changed strategy, when federal public defender Willard Van Hazel requested that Dr. Charles Kuhn reexamine his client to see if there was anything different since his first examination.
Dr. Kuhn carried out a second examination but found Garrido’s condition remained unchanged.
Then on February 1, the same day Dr. Kuhn’s second report was filed with the district court, Phillip Garrido withdrew his not guilty plea. But Judge Thompson refused to accept it.
Three days later, at 4:45 P.M . on the Friday before trial, Willard Van Hazel suddenly announced his client would now be pursuing a psychiatric defense.
11
KATIE CALLAWAY TAKES THE STAND
At 1:30 P.M . on Wednesday, February 9, 1977, Phillip Garrido was led into U.S. district court in downtown Reno in handcuffs, wearing a faded gray suit with a striped shirt and brown tie, his long hair tied back in a ponytail.
After the jury was sworn in, the clerk of the court read out the indictment, stating that the defendant was pleading not guilty.
Assistant United States Attorney Leland Lutfy made his opening statement on behalf of the prosecution, but Van Hazel reserved the privilege not to make one on behalf of his client.
Then Lutfy called Katie Callaway to the stand as his first witness. Once again the young woman bravely relived her terrible ordeal for the jury, as Phillip Garrido sat impassively staring at her from the dock.
The prosecutor asked her if the young man who kidnapped her was present in the courtroom.
“Yes, he is,” replied Callaway. “He has his hair pulled back in a ponytail.”
And for the next several hours, Katie Callaway calmly told the jury about her nightmare at the hands of the tall, handsome defendant. Gently led by Lutfy’s questions, the articulate witness bravely gave yet another detailed account of her six hours with Garrido, and how she had survived it.
“Can you remember any of the conversation that you had during this time?” asked the prosecutor.
“Yes,” she replied, as the jury hung on her every word. “I asked him, ‘Why me?’ And he said, ‘Well, it wasn’t you intentionally; could have been anyone. It just happened that you happened to be attractive, and that is a fault in your case.’
“And I asked him what aspect of this rape . . . that he got off on. And he said that he didn’t get off on pain; it was just a fantasy that he had to live out. And he had his fantasies. He had a very heavy sexual life with his wife. He was very happy, but it was just something that he had to do. And that his wife was the only one that knew where he was and what he was doing.”
When she began to tell the jury about how Phillip Garrido had viciously raped her in his Reno warehouse, defender Van Hazel objected, calling it irrelevant.
“The necessary elements,” he told Judge Thompson, “as outlined in the government’s opening statement, is an unlawful seizure and a kidnapping. [This] was consummated when she got to that gas station.”
The prosecutor argued the issue was the defendant’s “state of mind,” and the events in the shed were why he had abducted her in the first place.
Judge Thompson overruled the objection, and Lutfy asked Katie what had happened inside the warehouse.
“Do you want me to go into the rape?” she asked.
“Your Honor,” said Garrido’s attorney, rising to his feet, “I object to the characterization ‘rape.’ I believe rape is something that the jury will conclude in this case, whether it occurred or did not occur.”
“She can call it what she wants,” declared Judge Thompson.
Then Katie described once again what Phillip Garrido had done to her to satisfy his perverted sexual fantasies.
“The sexual intercourse activity was constant,” she told the jury. “He ejaculated maybe three times, twice inside of me, once on top.”
“How long would you estimate, if you can,” asked the prosecutor, “did these sexual activities take place?”
“Approximately five and a half
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley