ALVA - Guilty.
Of murder in the first degree.
Life without parole.
It took just over two hours to return the verdict.
The jury of seven men and five women were given the case at approximately 3:30 p.m., taking with them all the evidence and a list of the judge’s 27 instructions by which they were to review the evidence as well as the testimony they heard over the past two weeks. They returned to the Woods County courtroom around 5:45 p.m. having made their decision that Katherine Rutan Pollard did in fact kill her son Logan Tucker.
To make sure the decision was unanimous, District Judge Ray Dean Linder questioned each of the jurors, “Is this your verdict?”
Hanging her head, Pollard listened as “yes” after “yes” came from the jurors’ mouths, each one more firmly cementing her fate.
As the verdict was read by Linder the tension in the courtroom seemed to ease. One audience member was heard to gasp, but it is unknown whether it was in horror or exultation.
Melody Lennington, who rented a room in her house to Pollard and her two sons in June 2002 around the time Tucker went missing, cried with relief as she heard the words she had long waited to hear.
“We all knew in our hearts what had happened,” she said afterward. “And now the jury said she is guilty. That’s what we wanted to hear.”
Lead prosecutor Chris L. Ross said he was also pleased with the verdict.
He attributed a lot of the success to the late Monte Clem, who was a deputy with the Woodward County Sheriff’s Office and led the investigation into Tucker’s disappearance.
“This case was well investigated by Monte Clem, who spent the majority of the last few years of his life pursuing justice for Logan Tucker,” Ross said.
“I was just a small part in finishing off what he had begun,” he added.
However, Woodward County Sheriff Les Morton commented, “we’re not done yet.”
“We still don’t have Logan,” he said. “And until that happens there’s not going to be any closure to this case as far as I’m concerned.”
After the verdict was read and a date for a sentence hearing set for Oct. 9 at 10 a.m. in the Woodward County Courthouse, Pollard was immediately taken back into custody. The jury recommended a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Although observers described her as looking somewhat detached as the prosecution and defense made their closing arguments Friday, Pollard did become visibly upset as she was escorted out of the courtroom.
She was made to change from her cream pantsuit into a red jumpsuit before being transported back to Woodward County by the sheriff’s deputies.
Morton said he wanted her to change into the jumpsuit because he “wanted her to know she’s back where she belongs.”
Before the case was given to the jury for deliberation, the prosecution and the defense presented almost three hours of closing arguments.
During his arguments, Ross stated there was “irrefutable, overwhelming proof of guilt.”
He presented a list of 12 facts proven by all the testimony and evidence he presented which pointed to that guilt, including the history of an unstable relationship between Pollard and her oldest son, her expressions of relief that he was gone and her numerous inconsistent statements as to his whereabouts.
It was the inconsistent statements upon which Ross focused many of his arguments.
“What is it that is so bad that she cannot admit it?” asked Ross, “Why can’t she tell the truth when asked where Logan was?”
He said, “to believe anything other than she killed him, you would have to believe she would rather be investigated and prosecuted for murder wrongfully, than disclose where he was.”
Ross also commented on other statements made by Pollard which, he said, exhibited “guilty knowledge” of the murder. He argued that her lies about having her parental rights terminated were an attempt to explain why, as Justin Daggett said from his first interviews, Tucker was never coming home again.
“She knows exactly where he is,” Ross said with emphasis.
And the only rational explanation as to why she didn’t tell police when Clem gave her the chance, he said, was “because she killed him and she couldn’t say this is where he is because that would admit a murder charge too.”
In the defense’s closing arguments, Jordan focused on the statements made by Justin Daggett throughout several interviews over the past five years.
He questioned the interview techniques used, suggesting they influenced Daggett’s later statements. He argued that the one thing that remained constant about the boy’s story from the first interview to his testimony on the witness stand was that his mother gave Tucker to a man.
Jordan also pointed out that despite debate over whether or not Daggett ever talked about Pollard burying his brother, no graves or burial sites were ever found.
He also argued that while testimony and evidence presented by the state may prove that Pollard was a liar, as noted by her many different stories about Tucker’s whereabouts, and made bad decisions, such as the topless contest, the evidence did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed any crime let alone murder.
“We’re not dealing with maybes [or] ‘I thinks,’” he said. “We’re not dealing with suspicions or guesses.”
He also noted that it would not be the “first time the state has guessed an innocent person into prison.”
However, Ross maintained she was “guilty, guilty, guilty.”
“We have a killer sitting among us,” he said.
“Monte Clem said to the defendant in his interview on July 8, ‘Logan deserves better,” Ross said. “I say to you, justice deserves better.”
To end his closing arguments, Ross repeated the same words with which he began his opening arguments.
“On June 23, 2002 Logan Tucker was breathing his last few breaths of life,” he said. “And justice demands that while you are back there deliberating, she is in here breathing her last few breaths of freedom for the rest of her life.”
And by many accounts justice has now been done.
