A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé

Author:David Dominé [Dominé, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-05T00:00:00+00:00

21

WITNESS FOR THE DEFENSE

THUNDERSHOWERS RATTLED the windowpanes in the Judicial Center the next day when the defense put on its case for Joseph Banis. Defense attorney Justin Brown first called Kenny Robertson to the stand. The forty-nine-year-old worked for Midwest Construction out of Chicago. In jeans and collared shirt with wide black and red strips on white, the balding man told how real estate agent Chris Eagan had introduced him to Mundt, who needed renovation work completed at 1435 South Fourth Street. “It was pretty rundown, in pretty bad shape,” said Robertson of the place, and that he did “about eighteen jobs” for the homeowner. Mundt always seemed to be cheerful, he reported. Robertson never saw him with bruises or injuries.

One of the jobs involved cleaning out the basement, where “furniture, bags of clothes, miscellaneous garbage” from previous tenants cluttered the old cellar with the dirt floor. The last project Mundt had hired Robertson to do was concrete over the earth floors in the basement, which the contractor planned on completing when he returned from a vacation in Texas. He never had the opportunity to finish the job, however, as the news broke about the body in the basement.

Brown next called to the stand Marion Elizabeth Davis, a pleasant Black woman who went by the name Libby. Originally from Indiana, the fifty-five-year-old worked at the University of Louisville for thirteen years as an administrative associate and as assistant to the director of IT communications. On at least two previous occasions in the witness box—once with Ryane Conroy and once with Darren Wolff—Jeffrey Mundt had denied knowing Libby Davis. Or at least he couldn’t recall having met her—or so he had claimed—squinting his eyes in an attempt to drum up a distant memory. He had worked with Davis on the main campus—in the same building and in the same department for eight or nine months.

Davis, however, destroyed Mundt’s testimony. “He called me Libby.” She spoke with him regularly and saw “him practically every day.” Davis made his appointments, had to make copies for him, and assisted him “in whatever he needed.” Although she only ever saw Joey once, she knew Mundt had a boyfriend because he “often talked about his personal life.”

Asked to recall Mundt’s demeanor, Davis described her coworker as “jolly,” “very sure of himself,” and “very assertive.” He “really knew what he was doing,” she remembered, and came across as “really friendly.” According to the administrative assistant, Mundt’s demeanor “never, ever changed.” He never seemed scared or nervous. Mundt regularly offered to pick up lunch for her and he always carried around a good deal of cash, often fifty- and hundred-dollar bills, usually in his pockets. Davis had noticed the denominations because she had worked as a bank teller for fifteen years.

“Did Mr. Mundt ever invite you to his home?” Justin Brown put a hand in his pocket as he approached her.

“Yes, four or five times.” The woman nodded, adding that Mundt had even invited her to a New Year’s Eve party at the house.

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