Grave Accusations. Paul Dunn
Titus didn’t know that Paul was having an affair or that Monica just found out about it when she had visited Titus and told him that she and Paul were getting divorced.
It jolted Titus that Paul never told him about the affair. But when Titus put his attorney’s hat back on, he realized it was a definite suicide motive. Titus also had a nagging question of his own, a central one. Could Paul have done it?
Paul didn’t see Anita until three days after the shooting. By then, Paul was staying at his friend Andy’s house. Andy’s wife, Margaret, is Anita’s sister. Watching him, Anita sat there in dry-eyed shock, her thick, flaming hair framing an ivory face on which makeup seemed foreign. People at work and in the community had already begun to ostracize Anita because of her affair with Paul, which was public knowledge now.
The media was going hog-wild. Stories appeared every day in The Daily Times, Farmington’s newspaper, in the Albuquerque Journal, the Albuquerque Tribune, the Santa Fe New Mexican and newspapers in surrounding states of Colorado, Utah and Arizona. Paul’s picture appeared everywhere. Monica’s face flirted with readers on the printed page and on television. Articles reported Monica had been shot to death and reported Paul had been put on administrative leave with pay until the investigation was over. The local television station, KOBF, heavily covered the story, as did the bigger stations in Albuquerque.
The media reported the path of Monica’s body from the shooting to her final resting place. First, a trip to the Office of the Medical Investigator in Albuquerque for the gruesome, but necessary, dissection of the body known as an autopsy. Although this would only take a couple of hours, it was a crucial part of any police investigation. Murder or suicide often left fingerprints, marring the body while telling a tale.
Monica’s body finally returned to Farmington just days after her death. Her funeral was slated for four days later.
To his surprise, Victor Titus was asked to be a pallbearer. He wondered why the family had chosen him. They were close knit and wouldn’t have wanted a stranger. Then it hit him. Monica must have chosen him. How? When? He wondered. Victor Titus wondered if anyone knew or cared that he was Paul’s friend.
At Monica’s funeral, people wore yellow ribbons “so the truth would come out.” It was pretty obvious the people wearing the ribbons thought Paul murdered Monica. Reporters raided Monica’s funeral, cameramen and photographers tripping over each other to get shots of little Diane and Racquel, as well as the grieving Dora Sanchez, Monica’s mother. No one expected to see Paul at the funeral; stories had already come out saying he wasn’t allowed. The police were going to see that he stayed away at the family’s request. It seemed that Paul Dunn had no supporters. At least, nobody stood up to defend him. Many of his friends, also friends of the deceased court clerk, appeared at the funeral with somber faces.
The appearance of many friends of both Paul and Monica seemed to exhibit support for the Sanchezes—not Paul. Their disbelief that Monica would commit suicide was a tiny bit greater, or in some cases, quite a bit greater, than their disbelief that Paul would kill anyone. For some people, it had more to do with Monica’s religion than morality. Catholics are prohibited from committing suicide. For other people, the suicide question was more about race. They believed Hispanic women don’t kill themselves. In the battle of the “lesser of two evils,” Paul lost.
Paul was told not to go to his estranged wife’s funeral. He spent his energy trying to get Diane and Racquel back from Monica’s parents, Torry and Dora Sanchez. They refused to let him see his daughters or even talk to them. He could understand and forgive the Sanchez’s need to protect the children. But what they did to the girls he would never understand nor respect. They separated Diane and Racquel, who were as close as twins, at a time when they needed each other the most. Diane was sent to stay with Torry and Dora, and Racquel to stay with her Aunt Theresa.
The weekend after the funeral, Monica’s nephews Torry and Mike Cortez stood at a Wal-Mart store handing out more yellow ribbons for people to tie to their vehicle antennas in Monica’s memory. They had a lot of takers.
Much later, a flag memorial for Monica emblazoned the sky at the city’s domestic violence shelter.
At that point, attorney Victor Titus didn’t think Paul was guilty of murder, but he couldn’t completely erase his question. Monica was the stronger person of the pair, and Titus just didn’t believe Paul had it in him to kill someone. The next week, Titus met with Magistrate Terry Pearson and Farmington attorneys Jay Faurot and Bob Graham. Titus sought their help in how to handle the case.
District Attorney Alan Whitehead believed he had more than enough motives to ensure Paul Dunn would be charged in his wife’s death. In addition, he was being pressured by the Sanchez family. While this is common in families when someone dies, here that pressure was more pronounced. The Sanchez family was a well-known, prominent Farmington family. Phone calls of sympathy and support came from everywhere, even Governor Bruce King’s office. Both the governor and lieutenant governor visited the Sanchez home after the shooting. This had to be expected, in a way, because of the political ties of Monica’s family. Whitehead, of course, denied political pressure in general and in particular, any coming from the governor.
Instead, when asked by the media, he brought up the domestic violence packet filled out the day before Monica died, which included photos taken by a police officer which revealed bruises on her body. He said it would be almost impossible for someone to kill him or herself with a shotgun. What kind of awkward suicide weapon was that? He pointed to the specter of a police officer abusing his power, his physical strength. Everyone knew police officers had control problems. Whitehead felt he had everything on his side to file charges against Paul. Meanwhile, Whitehead told callers his office was doing everything in its power to investigate the case. Among them, state police drilled holes in the bedroom wall where the shots wound up. Laboratory tests were being run. All Whitehead had to do was sit back and wait.
However, polygraph tests seemed to be a deciding factor for the San Juan County district attorney’s offices as to whether to take the case to the grand jury. In fact, a case-in-point was one which had a strange, serendipitous aspect: the gunshot wound victim also was named Monica. When Monica Eckstein died, her husband, Greg, passed a polygraph test. Strangely, though Whitehead had more evidence against Eckstein than he had against Paul Dunn, the district attorney quickly dismissed the charges against Eckstein. What was different about the two cases was that Monica Eckstein’s family was virtually unknown in Farmington, certainly not with any ties to Governor Bruce King. Dora Sanchez was a friend of Democratic chairwoman Helen Singleton of Farmington. Singleton helped bring King and Lieutenant Governor Casey Luna to Farmington to show support for Monica Dunn’s family. Their simple presence in Farmington put political pressure on Whitehead to prosecute Paul Dunn.
Superstition doubtfully played a role in anyone’s belief about the similarities in the two Monicas’ deaths. But the circumstances certainly were an uncanny coincidence.
Both women died tragic deaths by firearms with their husbands and children in the house at the time. Suspicion clouded each case, yet both men passed polygraph tests. There were major differences as well; Whitehead saw to it that Paul Dunn was arrested and charged with murder, but he didn’t go this route in the Eckstein case.
When Eckstein passed the polygraph test, Whitehead didn’t take the case against Eckstein any further. Whitehead