Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Second Day: Laura Hall Trial Part 3

This one's gonna be brief for now or I'll never get to court on time tomorrow. The prosecution witness appearing after Sullivan is Henrietta Langenbach (HL), who appears to be in her early to mid-50s and was Laura Hall's cellmate for 3 weeks in summer/fall 2005. HL was in jail then & is currently on probation for some kind of fraudulent documentation re a real estate transaction. She describes her cellmate relationship w/Hall as somewhat motherly. She claims Hall talked to her allot. All the following statements are what Langenbach testified that Hall allegedly told her:
--Hall loved CP very much.
--Hall didn't refer to Jennifer Cave by her real name: Hall referred to Cave as that "fucking waitress ho" (to whom CP supplied drugs.)
--After a phone call to her original public defender, Hall talked about how she was trying to get in contact w/CP & her major concern was to get CP off on the murder charge & have it reduced to something that would only get him something like 10 years.
--After phone calls to her dad, Hall was mad (referring to her dad as that "fuckin' bastard") because her dad wouldn't get her a "real" attorney instead of an appointed public defender. Hall said she needed an attorney who could help her concoct a story to get them (Hall & CP) off.
-- Hall said she didn't understand what "all the fuss was about because Jennifer Cave was nothing, a nobody" & CP had a full scholarship & Cave was "just a waitress."

I'll fill in more details re this witness' direct testimony & cross exam sometime tomorrow, but one other comment Hall allegedly made to HL was when HL asked Hall how she (Hall) could go run errands, get gas & food, etc that day while there's a dead person in the bathroom? Hall allegedly replied, "Intelligent people are able to compartmentalize things--this (Cave's death) was a fact: I was hungry & needed to eat."

Hall also allegedly said, "How many grandmothers can tell their grandkids they cut up a body?"

Will have to finish this part up & describe the cross exam & more tomorrow...
--Iris

5 comments:

Meerkat said...

Hey, it's Kathy - GREAT blog, very interesting! I look forward to reading more!

Iris said...

Thanks, Kathy! Will attempt to write more at tomorrow's lunch break! Must sleep now...

Unknown said...

Great stuff! Sorry about your parking ticket....when I did jury duty, I took CapMetro from a park-n-ride & got off right at the corner...had to walk a block over to Lavaca to catch it going back however.
Does Hall still have that smirkiness attitude on display? How are Jennifer's parents holding up through this? Was Nora believable? How about the cellmate...did she come across as credible despite the defense insinuations of 'jailhouse snitch'?

Ladyhawk

Bird said...

Thank you SO MUCH! Unfortunately my flight didn't land until almost midnight last night - today was a wash, I'd hoped to make it there.

From what I saw on TV tonight, LH's smirkiness (total delusion?) seems to be present and accounted for. I, too would like to get your impression of the "snitch" - believable or fame-seeking?

Talk to you soon!

Iris said...

I found the "snitch" credible, and Nora, for the most part, too.

Jennifer's family seems so strong and nice & gracious always! They seemed a little tired & disappointed as we all left tonight, understandably!