SETH SUTTON DAY 2: FIRST ”OH, SHIT” MOMENT

Day two of the Seth Sutton trial started off, for me, at least, with the jury, I had left before they were totally picked and their jury selection expert had done one wonderful job of getting rid of THE WOMEN, with a ten men and TWO WOMEN, jury, the two alternates are also male.

The jury is a very working man jury, no slick professionals, no lawyers, no doctors, just true working men, you can just tell. They also didn’t seem to me to be a group that was in love with law enforcement.

That said, each lawyer had their opening statement and as the prosecutor talked, of course, everyone swayed that way, BUT, Broden gets up and explains away most of the prosecutor’s points, so you sway that a way too.

First witness was John Allovio, I had seen a big man outside the courtroom pacing up and down, obviously stressed and, sure enough, it was John Allovio. I know John on paper, I’ve read and assisted on a Writ in which Allovio was the arresting officer and I can tell you right off, he ain’t my favorite. He was “enough” on the stand, good enough, slovenly sort of guy, bad posture, and I just didn’t like the man.

Allovio had also received an award for saving the life of a citizen, no biggy, some guy he was talking to had a heart attack and Allovio got him help, hence, the award. Sorry, lame.

The scenario is that the undercover cop called in “sick” one day and Allovio approved his sick leave, BUT, instead of being sick, “Scott” the undercover cop went and had his beard trimmed at some place that serves beer. While he’s there he meets up with Jerry Dyer Jr.

NOTE TO SELF, AVOID JERRY DYER Jr.

Dyer and Scott yuck it up at the bar and talk about motorcycles, later they go for a motorcycle ride and Dyer tells Scott that he should come by the club and meet all the guys at the Red Mouse Cult Motorcycle Club and Scott agrees to do just that.

Now, Scott isn’t supposed to be investigating and acting undercover anymore, his boss has told him to stop.

Broden got Allovio pretty good when Allovio testified that he approved Scott’s sick day and Broden asked him if anything happened because Scott lied to him. OOOOoooh, point there.

Then they call in Scott the undercover cop. We had to listen to his military background, Afghanistan, how he fell off a ladder and really got hurt, which has led to back pain and surgery and if he needed to stand up during his testimony that was ok.

Then we had to listen to the acolades and training he had gotten as a cop on and on. How qualified they are, all their experience, on and on, no one cares.

Scott is a tall fairly good looking guy, about the same age as Sutton, forty-ish, short hair, nowhere near how he looked while pretending to be a biker, a far cry from the photos of him at the motorcycle club with Seth. He was calm and unassuming, never referred to Sutton as anything except “the defendant”.

Finally, Scott lays out the three ways in which Seth has killed Marcus Beaudin in his mind.

Let me back up here.

Sutton and his wife, Katy, had many problems with “CB”, Katy’s daughter. During this time, Covid is rampant and CB is in a facility because she has been cutting herself and other self destructive behavior teenagers have. They cannot go see her often because of Covid and they get a phone call from her where she tells them, after telling a Counsellor at the facility, that she had been abused by Marcus Beaudin.

This was fresh in Sutton’s head, of course, and Sutton was talking about when CB got home they were going to talk with her about pursuing criminal charges against Beaudin, but Seth thought that she probably wasn’t going to want to go through that.

Instead, ready for this?, Sutton has three plans in mind.

1. To shoot Beaudin at his house and make it look random.
2. To get Beaudin drunk and shoot him, making it look like a suicide.
3. To get Katy Sutton, his own wife, to call Marcus Beaudin and tell him to come over for sex. Then Sutton would shoot Beaudin and say that he had tried to rape Katy.

Well, that was the first “Oh, shit” moment for me, and my cohort, South Bosque Tommy, he and I looked at one another and sure enough, it was an “oh, shit”moment.

Scott the undercover cop told him that he thought that was a bad idea so Sutton said that he thought he could get Chelsey Tijerina, Beaudin’s ex wife, to call him up for sex and they could do it that way.

If that wasn’t enough, next, the prosecution played the TAPE, it was hard to figure out who was saying what as it was a tape but no video, after a while though, you figured out that this wasn’t b.s. and sure enough this shit was real.

Guess we know now why Katy Sutton was subpoenaed by the Prosecution.

OHHHHhhhh, shit.

It’s real.

Scott then went on to explain that he was told to stop investigating but after this, well, it was on like a sing a long.

He said he was verbally reprimanded for going on for four days of investigating on his own, but what the hell, we have a lawyer who FOR REAL is talking to him about murdering a guy.

The defense says that Scott called Seth numerous times and that Scott “entrapped” him. After hearing Scott tell Seth that using Katy as a lure to get Beaudin to come over and have sex is a bad idea was NOT GOOD.

See, I want to be fair. The jury, you can tell IS FAIR, I think they are leary of law enforcement, who isn’t, but the defense needs the undercover cop to be a monster, angry, jickey, smartass, something to hang your hat on, but he’s not. Not yet, at least, we’ll see Brodin, Seth’s lawyer cross examine him tomorrow.

The last straw, at least for South Bosque Tommy, was Sutton getting Scott the undercover cop to come over to his house and there in her swimsuit, yep, Chelsey Tijerina. Chelsey gives Scott Beaudin’s address and they talk about the schematics of Marcus Beaudin’s house in Woodway. As Tommy and I left early, with Tommy mumbling to himself in abject anger and disbelief, we have Sutton telling Scott the undercover cop that they’ll go for a ride past Marcus Beaudin’s house but they’re going to leave their cell phones at the Red Mouse Club so that no one would be able to track their phones. Phones ping cell towers and if you’re a smart cop you can track who was where when.

Sutton did that.

As South Bosque Tommy and I drove home, Tommy was still mumbling about Sutton and something about the location of Sutton’s testicles at the moment.

I sat there silent and South Bosque Tommy talked himself down from the ledge and decided that tomorrow, once again, he could be fair.

Me too.

Ugly trial. Ugly stuff. Somewhere in here it came out that everyone was in a pile having sex prior to all this, but I missed that. Oooh, shit.

I also figure that there was not a one juror who had a swimming pool in their back yard, Chelsey surely did look like she was happy in that nice pool of Sutton’s.

Not pleasant. Sutton is facing 99 years.

Seth Sutton’s parents are there, they make me hurt all over. Seth’s mom holds the dad’s hand sometimes and I’m sure they’re wondering what the hell they did or missed that would lead to something this awful at this late date in one’s son’s life, after all Seth is 48.

If you think parents don’t blame themselves, no matter how old their child is, think again, you know better. It can’t be happening, you think, of course you blame yourself. They’re cute and nice and too old for this shit, you know, I, of course identify with their tragedy, and this is tragic no way around it.

The courtroom has four huge televisions that they can turn and it’s all right there, no wonder KINKO’S went out of business, this electronic courtroom is something to behold. Although, nothing seems to work quickly, and technical problems abound.

Tomorrow is Clint Broden’s cross examination of the under cover cop, “Scott”, you don’t get better than Broden so we will see.

Gulp.

H