The Insanity Defense and the Mad Murderess of Shaker Heights by William L. Tabac

Author:William L. Tabac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Kent State University Press

Colby trial judges John Angelotta, Donald Lybarger, and John Manos (Courtesy of the Plain Dealer and Cleveland Public Library)

Colby confronts the media (Courtesy of the Plain Dealer and Cleveland Public Library)

Security was tight. No cameras were permitted in the courtroom. No one could come in or leave while the trial was in progress. Media artists would be on hand to flesh out, as it were, the testimony in the daily transcripts.

Before the trial formally opened, the judges conducted a “view” as a visit to the crime scene is dubbed in legal parlance. Shepherded by the lawyers, upon arriving at the two-story gray-shingled Colby residence, they discovered a “For Sale” sign stuck in the lawn. Unbeknownst to the press, which had hounded Bob Colby about what his plans were for himself and his son, he had slipped away to Euclid, Ohio, where he had enrolled Dane in school.

Inside, some furniture was gone. What remained was tagged for sale. The March 16 edition of the Plain Dealer seemed to note with surprise the “gay floral design of the wallpaper and the soft, pastel paint of the interior.” The paper’s description of the warm, tasteful interior was understandable for, given what had occurred in that house, it didn’t quite fit. Eventually, after wandering awkwardly about, the judges turned their attention to the blue steel coffee urn on the dining room table where Mariann Colby had concealed the gun.

The next morning, with Bob Colby sitting inconspicuously at the rear of the packed courtroom and the press occupying the seats reserved for the jury, Leo Spellacy, one of the two assistant county prosecutors whom John T. Corrigan had selected to prosecute the Shaker Heights woman, prepared to open for the state.

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