Death Dance Read Online Free PDF Page A

release, they are
explicitly
not
to be crushed or chewed. That's
why the defendant took a vial full of Xanax—"
    "How many pills are you claiming he used?"
    "I don't know, your honor. The container was empty, and it
holds twelve capsules when completely full. The lab will be able to
give me an estimate of the quantity after they've examined the blood
and urine samples of both women."
    "Go on."
    "The combination of the two powerful depressants causes
immediate sedation, possible unconsciousness, often leads to
respiratory cessation, which—"
    "What's that?" Moffett asked.
    "Death, judge. An overdose like this mixed with a combination
of alcoholic beverages could actually have killed these women."
    "Your honor, you can't expect me to stand here and let Ms.
Cooper go overboard with her imagination, can you? Nobody's dead."
    Moffett was digging back forty years, trying to remember how
to cross-examine a witness. He seemed more interested in the
consummation of the sexual acts than in the involuntary drugging.
"These girls, they don't remember the sex?"
    "There's an amnesiac effect from this type of sedative. Even
if they had been conscious for any portion of the encounter, they
wouldn't be able to remember it. I'm going to submit the literature
packaged with the drug as part of the court record."
    "Yeah, Alexandra. How's a guy supposed to know they'd pass
out?" Moffett held the handkerchief over his nose and honked into it
before stuffing it back in his pocket and picking up his red pen.
    "Judge, Sengor is a resident in psychiatry. His area of
specialty is pharmacology. He knows the property of sedatives and
that's exactly why Xanax was his drug of choice."
    Moffett looked over at the defense table and shook his head.
"I wouldn't expect a medical doctor to have to—"
    "Cardinal rule of drug-facilitated rape, your honor. Expect
the unexpected. It's for guys who might never resort to force to act
oat their twisted fantasies. They let the drugs subdue the victims for
them."
    I went on, hoping that Moffett would stop doodling on his
legal pad and listen to me. "There are four parts of this puzzle, and
Sengor had every one of them in place to accomplish his goal."
    The judge looked at the defendant and held up a finger for
each piece of the modus operandi as I ticked them off for him.
    "He's a physician, with the knowledge of the properties of a
CNS depressant and its effect when combined with alcohol. Couple that
with the ability to write prescriptions for sedatives, and that gives
him the means to commit the crimes—his weapon of choice. Next
he needs the setting in which he controls the environment. What better
than his own home? Third, he had to have the opportunity, which usually
requires gaining the trust of his victims, and he'd had the first three
nights of their visit to do that. Finally, Sengor had to have a plan to
avoid arrest. The victims generally sleep off the effects of the drugs,
and here, they would have gotten on a bus to go home to Canada, no
wiser for the occurrence of the crime."
    Eric Ingels was on his feet. "C'mon, judge. There was no
'plan' to do this. These women wound up in a hospital, right down the
street from Dr. Sengor's home. What kind of lamebrain scheme to escape
detection is that? Only a complete idiot or a man who'd never had
intercourse could think that a woman might wake up and not realize
she'd been… been… well, been—"
    Moffett laughed out loud in agreement with Ingels. Even Sengor
was smiling, perhaps sensing an ally in judicial robes. "Yeah. Been
had. That's what you mean, isn't it? What do you say to that, Alex?"
    "I'd say this is all completely inappropriate for a bail
application, your honor. Do I need expert testimony here, to explain to
both of you that one of the advantages of sedating someone with a
muscle relaxant is that it makes it possible to consummate a sexual act
without the victim's awareness? And many of these cases occur without
transmission of seminal fluid?"
    Moffett