Cape Cod Murder

Reasonable doubt about a verdict

Readers over a certain age may remember a great television series of the mid-70s called "Ellery Queen" based on the literary crime sleuth. The title character was played by the late Jim Hutton, father of actor Timothy Hutton. Each week's show would revolve around a murder mystery and Queen's efforts to solve it, which he'd invariably do at the end of every episode upon noticing a previously seen but seemingly innocuous clue.

That's it, Queen would say, turning to the camera and addressing the viewer. And if you paid attention, you figured it out too. After a commercial break, the show would return with all the major players assembled and Queen would explain whodunit, and why.

Would that real life and actual murder mysteries played out so tidily. A year ago in Barnstable village, a Superior Court jury began deliberating the fate of a 34-year-old Hyannis trash hauler, Christopher McCowen (seen at right being escorted from court), accused in the brutal stabbing death and rape of Christa Worthington, 46, a former fashion writer and single mother in Truro.

In the year since the trial, I've wondered - had there been a seemingly innocuous piece of evidence or testimony that, if held to the light at the right angle, would become a Rosetta Stone unraveling the mystery?

Based on what I saw and heard while covering the trial as a stringer for the New York Post and blogging about it here, there was no such clue, at least not for me. But there's one that came close - the mysterious driver barreling out of Worthington's driveway on the afternoon of Jan. 5, 2002, the day before her body was discovered.

Testifying during the trial, Truro resident Girard Smith said he saw a "large dark vehicle" speeding down Worthington's driveway between 1 and 3 p.m. on Jan. 5. The vehicle came within 15 feet of him, Smith testified, and was driven so fast it could easily have crashed into another vehicle.

Did you see the driver, Smith was asked on the stand. Yes, he was a white male in his late 30s, early 40s - which means it could not be McCowen, who is black. 

Don't get me wrong, this hardly proves McCowen is innocent, nor is it proof the driver in such a hurry had anything to do with Worthington's death.  But when combined with another aspect of the case, it allows for the unsettling possibility that McCowen did not murder Worthington or did not act alone as alleged by the prosecution.

Early in the trial, on Oct. 23, 2006, pathologist Henry Nields testified that Worthington "had likely been dead for 24 to 36 hours when a colleague from the state medical examiner's office examined her at the crime scene," as reported by Court TV (that colleague, Dr. James Weiner, was too ill during the trial to testify).

Weiner arrived at the Worthington house around 8 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 6, according to testimony during the trial. Extrapolating back with the timeframe of 24 to 36 hours to the time of Worthington's death, this means she was most likely murdered between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 5.  And smack dab in the middle of that timeframe is when Smith saw a vehicle high-tailing it out of Worthington's driveway, presumably with an extremely agitated driver. And the driver seen by Smith was white, not black - and could not have been McCowen.

Again, what Smith witnessed doesn't prove anything beyond his credible description of it. But Smith's testimony does allow for reasonable inferences. Such as - it is reasonable to infer that the person driving the vehicle was aware of, if not involved in, Worthington's death. It is reasonable to infer that the person driving the vehicle was fleeing from the scene in a panic because he was implicated in Worthington's death, either by direct involvement or covering up after the fact. And it is reasonable to infer of at least the possibility that Worthington was murdered on the afternoon of Jan. 5 and not the night before by McCowen, as the prosecution claimed and jurors ultimately agreed.

Eight months after Worthington's death, I attended a journalism conference in Maine with several of my colleagues from the Cape Cod Times, where the paper was honored with several awards, including one I received for investigative reporting. The guest speaker at the opening night dinner was author Dominick Dunne, who spoke mainly about the conviction earlier that year of Michael Skakel for the October 1975 bludgeoning death of 15-year-old Martha Moxley.

The Moxley case was not one I'd followed but Dunne's remarks - and the man is a consummate raconteur - piqued my interest. The Moxleys and the Skakels had lived only a block apart in Greenwich, Conn., and Dunne described how Dorothy Moxley, Martha's mother, told him of the anguish she suffered for years whenever she drove past the the Skakel house (she eventually moved out of the neighborhood).

Every time Mrs. Moxley saw the house, Dunne recounted, she thought that maybe the person who killed her daughter did not live there, but the people in the house knew who did. And that was almost as bad.

I think the same can be said of the driver of the vehicle witnessed by Smith. His presence at the scene hardly proves the man committed murder, whoever he is. But it sure as hell looks like he knows who did.

(photo credit, washingtonpost.com)