By Lisa Sweetingham Court TV
MARTINEZ, Calif. Jurors in Susan Polk's first-degree murder trial listened on Friday morning to the troubled 911 phone calls psychologist Felix Polk made in the days before his wife stabbed him to death. "She has a shotgun," Felix Polk was heard saying in a nervous, but steady voice to a dispatcher during an Oct. 9, 2002, call. "I don't know where it is. You'll have to ask her. I feel at risk." Polk's son Gabriel Polk, 19, previously testified that he heard his mother threaten to buy a shotgun and shoot his 70-year-old father. The couple was in the middle of a nasty divorce. When officers arrived, according to a police report, the couple was having a calm conversation in the kitchen and Felix said he had not been threatened by his wife, but was uncomfortable, wanted her to leave, and believed she had a shotgun.
In the end, a paring knife ended Felix Polk's life. Susan Polk admits she stabbed her husband to death on Oct. 13, 2002, but claims it was in self-defense after an intense fight for the blade. Gabriel, then 15, found his father's bloody body the next evening in a poolside cottage on the property. He immediately named his mother as the killer and agreed to testify for the prosecution. Polk is representing herself against charges that she willfully killed her husband and had been planning to do it for years. She faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted. On Friday, jurors listened to four calls Polk made to 911, from Oct. 9 to 11, some dialed from a nearby hotel, in which he stated that his wife was demanding he leave the home. Prosecution witness Lisa Hoffman, Communications Center Director for the Contra Costa County sheriff's office, identified the 911 calls. Susan Polk had been staying in Montana in the months before the killing, but returned after learning that Felix Polk had received an order by the divorce court judge granting him custody of Gabriel and exclusive use of the couple's $1.85 million Orinda, Calif., home. In his 911 calls, Felix Polk asked police for a "civil stand-by," whereby officers show up and stand by as official peacekeepers, so that he could safely return to his home and gather belongings. While he was out, Susan moved Felix's bed and other items into the poolside cottage — where he was later slain. Crime scene photographs show Felix Polk, eyes open, wearing only black underwear, laying face up on the blood-covered red-tile floor of the cottage. Polk claims that her husband made several false 911 complaints to harass and annoy her. She says she was the victim in the relationship and suffered from years of mental and physical abuse at his hands. Polk flipped through a California criminal law reference manual as she cross-examined Hoffman. "So, penal code 653-X, to use a 911 call to annoy or harass another, does that happen sometimes?" Polk asked. "Yes," Hoffman said. "And 653-Y, the use of the system for other than an emergency, does that happen sometimes?" Polk continued. "Sometimes," Hoffman agreed. 'Danger to my person' Polk often refers to her decision to represent herself as "a fight for my life." On Friday, she made an impassioned announcement to the judge before court began that her safety was now truly in danger. "I've been told there is a danger to my person," Polk said. "I'm going to be accused of some misdeed as a pretense for disciplining me." Polk told the judge she received information from an anonymous jailhouse officer that she was going to be set up for a beating. She asked for bail or to be moved to a detention center in another county, particularly one that has no affiliation with the Contra Costa County District Attorney's office that has brought her to trial. The judge told Polk she would need more information before taking action, a statement from the officer, or something more than, "unnamed sources of vague allegations for some future event." Polk was incensed. "I'm certainly not going to tell you my source," Polk said, adding later, "At this point, I don't feel safe. I'm told that I'm going to be set up as a pretense of violence against me." "I'm going to be accused of doing something to an officer," Polk said. The judge reminded her that deputies have a legal obligation to report such information to their superiors. "Well, I made my record," Polk said. "And I'm not about to reveal my source." |