Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Today's conclusion of Paul Devoe's pretrial hearing: part 2

After Wilson's testimony, I overheard her in the hallway asking prosecutor Gary Cobb if she'd done okay. She had appeared so somber and kind of worn out, to me. He assured her she had done fine.

The next witness, Bill Brinlee, had worked with and become friends with Devoe for about a year and a half before the murders. Devoe had lived with Brinlee for about a month and a half up until the murders. Brinlee testified that he'd received around seven calls from Devoe over a four- or five-hour period in August 2007.

Devoe allegedly told Brinlee that he was on the run and had shot at six people and killed two. Once again, defense attorney Tom Weber got the witness to agree that Devoe never mentioned any specific names or locations of the Jonestown murders or offered any information about the gun.

Brinlee testified that Devoe "couldn't take it no more and went on a killing spree." He also said that Devoe told him that his next step was to "find Glenda and her father to kill them." Brinlee said Devoe's demeanor was normal but upset and that he'd said he shot the "bartender because he was in the way of going after Glenda."

In the last call Brinlee got from Devoe, Devoe told him he was still in Texas and that he loved him and that Devoe also thanked him for everything.

The next witness, Tiffany Waldrup, met Devoe while visiting with her then boyfriend, Jesse, at Bill Brinlee's ranch house in January or February 2007 and never saw Devoe again. Her testimony regarding how she later tried to call another friend named Paul and ended up accidentally calling Devoe was confusing, but anyway, Devoe called her back from Travis County jail, not even knowing who he was calling. The jail's recording of this call was played in court, too.

Once they figured out who was calling whom, Devoe asked her if she'd heard about his situation and said he wasn't doing too well and expected to get life or the death penalty. She said, "this was all over Paula?" Devoe said yes and "between the drugs and drinking--on drugs from getting out of the hospital for a snakebite...wish I'd never had the gun..." Then Devoe laughs and asks her how she is and asks her to write him.

Waldrup asks Devoe if he's talked to Bill (Brinlee). He says no because "they don't want me talking to Bill. It was Bill's gun that I used." Devoe tells her he tried to contact her through MySpace. She tells him that lightning had struck her house and fried her computer, at which point Devoe laughs and says, "I ought to give you mine. I bought a brand new car, trailer, computer...got nothing any more." She tells him she'll write him but testified that she never did.

The last witness was Devoe's sister. She testified to phone calls she received from Devoe on August 24-25, 2007, in which he said he'd shot people but didn't know if they were alive or dead and that he was on the run. She and her mother encouraged him to turn himself in and not hurt anyone else. He replied, "I gotta do what I gotta do." In a later call, he told her that authorities had him surrounded and he wanted to talk to his mother and was going to kill himself.

On cross exam, she agreed with Weber that Devoe had never indicated to her that he shot any other people except the bartender in Marble Falls.

June 10th is the next pretrial hearing for arguments.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the great 1st person insight into the trial.

Iris said...

Thanks, anonymous! Yesterday's pretrial hearing was pretty intense. I left a few things out that I'll try to post about later today.

Anonymous said...

You misplelled Bill's last name. It's Brinlee.

Iris said...

anonymous,
Sorry about that. I'll change it right now. Thanks for letting me know!