Ruined, page 15
Somehow I was shocked. I was used to thinking of Hayes’s crimes as related since they were a continuous string. I hadn’t fully comprehended that Hayes would be tried on a mere fraction of the evidence against him. It was worrying. What if we didn’t have enough evidence? I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that only Hayes was being prosecuted and not his accomplice—the man who raped me.
We had no choice but to fully trust the detectives and prosecutors, yet I wondered how they could stand to obey all the rules. I supposed they were used to it. I watched the police officers play cards and wondered how much they were earning in overtime. Mainly I wondered if I could keep wearing the same outfit every day until it was my turn to testify—and how many days that would be.
As it went, Marty testified first, to lay out the events. Then it was Cheryl’s turn, and then mine. The prosecuting attorney, Joel Hoekstra, had us tell the events of the night, going forward chronologically.
Here is my testimony, picking up after I’d been robbed by the accomplice and taken upstairs by Hayes:
RUTH: . . . And then he ordered me to strip.
HOEKSTRA: What were you wearing that night, Ruth?
RUTH: A flannel nightgown.
HOEKSTRA: Anything else?
RUTH: And underpants.
HOEKSTRA: You took those off?
RUTH: Yes, took off the nightgown. And he fondled my body all over. And I was shaking very badly. I mean so my whole body shook, and I was crying. And he told me if I didn’t stop shaking, he was going to blow my brains out, which didn’t help me stop shaking. Then he seemed to be very upset that I was upset and got mad at me because I kept crying. Finally, very irritated, he said, “Well, just forget it. Put your clothes back on.”
Much of the testimony had to do with our ability to see, or not see, the two assailants, due to the lack of lighting and the ski masks. There were also many questions about who was where at what time. The crime had happened over the course of four hours, more than a year earlier. Things had been confusing at the time. Now the interrogation made every answer sound muddled. But the questions I worried about most concerned the sexual assaults. We began with the accomplice groping me in the basement.
RUTH: He [the accomplice] kicked me in the feet, told me he wanted me to come. And then I had to stand next to him. And he put his hand under my nightgown and tried to make me kiss him. He kept kissing me.
HOEKSTRA: Did you allow him to do that?
RUTH: Well, I just stood there. He had an arm around me with a gun here, and then he was kissing me. And I felt the gun against my head. If I squirmed, he just hit it against my head so I wouldn’t forget it was there. And then the other guy, the leader, came downstairs with Teresa. And he was very angry that we were down in the basement . . . [When we were back in the dining room,] we [housemates] had been holding hands on the floor, touching each other, reassurance. He made us lay so they could see our hands, getting very strict. And then—
HOEKSTRA: Why were you holding each other’s hands?
RUTH: We were scared out of our pants.
HOEKSTRA: Okay. This was a comfort?
RUTH: It was comforting to know they were there, and we were all very close friends.
About halfway through my testimony came the moment I’d been dreading: the explicit questions about the rape by Hayes’s accomplice.
RUTH: And then he kicked me in the feet—the one who wasn’t the leader, the other one—kicked me in the feet, and told me to go upstairs again. We went upstairs to Marty’s room. And he told me to strip.
HOEKSTRA: Is that his words?
RUTH: Yes, that was his word. He said, “Strip.” I took off my nightgown. He said, “The rest.” I took off my underwear. He said, “Drop it,” because I was holding them against me. And then he made me turn around and parade up and down in front of him. And then he said, “Lay down on the bed.” And then he got on the bed and raped me.
HOEKSTRA: What kind of act did he have with you? Was it normal sex?
RUTH: Yes, he was on top. It was my period and I had two tampons in and it was extremely painful, but he didn’t notice. And he just told me to shut up and quit crying. He was very upset I was crying and made me wipe all the tears off my face. He asked me a lot of questions. Before he actually got done, actually having sex, he asked if I had a boyfriend, or what my name was, or why I didn’t have a boyfriend. Then he told me I was very pretty, and if I was good to him, he would not let the other guy get me. And he asked me who our neighbors were and asked me what my horoscope sign was. And then afterwards too he asked me a lot of questions, you know, small talk. And he seemed—he seemed angry that I wasn’t responding wholeheartedly. If I cried or anything, he got angry. And he wanted me to talk to him as if we were friends. And he asked me if I liked it. He kissed me and said, “Do you like it when I kiss your breasts?” I said, “No.” And he was very upset.
HOEKSTRA: Was he holding anything during this time?
RUTH: Yes, the gun was either in his hand or for a while he put it on the pillow right next to my head. He would pick it up if I squirmed or moved around.
HOEKSTRA: Just for clarification, Ruth, you did not willingly consent to this act of sexual intercourse?
RUTH: Not at all.
19
AT FIRST, TESTIFYING WAS EXCRUCIATING. It took all my courage to use intimate words like tampons in front of strangers. But I prayed silently for strength and purposely turned my head to look at the members of the jury. This was not about my embarrassment. This was about justice. This was the time to speak. Maybe I needed to look demure, but I didn’t need to feel demure. I didn’t need to act demure. I was in the witness seat now, and he was not. Now he had to listen to me.
Maybe he would remember my voice a fraction as often as I remembered his. I could only hope so. Maybe he would hate the sound of my voice as much as I hated the sound of his! This surge of feeling was like electricity, like voltage, like power. I felt like I had the ability to change the way the world worked, at least for today, at least for one criminal.
After the direct testimony, I was cross-examined by Hayes’s attorney, the public defender who had been appointed late in the game. He was a young African American man who seemed inexperienced. His questions weren’t skillful, and I almost felt sorry for him. Almost. Much of his cross-examination simply opened the door for me to elaborate on details that hurt his client’s case.
This is an excerpt from my cross-examination:
PUBLIC DEFENDER: Now when did you, during the course of these events, start to distinguish between the two individuals?
RUTH: When the one who seemed to be in control hit me with a gun.
PUBLIC DEFENDER: Well, okay. How many times were you hit with the gun?
RUTH: Repeatedly. I don’t remember how many times.
PUBLIC DEFENDER: And where were you?
RUTH: Well, it was during the course of the evening.
PUBLIC DEFENDER: And the other one did not hit you with a gun?
RUTH: Yes, he did. They both did with their own guns hit me repeatedly.
We had another matter to testify about: the lineup to identify Hayes. The procedure had been complicated. Not only had I crossed out a number at the first lineup and gone back in for a second lineup, but when the cop recorded my number the second time, he made an error. This caused much confusion.
Prosecuting attorney Hoekstra addressed the matter of identification in his closing argument.
What is the evidence that says that Mr. Hayes, the man that is in the courtroom today, was one of the two men, and not only that but was the leader, the man that was in charge? That evidence comes from three different sources, ladies and gentlemen, essentially, and the first is the identification that each one of the five girls has made at the time of the lineup on January 29th.
What did they say? What did they testify to? I had them talk about what they remembered about the leader from the night that this happened. . . . Remember, ladies and gentlemen, that this isn’t something—the ordinary armed robbery or the ordinary criminal sexual conduct in the first degree thing that is over very quickly. These women were with these men for over four hours at a time. For four hours these men were in their home. To a greater or lesser degree over that period of time, they heard them speak, they saw them, they observed them. Now, you can qualify that by the lighting conditions and the circumstances, their fear and their fright, but that’s four of the longest hours that you can imagine, I submit, and that was time when they had to listen and to be fearful and to think.
What did they tell you about the leader? They said a number of things. First and foremost and primary in this case is the voice, the voice of Philip Ricardo Hayes, the defendant in this case. To a woman, they all said that the man that was in charge had a distinctive voice, a voice that they remember. I recall the words of Cheryl, who said that night, as she was lying there, she was saying to herself, “If I ever hear that voice, I’m going to be able to identify him. If I ever hear that voice again, I’m going to remember it, and I’m going to remember him.” And that may have been the most succinct phrasing of it that any of the girls was able to come up with, but I submit that that speaks for all five of them in this case. A very distinctive voice; a low voice; a monotone voice; a raspy, gravelly voice; a unique voice; a voice that each one of them said to a person was distinct and a voice that they all remember.
I trembled physically as I listened to this part of the closing. To know that someone understood the impact of that voice was enormously moving. I looked toward the jury box and saw many jurors with tissues in hand, dabbing at their eyes.
Several of them recalled his lips—and we start right now—we get into the physical. You remember you’re lying on the floor, you are face down, your belly is to the ground, you’re commanded not to move, you’re commanded not to look around. You can’t stop somebody from hearing. You can stop somebody from . . . looking—but you cannot stop somebody from listening by putting them on the ground, like Mr. Hayes and his accomplice did in this case. Well, some of the girls said that they got an opportunity to see his face through the mask, but, nevertheless, see his face.
“Your belly is to the ground.” Hoekstra understood how it had been! Belly to the ground. But not anymore. Now we were sitting tall in court.
On the day of January 29th, they were asked to appear at a lineup. That lineup took place at the Kent County jail. The incident was November the 6th. November the 6th, December the 6th, January the 6th, January the 29th, not quite three months later, these women are asked to come out and anticipate the possibility of being confronted again by the men—one of the men possibly that terrorized them for four hours. Put yourself in their positions. Think about it. How would you feel? The anxiety, nervousness, the apprehension. Put yourself in the fact that these are five young women who are college students. They are seniors in college.
I don’t know how many of you have been to college or how many have a chance to know what a college atmosphere is like. I suggest to you that college is a place where you are required to test and probe and think and discern, that you are not allowed the luxury of black and white but everything is in gray areas, and then you are impressed before you go into that lineup that you must be positive, you must be absolutely certain, the concept that has been foreign to you for some four years during the course of your college experience. You are asked to go in there under these nervous, anxious times, and you know when you go into that lineup room the thing that you are going to do. You’re going to be able to identify anybody at all, but you are going to remember that voice, and you will remember that voice.
What happens, ladies and gentlemen? Out of those kind of circumstances, those kind of possibilities—look at those pictures—every single one of them, at one point or another, identifies the defendant in this case, Philip Ricardo Hayes, as being the leader, the man that was in their house that night. . . .
Do you doubt Ruth Huizenga when she says she was in a lineup, that when she heard that voice, she started to cry? Do you doubt her when she became so anxious and upset, she crossed that number out, that number three, which was the defendant, put down a zero, and asked if she could take the opportunity to view a second lineup? Do you doubt her identification? Do you doubt that what happened because [the sergeant’s] notes that he wrote up the next day say she didn’t identify anybody? Do you believe that there’s some kind of great conspiracy here to subvert or tangle or falsify the results of that lineup by these young women?
When Hoekstra called out my bungled identification in front of the jury, I winced. Hearing him describe me as anxious and upset made me want to shrink into my seat. But hearing the empathy he conveyed made me dare to sit up straight again. Ever since the lineup, I had regretted my emotionality and lack of calm during that experience. Not to mention my indecision! For months I had worried that doing the lineup twice had somehow contaminated my identification and would imperil the whole case. That worry had intensified since the trial began, as I more fully understood the mechanics of the case. In a sense, our case against Hayes represented a dozen others. That raised the stakes in terms of my flub. Would the jury understand my hesitation, or would it cast doubt? I was grateful that Hoekstra had put my moment of indecision into a larger context. So many futures hung in the balance! I dared to glance at the jurors. No one was looking at me with irritation. No one condemned me.
In that moment, I knew what grace is. Grace is more than simple forgiveness; grace says that it’s all right to need forgiveness in the first place.
But Hoekstra was still talking. He was bringing up the matter of Hayes’s distinctive voice, reminding the jury that they’d heard it themselves. Hayes hadn’t testified or uttered a word in court, but a cassette tape had been played. On that tape, Hayes rambled about the meanings of various astrological signs.
Then we have the voice, and you’ve heard that voice, ladies and gentlemen, you heard that voice. Ask yourself if you heard that voice on and off for four hours in your home, would you forget it? Even if you tried, could you forget it?
Again, Hoekstra’s empathy pierced me. I had spent more than a year feeling like people didn’t understand, that they secretly thought I was making too much of this event. But here was a prosecuting attorney, acknowledging the power of that criminal’s voice. The feeling that flooded me was validation.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the Christmas season, and this is a truth-seeking process that we are about here. I ask you to give justice and truth a Christmas present. I ask you to return a verdict of guilty. Thank you.
The jury deliberated for barely half an hour. We victims and our family members had been brought into another room to relax but were hurried back into the courtroom. Once we were settled, the members of the jury filed in, looking sober. My heart was thumping wildly. I expected this part to proceed like a TV drama, with one word ringing out: “Guilty” or “Innocent” before the gavel fell.
But it was more complicated than that. There were many counts, and the clerk of the court read each count individually, then issued each verdict. At the first “Guilty!” my friends and I whimpered in relief, clutching each other’s hands. My eyes filled and spilled as I strained to hear every word. Surely every verdict would be the same. The clerk read count after count. Each time the verdict rang through the courtroom: “Guilty!”
The court transcript captured the final ruling:
THE CLERK: Members of the jury, I have your verdict form on People of the State of Michigan versus Philip Ricardo Hayes.
In reference to Count I, armed robbery, [Teresa], guilty.
In reference to Count II, armed robbery, [Cheryl], guilty.
In reference to Count III, armed robbery, [Marty], guilty.
Count IV, armed robbery, [Karen], guilty.
Count V, armed robbery, Ruth Huizenga, guilty.
Count VI, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, [Teresa], guilty.
Count VII, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, [Marty], guilty.
Count VIII, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, [Karen], guilty.
Count IX, criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, Ruth Huizenga, guilty.
And in reference to the felony firearm violation, guilty.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, listen to your verdict as recorded. You say upon your oaths that this is the verdict agreed to unanimously in the manner and form as the People have in the Information in this cause charged. So say you, Mr. Foreman? So say you all ladies and gentlemen of the jury?
THE JURY (in unison): Yes.
THE CLERK: Thank you.
The sentence would not be pronounced for some weeks. I went home to New Jersey for Christmas, the second Christmas I would spend treading time. But this was much better than the previous year. This year I had something concrete to wait for. I was awaiting the sentence of justice.
Meanwhile, both Anne and Cindy made their decisions and moved on. Anne decided to marry the tall Texan. Cindy decided to move west to join a group of novitiates. When I returned home from the Christmas holiday, I found myself alone in an echoing apartment. I wondered why I had bothered returning to Michigan at all. The trial was over. My friends had dispersed. Other than my mundane jobs, what was there left for me? Maybe it was time for me to make some bold decisions too. Soon I would know how I scored on the GRE.
The sentencing took place six weeks after the trial, on January 30, 1980. Before we entered the courtroom, the detectives met with all of us victims. They told us that everything was going well, that the sentencing would be routine, that we should relax. But their body language was tight. I knew they were highly invested in the outcome of this trial. They’d been after Hayes since his first crime, nearly three years before.
