Defending Your Life

In Third Trial For Wife's Murder, Man Acts As Own Lawyer

(CBS) 
The Prosecution

Prosecutor Doersch remembers his native Queens, New York, neighborhood, where his parents owned a delicatessen for some 35 years. It is a long way from Everett, Washington, but for Doersch, there is a close connection.

"I think Ron saw Lee Jones as someone similar to his Mom," says Doersch’s wife, Mara Rozzano, also a prosecutor.

"My mother was an immigrant and she always spoke with heavily accented English. She was about 5’4". And her name was Elizabeth and everyone called her Leah," says Doersch.

Doersch says he was determined to get justice for Lee Jones.

As he began this third round in court, he was feeling the pressure. What if Jerry Jones, a self-taught lawyer-wannabe, who Doersch had convicted twice before, won this case?

"That would be hard to swallow. That would be tough," says Doersch, admitting he thought Jerry may be a good attorney.

But Doersch believes his opposing counsel was also his best evidence, noting, "The strongest piece of evidence is Jerry Jones. He is still here. He is still alive."

He told the jury about Lee’s defensive wounds, the blood spatter in the bathroom, and the cuts on Jerry’s right hand that Jerry says were caused by the intruder.

Jerry says the cuts were consistent with a defensive move, but a forensic expert testified the cuts more likely occurred when Jerry’s hand slid off the knife handle as he allegedly stabbed Lee dozens of times.

Jerry countered with his own expert. "My fingerprints were not on the knife, my blood was not on the knife, and my DNA is not on the knife. How on earth is it possible to stab someone 63 times and yet leave no physical evidence whatsoever?"

Doersch says he thinks Jerry rinsed off the handle of the knife, fully aware that there would be fingerprint testing.

The jury also heard that Jerry let crucial minutes pass before calling 911.

Van Sant asked Jerry why he didn’t immediately call police, while his wife was in the tub, bleeding to death.

"I don’t get it either," Jerry said.

But Doersch says he believes he knows why: In the midst of everything, Thomas came upstairs "not once, but several times, as far as we’re able to tell. And at this point, Jerry hands are already full. He’s got a dying woman. He’s got cuts on his hands. And here comes this kid."

Jerry took Thomas back to his bedroom.

"If you didn’t kill Lee, why in the world would you have taken your young son back downstairs and left him there when you don’t know whether or not the killer is still in the house?" Van Sant asked.

"Well Peter, you’re presuming, of course, that I’m thinking clearly, coherently and logically at this point in time," Jerry responded.

But Doersch insists there never was an intruder, and that Jerry knew Thomas was safe downstairs.

But Thomas came upstairs again, and this time, Jerry took his son to his next-door neighbor, Graham Smith.

"Jerry said that he was watching TV, he was hit over the head. And when he came to, he found Lee bleeding and stabbed," Smith testified in court.

Jerry told his neighbor he was struck on the head while watching TV, but told police he collided with the intruder. But he insists his stories aren't contradictory.

"I didn’t tell two different stories. My response to him was, ‘I hit my head. And when I got up I found Lee bleeding all over,’" says Jerry.

It was only after he returned home from Smith’s house that Jerry finally called 911, but he gave them the wrong address.

Ward believes Jerry’s mistake was an intentional delaying tactic. It took police ten minutes to find the house and when they went inside, they discovered Jerry, wet and bloody.

A forensic scientist testified to scenarios of how the crotch area of Jerry’s jeans became stained with Lee’s blood. Doersch says he thinks Jerry was sitting on top of his wife, holding her down while stabbing her.

Not true, says Jerry. In fact, he says, if he wanted Lee dead, he had his chance. It was during a rough period in their marriage, when the couple separated. Lee had attempted suicide, overdosing on sleeping pills. Jerry found her and rushed her to the emergency room.

The couple soon reconciled and their daughters remember how their parents had gotten very close.

But Lee’s friends, Barbara Sleeper and Mary McNaughton, say right before she was murdered, Lee was looking for a way out. "Jerry and his daughters can say anything they want to. He can talk about how in love he was and that they, you know, were reuniting and everything else. But I knew that she wanted to get divorced," says Sleeper.

[LisaK13]

Sad story. It seems like the husband did kill the wife. Stabbed 63 times. There would have been more screaming. Was there signs of forced entry into the home? He should just have let her get a divorce. Now he's free already. And poor Thomas who it sounds like witnessed his mother bloody and stabbed to death. I never understand these stories.