“The Hebrew word, the biblical word for justic is tzedek. That same word in Hebrew means mercy. Your Honor, any lawyer would be proud if somebody who clerked in his office said, ‘I am a lawyer today because of you.’ His life is replete with examples of just such testaments. Your Honor has the opportunity to distinguish, as Dante distinguished in the Inferno, qualities of evil. That can be accomplished in this case by imposing concurrent rather than consecutive sentences upon Mister Bradfield.”
For the fifteen hundred hours of work he’d done on behalf of his client, Dauphin County paid Joshua Lock about two dollars an hour. He’d thought of telling them to keep it. He finally took the money to buy an antique writing table for his office.
The first words out of Rick Guida’s mouth were “It’s interesting that Mister Lock quoted Crime and Punishment. The passage indicated that the main character felt remorse. We don’t have that in this case. Mister Bradfield has consistently told this court and jury one of the most ridiculous stories I’ve ever heard, and it’s very interesting that the people who came here today were very much like the people who testified in our case. People who were convinced by Mister Bradfield’s words and ignored his actions.”
For the first time in this case, Guida began to toy with an idea that so far he’d avoided, not wanting to make the twisted case anymore complex, the idea being that the death of the children had been plotted all along.
He said, “We saw a plan that began October twenty-eighth, 1978, and carried forward to the death of three individuals. It’s true when we were dealing strictly with the commonwealth’s case it was our theory that the children were a mistake, that they had to be killed because they were witnesses to their mother’s murder.
“Even if they were an afterthought, at the final moment when Mrs. Reinert showed up with those two children, there was a choice. The defendant had the choice and the choice was to give up the money, the seven hundred and thirty thousand, and to walk away from it and let the children live.
“We have witnesses here today who said Mister Bradfield strove for perfection. He strove for the highest level. Well, he’s finally made it: the highest level that he could achieve in the world of evil, he has achieved. And I can’t think of a crime that calls out more for consecutive terms of life imprisonment.”
Judge Garb said, “Do you have anything you wish to say, Mister Bradfield?”
Bill Bradfield stood, and said, “I know that you are constrained to act on the verdict of the jury, but I am compelled to say some simple truths. One, I did not kill Mrs. Reinert. I did not kill her children. I was not an accomplice to killing Mrs. Reinert, and was not an accomplice to killing her children. I cannot show remorse for something I didn’t do.
“All the courts and all the juries and all the judges in the world can’t change those facts that are true, and I can but pray that the children someday will be found alive. That is all I have.”
During his sentencing Judge Garb said, “It doesn’t matter which theory you may adopt regarding the killing of the children. Whether they happened to be there and therefore were witnesses to the actual act, or whether it was part of the grand design in the first place. But it’s somewhat diabolical that the children’s bodies have never been found.
“I heard you, Mister Bradfield, express the prayer that they be found alive somewhere. I think we would have to be naïve to assume that this is likely to happen. There are good reasons why the bodies of the children are not to be found. It is somewhat an ariticle of faith by investigators that the best clues actually come from the victims. So of course it makes perfectly good sense to deny the investigator advantage of those sources of evidence.
“Of course with respect to the body of Susan Reinert there were other considerations, because the motivation for murder was the acquisition of her estate. And so as I view it, a word which hasn’t been used in describing these events does apply: diabolical.’ A triple homicide, regardless of where you draw that subtle line regarding the motivation for killing the youngsters.
“Now, what do we have on the other side? Well, we have a great deal of evidence as to what you are. I don’t care to deal in caricatures. It doesn’t advance the cause to talk in terms of whether you are a charismatic Rasputin or a noncharismatic Rasputin. Perhaps that is a redundancy anyway.
“I also don’t know how Dante defined evil. Yes, I suppose there’s a difference between an evil person committing an evil act and a nonevil person committing an evil act. I’m not sure which is more egregious. I don’t care to characterize you as evil or not evil.
“I guess it must be said that you are some kind of an anomaly to us. You have heard and I have heard what has been said today about you. It is said that your interests were such that they were in other than material things, yet it has been decided that you were willing to take three lives for something in excess of seven hundred thousand dollars and not for any other reason.
“We find that you are a person of unusual quality, highly creative, intelligent, and with more than just a modicum of charm. But I think it is safe to say that you are also extremely destructive. The inflection in and of itself is of a cold and calculating mind, bereft of human sympathy and compassion, that you are bent upon achieving your end at all cost. Now that is what I see.
“It seems to me that you have manifested these qualities which demonstrate that you are an extremely dangerous person by virtue of your actions, and for that reason it seems to me that the sentence that is imposed must be one that affords the community the maximum of protection.
“Therefore, I will impose the following sentence:
“On indictment number 908, that has to do with the conviction of homicide in the first degree of Susan Reinert, it is ordered that you pay the cost of prosecution and that you undergo imprisonment in the state correctional institution for the rest of your life.
“On indictiment 908a, having to do with the conviction of homicide in the first degree of Karen Reinert, it is likewise ordered that you undergo imprisonment in the state correctional institution for the rest of you life, that to run consecutively to the sentence imposed on indictment 908.
“On 908b, that being the conviction of criminal homicide in the first degree of Michael Reinert, it is ordered that you undergo imprisonment in the state correctional institution for the rest of your life, that to be served consecutively to the sentence imposed to number 908a.”
At the conclusion of sentencing, Jack Holtz saw a woman weeping in the hallway. He recognized her as one of the writers who had been seeking an audience with Bill Bradfield for the purpose of writing a book.
She said, “Isn’t it terrible?”
She had the look of a Bradfield woman. They were as interchangeable as widgets.
Jack Holtz turned to Rick Guida and said, “She’s the next disciple.”
Then he went to phone Betty VanNort.
25
In one of the telephone calls from Jay Smith to Raymond Martray there was a conversation that went far beyond the “self-serving” Jay Smith method. It was a very long conversation about the William Bradfield trial and it raised two possibilities: either Jay Smith was pretty sure that the authorities had tapped the conversation, or Raymond Martray had lied about Jay Smith having told him anything incriminating about the Reinert murder.
During the conversation both men were speculating on Bill Bradfield involving Jay Smith in order to save his own skin. Jay Smith said, “The only thing Bradfield could say is ‘I called Susan out, drove her up to the house where Smith was, and he gave her a shot of morphine and he killed the kids and then I left.’ ”