No, Daddy, Don’t!: A Father's Murderous Act Of Revenge. Irene Pence
right then. Newth told him he’d file a writ of habeas corpus to try to get him out of jail, but cautioned that it would take a couple of days. Battaglia gave him the information he needed and hung up. Then, he quickly punched in another number for a call he was craving to make.
He reached Michelle Laborde at work. Cupping his hand over the mouthpiece, he moved as far as the phone cord would stretch. When Michelle answered, he asked, “Well, bitch, aren’t you proud of yourself? They have some fucking bond deal here where I have to come up with ten thousand dollars in cold, hard cash. This time they’re gonna lock me up. Aren’t you as happy as shit about that?
“You are going to be sorry. Some dark night when you’re out by yourself I can disable your car, and I’ll be following you. I’ll know where you are—alone with nobody to help you.”
Michelle listened to him rant, then hung up the phone and shuddered. Once he got out of jail, would he be all the worse?
Three days in the county jail made John Battaglia furious. His confinement was all Michelle’s doing, since his problems were always someone else’s fault. And even worse, he still couldn’t come up with the $10,000 in cash. It was Friday, and all he could think was that his damn attorney better have something up his sleeve to get him out, for he certainly didn’t want to spend the weekend in this godforsaken place.
Judge Harold Entz entered Dallas County Criminal Court No. 4 and took his seat at the bench. A large man with a reputation for being firm, he had served fourteen years as a judge. He nodded to the lawyers. “Is the defendant ready?”
Battaglia let his attorney do all the talking. James Newth pleaded that the court had previously accepted John Battaglia’s surety bonds and now the judge had issued only a verbal order to the county clerk to increase the bond to $10,000. And cash at that. The lawyer complained that the court had given no notice of the bond change, so his client had been denied due process of law, and that the bond had been increased without a prior hearing or evidence. He ended by asking that the defendant be discharged from such illegal confinement and restraint.
Michelle had hired a new attorney, John Barr, and he accompanied her to the hearing.
John’s father, John Battaglia Sr., had not seen his son for several months. Among his other complaints, he was furious that John had filed for divorce. But today John Jr. was desperate and had invited his father to attend the hearing. He hoped that his father had brought along his checkbook.
When Michelle described how Battaglia had thrown a rock at her car, John Jr. turned around and caught his father’s eye. He raised his right arm and flexed his bicep, then grinned.
Judge Entz listened to both sides. The judge had read about John Battaglia’s offenses himself rather than relying on a paralegal or a clerk to do his research. He saw that Battaglia’s history of getting probation had not deterred him from committing offenses. Judge Entz slid his finger down the column of entries in the document, counting the times Battaglia had violated Michelle’s protective order. Experience had taught him that those were only the reported occurrences. After noting the number of offenses, the judge announced that the bond would remain at $10,000 cash.
The police returned Battaglia to his cell.
Monday came, and John Battaglia was still in jail and desperate. He again phoned Michelle.
“Listen, I’ll do whatever you want,” he said, sounding hoarse and frantic. “I’ve been here for eight days and I’m going nuts. I’ll drop everything I’ve asked for in the divorce and you can have Laurie for the lion’s share of the time. Please, Michelle,” he begged. “Listen to me. I’m stuck in here. I need to get a job so I can come up with the money. Please, Michelle, please.”
Michelle thought about Battaglia’s plea, but she was tired of giving in to his demands. An hour later, she was surprised when he called back.
“I’m out,” he announced.
“You are?” she said, astonished. “How’d you manage that?”
“Dad came through at the last minute. I’m under big time pressure to pay him back, but at least I’m free. Now I need to come over and talk about those charges.”
When John Battaglia arrived at Michelle’s house that night, he looked terrible. His skin was chalky white, and he resembled a whipped hound dog. He sat quietly on the small gray chair in Michelle’s living room, looking tired and remorseful. When he talked to her about dropping the charges, he sounded frantic. Maybe, Michelle thought, his confinement had been long enough to get his attention.
The next day, Michelle called her attorney, John Barr, to discuss Battaglia’s request to drop the charges. Her lawyer told her that if there were a trial and they found Battaglia guilty, he would probably be given a penalty of no more than the time he had already served.
Resting her forehead on her hand, Michelle reflected on the injustice of it all. There was almost no consequence for violating a protective order.
At lunch the next day, she drove to the county courthouse and signed an affidavit of non-prosecution to dismiss the charges. Michelle desperately hoped that John had learned his lesson, and would start listening to reason. Had John not acted so calm, insisting how much counseling had changed him, she would have realized that John had just sweet-talked her through another phase of the abuse cycle.
NINE
After John Battaglia’s time in jail, he was contrite, and even seemed calm. He continued in counseling with Randy Severson once a week. Michelle also met with Severson for updates on Battaglia’s progress. The counselor told her that John was doing much better “adjusting” to the divorce, and made a special point of saying, “John is no danger to you.”
The following spring, Dick Dickson was working in his yard. He began weeding the flower garden on the side of his house that faced Michelle’s, and noticed two electric wires coming from her attic. Concerned, he went over to tell her about them. They both went up to her attic to investigate, and saw that the wires had been spliced into her telephone line.
Outside, they traced the wires, following them as they stretched across the newly green grass and into several bushes at the rear of the lot. Crawling underneath, Dickson found the wires plugged in to a recorder. There was only one explanation as to how those wires became attached to her phone.
A few days later, Michelle confronted John Battaglia and he admitted connecting the wires to her telephone line. He proudly told how he would set his alarm for 2:00 A.M. and walk down to her house. After scrambling under the bushes, he’d take out the tape, insert a fresh one, then go back to his apartment and listen to all of her conversations. He knew exactly who she was talking to and what she was doing. He wasn’t the least repentant. In fact, he was arrogant, boasting that he had learned several of those clandestine tricks in the Marines.
So many happenings that appeared coincidental now had a logical explanation. John could have heard her making plans for her trip to the client’s office in Houston. Four months earlier, Laurie had fallen and bumped her head, and Michelle had called the doctor. Battaglia was at her door the next morning screaming that she was an unfit mother and that if she had been watching Laurie more closely, that wouldn’t have happened. Michelle couldn’t imagine how John had known of Laurie’s fall. When she called the doctor back, he insisted that he had never talked to Battaglia.
After speaking with the doctor, she contacted her lawyer, who had sent out a private investigator to check her phones for “bugs.” None were found, for he hadn’t looked in the attic.
Battaglia’s wiretapping was a federal offense, but any week now they would sign their final divorce papers, and Michelle didn’t want to file charges that would only interrupt the proceedings and give John another reason to delay giving her a divorce.
Over five months, James Newth, John Battaglia’s lawyer, had sent him several requests for payment and had received nothing. In addition to covering the habeas corpus hearing in front of Judge Entz, Newth