Two pictures of Susan Polk emerge at murder trial
eartha...@yahoo.com
Two pictures of Susan Polk emerge at trial
By Bruce Gerstman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES
MARTINEZ - An Orinda woman, who says she was defending herself when she
stabbed her 70-year-old husband to death, attacked him in a planned
slaying to get money, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The victim's defensive wounds on his arms and legs, "were that of a man
fighting for his life," deputy district attorney Tom O'Connor said in
his opening statement at the trial of Susan Polk. "In contrast, the
defendant had almost nothing. Clearly, it was a one-sided battle."
Polk had no intention to kill her husband on the October evening in
2002, said defense attorney Daniel Horowitz. She entered the poolhouse
on their estate to speak with him about their pending divorce.
"Susan Polk defended her life against a vengeful, aggressive man, who
was also her husband," he said.
On the first day of trial, the attorneys told the jury different
stories of the killing.
O'Connor described Polk, 47, as "cold and calculated," trying to cover
up her involvement by cleaning her clothes and driving her husband's
car to a BART station.
Horowitz called Polk a victim, saying the killing was a fight at the
end of a marriage marred by a husband's rage and manipulation.
Polk's son, Gabriel, found his father dead on the family's Orinda
estate Oct. 14, 2002. Polk told police at the time that she did not
know who killed him. She told the Times in April that she killed him in
self-defense.
The attorneys, judge and jurors are touring the estate and poolhouse
this afternoon.
Bo Raxo
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129070611....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Posted on Tue, Oct. 11, 2005
> Two pictures of Susan Polk emerge at trial
> By Bruce Gerstman
> CONTRA COSTA TIMES
>
> MARTINEZ - An Orinda woman, who says she was defending herself when she
> stabbed her 70-year-old husband to death, attacked him in a planned
> slaying to get money, prosecutors said Tuesday.
>
This case is a classic of its type: the prosecution has her caught
red-handed, so to speak, and the defense is basically that he was an
asshole. The jury can agree with both and still convict her - which they
will.
Bo Raxo
eartha...@yahoo.com
Why do you say he was an asshole? Is that based on the fact that he
had been her psychiatrist when she was a teenager?
Bo Raxo
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129074654.4...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
Yes. Or to be more precise, I think the defense is portraying him as such,
and the principal evidence is that beginning of their relationship. It
paints a picture of a manipulative man to me, and I think it will a jury as
well. But the defense hope that this in turn will paint the killing as
self-defense will, I think, fail.
Bo Raxo
eartha...@yahoo.com
October 10, 2005
Family torn by betrayal, killing
Two sons side with prosecutors; third defends mother in father's
slaying
By Jason Dearen
Oakland Tribune
Susan Polk stands up in the jailhouse visiting room and makes a
stabbing motion with her right arm, reliving the moment she killed her
husband in October 2002.
"Time freezes, it was like a flash. Then all of a sudden I thought, 'Oh
my God, he's going to kill me,'" she said through a thick pane of glass
at Contra Costa County jail.
It was inside the small, craftsman-style pool house of their woodsy,
upscale Orinda enclave that Susan Polk stabbed Frank "Felix" Polk to
death with a small knife. No one except Polk herself knows what
happened before that, but she maintains she was attacked - and that
she killed her husband in self-defense.
The body of Felix Polk, a former professor of psychology at Argosy
University's Richmond campus, was found by his
15-year-old son, Gabriel, the next night. Strands of Susan Polk's hair
were in Felix Polk's hands, and he had open wounds on his torso, hands
and scalp.
Prosecutors on Tuesday will tell a jury that Susan Polk had threatened
her husband previously and was spurred to murder by a nasty divorce and
the reality of losing money and the custody of Gabriel.
Pushing her short, salt-and-pepper hair behind her ear,Susan Polk, 47,
said she killed her 70-year-old husband after taking the knife from his
hands after he punched and tried to cut her.
"I was very lucky," she said, explaining how he lunged with the knife
but missed her. "In some ways (my story) would be more believable if he
would have stabbed me. It would've been more clear."
Whether it was murder or self-defense, Felix Polk's death was a macabre
ending to a relationship that some say never should have happened. The
Polks met and began an affair when Susan was 14 years old and a patient
of Felix Polk's, a married, 40-year-old Berkeley psychologist.
They married when she was 24, she said, and had three sons.
Brother against brother
In the shadowy study of the Polks' Orinda home, a photographic collage
of the three grinning Polk brothers rests on a dusty bookshelf.
Written amid the clipped photo memories is "Tough," and below it, "The
Key to Survival."
The Polk boys: Adam, 22, Eli, 20, and Gabriel Polk, 18, are divided by
this tragic ordeal. Gabriel and Adam are cooperating with prosecutors
and have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against their mother. Eli is
standing with her.
"You are no longer the mother I remember from my childhood and Eli is
no longer the brother he once was," wrote Adam Polk in an e-mail to
Susan Polk earlier this year.
"You have manufactured castles of paranoia with sand foundations and
you both are sinking fast," he wrote.
Susan Polk explains Gabriel and Adam's expected testimony against her
as a continuation of her husband's influence over them - and
Gabriel's fear of being prosecuted himself.
"Gabe was enlisted by the prosecution. He was threatened implicitly on
the night I was arrested, and he was essentially arrested himself," she
said.
"He must have realized he was under suspicion."
When Susan Polk killed her husband, they were embroiled in a bitter
divorce. Gabriel, the youngest, has told police he heard his mother
threaten Felix's life just days before the killing.
The night after Felix died, Gabriel, then 15, entered the pool house
and discovered his father's body, his flashlight's beam exposing the
grisly scene.
He said he suspected his mother from that moment and hid while dialing
9-1-1 as she called out to him.
"In conversations with my mom where I was asking where he (Felix) was,
I pretty much knew that there was something wrong ... and I was afraid
he was dead," Gabriel said during his testimony in front of the grand
jury, who indicted his mother.
The prosecution's case
Susan Polk and Gabriel were taken into custody the night Felix Polk's
body was found, and it is their trial testimony that should have the
biggest impact.
"The fact that he found the body, every juror on the panel is going to
put themselves in his place. It doesn't get much worse than that,
finding your dead father," said Karen Fleming-Ginn, a jury consultant
and psychologist.
Gabriel told police and the grand jury that his mother had threatened
to kill his father with a shotgun, and by other methods. "She talked
about, I guess, running him over, messing with his car or drowning him
in the pool and stuff like that," he testified. Gabriel Polk did not
return a call asking for comment.
Contra Costa Deputy District Attorney Tom O'Connor told the grand jury
that Susan Polk killed her husband because he succeeded in cutting her
off from her sons and his money.
"This case is basically a mix of what Gabriel has to tell you and what
would be considered direct statements about her statements wanting to
kill him and circumstantial evidence," O'Connor said in his opening
statement to the grand jury in August 2003.
O'Connor will also attempt to show that Susan Polk was desperate, she
was losing her youngest son and her financial support was dwindling.
O'Connor did not return a call Friday seeking comment.
Just before he died, Felix Polk received a court order that gave him
custody of Gabriel and dropped her support payments from $6,500 per
month to between $1,500 and 1,700 per month.
In court documents filed in their divorce, Felix writes that his wife
had become delusional, and occasionally violent. "For the past three
years I and our sons have been living in a sort of emotional hell, with
(Susan) becoming more and more explosive and delusional," he wrote.
Adam Polk is also expected to testify for the prosecution. Reached by
phone in Los Angeles, he said he had been asked by prosecutors not to
comment, but did confirm he has been subpoenaed and will appear in
court in late October.
Self defense and a history of abuse
Susan Polk says her request for a divorce prompted an increase in
abusive behavior and threats and that Felix lost control the night he
died because he realized the end of their marriage was near.
She said she pepper-sprayed him as he came at her. He wiped the pepper
spray from his face and smeared it in her eyes, she said.
"It was clear to him that it really was over," she said. "He thought
he'd clipped my wings and that I was coming back. I wasn't."
Having been seduced by Felix Polk as a child in his care, Susan Polk
says he continued controlling her for years.
But questions over her mental stability have created doubt about her
version of events. She has hired and fired many attorneys, and was
planning on representing herself until Oakland attorney Daniel Horowitz
convinced her not to.
Also, in 1987 Susan Polk, then 30, told the Oakland Tribune that her
son had endured sodomy and being forced to eat human excrement by a
Satanic cult. Federal and local investigations never resulted in
charges being filed. She told the Tribune that her son saw "people
dressed in red, with red hands ... And then he described the murder of
a child."
Horowitz notes that the court has found her competent and that the old
article is an example of how Felix Polk, who is also quoted in the
piece, took his wife along on his psychotic misadventures.
To demonstrate his point, Horowitz says Felix Polk was diagnosed as
schizophrenic by Navy doctors in the 1950s and he has asked the judge
to allow those records. By today's standards, Horowitz said, Felix
would be diagnosed as having a narcissistic personality disorder with
psychotic tendencies that could manifest in rage and delusional
beliefs.
Horowitz has also convinced Judge Laurel Brady that the jury should be
taken to the scene. After hearing each side's opening statements
Tuesday, the jury will go there.
The defense also will try to show that photographs of Felix Polk's body
show blood had poured over his face from a wound on the back of his
head. "That shows he was standing over her as he attacked," Horowitz
said, acting out the alleged attack.
Horowitz said at that moment, his client wanted to save her kids from
experiencing the same abuse she allegedly had.
"It was a battle for the souls of these children," Horowitz said,
adding "She knew what he had done to her soul. He put it in a glass jar
and kept it captive all these years. She didn't want this to happen to
her boys."
eartha...@yahoo.com
I wonder what she is like today without him in her life. The big
question would be is she still delusional or were they his delusions,
as mentioned in this quote from the Oakland Tribune.
eartha...@yahoo.com
Oct 11, 2005 5:02 pm US/Pacific
Defense Attorney: Orinda Psychologist Mentally Ill
Opening Statements in Susan Polk Murder Trial
Anna Duckworth Reporting
(CBS5) MARTINEZ This is the type of case that movies are made of.
A 15-year-old high school student is sent by her family to a prominent
40-year-old Orinda psychologist for therapy.
The doctor and patient start an affair, eventually get married, have 3
sons. 20 years later the wife murders the husband.
The question in the trial now underway here isn't whether Susan Polk,
now 47, did it, but whether she stabbed 70-year-old Felix Polk to death
at their Orinda estate 3 years ago in cold blood, motivated by greed
... or in self defense.
Opening statements in the murder trial began today in Martinez.
As Susan Polk looked on, her attorney showed pictures of the October
13th, 2002 murder scene.
He said it happened when Polk's husband tried to kill her as she left
3 decades of a controlling, abusive relationship.
"The truth is, " asserted Susan Polk's attorney Daniel Horowitz,
"that Susan Polk defended herself against a murderous, rageful attack
by her husband; a man who was ill, mentally ill, his entire life. And
was seeing his world crumbling."
But the prosecutor described Susan Polk as a cold, callous, calculating
murderer who tried to clean up the crime scene and never called police.
Legal analyst Stephen Clark says the district attorney is presenting a
simple case of premeditated, first-degree murder.
"This occurred during a very contentious divorce. Susan Polk had just
lost the family home and custody of her son. She was in Montana looking
for a place to live. She was very angry about what happened so she was
enraged, is what the prosecution is going to say."
Polk's youngest son now 18 will testify against her. Her middle son,
23, will take the stand on her behalf.
The jury was scheduled to go to the Polk Estate in Orinda to see the
murder scene after their lunch break Tuesday.
The trial is expected to last 6 weeks.
Susan Polk faces 25 years to life if convicted.
Bo Raxo
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129081106....@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_284113701.html
> Oct 11, 2005 5:02 pm US/Pacific
> Defense Attorney: Orinda Psychologist Mentally Ill
> Opening Statements in Susan Polk Murder Trial
> Anna Duckworth Reporting
>
> (CBS5) MARTINEZ This is the type of case that movies are made of.
>
> A 15-year-old high school student is sent by her family to a prominent
> 40-year-old Orinda psychologist for therapy.
>
I've also seen reports she was 14 at the time.
Bo Raxo
Bo Raxo
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129080476....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
<rolls eyes> You can't be serious. You have a person who has a nearly
life long history of serious mental health issues, and a proven history of
elaborate delusions. And there's a second person who has no history of such
issues, and is in a profession that would require some very close work with
people very qualified to notice such things.
"Psychotic misadventures" is a clever attempt to blur the issue of a man who
is controlling and manipulative in to a general lump that puts his
personality defects on par with her illness. I don't think it will work,
but the attorney is doing the best with what he has to work with, so I don't
fault him for the attempt.
She killed him. She talked about killing him not long before she actually
did it. The son that found the body was so scared of her he hid until the
police arrived. None of these facts is in dispute.
Toss in the evidence of her instability, and AFAIK the absence of any
evidence he has a history of violence, and you can cross out her appointment
book for about the next 12 years.
Bo Raxo
eartha...@yahoo.com
I've seen that too. I bet she was on the cusp of turning
15.
eartha...@yahoo.com
I don't believe it. But part of her attorney's defense is that Felix
Polk was the delusional one, based on his schizophrenia diagnosis way
back in the 1950s when he was in the Navy. So now that Felix is not in
her life, is Susan still having delusions. She sounds like she's still
a bit loony.
>
>
> "Psychotic misadventures" is a clever attempt to blur the issue of a man who
> is controlling and manipulative in to a general lump that puts his
> personality defects on par with her illness. I don't think it will work,
> but the attorney is doing the best with what he has to work with, so I don't
> fault him for the attempt.
Well the attorney is the one who approached her about defending her.
She would have gone to trial this week defending herself. He's the
only attorney who was willing to say it was self defense. He's sorta
like Geragos taking Scott Peterson's case.
> She killed him. She talked about killing him not long before she actually
> did it. The son that found the body was so scared of her he hid until the
> police arrived. None of these facts is in dispute.
But she's trying to say now that he was delusional, that was his
paranoia when he told people that she was out to kill him. And you
know what, I think she believes this concocted story.
>
> Toss in the evidence of her instability, and AFAIK the absence of any
> evidence he has a history of violence, and you can cross out her appointment
> book for about the next 12 years.
>
Sentencing is for 25 years to life. Maybe she'll drive everyone crazy,
inmates and staff, and be let out early for "good behavior."
eartha...@yahoo.com
Murder defendant's mom feels responsible
Daughter's looming trial for killing her husband makes mother wish she
had stopped relationship
By Jason Dearen, STAFF WRITER
Oakland Tribune
October 10, 2005
ORINDA - With her daughter on trial for murder, Helen Bolling feels
guilty.
Bolling feels guilty for not stopping the man her daughter killed from
starting a relationship with her 14-year-old child.
Her daughter, Susan Polk - then Susan Bolling - began seeing the
man, a therapist, because she was missing too much school. About a year
after therapy sessions with Berkeley psychologist Frank Felix Polk
began, she bragged about a new boyfriend, Bolling said.
"I wanted to know who he was. She thought she'd impress me and said
'I'm dating a doctor.' Finally she admitted it was Felix," said the
frail, 71-year-old Bolling. She was referring to Frank "Felix" Polk,
the psychologist who later married her daughter and fathered three
sons.
On Tuesday, a jury will hear opening statements in Susan Polk's murder
trial. She stabbed her husband to death on Oct. 14, 2002, an act
prosecutors say was caused by her anger over losing custody of her
youngest son and her source of income.
In a jailhouse interview with the Oakland Tribune, Polk claimed the
killing was in self-defense, that she was attacked, with pepper-spray
and punched in the face before she stabbed Felix Polk.
Now Bolling knows she should have fought harder to end her daughter's
illegal relationship with her doctor.
"I confronted Felix and said, 'You're not exactly what I had in mind
for a son-in-law,'" Bolling recalled recently, sitting in the living
room of the Polks' Orinda house.
"I tried to bargain for him to leave her alone and do it in a kind way,
and he promised he would do that, and I was satisfied," she said, her
eyes wide.
"I know I did wrong," she said, her arms waving.
Susan Polk, 47, said her former husband and she began a relationship
based on secrecy. She said she recalls that the two began having sex
when she was 17. They married when she turned 24.
Polk claims her husband psychologically and physically abused her for
years before he died.
But Bolling said she never knew of any physical abuse in her daughter's
relationship.
"I have a very low tolerance for physical (abuse). I would've gone to
the police. But she kept it from me. I never saw Susan with black
eyes," she said.
Opening statements begin Tuesday in a Martinez courtroom, and the jury
also will tour the Polks' Orinda residence later in the day.
Bo Raxo
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129090592.6...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
>
> Bo Raxo wrote:
> > >
> >
> >
> > <rolls eyes> You can't be serious. You have a person who has a
nearly
> > life long history of serious mental health issues, and a proven history
of
> > elaborate delusions. And there's a second person who has no history of
such
> > issues, and is in a profession that would require some very close work
with
> > people very qualified to notice such things.
>
> I don't believe it. But part of her attorney's defense is that Felix
> Polk was the delusional one, based on his schizophrenia diagnosis way
> back in the 1950s when he was in the Navy.
I hadn't heard about that. Very interesting tidbit.
> So now that Felix is not in
> her life, is Susan still having delusions. She sounds like she's still
> a bit loony.
>
That, or she gets that way in times of stress.
>
>
> >
> >
> > "Psychotic misadventures" is a clever attempt to blur the issue of a man
who
> > is controlling and manipulative in to a general lump that puts his
> > personality defects on par with her illness. I don't think it will
work,
> > but the attorney is doing the best with what he has to work with, so I
don't
> > fault him for the attempt.
>
>
> Well the attorney is the one who approached her about defending her.
> She would have gone to trial this week defending herself. He's the
> only attorney who was willing to say it was self defense. He's sorta
> like Geragos taking Scott Peterson's case.
>
I didn't know that little tidbit either. You're quite the expert on this
case!
BTW, speaking of Team G, I don't know if you watch Boston Legal - I love the
show. Shirley Schmidt (Candace Bergen) had a great line for an attorney
who was losing a murder case, I'm paraphrasing: "You're going from being
Mark Geragos to being [pause] Mark Geragos"
Heh.
>
> > She killed him. She talked about killing him not long before she
actually
> > did it. The son that found the body was so scared of her he hid until
the
> > police arrived. None of these facts is in dispute.
>
> But she's trying to say now that he was delusional, that was his
> paranoia when he told people that she was out to kill him. And you
> know what, I think she believes this concocted story.
I can't tell from the article if the defense is actually that he was
delusional, or that he was just so controlling that his behavior was, in the
laymen's sense of the word, pathological.
>
> >
> > Toss in the evidence of her instability, and AFAIK the absence of any
> > evidence he has a history of violence, and you can cross out her
appointment
> > book for about the next 12 years.
> >
> Sentencing is for 25 years to life. Maybe she'll drive everyone crazy,
> inmates and staff, and be let out early for "good behavior."
>
Is there a lesser included charge? I'm thinking voluntary manslaughter, no
premeditation.
Bo Raxo
eartha...@yahoo.com
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?m=/c/pictures/2005/10/12/mn_polk02.jpg&f=/c/a/2005/10/11/MNG8IF6TMR4.DTL
Susan Polk with her husband, Frank Felix Polk, in an undated family
photograph. Susan Polk is accused in the 2002 stabbing death of her
husband after a heated argument at the pool house at the couple's home
in Orinda. Courtesy the Polk Family
eartha...@yahoo.com
Susan Polk Murder Trial Gets Underway
Posted: October 11, 2005 at 5:12 p.m.
MARTINEZ (KRON) -- Lies. Abuse. Sex. They were all elements of opening
statements in the murder trial of an Orinda woman accused of killing
her therapist husband.
Susan Polk is charged with fatally stabbing her 70-year-old husband,
Felix, in October 2002 at the couple's home.
The defense says it was self-defense.
The prosecutor says Polk was a cold, calculating, calloused murderer
who had threatened to shotgun her husband to death.
According to the prosecution, Polk stabbed her husband 15 times then
hid the murder weapon and her bloody clothing. The next day,
prosecutors allege, she took her son to school, picked him up after
school, took him to dinner and then brought him home to let him
discover his father's corpse almost 24 hours after the murder.
At first, the prosecution says, Polk denied having anything to do with
it.
The defense says Felix Polk was married, and 25 years older than
15-year-old Susan when he began hypnotizing his patient, drugging her,
and raping her.
Polk divorced his wife. He and Susan went on to a violent, tumultuous
marriage which was ending in a nasty divorce with three children.
The defense showed the jury the autopsy pictures and then the jurors
heard the voice of the dead: Felix Polk audiotaped in 1988.
"...My rage is omnipresent. I wake up with it every morning," he said.
On Tuesday, the jury was taken to the Polk residence and the pool house
where the body was found.
The defense now says Susan Polk was defending her life when she kicked
her husband in the groin and took the knife, inflicting 5 -- not 15 --
stab wounds as she tried to ward him off.
The defense alleges that the Felix did not die from the wounds but from
heart failure. Susan Polk did not tell the truth, at first, they say,
because she believed after 20 years of abuse, no one would believe her.
Polk's three sons are expected to testify at some point in the trial,
as well as Susan Polk herself.
Bo Raxo
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129091486.2...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Two thoughts:
1. She was married to David Groh?
2. I bet those kids have some seriously bad hair.
Bo Raxo
Michael Snyder
> "Susan Polk defended her life against a vengeful, aggressive man, who
> was also her husband," he said.
That's what they all say.
Michael Snyder
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129080476....@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
On what evidence did Felix Polk do anything of the sort?
Cliff and Linda Griffith
news:1129090592.6...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> > > > > Why do you say he was an asshole? Is that based on the fact that
he
> > > > > had been her psychiatrist when she was a teenager?
Personally, I would say he was an asshole for taking advantage of a
"troubled" teen who was sent to him for therapy. Because he married her
*after* she reached majority and could be expected to make her own
decisions, and since they stayed married for 20 years and had three
children, I'd say maybe he wasn't "all that bad" a husband in the long run.
> I don't believe it. But part of her attorney's defense is that Felix
> Polk was the delusional one, based on his schizophrenia diagnosis way
> back in the 1950s when he was in the Navy. So now that Felix is not in
> her life, is Susan still having delusions. She sounds like she's still
> a bit loony.
Just a tad! (she said, facetiously)
>
> Well the attorney is the one who approached her about defending her.
> She would have gone to trial this week defending herself. He's the
> only attorney who was willing to say it was self defense. He's sorta
> like Geragos taking Scott Peterson's case.
Y'know, Daniel Horowitz was given quite a bit of credibility on Court TV and
other shows that I usually respect to varying degrees. I'm surprised that
he would solicit this case. Maybe he's like "Luby", "Ruby", "Kuby" or
whoever that lawyer was who assisted the subway guy in defending himself?
Something about 'everybody deserving a good defense'? Isn't this the case
in which the District or Prosecuting Attorney said something along the lines
of, "I've been dealing with this for three years. I'm outta here!" and
walked out of the courtroom? I think the woman is guilty of premeditated
murder, and she's loony if she thinks her defense will fly. If all three
sons (or even two out of three) were going to testify on her behalf, I'd be
more inclined to believe that the husband was abusive and/or controlling.
Linda
Bo Raxo
"Cliff and Linda Griffith" <grif...@charter.net> wrote in message
news:iAd3f.4543$f83....@fe06.lga...
Ron Kuby, charter member of the Bad Hair Club for Men.
> Something about 'everybody deserving a good defense'? Isn't this the case
> in which the District or Prosecuting Attorney said something along the
lines
> of, "I've been dealing with this for three years. I'm outta here!" and
> walked out of the courtroom? I think the woman is guilty of premeditated
> murder, and she's loony if she thinks her defense will fly. If all three
> sons (or even two out of three) were going to testify on her behalf, I'd
be
> more inclined to believe that the husband was abusive and/or controlling.
>
Actually, two of her three sons are standing behind her.
Bo Raxo
"Michael Snyder" <msn...@socmen.org> wrote in message
news:BBb3f.2163$Aw.3...@typhoon.sonic.net...
>
> > "Susan Polk defended her life against a vengeful, aggressive man, who
> > was also her husband," he said.
>
> That's what they all say.
>
Well, perhaps more of the vengeful, aggressive spouses get murdered rather
than the kind, mellow ones.
It reminds me of a whine a friend of mine made in our college years, when I
was moonlighting as a club bouncer. I was trying to impress some woman with
a story of a recent toss out of a very large fellow who was definitely
aggressive. My friend interjected that the only people I ever got in a
physical altercation with were drunk or high out of their minds (if not
both). And I said, well, yes, those are the only ones who take a swing at
me. Duh!
eartha...@yahoo.com
No, two of her three sons are testifying for the prosecution, and also
have a civil suit against her.
eartha...@yahoo.com
Here's another picture of Felix Polk walking the dog.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2005/10/12/BAG1OF6UAT1.DTL&o=1
Bo Raxo
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129153911.3...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Doh! I just read that in an article you posted last night, how dumb of me
to get it wrong. Thanks for the correction.
eartha...@yahoo.com
Slaying of survivor in Orinda home stuns community
JOE ESKENAZI
Jewish Bulletin News
10/25/02
Excerpt:
Media outlets have jumped on the Polk case, the first Orinda homicide
since the mid-1990s. Relatives of Susan Polk have been quoted saying
Felix Polk mentally and physically abused his wife and their three
children and seduced Susan, a former patient, when she was a
minor. At the time of his murder, the couple had been separated for
roughly 18 months and were in the process of divorcing.
Polk's friends and colleagues say the allegations do not match the man
they knew.
"He was a good man. I don't care what's being said. It's craziness,"
said fellow psychologist Robert Wilk.
The newspaper details "are certainly different from the man I knew,"
said friend and former student Diane Bieda. "I get angry about it. I
don't think it's fair to rake somebody through the coals when they're
not here to defend themselves. It's unjust."
Yet friends and co-workers acknowledge that Polk's home life was
tumultuous, and the Orinda police reported several trips to the Polk
home on domestic disturbance complaints.
"He was terrified of Susan," said longtime friend and fellow
psychologist Sheila Byrns. "I know a year and a half ago he told me he
barricaded himself in his room. He told me Susan bought a gun and
threatened to kill him. Joking as he would, he'd say stress is a great
way to lose weight."
Polk's patients also detected their therapist's angst.
"I knew he was in trouble at home. He was having trouble with the kids
and trouble with his wife, though obviously no one could have imagined
it would turn out as it did," said Tepper.
"I asked him about his marriage and he said the first 20 years were
very happy, but about 10 years ago his wife had gotten [multiple
sclerosis], and it had advanced progressively. He confided in me that
he thought her M.S. was affecting her not only physically but
psychologically, and I shared that with the detective in charge of this
case."
And Bieda recalled, "The last time I saw him, I asked him how it was
going and he said, 'Don't ask, don't tell.'"
=========================
>From the Contra Costa Times 10/16/02:
In court papers, Felix Polk accused his wife of being paranoid,
explosive and delusional and said she was taking medicine for panic
attacks. He denied ever physically or emotionally abusing her, but
said that she had hit and kicked him.
snip
The couple had been disputing alimony and custody arrangements for
their youngest son. The couple's 17-year-old son is in Juvenile Hall
and the eldest is attending college in Los Angeles, Bolling said.
Court records show Felix Polk argued against large alimony payments.
saying that his wife was "absolutely out of control financially."
He claimed that during their estrangement, his wife briefly lived at
the ritzy Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, charged $30,000 on credit
cards, bought three cars, moved to Montana and back, and took her
sons to Paris, Thailand, Japan and Hawaii.
======
>From the San Francisco Chronicle 10/16/02:
Susan Polk's brother, who asked not to be named, said his sister had
a "wild imagination," didn't respect authority, had been estranged
from the rest of her family and recently admitted her marriage was in
trouble.
"She told us that she was miserable," the brother said. "But I still
don't think Susan would have pulled the trigger or even pushed the
old guy. Nobody in our family has ever been violent."
==================
>From the Fremont Argus 10/18/02:
Susan Polk, 44, asked to be represented by a public defender. But as
she made the request, her father, Theodore Bolling, entered the
courtroom and asked for a delay to allow William Osterhoudt, a noted
San Francisco criminal defense attorney, to talk to her.
In a quiet voice, Polk, wearing a bulky gray sweatshirt and jeans, her
stylishly permed hair somewhat askew, agreed.
Bolling, who is a Sacramento attorney, said he hopes to retain
Osterhoudt to represent Polk if she agrees.
eartha...@yahoo.com
Has a sane person ever defended themself?
If all three
> sons (or even two out of three) were going to testify on her behalf, I'd be
> more inclined to believe that the husband was abusive and/or controlling.
>
The one son that is testifying in her behalf is the one with problems,
the one that was in juvenile hall for a fistfight when the murder
occurred.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/10/16/BA170157.DTL&hw=Felix+Polk&sn=010&sc=526
>From the San Francisco Chronicle 10/16/02:
According to court records, the couple could no longer afford payments
on their home, which has an unconventional floor plan accented with
custom and exotic wood.
Their relationship, meanwhile, often focused on bitter arguments about
their children. In an angry, undated letter sent to Contra Costa
Superior Court Judge William Kolin, Susan Polk admitted to having
encouraged her second son to evade electronic monitoring ordered for
him in a juvenile court criminal case.
She said all three of her sons wanted to live with her, not with their
father. "All of my sons wanted me to stay, and all of them wanted to
live with me. I wanted one more summer with my children all together,"
she wrote. For his part, Felix Polk said his wife was alienating his
two youngest sons from him, described her behavior as "erratic" and
said it would be a mistake to let her care for the couple's children.
eartha...@yahoo.com
http://www.pogash.com/magazine.html
No Ordinary Murder
She Is Accused of Killing Her Husband, Who Also Had Been Her Therapist
Carol Pogash
Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine
Los Angeles, Calif. Jun 15, 2003
Excerpt:
Helen Bolling is a tiny woman whose clear blue eyes turn upward
naturally. She remembers that as a child, her daughter, Susan, read
everything she could, from Jack London to Tolstoy, and that she had
excelled as a writer. With pride, her mother retrieves an award given
to Susan by the Mt. Diablo Unified School District for recognition in
creative writing. It is dated Jan. 29, 1971.
By age 15, her mother says, Susan was becoming a beauty, with pale,
creamy skin and dark eyes. When Bolling and her daughter walked down
the street together, people's "eyes would drop open as we passed."
But she also was troubled. Bolling and her husband divorced, leaving a
hole in Susan's life. Bolling says she can't remember the nature of the
problem that prompted a counselor at Clayton Valley High School in
Concord to recommend therapy for Susan--only that the counselor thought
she should go to an expert in adolescent behavior, Felix Polk.
Taking that advice, Bolling now says, was the worst decision she ever
made.
snip
One of the first creases in Felix's otherwise ironed image occurred in
the '70s, when "distinguished therapists" were invited to weekend
sessions to learn about est, a New Age self-improvement movement
founded by Werner Erhard. Felix said afterward that he'd "learned more
in one weekend than in all four years of graduate school."
Felix began treating Susan in 1972. Shortly afterward, Bolling says her
daughter told her that she sat on Felix's lap. "She was a very fragile
child," her mother says. "He was supposed to do no harm." In an essay
about her life, typed a few years ago and scooped up by police, Susan
wrote that she and Felix were having sex by the time she was 16. He was
then 42, and still married.
When Bolling finally learned about the affair, she says she confronted
the doctor. By then, Susan was 17 or 18 and the relationship was in
full flower. "He was sheepish," Bolling says. Certain that the affair
would wither, Bolling says she told him: "When this is over, I hope you
will be kind to her. Wean the child away from you."
Susan went to Mills College, an all-girls' school nestled in the
Oakland hills, before moving to San Francisco State University. She
stopped seeing Felix as a therapist, but the personal relationship
continued. Her mother, still concerned, took Susan to Santa Barbara on
vacation, hoping to have her meet men her own age. Susan wasn't
interested. She never went out with anyone but Felix.
"He had an aura about him," Bolling says. "He was rational, reasonable
and the perfect father figure." And her daughter, she says, "had been
glued in. She is a victim, a long-term victim." Susan "never had a
young womanhood."
Felix's marriage to Sharon Mann, a well-known pianist and teacher who
is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, ended in
divorce after he met Susan. Mann declined requests to talk about her
late ex-husband, but his friends believe he fell for Susan because the
young woman needed help. His wife, by comparison, was accomplished and
his intellectual equal, if not more.
snip
No one claims that Felix was having sex with his other patients, but
those who knew him say he was unorthodox in his practice, regularly
violating the boundaries between therapist and patient. As Grossman
says, "If he had a piano teacher for a patient, that's who would teach
his kids piano."
In Susan's case, his associates say, the mixing of roles may have led
him to a major misdiagnosis. They suspect he failed to realize that his
young patient with a fragile sense of self probably was a borderline
personality, which often means a life of depression, anger and
hostility. Perhaps, they say, Felix believed his affection for her
could make her better.
snip
Bolling says her daughter kept her distance after the marriage, a
choice that Bolling believes Felix engineered. Susan, with the support
of her husband, claimed that her attorney father, Theodore Bolling, had
molested her as a child, an allegation denied by both parents and
Susan's brother.
Bolling says she watched her daughter's mental state deteriorate
throughout the marriage and that she encouraged her to seek therapy.
But Susan told her mother she didn't believe a therapist could help.
She also began to believe that her husband was trying to control her
through prescription drugs, according to an essay she wrote that was
retrieved by the Sheriff's Department. She stopped using medications
and began having delusions. She told deputies after the murder that she
thought her husband had been a member of Mossad, the Israeli secret
police, and that he had hidden millions of dollars in secret bank
accounts.
Two years ago, the family purchased a $1.85-million house in affluent
Orinda, a stone's throw from Berkeley and San Francisco. With an old
oak tree gracefully climbing through an opening in the deck,
Mission-style lighting, exposed wood and Arts and Crafts furniture, the
house is peaceful and beautiful.
By the time they moved in, however, the Polks could ill afford the
house or appreciate its tranquillity. The couple filed for divorce but
continued to share the house, even after Susan asked Felix to move out.
Susan's life was spinning out of control. Their youngest son, 15, later
told deputies that she talked openly of killing his father, debating
the merits of drugging, drowning, poisoning and shooting. After one
especially bitter dispute, Felix ordered Susan out of the house; she
drove to Yosemite National Park, where, according to her written
statement, she attempted suicide.
Later, Susan took off with one son or another for Paris, Hawaii,
Thailand and Big Sky, Mont., where she knew no one but decided she
might settle. Living on $6,500 a month from her husband, she racked up
additional credit card expenses. They could no longer afford to pay for
the big family house, the two Volvo station wagons, the Saab, the Dodge
Ram truck and Susan's travels.
In April 2002, Felix's lawyer filed a declaration in the divorce saying
that Susan, then 44, was "healthy and well educated [and that] there is
absolutely no reason she cannot work."
In September, Susan put the house on the market, although at such an
inflated price that Felix complained it would never sell.
As the marriage disintegrated, police responded to a number of domestic
violence calls from the house, some from Felix, others from Susan.
Refusing to leave the property, Felix retreated to the cabana cottage
by the pool. In early October 2002, Susan left for Montana, telling
real estate agents trying to sell the house that she was "working on a
travel log of my adventures."
On Sunday Oct. 6, while she was away, Felix phoned a criminal lawyer,
friend Barry Morris, to say he feared for his life. Felix told him he
was embarrassed that his wife of 20 years, the mother of his three
youngest sons, wanted to kill him, and he, a therapist, was incapable
of stopping her. Morris urged him to ask for police protection.
Susan returned home Thursday Oct. 10. Felix moved to a hotel. The next
day, he obtained a court order giving him possession of the house and
custody of the children. His monthly payment to Susan was reduced to
$1,700.
Recognizing how incendiary his action was, Felix called his grown son
and daughter from his first marriage to say he was afraid that his wife
was going to shoot him. Sheriff's investigators said the daughter told
them her father had left a voice mail message that Friday saying
"things were getting critical and that Susan had threatened to kill
him. She said she never got back to her father and then learned of his
death."
Felix moved back into the cottage over the weekend. On Monday, while
the mothers of high school students were painting terra-cotta pots for
the upcoming holiday bazaar, Susan picked up her youngest son from
school, lunched at Baja Fresh, stopped at Blockbuster to rent
"Scooby-Doo" and, she claimed, walked around the wooded neighborhood
looking for Dusty, their missing yellow Lab.
Police say Felix was alone in the cottage, wearing only black briefs
and reading a book when he was hit on the head and back with something
that in the starchy terms of a police report caused "blunt force trauma
injuries." He was stabbed 27 times in the chest, sides, arms, legs and
feet. Their sprawling home, two homes, really, was set apart in a
canyon. If there were screams, neighbors would not have heard them.
Felix was supposed to have taken his youngest son to a San Francisco
Giants game that night. When his father didn't show up, he asked his
mother if she knew where he was. The boy told investigators she
fluttered her eyelids, the way he says she did when she was lying, and
claimed she didn't know. He then went to the cottage with a flashlight
and found his father's body.
Police say Susan agreed to let them search the house, though knowing
her history of mental troubles, they obtained a search warrant. She
insisted that she didn't know what had happened to her husband.
Informed that he was dead, she remained expressionless until told that
her youngest son had found the body. "Oh my God," she blurted out,
according to the deputy sheriff's report. At the end of a long
interview, authorities say, she said that if she was being sent to
jail, she wanted them to "hurry up and do that because she was tired
and wanted to get some sleep."
eartha...@yahoo.com
was their landlord at one time and she had mental problems.
http://forums.contracostatimes.com/kr-cct_central/messages?msg=11.17
Kris Baker
<eartha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1129624838.0...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Here's someone posting on the Contra Costa Times forum that Susan Polk
> was their landlord at one time and she had mental problems.
>
> http://forums.contracostatimes.com/kr-cct_central/messages?msg=11.17
>
I'm sure she had problems; after all, that's what put her in contact with
her husband. But he certainly did her no favors, and what kind of decent
professional uses the kids against her?
Kris
eliaar...@gmail.com
I remember someone somewhere said something about the Universe & Human Stupidity... Oh well.