ALVA – From pushing her son away when he asked for hugs to trying to have him arrested, many of the 16 witnesses who testified in the first degree murder trial against Katherine Rutan Pollard Thursday commented about how she rarely, if ever, showed him any motherly affection.
Barely choking back her emotion, Faye Randell, who lived next door to the defendant and her children in Nowata, Okla., in the fall of 2001, described Logan Tucker as “a very love-starved child.”
“He would come up to Katie and say, ‘Mom, I love you,’ and he just wanted her to say it back,” she said, “... [but] she would put her hand toward him and say ‘go play.’”
Pollard is being tried for the murder of her son, who disappeared in June of 2002. Tucker’s body has never been found. The case is being tried in the Woods County Courthouse.
According to other testimony, Pollard did not just deprive Tucker of the love he wanted and needed, but on several occasions she threatened to do him harm and even expressed a desire to kill him.
Witness testimony shows that while she was still living in Nowata in 2001, Pollard, who was then known as Katherine Gougler, met a man named Rick Cody through a daycare where both their children attended.
Cody said within days after meeting Pollard the two developed a relationship and she moved in with him. He commented how he quickly realized the tension between Pollard and Tucker.
Then he told about one evening when they were laying in bed together and he heard Pollard said, “I wish there was a way I could kill my kids and get away with it.”
“It bothered me so much that I got out of bed and [went] to my daughter’s room. . . to make sure she was safe,” Cody said.
The next day he said he went to the daycare and made sure Pollard could not pick up his daughter anymore and within the next few days had Pollard out of his house.
Paul Mullins, who had a relationship with Pollard, then Katherine Daggett, in 1998 and 1999, recalled how on several occasions she would smack Tucker in the face hard enough “knock him to the ground.”
He also recalled a time when he returned to the home they shared and learned that Tucker’s backside was covered in purple bruises from his upper thighs to his lower back.
In a frantic call to the Tulsa Police Department on April 27, 2002, Pollard herself admitted a desire to hurt her children, specifically Tucker.
Tulsa Officer Jamie Wofford said that she told him that Tucker “made her so mad that she wanted to hit him as hard as she could.”
He said Tucker and his younger brother Justin Daggett were then taken into protective custody, but were returned to Pollard within a few days.
Less than two months later on June 19 another call was made to the police, but this time it was to the Woodward Police Department as the defendant and her sons had moved to Woodward to be closer to a man she had met on the Internet. And this time she didn’t want Tucker in protective custody, she wanted him in jail.
Lt. Monty Martin, who was one of the Woodward officers to respond to the call, testified that she asked for Tucker to be arrested even though he was only 6-years-old.
The boy’s crime? Martin said Pollard claimed the boy tried to burn the house where they were staying down.
Several of the 16 witnesses, including Melody Lennington at whose house Pollard was staying when she accused him of trying to burn the house down, testified that on numerous occasions Pollard had also accused Tucker of burning down another house in Tulsa. They also commented about how she seemed stressed and burdened by him.
Christi Lennington Vaughn, the oldest daughter of Melody Lennington, testified that after Tucker’s disappearance on June 23, 2002, she spoke with Pollard, who although claiming Tucker had been taken away by DHS workers, also admitted she felt relieved he was gone.
“She said that it felt like the stress had just melted,” Vaughn said.
As proof of how much that stress had melted, Assistant District Attorney Chris Ross produced photos of Pollard taken at a motorcycle rally the weekend after Tucker went missing.
Some of the photos showed Pollard as she participated in a topless contest during the rally.
In questioning Michael Pettey, the man Pollard had moved to the Woodward area to be near and who she attended the bike rally with, Assistant District Attorney Chris Ross asked if she appeared to be under any stress in those photos.
He replied no, “she’s smiling.”
Pettey testified that Pollard first told him, like she had Vaughn and several other witnesses, that Tucker had been taken by DHS workers on June 23. However, he said she called him later after being interviewed by the police and told him she had lied to them about Tucker being with her brother.
But in a later conversation through instant messaging, a transcript of which was admitted as evidence, Pettey said Pollard told him that she had actually lied to him about the DHS story and had told the police the truth.
Other witnesses also testified about Pollard’s suspicious and varying stories about what happened to Tucker on that fateful day.
They also commented on her other suspicious activity, including borrowing a shovel and plastic from Pettey’s house the day after Tucker disappeared.
Pettey’s mother Evelyn Pettey testified that she saw Pollard take the shovel and plastic from her son’s house, which is located behind hers. She said Pollard then came over to talk with her and mentioned that she wanted the shovel and plastic to dig up wildflowers to bring back and plant at Lennington’s house.
However, Lennington said Pollard never brought back any wildflowers to plant.
Lennington also testified about the suspicious activities in the hours before Tucker’s disappearance.
Around 3 a.m. on June 23, she said she was awoken by a scream, which she knew to be Tucker’s. Believing that he had just had a nightmare, Lennington did not immediately rush to discover what was wrong.
Lennington said when she got up to go to the bathroom she saw Pollard at the computer. When she asked the boy’s mother what was wrong, she said Pollard told her Tucker was sick and she had placed him in the back room.
Lennington returned to bed, but when she was getting ready to go to work at 6:30 a.m. she was hesitant to enter the back bedroom, where she kept her uniforms, for fear of waking the sick boy.
However, she said Pollard told her it was not a problem because she had placed the boy in the basement. Hearing this Lennington said she became upset because it was not a place to put a sick child.
Ross presented the jury with photos taken of the basement in July 2002, which showed the cramped space that housed a water heater, heating unit, a cabinet and an old, bare twin bed.
Pollard arrived in court Thursday wearing a brown, ruffled blouse, cream pants, two-inch high heels and green beaded jewelry. In the morning, she had her hair down and wore heavy make-up. But after the noon recess she had pulled her hair back and removed some of her dark make-up.
Observers noted that throughout the proceedings Pollard appeared smug.
