very passionate of his convictions and work, would be angered at these criticisms, but would not put much stock in them.
Prosecutors didn’t really understand what the defense experts were doing in the Dunn house, because the police had already been there and gathered evidence. Whispers intensified. Surely, they couldn’t add to the job the police had done.
Word of mouth was that prosecutors believed they had an open-and-shut case.
Welch believed no such thing. He suggested bringing in forensics expert Dr. Martin Fackler. Fackler worked with another expert together on the wound characteristics trying to ascertain why there would be certain marks on Monica’s entrance and exit wounds. The experts were shocked at what they learned.
Titus waited impatiently for them to finish their work. He had plenty of other cases to work on but this one occupied his mind. A dim hope flickered in the experts’ minds that if they proved Paul couldn’t possibly have killed Monica, the district attorney wouldn’t prosecute. Little did they know what was going on on the other side of the fence.
Because they thought it could end the case, Paul’s attorneys sent him to Salt Lake City to meet with famed polygrapher David Raskin. That Friday, a choking, sobbing Paul explained the events again—his confusion, Monica’s silence, the blood, Monica’s body blown backwards by the force of the shotgun, her gasping for air, her final shudder—before Raskin asked him the crucial questions. When it was over, Raskin scored the test while Paul paced and chain-smoked outside. He was a wreck by the time Raskin came out.
“I believe you and I’m sorry, sorry for what you’ve been through and the pain you’ve endured. I’d stake my professional reputation on it: you’re telling the truth.” Raskin never wavered from that view. But a lot of skeptics in Farmington thought Raskin was a hired gun for the defense and that, of course, he would believe his client innocent and make sure Paul passed the test.
Paul said, “Bless his heart. I’ve heard that angels come to you and you don’t know they’re angels. I believe David Raskin is an angel.”
Raskin told Paul, “I wish I had videotaped the test, because it is a classic example of someone passing the test.” He explained that a negative-six or under is failing, between negative and positive-six is inconclusive and anything above a positive-six is passing. Paul got a positive-eighteen.
Ecstatic wouldn’t be a strong enough word to use for Paul’s emotions when he heard his score. The prosecution would have to let him go now and give Titus and Mitchell the results. Titus said he would take the polygraph results to Whitehead first thing that Monday morning and hopefully end the case. But Paul wanted to go right then and get it over with.
“Let me be the lawyer,” was Titus’ unemotional response.
An exhausted Paul went to Officer Bob Fain’s house, where his father was staying, to tell him the good news. Later, Anita came over to her sister Margaret’s house where Paul was staying. Paul looked to her feeling overwhelmed. “Oh my God, Anita, I have some news.”
Anita backed away and crossed her arms. “Did you fail?” Turmoil darkened Anita’s face. She backed further away.
“You need to look at it.” He handed her the pages.
Despite passing the polygraph, he asked himself, could Anita think he killed Monica?
Mitchell and Titus took the report to the prosecutor. Unfortunately for Paul, unlike in the Eckstein case, Whitehead this time appeared uninterested in the results of the polygraph test. Whitehead knew he had a case he could win—polygraph or no polygraph. He tossed the results aside.
“I don’t care about any of that now! He will be charged!” Whitehead exclaimed.
When Paul learned the district attorney had said the polygraph test didn’t matter, he moved around in a morose state. Mainly, he moped about Monica’s death, not seeing his babies and the lack of support from the police department. He couldn’t believe his state police officer friend, Noe Galvan, was investigating the case.
When Galvan had problems and almost lost his job, Paul gave Galvan the benefit of the doubt. When he saw Galvan back in uniform after an internal investigation, Paul had made a point to say he was glad to see him back on duty.
“He was my friend.” And officers were supposed to stick together. It was kind of an unspoken rule that fellow officers—people who care about and spend time with each other outside of work—share special bonds.
Paul felt intense bewilderment and betrayal at Galvan’s heading the investigation. “It was like someone ripped your heart out, stuffed it in your face and said, ‘How about them apples?’”
Paul never once tried to get
