For mothers of homicide victims, trial brought pain, closure

It's something no mother should have to go through — seeing pictures of her murdered child's mutilated body — especially not four days before Mother's Day.

But for the mothers of Gerald Sirucek and Catherine Madplume, the trial of Jeremiah Green also brought some closure to a 16-month legal process that included dozens of court appearances for all three defendants involved in the case, numerous delays and continuations, and concerns that their children's murderers wouldn't be brought to justice.

Those concerns were largely alleviated on May 18 when a jury found Green guilty of two counts of homicide by accountability, and one count of evidence tampering, all felonies. Another defendant, Troy McDonald, pled guilty to the two murders earlier this month and will spend much of the rest of his life in a state lockdown facility that has resources to accommodate the developmentally disabled.

What will happen to Glen Gardipee, the third defendant, remains to be seen. Gardipee changed his testimony — both on the witness stand and during the investigation process — causing frustration for prosecutors, Sheriff's detectives and the families of the victims. In a plea agreement reached last year, Gardipee agreed to plead guilty to tampering with evidence in exchange for his testimony at Green's trial, but after watching the trial, family members wonder if he fulfilled his end of the bargain.

"Gardipee was supposed to testify the way it happened, but he didn't. I thought he was automatically supposed to go to jail," Carolyn Madplume, Catherine's mother, said after the trial had finished.

The mothers both expressed frustration at certain aspects of the trial, as they had to place their hope in the criminal justice system in other peoples' hands. At times, they felt things weren't going their way, they said.

"They had a hard time getting Troy to say anything [on the witness stand]. He could recall certain details but not others," said Lisa King, Sirucek's mother.

But ultimately the women were able to breath a sigh of relief when Green was found guilty. He will be sentenced July 13, and could face life in prison.

While the women were initially frustrated with what they perceived as an uncaring judicial system and a process that seemed to favor the defendant's rights over the victims', they said ultimately their faith was restored when they saw how much work the county attorney's office, Sheriff's detectives and Tribal law and order put into trying to make a successful case.

"I think Mitch did a really good job, as far as getting the evidence that he had out. Him and Jay worked hard. I knew they spent a long time getting ready after I saw what they did at the trial. Jay has done a good job," King said, referring to deputy county attorney Mitch Young, who prosecuted the case, and Sheriff's lead detective Jay Doyle.

But the women acknowledged they didn't always feel that way. Over the 16-month investigation process, they came to realize that their children's murders were just one part of a much larger caseload that the Sheriff's office, Tribal law and order and the county and Tribal prosecutors must juggle each day. It was tough sometimes, feeling like their children's murders weren't a priority, they said.

"At first I didn't think they were communicating with us," King said of investigators and the county attorney's office.

They were forced to walk a fine line between constantly calling the county attorney's office for updates, or sitting at home waiting for phone calls with information that didn't always come. Many times over the past 16 months, Madplume and King would approach a newspaper or TV reporter after a court appearance to find out what had happened, as the two women sat through routine omnibus hearings that for them, represented a judicial process they didn't always understand.

"We didn't want to keep bugging them on how the investigation was going. It was frustrating," King said of the continuances and meetings between lawyers and judges that they weren't privy too.

While the delays and continuations are a normal part of the criminal justice process for most cases, the Sirucek and Madplume families had to endure as much or more because the cases involved three separate defendants, one of whom was diagnosed with a developmental disability, two of whom agreed to plea bargains, and one - Green - who decided to take his chance at trial.

Green maintained all along that he didn't actually kill Sirucek, saying McDonald did. McDonald acknowledged as much in his plea agreement, but said it was a plot concocted by Green to rob Sirucek of some student loan money. Madplume was apparently shot simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as she wandered out of the house on Eagle Pass Trail where the five had been drinking all night, looking for Sirucek, only to be shot in the back out of fear that she would find his body and go to the authorities.

Early that morning, Feb. 3, 2005, Green drove to Tribal law and order and told a Tribal officer that he feared for his safety, and that Gardipee and McDonald had threatened him if he told anyone what had happened. Investigators later came to doubt his story, and Young was able to paint Green in a different light by noting how long Green took before going to Tribal law and order that morning, as well as getting other witnesses to testify about how he had repeatedly talked about beating up Sirucek.

In the end, Sirucek and Madplume were killed for less than $200 in student loan money that Sirucek had been given to help pay for costs at Salish Kootenai College. While the conviction brought closure for the victims' families, it also opened up many wounds that had only begun to heal, as the families had endure the displaying of the victims' bloodied bodies during the trial.

Madplume was shot, as was Sirucek, but evidence indicated that Green had also made slash marks on Sirucek's throat after he had been shot. Whether Sirucek could have lived had he not received the knife wounds is doubtful, but the jury felt Green played a much larger role in the deaths than he had initially told Tribal and Sheriff's investigators.

For the two mothers, the trial was a painful process, they said. They initially thought about not attending - given the evidence they knew would be presented, including photographs - but were convinced by family members that it might help. They would never know what truly happened at the trial, or that night in February, if they didn't go, family members told them.

"My daughter told me, 'If you don't stay here [in court], you won't know what happened. But to stay in there, to see the photos they showed, that was bad," King said.

Madplume said listening to the closing arguments and seeing pictures of her murdered daughter were the two worst parts.

"I seen that last picture of Catherine, and I seen how she was laying, and I thought 'How could they do that?,'" she said, referring to the defendants.

"It's not human. How could somebody do that, and for what? Money? Money couldn't be that important," King said. "Not for $200."

Seeing photos of their bodies brought back good and bad memories - good because it reminded the mothers of the last time they saw their children alive, and bad because they saw they way they had died.

"It was the last time you seen them and you say, 'Yeah, that's what they were wearing,'" King said.

It was only during the trial that King realized why she couldn't locate an article of clothing she'd been looking for around the house.

"I looked all over the house for that pullover sweatshirt," she said, referring to the one Sirucek was shot in.

But during the trial, the woman comforted each other with memories of when their children were alive. Although both Sirucek and Madplume had had their ups and downs in life, they both were on a track to make something out of themselves, their mothers said.

Madplume was looking forward to graduating from Two Eagle River, while Sirucek had his sights set on getting a degree from SKC.

"I've been hanging on to my last memories of Gerald. I was proud of him, going on to SKC, how he got the student loan money," King said. "I pushed Gerald to graduate [from high school]. I would get him up in the morning, and tell him, 'You've got to go, you've got to go [to school].'"

She said he purchased a new car, but ultimately told his mother that it might do him more harm than good.

"He gave me the keys to the new car he got. He said, 'Mom, I don't want to be driving around getting into trouble,'" King recalled.

Madplume had similar memories of Catherine.

"It was her dream to graduate. Not being able to graduate with her class like she wanted to - that was the worst part," Madplume said. "Why would their lives be taken? They were going to school, trying to make something of themselves."

Ultimately, both women are left with the memory of when they last saw their children alive.

"I saw Catherine that afternoon. I told her to take care of herself, and don't go getting into trouble," Madplume said.

"My daughter asked me what I wanted for Mother's Day. I said I didn't want anything or need anything," King said. "I just wanted the family to be together, and Gerald isn't ever going to be there."