Lipstick And Blood by John Kearney

Author:John Kearney
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2011-11-29T16:00:00+00:00

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Jury selection began on Monday, September 10, 2001, in Jack Panella’s courtroom. It had been a month since the newspapers reported on the case, and the Express-Times prepared them for the trial reporting ahead by reminding them of this “tale of love and betrayal among three women and a man.”

Panella’s small courtroom, in a corner of the courthouse, felt smaller than usual, jammed as it was with a large pool of potential jurors, two defendants, five defense attorneys, the DA and an ADA. The two defendants appeared that day in conservative dress and similar color schemes. Brandon Bloss was escorted into the courtroom wearing dark pants, a white shirt and a tie. One of his attorneys fixed his collar before the proceedings began. Michelle Hetzel arrived in a black skirt and white turtleneck. Typical of their previous court appearances, the pair exchanged no acknowledgements. Michelle spoke here and there with attorney Scomillio, while Brandon leafed through papers on the table before him and watched the faces of the potential jurors closely.

As jury selection took place, Melody Guzman told an Express-Times reporter that many family members had flown into town and were standing by to witness the trial. The road to justice for Devon had been a long one, and her family was determined to see it through to the end. But the eve of the trial evoked mixed feelings.

“I’ve been waiting for this so long, but now that it’s here, I’m scared,” Melody was quoted. The prospect of sitting through the presentation of all the agonizing details of her daughter’s death was daunting.

Jury selection normally ended by 4:30 in the afternoon, but not today. Instead, Judge Panella decided to keep going into the evening in hopes of getting a jury picked today rather than going into the following day. At 6:30 P.M., the process was completed. Sixteen candidates—eleven women and five men—had been chosen to serve as jurors and alternate jurors. The painstaking selection process had narrowed a pool of seventy-five prospects to the final sixteen. Some of the prospective jurors had said that they could not be impartial given the alternative sexual orientations involved, and were excused. But overall, the selection had gone well; originally two days had been set aside to assemble a jury, since it had taken only one, the trial could start a day sooner. It would be held in the larger courtroom of another judge to accommodate the number of parties involved. Morganelli told the judge he might call as many as thirty-two witnesses. It was expected that the trial could last up to three weeks.

The District Attorney was ready, certain that Detective Golazeski had delivered the goods to convict the couple. “Barry Golazeski is a good investigator. I had a lot of confidence in his abilities,” he said. “I felt we had a good case.”

Still, it was a circumstantial-evidence case, with no eyewitnesses and no confessions. “It was not the strongest case I ever tried,” Morganelli admitted. “It had some holes in it.”

His primary concern was this: “I was not able to say to the jury who did this.

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