7.Adam Creech — Cross (Part 3)
37 linesCROSS-EXAMINATION BY MR. HUBBARD:
RICK HUBBARD: Sergeant Creech, I just want to go over a number of things, not only about your interviews with Mr. Jones, but about the investigation. You're the lead investigator for Lexington County, are you not, on this case?
ADAM CREECH: That's correct.
RICK HUBBARD: Now, you said when you actually got this case, no one knew it was going to be a homicide or multiple homicides?
ADAM CREECH: Not at all. Missing persons cases, probably 95 percent of the time are what they are, but five percent of the time, I guess you could call them land mines. You don't know what you're going to step on.
RICK HUBBARD: As you got into this case, certainly when you got to Mississippi and you talked to Sheriff Crumpton and you talked to Marty Patterson and you talked to Agent Johnson, you heard information about the Defendant saying he was hearing voices?
ADAM CREECH: Yes, I think they did mention that there had been some talk of that in the interview the night before.
RICK HUBBARD: Well, let me ask you, in the interview you conducted with Agency Mackey on the 8th, September 8th?
ADAM CREECH: Yes.
RICK HUBBARD: The Defendant at that time starts talking about voices, voices, voices, voices, right?
ADAM CREECH: Yes, he brings it up and it was, from our perspective, consistent with what he had brought up the night before.
RICK HUBBARD: Because of that, was part of your job and Agent Mackey to go ahead and start looking, not only what happened and what happened to those kids, but start determining whether the Defendant himself could express whether he did something wrong or did not see any wrongfulness in his behavior? Is that a fair question?
ADAM CREECH: I believe it is.
RICK HUBBARD: Is that part of what y'all were doing as well, seeing if he could make an admission that he understood something was wrong?
ADAM CREECH: Yes. And I believe it was pretty clear with all the interactions with Tim, I probably spent somewhere in the ballpark of nine, ten, eleven hours with him over the course of a few days. He seemed pretty clear at every point that he knew what he had done was wrong.
RICK HUBBARD: And as an investigator --
ROBERT MADSEN: Object, that's -- that goes to the defense at issue and is not appropriate.
RICK HUBBARD: And I have a right to attack their case and that's what I'm doing with their witness.
THE COURT: Hold on. Y'all approach. (Whereupon, a bench conference was held in the presence of the jury but out of the hearing of the jury.)
THE COURT: I need to put something on the record real quick. Y'all step in the jury room.)
(WHEREUPON, the jury was excused from the courtroom.)
THE COURT: All right. At sidebar, we discussed not at great length, but at some length, the anticipated questions by the State. Solicitor, proffer a few questions to the end we were talking about, conduct you are wanting to elicit from the witness and then we'll see if we're getting in areas where the Defense is having objections to it. PROFFER DIRECT EXAMINATION
BY MR. HUBBARD:
RICK HUBBARD: Sergeant Creech, when you were interviewing Mr. Jones, in addition to trying to find out what had happened to the kids, since you were hearing about voices, were you also trying to elicit any kind of information from the Defendant where he would acknowledge the wrongfulness of his conduct? For instance, actions taken to hide evidence? Were you doing that?
ADAM CREECH: Certainly.
RICK HUBBARD: Actions where he fled because he knew he was going to get in trouble?
ADAM CREECH: Certainly.
RICK HUBBARD: Anything he said where he understood he broke the law?
ADAM CREECH: Absolutely.
RICK HUBBARD: Anything he understood where there was -- he was facing punishment?
ADAM CREECH: Correct.
RICK HUBBARD: Where he was going to get in trouble?
ADAM CREECH: Those were all things we keep in mind.
RICK HUBBARD: And throughout the whole interview, you're making notes and making sure you write down statements accurately as to what he says?
ADAM CREECH: Correct.
RICK HUBBARD: Things like -- and then things that are recorded where he says he kills his son and he goes, I'm fucked. Is that -- in your mind as an officer, is that something you're going to note down because it's a statement about he knows he did something wrong?
ADAM CREECH: It is. I think it's very important.