by Val Ellicott
Staff Writer
If defense attorneys had their way, here's what the
six jurors at William Kennedy Smith's rape trial would learn about
the woman who accuses him of rape:
That she is an unwed mother who has had three
abortions, that she has used cocaine, and that she once belonged to a
Palm Beach social set known for wild parties and heavy drug use.
But Judge Mary Lupo has barred defense attorneys
from telling jurors about the 30-year-old woman's drug use or sexual past.
So jurors will hear instead what prosecutors want
them to hear-- that the woman is a caring, devoted mother; that she
is honest, sensitive and vulnerable; that weeks after the alleged
rape she was still emotionally devastated and at one point considered suicide.
Both portraits-- one potentially damaging to the
woman's case against Smith, the other potentially helpful to her
credibility-- are accurate.
"She's a dichotomy of strange personality
traits and makeups," polygraph examiner Warren Holmes said in a
July 25 deposition. "She has a basic weakness in handling life's
problems. But the irony of it all is that she has strengths in other ways."
Holmes cited the woman's courage and decisiveness
in reporting the rape. And he said he is convinced that her answers
on the polygraph exam, which aren't admissible in court, were honest.
"She radiates feelings when she
verbalizes," Holmes said. "Everything I know tells me that
this girl is telling the truth."
Much of what is known about her comes from sworn
statements made to defense attorneys who are expected to attack her
credibility during the trial and from thousands of pages of court
documents. Most of that material has been published previously by The
Palm Beach Post.
Through her attorney, David Roth, the woman
declined to comment or be interviewed for this article.
GROWING UP IN OHIO
The woman was born in Akron, Ohio, in 1961, the
only child of a middle- class welder for Chrysler and a corporate
secretary. Her mother, now 62, eventually became the highest ranking
female executive in a company that supplied material to the General
Tire and Rubber Co.
The woman's parents divorced in 1974, when she was
14. The same year, she was involved in a car accident that broke her
neck in three places. She still takes muscle relaxants and
painkillers for the lingering effects of that accident and for a
ruptured disc she suffered last year.
In a 31/2-hour interview on April 22, the woman
told Holmes that a caretaker sexually molested her when she was 8.
Her father emotionally abused her and beat her at least once, she said.
"The emotional abuse was, I was always stupid,
I couldn't do anything right and an awful lot of other things,"
she told Palm Beach Police Detective Christine Rigolo on April 1.
When she was 17, the woman ran away from home. She
told Holmes that her future stepfather had isolated her, her mother
and his own family of 13 children on a 50-acre farm and that her home
life had become unbearable.
THE MOVE TO PALM BEACH
The woman's mother remarried, to a wealthy Ohio
industrialist, in 1981, the same year the woman moved to Palm Beach
County. The woman receives more than $20,000 a year from a trust fund
set up by her stepfather, lives in her own $135,000 home in Jupiter
and drives a 1988 Mazda RX-7 convertible.
The trust fund has allowed the woman to attend
college classes and afford therapy for her 2-year-old daughter, who
was born prematurely with serious medical problems. The daughter had
a twin sister who died when the woman miscarried.
The woman affectionately refers to her stepfather,
69, as "Boomer, " but she also told Holmes that he is
oppressive and drinks heavily. Her mother, stepfather and father
declined to be interviewed.
The woman, who could inherit a substantial amount
of money from her stepfather's family and estate, has worked steadily
in bookkeeping and clerical positions. Former employers described her
as "extremely hard-working and very intelligent."
Her first job in Palm Beach County was as a
secretary and bookkeeper at Shepherd, Legan, Aldrian Architects in
North Palm Beach.
"She was very childlike in some ways, in
experiencing new things and new opportunities," architect Joseph
Legan said. "She was a fun person. She enjoyed working with people."
EXPERT: PROBABLY NOT LYING
Holmes, the polygraph expert recommended to police
by the FBI, was struck by what he described as the woman's "weak
and vulnerable" nature.
"I got the impression that life is just too
much for this young lady, " he told one of Smith's attorneys.
But he also said there is no evidence the woman
resorts to lies to escape her difficulties.
"I didn't see anything in her background that
would dictate that she suddenly would make up a story that she was
raped," he said.
Holmes majored in psychology for three years at the
University of Miami but did not graduate. He was in charge of the lie
detection bureau at the Miami police department for eight years. In
his statement, he described therapy the woman has received.
In 1988, Holmes said, she sought help from an
agency called "Help Me Make a Decision." Last year, she saw
a psychologist to reassure herself that she was strong enough to
raise her daughter, he said.
In one statement released by authorities, recalling
the morning before the reported rape, the woman said, "I had
both my mother and my counselor yelling at me that it was time to get
a life."
Still, Holmes said, the woman demonstrated
exceptional courage in coming forward with her allegations about
Smith. He noted that the three other women who say Smith attacked
them in the 1980s-- one says Smith raped her; the other two say they
fended him off -- never went to police.
The Jupiter woman also has shown she can act
decisively when she feels threatened.
In May, when a free-lance cameraman began staking
out her house, she drove her car in front of his van and demanded to
know who he was and what he was doing.
Combined with these traits is the woman's view of
men in general, a view she attributes to her sense that the man who
fathered her child later abandoned her and her daughter.
"I didn't feel I could trust men," she
told detective Rigolo two days after the alleged rape. "And then
I was pretty angry at them, and I actually didn't see what worth they
had, you know, they didn't really do that much." *more
*Kennedy Smith case
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