MARTINEZ, Calif. — Comparing her life story to a taut suspense novel or a Hollywood crime thriller, murder defendant Susan Polk asked jurors Monday to keep an open mind as she presented her defense case over the next three weeks. Polk characterized her case during her opening statement as a "nail-biting edge-of-your-seat thriller," complete with spies, drugs, secrets, lies, hypnosis, brainwashing, threats, betrayal and ESP.

"You may think you know all there is to know," she said, "but it's my turn now."

By day's end, two of her star witnesses had been called to the stand: her mother, and her 21-year-old son, who cried as he read from a letter he wrote her when she was in jail.

"I'm going to Dad's funeral this Saturday. I don't think I'm going to say anything," Eli Polk read out loud from the Nov. 5, 2002 letter. "What could I possibly say about him? Nothing good."

Polk, 48, is charged with first-degree murder in the stabbing death of her 70-year-old psychologist husband Frank "Felix" Polk. On Monday morning, Assistant District Attorney Paul Sequeira rested the prosecution's case, which began on March 7.

Story continues

"I did not stab my husband 27 times, nor did I hit him. He fell. I'm not crazy," Polk told the jury Monday.

Polk claims she acted in self-defense in October 2002 during a fight for the blade. She says her husband's injuries were not fatal, and a heart condition contributed to his death. She claims he attacked her first.

"On the last night of his life, when I went to the cottage to talk to him, I still believed that reason could prevail," Polk said.

Prosecutors, however, say she walked into the cottage of their $2 million Orinda home, where Felix Polk was staying during a nasty divorce, with nothing more than murder on her mind.

She had recently learned she would be losing the couple's home, custody of their youngest son, Gabriel, and a significant portion of her spousal support.

"What happened to me could happen to any family," Polk told jurors during her hour-long opening. She said she became Felix Polk's patient at just 14 years old, and was ultimately, "drugged, hypnotized, raped and mentally enslaved" by the man who was her husband by the time she turned 25, and later, the father of their three boys.

"The D.A. will have you believe that I was controlling ... that I was a Lolita," Polk said.

As an English major with a flair for storytelling, Polk's opening statement was compelling and delivered with confidence.

In the standing-room-only gallery, extra chairs had been set up in the aisles to accommodate the press and trial watchers.

Polk delivered her remarks at a wooden lectern, where she read from her notes and occasionally quoted Dickens, Thoreau, and her own journal entries.

She appeared rail-thin, her shoulder blades visible through her blue long-sleeve cotton T-shirt, and seemed to be almost floating in her tan chinos.

She told the jury that as her story unfolds in the next three weeks, and when all is said and done, that is when "the pen will be handed to you and then it will be up to you to write the ending."

If the panel finds she killed her husband willfully, and writes "guilty" on the verdict form, Polk faces 25 years to life in prison.

Psychic abilities

Felix Polk, the defendant said Monday, was like a Dr. Frankenstein, who tried to mold and shape their children through hypnosis.

"I am your Jewish God," Polk claimed Felix once told her. She thought he was joking. "Felix demanded subservience like a God-man. We walked on eggshells around him."

Two of Polk's three sons have testified for the prosecution, however, that it was their mother who was the aggressor. Adam Polk, 23, and Gabriel Polk, 19, say their mother suffered from delusions.