She tried to ignore the warning signs. She knew Lissa didn’t like her and neither did Velma Farrar. Her own sons were angry and depressed; their father had been dead less than eight months. Celeste wanted so much to be happy, and she loved Mike; she remembered his telling her she was “the love of his life.” She didn’t believe that kind of love could ever disappear. And in San Francisco, in the spring of 1996, it seemed that she had been right.
But Mike had yet to realize that promises are not to be made lightly. Living with Debora, he had often been coerced into making promises to keep the peace. He had promised his children that he would stay with their mother always, and that the reconciliation after the first fire would last. He had promised Celeste that theirs was more than a transient affair, that he would always love her. He may well have meant it at the time, unaware of what wildly seesawing emotions could follow the numbness of almost unbearable tragedy.
43
Ellen Ryan had characterized Debora as a “baby,” dependent and confused. Even after the confession, she still felt that Debora was a good mother, in the sense that she truly loved her children. But Ellen, who was a good mother, may have become so caught up in Debora’s case that her perception was clouded—or, rather, divided—so that she could see the love there even though she knew what Debora had done to her children.
During the investigation into the murderous fire on Canterbury Court, a stray mother cat in Brooklyn, New York, made every wire service when she returned time after time to a burning parking garage to save her kittens. Although badly burned and temporarily blinded, the cat did not give up until she had her kittens safely across the street from the building. One observer recalled that he saw her touch each kitten with her nose. “She was counting them,” he told reporters in awe. “She couldn’t see them but she was counting to make sure they were all out.”
To many observers of the Debora Green case, that cat was a good mother, and she was not.
The task force investigators, working with Paul Morrison’s office, had fanned out as far as Ohio to learn as much as they could about Mike and Debora, and particularly about Debora’s past behavior. One of the people they spoke to was Norma Wallace, a kind, grandmotherly Jamaican who lived in Ohio. She had worked as a nanny for Mike and Debora in the early years of their marriage, when Tim and Lissa were babies. “She told us,” Morrison recalled, “that Debora had confided in her that she didn’t want kids; she never had—she was doing it for Mike.”
Norma Wallace said she had seen Debora abuse Tim both mentally and physically. With that information, the picture of Debora as a caring, devoted mother in the early years of her marriage was seriously smudged.
More than one former nanny said that when Debora had her medical practice, she worked long hours and, when she came home, often went right to her room with a book instead of visiting with the children. The one consistent interest, passion, and obsession of her life was books—even on the night of the fire. While people had often disappointed her, books never did. She was seldom without a stack of ten or more unread library books, a hedge against the reality she could not face.
Paul Morrison was revving up for the trial. Aware that his case was largely circumstantial, he did not expect that Dennis Moore and Kevin Moriarty would approach him about a plea bargain. The State’s case was coming together, each aspect dovetailing. Paul Morrison was ready. Rick Guinn was ready. But then Moore, Moriarty, and O’Brien notified the district attorney’s office that they wanted to talk.
The Kansas City public knew nothing at all about the discussions being held behind closed doors, nor did the press.
On April 12, 1996, Mike spent most of the day in surgery and the rest of the time unconscious. With strange synchronicity, he had been hospitalized at almost every major turn in the case. He was in the hospital when John Walker committed suicide, and his first Groshong tube surgery took place on November 22, the day Debora was arrested on murder and arson charges. On April 13, while Mike struggled back to consciousness in San Francisco, negotiations that would shock the Kansas City area took place back home.
“I woke up to a call from Paul Morrison,” Mike said. “He was calling me to tell me that Debora was ready to plead no contest to the arson charges, but not to the poison charges. Paul said, ‘That’s not good enough for me, Mike, but I wanted to be sure you agreed.’”
Mike did agree. He urged Morrison to go for a plea on all the charges Debora faced. “Then he called me on Monday night, April 15,” Mike said. “He said their [the defense’s] whole case had broken down.”
Morrison asked Mike to be in the courtroom when Debora entered her no-contest pleas. He also wanted Mike to appear at a press conference afterward. “Can you do it?”
“I’ll be there,” Mike answered, although he had undergone brain surgery only three days earlier. He knew that the public was crying out for Debora to be tried and to receive the death penalty for what she had done to her own children. Morrison’s decision to accept a plea bargain would not sit well with popular opinion. Mike prepared to fly back to Kansas to back up Morrison on his stance.
There would be no trial now, and that was a tremendous relief for Mike and Celeste. It was finally over.
On April 17, Case Number 95 CR 5387, The State of Kansas versus Debora J. Green, was about to be adjudicated. And there would be no need now for any more rulings about cameras, or crowd control, or jury selection. What had begun with headlines would end in an hour.
Judge Ruddick looked at Dennis Moore. “I am advised by counsel that this matter is now for plea,” he said. “Is that correct?”
“That is correct, Your Honor.”
“Would one of you then state for the record the basis of any plea negotiations which are going to apply?”
Paul Morrison stepped forward. “Judge, I will. The negotiations are as follows: It’s my understanding that the defendant today will enter a plea of no contest to all five counts of the Amended Complaint. Those counts are: Count I, the capital murder of Kelly Farrar; Count II, the capital murder of Timothy Farrar; Count III, aggravated arson; Count IV, attempted first-degree murder of Michael Farrar; and Count V, the attempted capital murder of Lissa Farrar.
“In exchange for this, Judge, the State agrees [that] at the time of the plea being entered, the State will withdraw its request for the death penalty in this case.
“Both parties will recommend that the defendant be sentenced to hard forty counts on Counts I and II, and in conformance with the sentencing guidelines on Counts III, IV, and V, and on the sentencing date, both parties will recommend to the Court that the Court sentence the defendant to those terms of confinement.
“Both parties will also recommend to the Court that those counts be run concurrent with one another so that the defendant will be serving a substantive hard forty sentence. . . .”
A “hard forty” in Kansas means just that. Debora Green would serve forty years in prison, with no possibility of parole. She was forty-five years old. If she lived that long, she would be in prison until she was eighty-five.
But she had escaped the death penalty.
It was necessary now for Debora herself to listen to Judge Ruddick read the counts against her. He asked her first whether she understood the terms of the plea bargain.
“Yes.”
“In Count I,” Judge Ruddick intoned, “on or about the twenty-fourth of October, 1995, in Prairie Village, Johnson County, Kansas, you did then and there unlawfully, feloniously, intentionally, and with premeditation kill a person, to wit: Kelly Farrar, and that the premeditated killing of Kelly Farrar and Timothy Farrar was a part of the same transaction. . . . This is a crime of capital murder and the sentence provided by law is life imprisonment. . . .”
It took Judge Ruddick a long time to read all the legal language of each count. And somehow, the dry words of the law were more terrible than soaring rhetoric. The names sandwiched in between the “to wit”s and the “premeditated killing”s were the people who had see
mingly meant the most to Debora. But she stood there, calmly, as Ruddick read all of it—the fire setting, the “did place ricin, a poison, in the food of Michael Farrar,” and, finally, “to wit: set a fire in a residence located at 7517 Canterbury Court, Prairie Village, Johnson County, Kansas, in which Lissa Farrar was sleeping, toward the perpetration of the crime of capital murder . . .”
“Dr. Green,” Judge Ruddick asked when he had finished, “you understand both the nature of all these charges against you and you understand the punishments which are provided by law?”
“Yes, I do.”
Debora answered yes repeatedly as the judge explained that she could still have a trial and asked if she had discussed all aspects of her case with her attorneys. Did she understand that she had a continuing right to counsel?
“Yes.”
“Have any promises or threats been made to you with regard to this plea . . . ?”
“No.”
“Are you presently under the influence of any sort of drug? Are you taking anything that would affect your ability to understand these proceedings?”
“I am taking Prozac, Desyrel, and Klonopin,” Debora said.
“. . . And do they affect your ability to understand what’s going on here in court?”
“No, sir.”
Moore said that his client had read and understood the allegations in the State’s case and that the defense would accept it for filing without its being read. “And we’re willing to—not to agree with all the evidence or the allegations in that statement, but certainly understand that would be the State’s case.”
Morrison wanted to read the State’s case into the record, and Judge Ruddick agreed. The case had been wonderfully prepared; Morrison had dammed up each slightest chink in his arguments. He had witnesses waiting all over America who were prepared to testify. Now, he read aloud the summary of the State’s case against Dr. Debora J. Green. It did not take that long; the bare bones of the case could be summed up in twenty-three double-spaced pages. But those twenty-three pages described vengeful, deliberate acts of planned cruelty and the evidence that would point to Debora Green as the perpetrator.
Once again, Morrison recounted the significant events in the marriage of Dr. Michael Farrar and Dr. Debora Green; the births of Tim, Lissa, and Kelly; the homes they had shared; the breakups and reconciliations. He included the danger signals, the crimes, the attempts to cover up. He listed the dates of Debora’s drunken rages and her voluntary commitment, Mike’s illnesses and hospitalizations, and, finally, the date of the fire on Canterbury Court. It was a hellish chronology.
Morrison also read the results of the arson investigators’ probe. The fire that killed Tim and Kelly Farrar had been deliberately set on the main floor by someone who had poured out “substantial amounts” of accelerants. They had also found other small fires which were far removed from the main-floor holocaust. “Investigators also determined,” he said, “that the accelerant pour pattern and burns inside the doorway of Green’s room are absolutely inconsistent with her statement as to how the fire occurred. . . .
“Criminalist William Chapin of the Johnson County Crime Laboratory, with the aid of experts from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms . . . was able to discern at least two samples of isoparaffins . . . commonly used in charcoal lighter fluid . . . from the debris. Investigators found at least one empty lighter fluid bottle in the garage area at the fire scene. Arson investigators also believed that more than one accelerant was used to fuel the fire.” And there was also a “definite amount” of singeing of Debora Green’s hair.
Had Debora attempted to save her children? Morrison said no. “Investigators noted that except for when Lissa Farrar had escaped through her window and was out over the roof in full view of everyone, Debora Green made no attempt whatsoever at any time to rescue any of the children from the house.
“During the interview with Prairie Village police officers after the fire, Debora Green waited until approximately one hour into the interview to ask the officers if her children were alive or dead. During the early part of the interview, she appeared to be casual and almost nonchalant about the fire, expressing little emotion. When officers finally told Debora Green that two of her children had perished in the fire, she appeared to grieve for approximately one minute, then became angry and demanding with the officers.”
Debora had been reading a book minutes before the fire began. “Analysis at the arson scene resulted in a book being found by Debora Green’s bed,” Morrison read. “The book was entitled Necessary Lies. The plot in Necessary Lies involves several children burning to death in a house fire which was intentionally set. The female protagonist in the book is accused of the crime. . . .”
Morrison ended with the information that shortly before the fire, Debora checked out of the Corinth Library, in Prairie Village, and the Johnson County Library several books that “dealt with the subject of intrafamilial homicide.”
It was a grim recitation of damning circumstantial and physical evidence. “Judge,” Morrison said, “that would be the bulk of the evidence that we would present in trial.”
Judge Ruddick asked Debora if she understood the summary of facts just made.
“Judge,” Dennis Moore answered for her, “she has heard—she read, as I’ve indicated before, the entire statement that Mr. Morrison just took several minutes to read here in court. She understands that would be the State’s evidence were this case to go to trial. I would advise the Court that we would certainly challenge some of that evidence, but we understand that would be the State’s evidence. Is that correct, Debora?”
“That would be—” she said quietly. “It’s correct.”
Dr. Debora Green, who had been a mystery woman to the public and the press, seemed fully competent now as she acknowledged that she understood the State’s case against her. She asked that she be allowed to read a statement.
“After counseling with my attorneys,” she began, “I plead no contest to all charges. I understand the court will find me guilty on all counts. I am aware that the State can produce substantial evidence that I set the fire that caused the death of my children. My attorneys are ready, willing, and able to present evidence that I was not in control of myself when Tim and Kelly died.”
The courtroom was very quiet. Each word dropped like a stone into water, sinking to the bottom. Debora was very thin, her complexion sallow from months behind bars; the pinkish sweater she had worn to her preliminary hearing in January hung on her now.
“However true that may be,” she continued, “defending myself at trial on these charges would only compound the suffering of my family, and my daughter, Lissa. I love my family very much. I never meant to harm my children, but I accept the fact that I will be punished harshly. I believe that it is best to end this now, so that we can begin to heal from our horrible loss.”
Debora had not actually admitted her guilt; she had only acknowledged that she believed there was enough evidence against her to result in a conviction.
“Dr. Green,” Judge Ruddick asked, “is your plea of no contest entered as to each and every count of the Amended Complaint, which is five counts?”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“Dr. Green, I accept your plea as to each count. I find that plea to be voluntarily entered. I find that plea to be intelligently given and I find a factual basis exists for your plea on each count. I therefore find you guilty on each count of the Amended Complaint.”
And then it was over. Although formal sentencing would come next, the murder and arson and poisoning trial of Debora Green had shrunk to this short hearing.
The man who had been her husband for so many years watched silently from the back of the courtroom, his head swathed in bandages, his right eye purple and swollen. Although Mike was only five days past his surgery, he had flown home so that he might be present to hear Debora’s plea. Beyond keeping his promise to Paul Morrison, it was vital, somehow, that he hear her say the
words that came as close to admitting she had killed their oldest child and their youngest child as she would allow herself to do.
A subdued press conference took place after Debora’s Alford plea. Answering reporters’ questions, Mike obviously felt no sense of triumph. The losses were still losses. “Despite what she did,” he said quietly, “this is still a human being. I was married to her for sixteen years. . . .”
Paul Morrison said he had talked with Mike about accepting the plea agreement. “We decided this would be the best way to protect Lissa and still punish Mrs. Green.” Dennis Moore said that, although Debora had seemed calm in the courtroom, she had sobbed as she walked out. “Debora Green,” he said, “is a caring, living, breathing, human being. She’s not the monster that comes out of the stuff the prosecution was presenting.”
Paul Morrison was disciplined about keeping in shape, although most nights it was ten or later when he got to the gym. On this night, of all nights, he felt the need to work off the tension that had built steadily over the past six months. In a sense, he had trained hard for a race he would never run. No one but a trial lawyer would understand that feeling.
On that night in April, Morrison was at the gym, and possibly putting himself through a stiffer sequence of exercises than usual. He saw one of the firefighters who had been at the fire on Canterbury Court. “He came up to me and said, ‘My God, Morrison—what are you doing here tonight? Why aren’t you out boozin’ it up or something? Why aren’t you celebrating?’
“I told him, ‘Well, it’s nice that we’ve got a fair completion on this thing—but I’m really disappointed.’ I’m not sure if he understood that.
“My staff and I went back and forth with that plea. You don’t know if it’s going to happen or not, and then it happens,” Morrison recalled with a grimace, “and a pall kind of settles over you for a couple of days. You were ready to go, ready to go into battle. You’re a racehorse at the starting gate. And then it’s over—and it’s ‘Stand down.’”