Article by every WS'ers favorite "journalist"- :facepalm:
http://www.azcentral.com/community/...e-doesnt-remember-gilbert-hammer-killing.html
Marissa DeVault roommate: ‘I don’t remember’ hammer-killing
By Michael Kiefer The Republic | azcentral.com Tue Mar 4, 2014 6:36 PM
Stanley Cook may be the only living witness to the claw hammer attack that caused Dale Harrell’s death.
But he doesn’t remember.
Harrell’s wife, Marissa DeVault, is charged with first-degree murder for killing her husband; she could face the death penalty if convicted.
Cook, who lived with DeVault and Harrell, apparently witnessed the attack and may even have taken a hammer out of DeVault’s hand to stop her from hitting Harrell in the head with it. And in the days and weeks after the murder, Cook tried to take the blame for the killing. Police didn’t believe him.
But when he took the witness stand Tuesday in Maricopa County Superior Court, Cook couldn’t recall a thing.
“I don’t remember that night,” he said under questioning by prosecutor Michelle Arino. “It was five years ago. I have trouble remembering last week.”
Cook, it was explained in court, has organic brain damage, which robs him of his memory. It was not explained what caused the damage.
He speaks intelligently, with a voice that sounds educated. But his pursed lips, scrunched brow and nervous laughter belie the fact that he can’t remember much.
According to police and prosecutors, and as borne out in testimony and court argument, DeVault, 36, attacked Harrell with the claw hammer in the bedroom of their Gilbert home on January 14, 2009. She claimed that he was abusive, that he had choked her and forced himself on her sexually.
Among the few statements that prosecutors got out of Cook on Tuesday was that he didn’t think Harrell was abusive to DeVault.
And when Cook was asked if he ever saw Harrell abuse DeVault’s and Harrell’s three children, he answered, “Probably not; if I had seen it, I would have stopped it.”
Prosecutors believe that DeVault killed Harrell, 34, for insurance money, in part to pay off more than $360,000 she had borrowed from a man she met on a website that matches “sugar daddies” to women who are in financial need.
DeVault’s sugar daddy, Allen Flores, has so far been the prosecution’s primary witness. He was on the witness stand Monday, detailing the monies DeVault owed him, the threats she supposedly made about killing her husband, and her constant explanations as to why she couldn’t pay Flores back.
In exchange for his testimony, Flores was granted immunity from prosecution for possession of child *advertiser censored* and as an accessory to the crime. Among other things, Flores helped Cook craft his bogus confession letter, which was intended to help DeVault actually claim the insurance money for Harrell’s injuries and subsequent death.
Cook was also granted immunity.
Harrell did not die immediately. In fact, he was recovering from the brain injuries, but had been weakened by a stroke and two heart attacks when he died of a pulmonary embolism, a blood clot to the lungs, three weeks after the attack. A medical examiner testified to those facts Tuesday morning.
On Tuesday, while the jury was out of the court room, Judge Roland Steinle debated with Arino and her co-prosecutor, Eric Basta, over whether Cook should testify at all, given his disability. Basta said that the state had monitored calls from Cook to DeVault while she was in jail and felt that he did remember details.
Cook could not recall them on the stand. Nor could he recall much of anything. He said over and over, “I’m not sure, I don’t remember, I’m guessing, most likely, probably, apparently,” and even, “I’m only assuming, based on that I was apparently there.”
When asked who helps him remember things, he answered, “That would be the people around me or no one at all.”
Then when asked specifically if Marissa DeVault fills him in on information, he answered, “Yes, but so does Wikipedia.”
DeVault’s lead attorney, Alan Tavassoli, asked Cook if he remembered him.
“You look familiar, but I can’t place your name,” Cook said. “I can’t remember my own lawyer’s name.”
Cook did remember that the day before he had been granted immunity for his testimony, however.
Trial continues Wednesday.