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The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Each week, The Murder Book will present unsolved cases, missing persons, notorious crimes, controversial cases, and serial killers, exploring details of the crime scenes and the murderer's childhood. Some episodes are translated into Spanish as well. The podcast is produced and hosted by Kiara Coyle.
The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast
Murder of Stan Cohen: Final Episode
Can a childhood marked by neglect and abuse shape the choices we make as adults? Discover the heart-wrenching story of Joyce Annette LeMay through the eyes of her devoted aunt, Beatrice Wotanek. From being a ward of the state to facing the daunting prospect of the electric chair, Joyce's life journey is a testament to resilience amidst relentless adversity. Beatrice paints a vivid picture of Joyce's tumultuous upbringing, marked by instability and hardship, offering a deeply personal glimpse into how these early experiences set the stage for an unimaginable future.
Join us as we navigate the emotional landscape of Joyce's life, characterized by her yearning for a sense of belonging and the seductive allure of the Clancy family's opulent lifestyle. Bea Wotanek shares her fears of materialism and false values, as Joyce is drawn into a world so different from her own. Through small moments of intimacy, such as ironing Joyce's hair, we witness the struggle for connection and stability in a life torn by contrast and conflict. This episode captures the profound complexity of family dynamics and the eternal quest for identity.
Finally, we explore Joyce's teenage rebellion, young motherhood, and the challenges of early adulthood, all culminating in the tragic murder of her husband, Stanley Cohen. Joyce's story is one of determination in the face of societal pressures and personal struggles, navigating a path filled with independence, love, and vulnerability. Her journey reveals the relentless pursuit of stability, and the unforgettable moments that defined her life. Tune in to hear how Joyce's resilience and the search for belonging intersected with her tumultuous destiny, leaving an indelible mark on those who knew her.
Welcome to the Murder Book. I'm your host, kiara, and this is the final episode of the Murder of Stanley Cohen. Let's begin. Beatrice Wotanek lived in Carpentersville, illinois, that November day. Her thoughts were far from her niece Joyce. As far as she knew, joyce was still in Virginia with that new boyfriend of hers. Besides, nb, as nearly everyone called her, had her own problems. She had just come home from a hospital stay. Five children and decades of hard factory work shipping clerk, janitor, bench press operator, forklift driver had destroyed her health. She was diabetic and her kidneys had failed. Daily dialysis treatments were keeping her alive.
Speaker 1:Bea answered the phone and it was Alan Ross attorney. Alan Ross calling from Miami. The name meant nothing to her. Attorney Ross was Joy Cohen's lawyer. The voice explained Joyce has just been convicted of murdering her husband and they needed Anne B's help to keep her out of the electric chair. Would she be willing to testify before a jury on Joyce's behalf? B was stunned, unable to speak. Finally she said yes and the voice on the other end of the phone said someone will be in touch with her in the next few days.
Speaker 1:After she hung up the phone, b began to sort out her memories of Joyce. What could she say about her niece? She recalled the first time she had seen the baby born to her sister-in-law, eileen, and her husband Bonnie LeMay, on July 18, 1950. They named her Joyce Annette LeMay. She was beautiful. She was a happy baby who had her father's American Indian features Dark, slightly almond eyes and black hair, rather than the delicate blonde coloring of her mother's family hair. The Polish, the Polish Wotaneks. Eileen LeMay adored her baby daughter and with Bea saw the baby, she fell in love with her too. Joyce looked like a little pixie and she was such a good baby. Eileen asked her brother Ed Wotanek, bea's husband, to be the baby's godfather, and he agreed. Joyce was Christian in her mother's Catholic faith.
Speaker 1:But soon there was trouble. Eileen wasn't well and she couldn't seem to take care of Joyce. When B and Ed went to visit Eileen they were worried. B suspected that Bonnie beat his wife and that she didn't eat well. They decided to take Joyce home with them. Bea had no children of her own yet and she was delighted to take care of Joyce. When Eileen recovered enough to take Joyce back home, bea and Ed were sorry to see the baby leave.
Speaker 1:Then one day, without warning, bonnie LeMay took Eileen and Joyce to Arkansas. Bea never knew why they left and she missed them very much. She heard that they were living in a shack and working as sharecroppers in the fields. Bea hated to think of her pretty little niece in a shack. Years passed and there were an ex, lost track of Eileen and Joyce. They heard that Eileen had another child, a son she named Terry.
Speaker 1:Then someone told Bea that Eileen had left Arkansas, but no one seemed to know where she had gone or why. In fact Eileen was drifting from one place to another, from one man to another, sometimes marrying, sometimes not. For a while she left Joyce and little Terry at St Vincent's Catholic Orphanage in Freeport, illinois. Whenever Eileen got together with a new man she would take her children to live with her, but something always seemed to go wrong and soon Joyce and Terry would be sent back to St Vincent's. Finally Eileen took Joyce and Terry out of the orphanage for good. But when she decided to move on, eileen simply deposited her children with some neighbors and disappeared. It was the last time Joyce and Terry ever saw their mother.
Speaker 1:When she failed to return, the neighbors found some LeMay relatives to take the children in. Then one day someone called B Watanek from Chicago to say that Eileen had died there all alone, of unknown cause, as they said. Ed and Bea were shocked and saddened when they went to claim Eileen's body. The Wotaneks were told that she had been managing what was euphemistically called a transient hotel where she had lived in one small room. The Wataneks contacted some LeMay relatives in Sycamore, illinois, about the funeral. The LeMays arrived in Chicago on the day of the funeral, bringing Joyce and Terry with them. Bonnie didn't come.
Speaker 1:Bea was surprised to see Joyce. She had no idea her niece was back in Sycamore with the LeMays. Joyce was about 10 years old then, nearly dressed and still pretty with her long dark hair. But Bea was struck by Joyce's solemn little face. The laughter had gone from her dark eyes. Joyce didn't remember her Wotanek relatives and she wasn't friendly to them. Bea thought Joyce and Terry seemed almost frightened.
Speaker 1:After the funeral the children disappeared again. For the next few years they passed from relative to relative, from one dewey replaced to the next, always outcasts part of a family. Joyce and little Terry were put to work in the fields, shopping cotton and doing chores, with no one to protect them. They were always at the mercy of anyone bigger or stronger who happened to be around. Even relatives treated them harshly. By the time Joyce was 12 years old she had been physically and sexually abused by her own father, among others.
Speaker 1:One spring day in 1964, bea received a phone call from a Mrs Barthol of Kane County Family Services. Do you know a Joyce LeMay? She asked? Of course Bea replied that's my niece. Where is she? Joyce is a ward of the state. We have placed her as a foster child. Mrs Barthol told Bea that Joyce had been living with some LeMay relatives who turned her over to Kane County Family Services and made her a ward of the state of Illinois. The LeMays claimed that Joyce stole from them and that they couldn't control her. But Bea doubted that. She thought that LeMays probably just wanted to get rid of Joyce, didn't want to be bothered with her anymore. Bea asked about little Terry, but he wasn't with Joyce.
Speaker 1:Mrs Barthold told Bea that Joyce had lived at the King County Youth Home in Geneva for a while, but about two years before she had been placed with a foster family, the Clancy's. The Clancy's were rich. They live in a beautiful big house in nearby Geneva, but the family was leaving Illinois and although they wanted to take Joyce with them, family services were not permitted because Joyce was a ward of the state. Mrs Barthel wanted to find a blood relative to take Joyce and she suggested that Bea and her husband consider bringing their niece into their home. She thought it would be a good idea to invite Joyce for a weekend visit with them. First, bea agreed to speak to her husband about it. Bea and Ed and their children piled into their old cart for their drive to Geneva to pick up Joyce for the visit.
Speaker 1:Piled into their old cart for the drive to Geneva to pick up Joyce for the visit. When they arrived the Wotaneks were struck by the magnificence of the Clancy's large Georgian brick home with pillars at the entrance. Inside an elegant white grand piano was the centerpiece of the large formal living room. Bee thought the furniture was all French, provincial and over the piano hung a gilt framed reproduction of the famous Blue Boy by Gainsborough. Bea was overcome by the grandeur of it all and years later she could still describe the room in vivid detail.
Speaker 1:Mrs Clancy was a small, very pretty woman, perfectly groomed and fashionably dressed. She was polite to the Wataneks but not really friendly. Even though she made a fuss over Joyce, bea still thought she was cold. Joyce was 14 years old and indeed she was lovely and very short like her mother, with long, straight black hair and big, dark eyes. She was wearing a pretty pants set and her clothes for the weekend were packed in a little suitcase at her feet. Outside in the car, when Joyce wasn't listening, it summed up Mrs Clancy. She said what a phony.
Speaker 1:But they could see that Joyce absolutely idolized Mrs Clancy, who had been a foster child herself. Mrs Clancy had married a rich man. The Wotaneks never did meet him and hers was a life of luxury by their standards. They couldn't really blame Joyce for being smitten by the Clancy's, who had far more than the deprived, abandoned child had ever seen before. B and H supposed their niece was dazzled simply to be living in such a fine place.
Speaker 1:In fact, joyce didn't want to leave with her waterneck relatives. She longed to stay with the Clancy's and move with them to Oklahoma where Mrs Clancy had been transferred. But now once again she was being sent away. It had been the pattern of her life, but perhaps she had a glimpse of another possibility. It had been the pattern of her life, but perhaps she had a glimpse of another possibility. Mrs Clancy had been a foster child like Joyce, sheltered from place to place. Yet she had managed to get this wonderful life for herself. And if Mrs Clancy could do it, maybe Joyce could too. A rich husband, a beautiful home, nice clothes, jewelry, travel, all the good things. But it seemed to be Wotanek that, in a way, the Clancy's beautiful home was a terrible place for Joyce. She thought Mrs Clancy put all kinds of ideas into Joyce's head, bad ideas and false values. Bea feared that material things were too important to Joyce and that only the best was good enough for her. Just like Mrs Clancy, bea worried until years later she would still blame Mrs Clancy's influence on Joyce In Carpentersville for a visit. Joyce looked around the Watanek's mother's home on Topeka Drive and remarked it's little, isn't it? And Bea replied defensively Well, it's all we can afford. We just can't afford a house like those other people can.
Speaker 1:When the school year ended that June the Wotaneks went back to the Clancy's find home to pick up Joyce up again. Joyce looked resigned. She had only one request for B Could she go to visit the Clancy's once they were settled in Oklahoma? Of course B replied if you are invited Secretly, bea doubted that invitation would overcome. Reluctantly, joyce LeMay moved into the Walton X Crowded little house. Bea and Ed gave her the bedroom and moved out to the breezeway to sleep so Joyce could have a room of her own way to sleep. So Joyce could have a room of her own. And B told her you're going to live here now and you got to live by our rules. And Joyce asked what are those? She said well, you have to go to school, we have a curfew at night and you have to let me know where you are now. Are those so bad? And Joyce replied no. Ben was pleased when she saw Joyce making friends with other teenage girls in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1:But even though she seemed reasonably content, bea knew that Joyce still yearned for the Clancy's who had moved to Oklahoma as planned. She wrote to them several times, hoping to be invited to their new home for a visit. Mrs Clancy wrote back once and then Joyce never heard from her again. Bea knew that she was hurt, but she never mentioned it so often, it seemed. Joyce simply withdrew behind an impenetrable blank wall. Bea could only guess at the feelings hidden behind her impassive face. Once Joyce asked Bea if she had any pictures of her as a child, but Bea had none. Joyce's childhood had not been chronicled by family photographs, lovingly pasted into pretty albums. There was so little Bea could offer Joyce about her family, her history. She resolved to make sure to take plenty of pictures of her niece in the future.
Speaker 1:As the months passed, bea worried that Joyce still seemed so quiet, reserved, withdrawn. She thought her niece might need psychiatric help and she discussed her concerns with Mrs Barthel. Joyce just didn't warm up to the family. Bea tried to explain. It seemed that she wanted love but was afraid when Bea put her arms around her Joyce would put back. But Mrs Barthel didn't seem to understand Bea's concerns and she refused to get counseling for Joyce. Reluctantly, bea let the matter drop. Still, bea and Joyce shared some good times.
Speaker 1:Bea knew that Joyce was very particular about her appearance. She wore her dark hair very long and she always wanted it completely straight. Bea would set up the ironing board in the kitchen and Joyce would kneel next to it, so her long hair lay along the board. Then Bea would iron Joyce's hair between sheets of wax paper and Joyce would kneel next to it, so her long hair lay along the board. Then B would iron Joyce's hair between sheets of wax paper.
Speaker 1:One day B's neighbors dropped in and found them like that, and the following summer B decided to give a party for Joyce's 16th birthday on July 18th. Joyce seemed pleased and invited several friends. The party was to be an evening cookout in the Wotan X backyard with floodlights and records on a record player set up on a card table. But Joyce objected to the floodlights Too bright. She said so be in the children's strong multi-color Christmas lights through the picket fence, around the backyard and in the trees. Joyce and her friends wore jeans and shirts to the party. They drank Cokes and ate hot dogs and hamburgers that Ed and Bea cooked on the charcoal grill, danced on the grass and cut on lawn chairs in the shadows. Bea asked a friend to put an article about the party in the local newspaper. Joyce was pleased. She really enjoyed the publicity. Joyce was pleased. She really enjoyed the publicity. That girl wants to be somebody, according to B.
Speaker 1:That summer Joyce told her aunt and uncle that she wanted a car of her own and B replied well, you will have to work. We just don't have the money to put out. So you're going to have to work for it if you want it. They worked out their finances. Joyce would have to earn about $600 total $500 to buy the car and pay for maintenance, gas and oil, plus a $100 deposit in the bank to defray the $100 deductible on the Watanek's auto insurance policy in case she had an accident. Joyce got a job at the Tom McCann shoe store in Melville Brook Shopping Center, a few blocks away. She worked all summer and when school started in the fall she worked after school on weekends. Her boss and Tom McCann liked Joyce and thought she was a hard worker. She saved her money and dreamed of the day when she would get her car, as she had promised.
Speaker 1:Mrs Barthel B saw that Joyce went to school regularly at Irving Crown High School in Carpentersville. She took secretarial classes and was an average student, but some of her teachers thought perhaps she had more ability If she would apply herself. They told B maybe she could attend nearby Elgin Community College after graduation. B was enthusiastic and promised to help Joyce with expenses if she wanted to go. That evening B discussed the idea with Joyce. Joyce was pleased and decided that Urgent Community College would be her goal. Maybe she could become a nurse At age 16,. In her junior year of high school, joyce finally seemed to be headed in the right direction for the first time in her life.
Speaker 1:The major event in the teenage lives of Joyce and her friends was the weekly trip to the new place, a converted barn north of Carpentersville on Route 31 near Crystal Lake. It was a teen hangout serving up cokes and chips and live music. Even big groups out of Chicago occasionally played the new plays. Crowds of teams came from the northern suburbs of Chicago Elgin, carpentersville, dundee, crystal Lakes, cary, argonquin, all the way up to the Wisconsin state line. There was some beer drinking and pot smoking in the dark parking lot, especially near the motorcycles, but most of all there was dancing to the pounding music.
Speaker 1:Joyce met George McDillan at the new place. He was a year older than she, was a wrestler and football player at affluent Cary Grove High School, nearby Cary, illinois. Joyce thought George was sexy. He had curly blondish hair and blue eyes and even handsome features. George considered himself a ladies' man and he was captivated by Joyce. The first time he saw her she was dancing with her girlfriend and she was surrounded by a crowd of admiring guys. They all wanted to dance with her. She looked so good in her tight jeans but she only wanted to dance with George.
Speaker 1:One afternoon George came to the Wotanek's house to meet Aunt Bea. He told her that he lived in Cary with her older sister, sandy, and her husband and three children. His father died when he was very young and his mother had recently passed away. An older brother, bill, was in the military service and George also intended to enlist. After high school. Bea thought George was very handsome. He made a good impression on her and she liked him very well enough.
Speaker 1:George began stopping by the Wotanek's house to pick Joyce up and take her to the McDonald's, the local team hangout or to the shopping center. Sometimes Joyce went out with George when she knew she was supposed to stay home and do homework or babysit the younger Wot botanic children while Bea worked. Once Mrs Barthel brought Joyce home after she found her necking with George at the Meadowbrooks shopping center and she said you're not going to be doing that, joyce, and she admonished her snappishly. Joyce said nothing. Bea began to worry that George might be a bad influence on her niece. He seemed to have complete freedom, no restrictions or supervision at home. She suspected that George was encouraging Joyce to evade the Wataneks' rules and she didn't need much encouragement. But for Joyce and George it was a fantasy teenage romance Riding off together on George's motorcycle, dancing at the new place, secret meetings, passionate kisses.
Speaker 1:Finally Joyce saved enough money to get her own car. That January 1967, b and Ed took her to look at a car that a friend had for sale. It was a little red Opel. It looked like a shoebox on wheels and Joyce loved it. They bought it on the spot.
Speaker 1:At first Joyce abided by the restrictions and didn't be put on the car. She had to tell them where she was going, couldn't stay out too late and was allowed to go to the new place only one night a week. But soon she found ways to evade the strict rules. She would tell them she was going to spend the night with her friend Fran and then sneak off with George to the new place. Sometimes she'd spend the night with her friend Fran and then sneak off with George to the new place. Sometimes she'd spend the night with people who lived at the Lake of the Hills, a tiny community near Cary. She told them that Bea and Ed were foster parents who treated her badly. Although she didn't know about the clandestine trips to the new place or Lake of the Hills, bea was growing uneasy. Occasionally Joyce's friends would let slip that she had not been at their homes when she said she was. Finally, guilt got the better of Joyce's friend, fran, and she told Bea the truth about the nights when Joyce had supposedly been staying at her house.
Speaker 1:Bea and Ed were angry and upset. They decided they would have to take the car keys away from Joyce. Joyce was furious and she said I need the car, I have to have the car, I want the car. And she starts screaming and B said I'm sorry, joyce, these are the rules and you don't want to live by them. That's it. Joyce ran to her room and started throwing things. She smashed a ceramic chess, set against the wall, piece by piece. It was a beautiful set that Joyce had made herself in the workshop at Kane County Youth Home. Bea and Ed were dismayed by her rage.
Speaker 1:After that, life in the Watanek household became a constant battle between Joyce and her aunt over the car keys. Sometimes she would go to her uncle Ed to try to persuade him to let her have her way. But Ed always replied go talk to your aunt. Bea began to feel that Joyce was disrupting the entire household the fights, the tantrums, the slamming doors. When the older children started acting up too, bea and Ed finally decided they have had enough. Joyce would have to go back to family services.
Speaker 1:Joyce was sent back to the Kane County Youth Home, a dreary single-story brick building in a rural area near Geneva. But soon Mrs Barthel placed her with another foster family, the Tavares in Dundee, a small town just down the road from Carpetonsville. Joyce enrolled at Dundee High School to continue her junior year. The Tovar's had several foster children and were very strict. Joyce liked living with them even less than with B and N. One day Mrs Barthel called B and said she would have to move Joyce again. There had been some sort of altercation at the Tovar's house, some accusation that Joyce had stolen something which Joyce vehemently denied. She would have to move Joyce again. There had been some sort of altercation at the Tovar's house, some accusation that Joyce had stolen something which Joyce vehemently denied. Joyce had pushed Mrs Tovar down the stairs. They said she couldn't stay there anymore. Would B give her another chance? And B agreed reluctantly.
Speaker 1:Joyce came back to the Wataneks promising to turn over a new leaf. She managed to finish her junior year in high school and for a while everything went well. But eventually the same problems reappeared, lying sneaking up with George MacDillon. This time Ed decided to sell the little red opel. After that, joyce was determined to get out of the Wotanek's house for good. But she wouldn't be going to King County Youth Home or another foster home. She would have a home and a family all her own. She would marry George McDillan.
Speaker 1:George had graduated from Cary Grove High School in June 1967 and signed up for the Army as he had planned. He expected to be sent to Vietnam and wanted to marry Joyce before he left. His sister, sandy, was in favor of the plan. The newlyweds could live with her. She said. Joyce was 17 years old, beginning her senior year at Irving Crown High School, and Bea did her best to dissuade her. She said Joyce, don't get married. Don't let this push you into marriage, because it might be worse than what you got now. Think about it. Just to say I'm getting married so I can live on my own. It isn't that easy, but Joyce was determined to go through it, through with it, and she never really felt she belonged with the Wataneks. If she had any doubts about George MacDillon, she pushed them aside. They were really in love and anyway it was too late to turn back. Since Joyce was only 17. She needed consent to be married. Bea flatly refused, but somehow Joyce talked Mrs Barthol into giving the county's consent.
Speaker 1:Joyce and George planned to be married by a justice of the peace on November 10, 1967. George's sister, sandy, would host a wedding reception at her house in Cary. Bea and Ed were not invited to the wedding or the reception. Bea was heart sick On Joyce's wedding day when girlfriends came to the Watanek's house to help the bride dress. Bea took her baby daughter, or Amy, and fled. She couldn't bear to watch Joyce leave. The afternoon turned cloudy, dreary, with only George's sister in attendance. Joyce and George were married in a brief perfunctory ceremony in the little town of Woodstock, illinois. On her wedding day, joyce briefly wondered whether she was doing the right thing, but she was determined to get on with her life. Soon after the wedding, george was posted overseas to Germany and Joyce remained behind with Sandy and her husband and three children.
Speaker 1:Joyce transferred to Cary Grove High School to complete her senior year and she discovered that she was pregnant by the time she graduated from high school in June 1968, joyce was seven or eight months pregnant somewhat scandalous in a small Midwestern town. Even though she was married. She felt awkward and uncomfortable and she hardly knew anyone at Cary Grove High. By then Joyce's only educational goal was simply to graduate from high school. She joined no clubs, took part in no extracurricular activities. Neither teachers nor counselors remember her later. Her name and face were not in the Cary Grove High School yearbook for 1968, nor in the Erie Crown High School yearbook for 1968, nor in the Irving Crown High School yearbooks for 1966 and 1967. She passed through her high school years leaving little trace, almost as if she had never been there.
Speaker 1:Sean William McDillon was born in Sherman Hospital in Elgin on August 1968. Joyce was barely 18 years old. Sean was a beautiful baby and, as his mother had been, he had Joyce's dark, slightly albun eyes. Joyce called her Aunt Bea from the hospital and asked her to come see the baby. It was the first time she had called Bea in months. Nobody would come and see her.
Speaker 1:Joyce complained George was still overseas and she had had a spat with her sister-in-law, sandy. She asked B to buy some clothes for the baby. She had nothing for him to wear home from the hospital. One more thing Joyce said I need some clothes too, and get me a girdle. I got to have a girdle. B took time off from her job, shoved for the new baby and then went to Sherman Hospital. B took time off from her job, shoved for the new baby and then went to Sherman Hospital. She thought little Sean was beautiful. She brought him a kimono, a receiving blanket, booties, shirts. She told Joyce she couldn't afford to buy new clothes for her too, but she did bring her a girdle. Then Joyce told B about her troubles with her sister-in-law and asked can I come and live with you? And B said flatly no, you can't, joyce. We have no room for you and the baby. We just put the house all back together and Ed and I have our own bedroom now I can't disrupt everybody again. And Joyce started crying what am I going to do? Sandy won't let me back in the house. And she said are you sure? Why don't you call Sandy and talk to her? But B never knew how Joyce managed it. But Sandy finally went to the hospital to pick up Joyce and Sean B was pleased when Joyce called and asked her to be the baby's godmother. George came home in time for the christening which was held at Carrie's only Catholic church. Sandy had a party at her house after the christening and this time Ed and Bea were invited. Bea began to hope the marriage might turn out better than she had anticipated. After George was discharged from the service he came home and went to work as a drywall carpenter. George and Joyce and Sean lived in an apartment in Carpentersville for a while. Later they bought a small house in Lake of the Hills. George's brother, bill, also returned to Cary and married his girlfriend Becky. Bill was a drywall carpenter too, and he and George worked on construction jobs together. Life seemed settled and comfortable for the MacDillon brothers and their families. Bill and Becky MacDillon were a friendly outgoing couple and they liked Joyce right away. They thought she looked like an Indian with her long, straight, dark hair, but she told them she was part Hawaiian. Bill and Becky adored Sean and they could see Joyce was a very good mother, and soon Bill and Becky had a child of their own, a son named Todd, and when Todd and Sean were toddlers Becky would play her guitar and sing country songs while the little boys danced. Sometimes Becky took care of Sean while Joyce worked. Joyce tried several jobs off and on secretarial jobs, telephone sales. Finally she got her real estate license and decided to try her hand at selling homes, but the market was slow and she managed to earn only one small commission. George and Joyce loved each other passionately, but soon the arguments and fights began. It seemed that most of the problem started with money. George complained to his brother that if he made $600, joyce spent $800. If he made $100, she spent $1,000. One day George came to work fuming. Joyce had spent $165 on pickup feathers. What were the feathers for? And he said that it was just for decoration to sit next to the living room couch, and Bill was mystified. Becky knew Joyce had really good taste and always wanted the best of everything clothes, perfume, jewelry, whatever the best brands were from year to year, and she always shopped at the best stores in town at full price. This surprised Becky a little, because she had heard that Joyce was raised in poverty. Where did she pick up these habits? Joyce told Becky about the Clancy's, the wealthy foster family she had lived with in a big, beautiful house. There was a daughter in the family and Joyce always felt inferior to her. Coming from the background, she did, but now Joyce wanted to be just like that girl. For entertainment, becky and Joyce sometimes went to garage sales together. Joyce always looked for big, fancy homes where they might have found something really fine that rich people were selling. It seemed to Becky that she wanted to see the homes more than to shop at the sales. She could just imagine Joyce dreaming of living in one of these big homes and having that kind of garage sale herself and that kind of life. Joyce decided that she had to get out of Illinois. She hated the cold, dreary weather and she complained that George was spending too much time drinking in the bars with his friends. Maybe they would get along better if she could get George away from there. She explained to Becky she was ambitious. Why shouldn't she try to better herself? No one would want to live the way she had as a child. Joyce didn't intend to end up like her mother, eileen, dying a sad, lonely death in a pitiful flumhouse. Joyce had an idea where she might find the life she wanted Florida. The weather was sunny and warm and Florida had a certain glamorous aura that appealed to her. She made up her mind to go and she told George we have nothing here, let's go and try it. So finally George agreed we have nothing here, let's go and try it. So finally, george agreed. He got a job as a drywall carpenter on a condominium project in Coral Springs, florida, just north of Fort Lauderdale. They saw the furniture in the house and lake of the hills and prepared to move. Before they left, joyce went to say goodbye to Bea and she said and Bea will move into Florida because George wants to. But Joyce, you were so far away from everybody. And Joyce replied well, that's better and B. In 1973, george Joyce and Sean McDillan moved to Florida in search of a better life. But a year later George McDillan was back in Illinois alone and she said and B we're moving to Florida because George wants to. It was years before Bea saw her niece again. Then one Saturday afternoon she returned from grocery shopping to find a neighbor boy on his bicycle waiting for her in the driveway and she said you will never guess who was here. You will never guess in a million years. I couldn't believe it. When I saw her, joyce and Bea said no, you're kidding. What would she be doing here? And the boy said she's coming back. She said she will be back later. Bea could hardly believe Joyce would turn up in her own Carpentersville neighborhood without any warning. But a few hours later she pulled up in front of the Wataneks house on Topeka Drive, driving a sleek, expensive rental car. Bea was thrilled to see her and awestruck by how beautiful she looked, so nicely dressed in obviously expensive clothes, purse and shoes. Joyce told her aunt all about her wonderful marriage to her fabulous, wealthy new husband, stan Cohen, how much he loved her, how rich he was, what a wonderful life they had together. She didn't mention that her divorce from George MacDillon was final only 10 days before her second wedding. But where was Joyce's new husband and B expected to meet him? Stan couldn't come this time. Joyce replied he was too busy and Sean couldn't come either, and B assumed Joyce would be staying the night with her. But she had a reservation at Chateau Louise, the only really fancy motel in the area. Bea was impressed that Joyce could afford to stay there. Joyce called her former sister-in-law, becky MacDillon, who still lived in nearby Cary, illinois. They had not kept in touch and Becky, who was still happily married to Bill MacDillon, was surprised to hear from her. Becky promptly invited Joyce to come for a visit. She looked great, becky thought, so thin and tan with her shiny dark hair, perfectly coiffed, and she was beautifully dressed in pants and a matching top with lots of necklaces, bracelets and diamonds. Joyce said she was on her way home to Miami from Colorado where she had been vacationing. Becky was impressed and she said you must be doing fine, joyce. She had heard that Joyce was married again, but she didn't know who her new husband was. Joyce didn't mention him. Then Joyce asked Becky where she could find her ex-husband, george McDillan. Becky was surprised. Well, she thought maybe Joyce isn't so happy after all. Becky named a little Mexican restaurant, latinita, just outside the nearby town of Woodstock Illinois. George was playing softball with his buddies and they often stopped there for a beer after the game. Becky heard later that Joyce had found George there. After that Joyce made regular trips back to northern Illinois, often in August during carry days, a sort of fair and carry. She usually found time to visit her Aunt Bea, but she always refused invitations to spend the night with the Wotaneks. Only once would Joyce stay for dinner and only once did she bring Sean along. Stan never came Between visits. Joyce bought lavish, impractical gifts for her Aunt Bea. She always sent something for Mother's Day, usually a big bouquet of flowers. It seemed to be that her niece was trying to repay her and she was touched by their gesture. Once Joy sent a huge decorative Christmas basket, far too large for any space in B's living room. Another time B came home from the grocery store and noticed what appeared to be a large bush next to the garage door. When she got close she could see that the bush was a gigantic tropical potted plant. It was from Joyce B and Ed Wotanek's son. Joy planned to be married on June 16, 1984, in Carpentersville and B asked Joyce to come. It would be a big wedding with all the Wotanek relatives in attendance. When Joyce arrived alone, as usual, she looked absolutely stunning. When Joyce arrived alone as usual, she looked absolutely stunning Thinner than ever, tan, beautifully dressed. She wore her hair in a chic, straight French bob with bangs and her makeup looked professional. Years later, b still marveled at the beautiful white lace dress Joyce wore to the wedding. She was positively glamorous. B kept her album of photographs of Roy's wedding. In the pictures the Wotanek's relatives strongly resembled one another all fair hair, blue eyes, hardworking, plain, and next to them Joyce Cohen looked like a beautiful exotic creature shiny black hair, dark almond eyes, perfect makeup and manicure, exquisite lace dress and elegant jewelry. Those were the only pictures B had of Joyce. The teenage snapshots had vanished and there never were any baby pictures. Stan Cohen still had not come to Carpentersville. B always thought she did what's odd, didn't stand in mind his wife traveling so often without him. No, joyce replied. It's all right with him, everything is fine. Bea was happy for Joyce. She had a loving husband and all the beautiful things she always wanted. After the wedding, beatrice Waterneck didn't hear from Joyce again until she called to say that her husband had been killed. Bea had been very sorry to hear it. And now there was this call from a lawyer in Miami who said that Joyce had been convicted of murdering her husband and might go to the electric chair. Why would she do that and what could she say about Joyce to explain it when she didn't understand it herself? On November 20, the Monday before Thanksgiving, the court reconvened to hear evidence bearing on the sentence to be imposed on Joyce Cohen for the contract murder of her husband. Under Florida law, the jury in the capital case must hear and wait evidence of aggravating factors and mitigating factors in the commission of the crime. Then the jury deliberates and votes on the two statutory penalties for first-degree murder life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years or death in the electric chair, parole for 25 years or death in the electric chair. The jury's vote is termed advisory, since the judge bears ultimate responsibility for imposing sentence. Courtroom 4-2 was jam as usual, but this time there were some new faces. Sean was there with his pretty blonde wife and infant son. He looked just like his mother dark, slightly almondized, long, dark hair cut in ponytail at the back. He was 21, and his young, soft face looked somber and vulnerable. His son, joyce's grandson, sat on his mother's lap, sucking occasionally on a pacifier. Robert Dietrich was there, handsome and in neat dark suit but teary-eyed. And Joyce's friends turned out in force Sue Samson, sainte-anette Smith, tony Pollack and others. Joyce Cohen entered courtroom 4-2 through the holding cell. Her appearance was shocking. She wore baggy jeans and a rumpled pink shirt. Her hair was pulled back severely in a French braid, with her gray roots showing and her ears protruding. Her face was pale and bloated. Her eyes swollen, almost shut. No makeup softening the effect. It was Alan Ross's idea. Let them see how she's going to have to live now. Joyce Cohen looked not like a killer but a victim. She crossed the courtroom and sat between her lawyers at the defense table. Ross rested his arm lightly on the rail behind her chair. How are you? He asked quietly. She nodded slightly, looking down, hands clasped in her lap. Ross laid a comforting hand on her arm. Assistant State Attorney Paul Mendelsohn addressed the court. He wanted Joyce Cohen's friends and family excluded from the courtroom if they planned to testify before the jury on her behalf. Then he added, the state moves to exclude evidence regarding death by electrocution as cruel and unusual punishment. We may argue how a person dies in an electric chair, what happens, but we won't go into graphic details. It was too much for Joyce. She gulped, swallowed and started to sob. Attorney Ross talked softly to her and she calmed down. The Cohen family entered the courtroom Artie Cohen in his motorized wheelchair and his wife Mary. Gary Cohen with his wife Carol Jerry and Steve Helfman. The bailiff bought the jewelry into the jewelry box and judge Smith explained her task. They would hear evidence bearing upon aggravating and mitigating circumstances in the commission of the crime and they would weigh these factors. Then, after deliberating, they would render an advisory opinion to the court regarding the sentence to be imposed upon Joyce Cohen. The final decision as to sentencing, judge Smith emphasized, lay solely with her. John Castranakis rose and he said the state relies upon the evidence presented at trial, he would call no new witnesses. Bob also called his first witness. Dr Lawrence Cohen, a Miami psychiatrist, entered the courtroom and he carried an accordion file bolded with papers. He had first treated Joyce Cohen on May 6, 1985, when first she was hospitalized for an overdose of Tylenol and Halcyon, a powerful sleep medication, and apparent suicide attempt. Across the courtroom Joyce began to sob. Dr Kahn read from his notes Acute and chronic depression, considerable suicidal potential. He had prescribed Meloril, a tranquilizer, recommended transfer to a psychiatric hospital but the patient had refused. Most of Joyce's friends in the courtroom had no idea she had attempted suicide and they were shocked and saddened. Even Sean knew nothing about the episode but Sam Smith knew she was the one Joyce had called for help After she recovered from her drug overdose. Dr Kahn continued that Joss had agreed to see him as an outpatient and she kept her appointments sporadically for several weeks. She told Dr Cohen that she had been taking Danmayin, a potent sleeping pill, in addition to calcium, and she had great difficulty sleeping, she said, in her sessions with him. Dr Khan testified that Joyce had discussed her relationship with her husband, which was miserable, and her own childhood, which had been even worse. She told him that her mother was a prostitute who had died when she was young and that she was raised in multiple foster homes. Joyce said that she never knew her father, but she told Dr Khan that her father and some uncles had molested her. There were episodes of sexual touching and that's what Dr read from his notes All her life. Joyce told her psychiatrist that she had hated sex. Sean, sitting behind his mother, was startled to hear about her unhappy childhood. Whenever he had asked about her family, she replied only that her parents were dead. He had no idea of how his mother had suffered. Throughout her childhood, joyce had told Dr Kahn she was desperate to find a family to take care of her. She married Stan Cohen, she said, to have a financially secure father figure for her son and herself, but then she developed terrible fears of losing this, of being poor. Joyce would be anxious about anybody or anything that would be a threat of either for Stan's attention. Dr Conn explained to the jury that, including Stan's daughter Jerry, although Joyce was very dependent and even clinging, although Joyce was very dependent and even clinging, she also resented her needliness and the power others, especially Stan, had over her. Eventually she came to hate him when she took all those pills that landed her in the hospital. Joyce had told Dr Kahn that she was not really trying to care herself. She just wanted to hurt Stan the way he hurt her Spiteful suicide wish. When Joyce stopped seeing Dr Khan after a few sessions, he wasn't surprised, although she was still very depressed. She wasn't ready for sessions therapy. She just wasn't willing or perhaps able to put forth the effort. Instead, joyce took shortcuts. Alcohol she confessed to at least four or five drinks a day. And cocaine she used PRN as needed when she felt inadequate or insecure. In November 1985, dr Kahn took a panicky phone call from Stan Cohen at 3 am. Joyce had not slept for a week and now she felt pain like electricity going up and down her body. She could not even walk and he thought it might be an allergic reaction to the malarial he had prescribed for her. Dr Kahn told the jury or she might be having a nervous breakdown. He had suggested that she go to Baptist Hospital, but she refused. Call me tomorrow morning, dr Kahn had instructed, but Joyce never called. He phoned her home and the woman who answered said Joyce was resting. The next time Dr Kahn saw Joyce was right after Stan's murder. She appeared to be shocked, disorganized, forgetful and she was very depressed. She had lost childlike quality. He thought Dr Kahn summarized his final diagnosis borderline personality disorder, dependent personality, severe depression. But this was not a psychotic depression, dr Kahn clarified he saw no evidence of delusions, odds or psychotic thinking. Joyce Cohen was not insane. Didn't Joyce lie to you about her chronic drug abuse? Kastronakis asked Dr Kahn on cross and she never described chronic drug abuse. Toakis asked Dr Kahn on cross and she never described chronic drug abuse to me. Dr Kahn replied she could have lied to me about some things and she told you that she wasn't involved in the murder of her husband. She didn't admit that she was involved, did she and this is Castronakis talking? And Dr K Khan said well, she implied that she didn't do it. She told me she felt guilty about leaving the alarm turn off that night. He was asked did Joyce's condition lead her to blame her husband for her problems? And Khan replied yes and Kastronaki said one final question can Joyce Cohen be cured? And Dr Kahn said well, I have trouble with the word cured. No one can't be cured in the sense of having no further evidence of problems. Can some people get much better with skill force therapy, lead a normal life? Possible, but with this mixture it would take years and years and years. It would require Joyce's active participation and she really wasn't committed to treatment, was she? And Castro asked well, she just wanted to feel better. So next Bob Ansell called sam smith. By the time she reached the witness then she was already teary. Her friend, joyce, was often depressed. Sam told the jury because she suspected sam of having affairs. One of those affairs drove her to overdose on sleeping pills. Sam sobbed openly, wiping her streaming eyes with a tissue. As she described Joyce sitting on the asphalt parking lot at doctor's hospital, crying hysterically. She had had to carry her friend into the hospital. At the defense table Joyce was crying and then on cross-examination, Judge Krastanakis had one question. He said didn't you tell this jury before that the Coyne's marriage was good? And said reply with a flash of anger. He said I had it. I said it had its ups and downs, just like mine. Robert Dietrich took the witness stand and, with tears in his eyes, described the sweet, quiet, gentle woman he had fallen in love with. He looked longingly at Joyce across the courtroom as he, and his only regret was that they had not married before the trial. In anticipation of her acquittal, he told the jury in his soft voice they had decided to delay the wedding until after the trial. Now it was too late. Sean watched without expression as Dietrich told the jury about his love for Joyce. His words didn't change Sean's opinion that his mother would have dumped Dietrich if she had been acquitted Detreat if she had been acquitted. Joyce's aunt, beatrice Wotanek, testified via a telephone hookup broadcast into the courtroom. Her voice shook with sobs as she described her niece's childhood. They live in the helper's shack, she said, and they all shop cotton in the fields. Joyce's first marriage had been a mistake and then Bea had lost touch with her niece after she moved to Florida. Then, when Joy's marriage turned going, bea thought she had turned her life around. But Joy knew how to cover things up. She sighed she would mask it so you wouldn't know anything was wrong. Still, even if there had been problems in their marriage, she would never believe Joy had murdered her husband. She said I don't think they should take her life. And Bea said I don't think she deserves it. She had a rough life, very rough. I wouldn't want any of my kids to live life like that and the line went dead. So now john castranakis addressed the jury in his final argument and he said good afternoon, it's been a long one and half months. Now you are coming to the end of your duties. You must decide what to recommend this murderer should get. Should get for the contract murder of her husband. You have clear definition of aggravating and mitigating circumstances. You must weigh them and decide which is heavier. If the aggravated circumstances are heavier, she should get the death penalty. If the mitigating are heavier, life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years. You're not responsible for the decision you're about to make. She put herself in that chair and that predicament. You play no role in her decision to end her marriage with a .38 caliber Rover. She carefully considered and weighted her options and she chose an illegal option. Castranakis argued that two aggravating factors warranted the death penalty for Joyce Cohen. She killed her husband for financial gain and she planned the crime in a cold, calculated banner, inviting hired killers in to murder her sleeping, defenseless husband in his castle and calmly waiting downstairs while they finish the job. And he said look at the pictures of the good friend's party. You know she was putting the best face on it. The beverage was horrible. He held her hand. They smiled for the picture. What's she thinking? How am I going to have him killed? How is he going to die so no one will know about it? That's cold. She's a great actress, folks. And why was this murder committed? It's for money, the most evil of all reasons to commit a crime, a murder that's committed for the love of money. Aberriss greed knows no equal. And then she asks are you troubled by her early childhood? Where is the nexus between her childhood and this crime? There's none. From the time Joyce was 10, she was in loving families, she was taught the difference between right and wrong. She knew the difference. Here's what Joyce Cohen's childhood has to do with this case. She didn't want it to go back to being poor. If she had to take one out, her husband to do it, so be it. This is evil. The only just recommendation, the only one that speaks the truth, is a recommendation to Judge Smith that this defendant be put to death for her crime. Follow your oaths. With Alan Ross sitting silently at the front of the courtroom, bob Ansell strode to the podium and said by your verdict. He began his eyes searching the juror's face. You have ensured that Joyce Cohen will spend the rest of her life in jail. There is no longer an issue. You have worked hard. I respect your decision, although I'm disappointed. So the issue is not whether Joyce Cohen will get a break. She would not get a break. The issue is whether the state has proved beyond every reasonable doubt that there's only one sentence for this case To kill this woman. It's easy to say kill this woman because she killed him, but this isn't a Roman amphitheater where we throw her to the lions. This is a court of law. You have two concerns Punishment and protecting society. Killing Joyce Cohen is not necessary to accomplish those things. Keeping Joyce Cohen in jail for the rest of her life will accomplish those things without taking another life. Joyce wouldn't commit any more crimes. Look at the disparity between Joyce Gorm and Frank Zuccarello. I don't know what you thought of Zuccarello, but that man is everyone's nightmare. The man who's loose on the streets now is everyone's nightmare. How is Frank Zuccarello, who is still on the street, punished? This prosecution asks you to kill Joyce Cohen, while it lets Frank Zuccarello go free. You're considering whether to have Joyce Cohen wipe off the face of the earth. You should know what kind of person she is. She's not a rich lady with a rosy life and no problems. Her marriage wasn't a bit of roses. The marriage had major problems. Stan Cohen had affairs, not once, but twice. Joyce knew and she tried to kill herself over it. Some of you have dogs. Should you treat your dogs better than Joyce? Cohen was treated as a child. Joyce was moved from home to home. She was abused and that does something to you. It's like a child who does something bad. If we see no reason for it, we punish the child more, but if we see the child is in trouble, maybe we understand a little more. So the law recognizes this mitigating factor. Joyce Coyne is not a monster. Joyce Coyne is not a cold-blooded killer, a severe killer who goes on killing people. That's why we have the death penalty. Think about Joyce Coyne's life in jail. She will be sleeping in a small room with a toilet in the middle of it, sharing it with someone else. For the rest of her life Joyce Coyne would not have a home-cooked meal, hold loved ones, be able to walk in the field, see the stars. She will be told when to get up, sleep, eat. December 31st 1999. When we're toasting this new century, she will be in jail. In 2009, joyce Cohen was still in jail. Is that the punishment? It may be a fate worse than death. Stan Cohen is dead. He dies instantaneously. Stan Cohen is dead. He dies instantaneously. He didn't suffer. Killing Joyce Cohen doesn't bring Stan Cohen back. What is accomplishing by it? Nothing. I stand here and this is Enzo still talking. He said I stand here more scared than I have ever been in my life. Maybe I have missed something or not said the right words. I ask each of you to make the argument for life to the other jurors, in case I have missed something. I ask you, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, in the name of justice, in the name of mercy, come back with the verdict which says we believe in the sanctity of life. Joyce Cohen, we're going to let you live, but never among us again. Thank you. Throughout the hearing, joyce sat quietly sobbing her small feet encased in shapeless prison slippers. At 5.40, the jury returned to the cramped jury room for the last time. Robert Dietrich reached over the rail to touch Joyce's going shoulder. The bailiff noticed, frowned and shook his head. Dietrich hastily withdrew his hand. Joyce returned to the holding cell to await the jury's recommendation. While the jury deliberated, alan Ross worried about his young partner, bob Ansell. He was afraid that if the worst happened, if the jury recommended the death penalty, ansell would take it all on his own shoulders and be crushed by the burden. So Ross told him, bob, if the jury recommends life, I just want you to know that this lady owes you her life for the fine job you did here. But Ansel did not reply. At 6.15, only 35 minutes later, the jury senta note to the judge. Joyce Cohen was let back into the courtroom. She looked composed but exhausted, drained. She sat down carefully as if she were suddenly very old. The jurors filed to their seats. They did not look at the defendant. Jury foreperson Dr Catherine Poole handed the form to Judge Smith's clerk, who passed it to the bench. Judge Smith read aloud the jury's advisory sentence is for life imprisonment. A majority of the jurors felt that Joyce Cohen should be spared the death penalty because one of the mitigating factors for Frank Zuccarello would never even be charged with the crime. It seemed unfair that Joyce should die for her part while Zuccarello walked the streets a free man. But for Juvers there were four that had voted for the death penalty. There was silence, solemn faces. Judge Smith discharged the jury with her thanks for the long and difficult service. The jurors were glad to leave. It had been a wrenching experience. Outside the Metropolitan Justice Building. Some reporters pursued the departing jurors with minicams trucking them to their cars and the dark parking lot across the street. Ams trucking them to their cars and a dark parking lot across the street, but none of them wanted to talk about their ordeal. They had made a pact not to discuss it. Judge Smith would review the jury's recommendations overnight and sentence Joyce Coyne the following day, but first she would hear from the victim's family. That night Jerry Helfman pondered once more whether to speak out after her long years of silence. Finally she decided she should address the court. It was the last thing she could do for her father. Jerry knew her brother and her uncle already intended to ask Judge Smith to impose the death penalty on her stepmother. But Jerry wasn't so sure. She had always been squeamish about the death penalty on her stepmother. But Jerry wasn't so sure. She had always been squeamish about the death penalty. Besides, she reasoned George would probably suffer more living in prison for the next 25 years or so. Jerry called Gary. What should she say about the penalty, she asked. Gary told her he felt that the family should be united. If Jerry wasn't comfortable advocating the death penalty for their stepmother, perhaps she shouldn't mention punishment at all. Just tell josh smith what was on her mind, without asking for a particular penalty. And uh, jerry reached out to her decision. Finally, and as she threw out the long years of the ordeal, she would follow her brother's lead. She sat down to make notes on what she would tell Judge Smith. On Tuesday, november 21st, two days before Thanksgiving, judge Smith reconvened the Joyce Cohen case for the last time. The defendant entered the courtroom from the holding cell dressed in a shapeless black sweater, white blouse and baggy jeans. Her hair was painted, or I should say plaited, in another French braid. John Kostranakis rose and addressed the court. He said your Honor, we do wish to call a few witnesses to make comments to the court concerning sentencing. We will first call Mr Gary Cohan, the son of the victim, to come forward and address the court. Gary strode quickly to the podium carrying his notes. He was deadly calm and he says Judge, I'm here before you to request, on behalf of myself, my father and my family, that you impose the death penalty in this case. I think the death penalty is fair and correct for all the reasons pointed out by Mr Castrenakis in his closing argument yesterday. With respect to the mitigating factors the defense talked about yesterday, I think certainly one of those factors did exist. I think it is clear that the marriage was over, notwithstanding what the defense character witnesses said in the guilt-innocence phase of the trial. Those people who either didn't know my father and Joyce well enough to realize that there were problems in the marriage or chose to ignore them and testify differently during the trial, now come up during the sentencing portion of the trial and tell you, yes, there were problems and that this should be a valid mitigating factor in not imposing the death penalty. I don't understand that. Gary seethed with anger, especially at his father's old friend Ed Smith. He found it difficult to believe that Smith had not known about Joyce's coke habit and the Cohen's severe marital problems. In Gary's view, ed had betrayed his father and Gary would never forgive. The Fence pled for mercy yesterday in this case it says Gary's still talking. He said they argued that she wasn't a bondee and she wasn't a mansum and those are the kind of people that deserve the death penalty. I would agree. She's not that type of person, because those people were and they didn't know what they were doing. What she did was worse. She knew exactly what she was doing. She knew it was wrong to kill her father, she knew how heinous it was and she went ahead and did it anyway and she said I don't think she deserves to live after she deprived him of his life. If you can find it and you to impose the death penalty, I would say at the absolute minimum that you should maximize the jail time so that she doesn't ever have to live among us again. Thank you, um arty cohen stands, brother in his wheelchair. He addressed the court and he said on March 7 I was the one that had to tell my mother that her son was dead. The children have to bury parents, that the parents bury the children. My mother went downhill after that. I watched her for 10 days in a coma at a Baptist hospital, going in and out saying I want to die when Stan died. She died. It took a year. Stan was the focal point of the family. He took care of my mother. Artie, I would always be there for you, he said. Obviously I had problems. They're never going to get better, only worse. I don't have any brother anymore to take care of me. Joyce took care of that. And finally was Jerry Huffman's turn and she said you as you decide the punishment that Joyce deserves for murdering my father. Yesterday the defense begged for mercy for Joyce. She had no mercy for my father when she murdered him, no mercy at all. The defense said that Joyce's life should be spared because of the sanctity of life. Where was the sanctity of life when she killed my father? My father's life has to mean something in this process, otherwise I just won't understand it. What's offensive is Mr Ansel's suggestion that because my father died instantaneously and somehow didn't suffer, that she shouldn't suffer with the death penalty. I would suggest that death by the electric chair is also instantaneous and an appropriate penalty. Three days after my father was murdered, I got a call from Kings Bay Travel. The travel agent had told her that her father had purchased a travel voucher as a surprise wedding present when her father was killed. The agent called Joyce, thinking she would want to pass the gift along to Jerry. She said the agent told me that Joyce told her to cancel it and not to tell me about it. That's the kind of caring, loving person Joyce is. My father had just been murdered and she would prefer for me to spend the rest of my life not knowing that he cared enough to buy me a wedding present, to go out and surprise me with a wedding present. She killed my father three weeks before I got married, depriving me more importantly, depriving my father of walking me down the aisle, of giving me his only daughter away. She prevented my father from enjoying life. He never met his grandchildren. I have a five-month-old baby at home and he will never know his grandfather. My brother has a nine-month-old baby and he will never know his grandfather because she killed him. He will never enjoy his grandchildren and they will never enjoy him. He would never enjoy his grandchildren and they would never enjoy him. What should she enjoy one day left of her life? She deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison and she deserves to die in prison. Thank you, jerry turned and walked back to her seat beside her husband. She passed within three feet of Joyce sitting at council table between her lawyers, but she never glanced her way. Finally, judge Smith was ready to address the courtroom. As she took out her preparer notes, jerry was dismayed. She had hoped the family's remarks might have some impact on the judge's decision. Now she felt the whole process was a sham. Victims and their families really had no rights. She thought bitterly. But Judge Smith was bound by law to follow the jury's recommendation for mercy unless there were legal grounds for a jury override, as it is called. Joy stood between her lawyers in front of the judge's high bench and she said the jury has found you guilty of first degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. They had recommended that you be sentenced to life in prison without parole for 25 years. Unless I can say that the facts suggesting a death sentence are so clear and convincing that no reasonable person could disagree, I am bound to follow the Jewish recommendation. That is the law. The law is no longer an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, a wound for a wound. Although such a law may comfort the victim's family and satisfy a primitive and really human need for retribution, it is not the law of the state of Florida. I agree with the Jewish that the mitigating circumstances outweigh the aggravating circumstances For first-degree murder, the contract murder of Stan Cohen. The judge sentenced Joyce to life in prison without possibility of parole for 25 years. On the conspiracy count, she imposed a sentence of 15 years in state prison to be served consecutively to the life sentence For the display of a firearm during the commission of a felony. The sentence was 15 years to run concurrently with the other sentences. Joyce would be at least 64 years old before she is eligible for consideration for parole. Outside the courtroom, Gary and Jerry collided with Ed Smith and they said this is Gary. He said we don't appreciate it that you lied on the stand. Smith of course wrestled because he believed that he had testified truthfully. He said well, you got what you wanted the money. He retorted and Jerry restrained her brother and said forget it, gary, he's just an asshole. Smith brushed past them, headed toward the escalator. Then suddenly he turned on Jerry and said nice talk for a TV girl. And then he called something really bad. You. You know the C word. Steve Helfman rushed over and grabbed Smith by the lapels this is Jerry's husband, steve and a bailiff standing nearby pinned Steve's arms and hustled him off down the hall and Ed Smith fled. The confrontation took place just beyond the boundary line for the television news crews. They could see it, but they couldn't quite hear it and they couldn't throw enough light down the hall to film it. The nightly news miniseries of the Joyce Cohen murder trial was finally over. Russ and Ansel, the defense attorneys, drove back to their office in separate cars. They arrived at the same time and parked their cars side by side in the lot. Russ was still devastated and exhausted, but he thought his young partner needed some reassurance about the case and he said Bob, I just want you to know something. Thank God for the job you did. If you have not done such a spectacular job on the penalty face, I'm sure this jury, as cold-hearted as they were, would have recommended death. And Ansel gazed at him a moment and said well, if you have held up your end, we wouldn't have gotten that far. Russ stared at Ansel. They both erupted in hysterical laughter, the first moments of relief they had had in weeks. Thanksgiving was a real holiday for Gary and Jerry and their families. After nearly four years of anguish, they have achieved their objective. Their stepmother was in prison for their father's murder. But now came the hardest part the day-to-day living without him, knowing that past wounds had left permanent scars. In the weeks that followed Joyce's trial, jerry often visited her father's grave. She had things to tell him things she didn't get to say. Before he died. She hoped her father knew how much she loved him and she understood how much he loved her, despite the gulf between them. But the chance to tell him face to face that she knew all along that she understood, the chance to tell him face to face that she knew all along that she understood, was gone forever At her father's grave. Jerry spoke to him aloud and she waited and watched for an answer, a sign, and there was none. A year later Jerry was watching her young son, douglas, striding around the room. His sandy brown hair and bright eyes were a blend of the features of his parents. He didn't really look much like his grandfather, stanley, but people told Jerry that he reminded them of him somehow. Maybe it was the way Douglas walked. She thought His tough guy swagger her tech underworld stance. For Jerry it was some solaceace and it would have to be enough. Alan Ross filed an appeal of Joyce Cohen's criminal conviction in Miami's third-degree court of appeal, the courthouse that Stan Cohen built. Sean had agreed to give Ross $120,000 out of his inheritance from his stepfather to pay for the appeal. He later reneged and Ross eventually settled for $40,000. In the civil case filed against Joyce Cohen by Gavin Cohen and Jerry Cohen Hefman, the 3rd District Court of Appeal upheld the trial court's ruling that under a Florida statute the trial court's ruling that under a Florida statute, joyce's murder conviction stripped her of any right to her husband's estate and life insurance proceeds His heirs, gary and Jerry, michael Cohen and Sean Cohen, arthur Cohen. They would receive each $85,000 from Stan's life insurance proceeds. Sean paid Alan Rosses the $40,000 out of his share. When Stan Cohen's estate was settled there was not enough cash to fund the specific cash bequests that he had made to his heirs in his will. Gary and Jerry had received $60,000 in cash and property valued at $145,000. Arthur and Michael Cohen each received $30,000 in cash and $72,500 in property. Sean had already renounced his interests under their will in exchange for a quick cash settlement. He needed the money. Ross calculated that he was owed nearly $1.5 million in fees for the criminal case. He predicted that Joyce's conviction would be overturned on appeal and that she would be acquitted on retrial. Then he would get paid If necessary. Ross said he would pursue Gary and Jerry for their inheritance to pay his attorney's fees. Anthony Caracciolo and Tony Lamberti finally cut a deal with the state. They pleaded no contents to reduce charges of second-degree murder. Caracciolo was sentenced to 41 years and Lamberti got 39. The sentences were concurrent to the already lengthy terms. Both men were presently serving for numerous home invasion robberies. Caracciola and Lamberti insisted that they pleaded no contest only as a matter of convenience, to avoid the possibility of the death penalty if they were convicted at trial. Both still claimed that they have nothing to do with Dan Cohen's murder. They never even met Joyce Cohen, they said. At his sentencing hearing. Tony Lamberti was granted permission to address the court. Gary, who had been following the case, was sitting in the gallery, his long vigil about to end. Lamberti stood and spoke and said I wish to address Mr Gary Cohen in your honor, spoke and said I wish to address Mr Gary Cohen in your honor. I feel bad about your father and I know what it is like to lose a family member. I lost mine. I assure you I am the wrong man in this courtroom. I am just taking this plea because it is in my best interest. I don't care what they think. I'm innocent. I offered, since the day I have been arrested, to take a polygraph test and they have refused me. I maintain my innocence on this and I'm still willing to take a polygraph test just to prove my innocence. All I want is for someone to believe me. Outside in the corridor, the prosecutors shook their heads and discussed Lombardi's performance. But someone was listening to Lombardi and it was Special Agent Steve Emerson. The detective from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement still wondered whether Lombardi was really involved, he said. Emerson said I have a good relationship with him. I think he would have coped. You know he would have coped out to me if he did it. The case still haunted. Bob Amsel, the defense attorney, and his client remained an enigma. He said I'm sure there are things about Joyce Cohen that we will never know, that she never told anyone Her deepest, darkest secrets. I will never know, to the day I die, whether she did it or not. Never know to the day I die whether she did it or not. In the aftermath of the trial, lynn Leveston no longer had any doubt that Joyce had engineered her husband's murder and he thought he understood why she said. I think she panicked. It wasn't a split-second reaction. I think she panicked over a period of months over a situation she was losing control of. I think she panicked over a period of months, over a situation she was losing control of. She was afraid of losing the money and the Jaguar, the fancy homes, the clothes and jewelry it bought. But more fundamentally, she was afraid of losing herself, her identity, which was closely bound up with the Miami lifestyle Stan provided and then threatened to take away. She could never go back to her old life, to being that Joyce and Lynn said well, I'm not a psychiatrist, but I got to believe that somewhere sometime, subconsciously, a decision was made it's him or me. Either she would have the life or he would, and she chose herself. Joyce Cohen lives at the Women's Maximum Security Prison, the Broadwater Correctional Institution, north of Miami, on the Dade Bower County line. The prison is a series of connected two-story cement buildings painted battleship gray, with surprising pictrip around the doorways. The buildings surround a large grassy square. Cement benches, lined cement walkways crisscross in the yard. A few small shrubs and spine-leaked palms break. So this is what happened to Joyce. She is in prison for this murder. Court of Appeal affirmed Joyce Cohen's convictions and sentences for first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder and display of a firearm during the commission of a felony. Her attorneys filed a petition for review with the Florida Supreme Court and December 5, 1991, the Florida Supreme Court denied Joyce Cohen's petition for review. Thank you for listening to the Murder Book. Have a great week.
