Monica Eckstein was a receptionist for the City of Farmington’s recreation department with no political ties in Farmington or Santa Fe. Her husband worked for Amoco and also wasn’t a political figure.
Evidence found in Greg Eckstein’s house seemed more suspicious. At least it was obvious Greg or someone tried to clean up after the shooting. Police found a bloodstained bar of soap and a blood-soaked towel in the bathroom. An Amoco glove with a pinkish stain lay in the trash can.
In her fifth month of pregnancy, Monica Eckstein was found wearing men’s underwear. She’d been shot through the right eye with a .22 caliber revolver. She had a bruise to her face and her tongue hemorrhaged before she died. She hadn’t written a suicide note. Although investigators say they’ve seen suicides where the person doesn’t leave a note, most people leave notes as their last connection with the living. Greg Eckstein was very open with the press after the initial hoopla died down. He believed his wife shot herself by accident while looking at the gun. Why she’d be looking at the gun around her toddler—or be anywhere near a gun while she was pregnant—is another mystery. Her husband could offer no explanation to that puzzle.
Greg also had no clue why there would be a pink or red stain on one of his Amoco gloves. He wasn’t working that day. He couldn’t explain the men’s underwear, since his wife never wore men’s underwear.
He also didn’t know why she would have a bruise to her chin or hemorrhaging of her tongue.
After finding his wife dead, he washed the blood off his hands, never figuring he’d be considered a suspect of any crime. He knew his wife was dead when he found her. He said he wanted to get cleaned up before going to the hospital since he couldn’t do anything to help her survive.
He was downstairs when he heard the gunshot coming from their upstairs bedroom. He found his wife bleeding from the eye while their one-year-old son, Jordan, looked on. She had just come upstairs after eating breakfast. She brought the toddler with her. She’d never kill herself on purpose in front of their child. Greg Eckstein was sure of that.
So was Monica Eckstein’s family, who still believes Greg had some part in Monica Eckstein’s death, even if it was just an accident. The dead woman’s sister, Vicki Goodall of Farmington, said she knows her sister didn’t kill herself. She doesn’t really believe her brother-in-law would kill Monica Eckstein. She thinks maybe they argued over the gun or he was cleaning it and accidentally shot her. She wishes Greg would just explain how the accident could’ve occurred.
A dramatic change in wording of both Monicas’ autopsy reports proved to be the clincher for Whitehead, although others saw the alteration of findings a different way. The same medical investigator, Dr. Patricia McFeeley, performed both autopsies. Monica Dunn’s report had initially indicated the shotgun was pressed to her abdomen. Later, the medical investigator changed this to indicate the gun was one to three feet away, which was the theory of investigators for the prosecution. The manner of death in the autopsy report for Monica Eckstein was changed from “homicide” to “undetermined” when Whitehead decided not to prosecute.
Family members of both women wondered if two killers were wandering around loose. Family members of the men in question wondered if “justice” was synonymous with “politics.” Or was it just like that in Farmington? Of course, money is thrown in there somewhere. To prosecute Paul would eat up a lot of state tax funds. Defense in such a case can cost a great deal. Either way, family members didn’t get their answers through the system. Neither did Paul Dunn or Greg Eckstein.
And Whitehead was getting lucky. Unlike the first autopsy report, the final autopsy report beautifully matched the ballistics tests. According to it, the shotgun had to be one to three feet from Monica Dunn’s body when it was fired. There was no way anyone could kill themselves with a shotgun that was one to three feet away from their body when fired! A problem was solved for the prosecution. Political pressure could be eased by such an easy case. Whitehead wouldn’t have to worry about reelection. Adding to the evidence was testimony of Monica’s friends, who were continuously worried about her because of her declining health after she and Paul separated. The last few weeks before her death, bruises appeared on her body and a sullen Monica would only tell her friends that she fell. When pressed into explanation, friends said there was no way the bruises could have occurred the way she described. Her friends told the prosecutor they began to suspect Paul abused her.
To Whitehead it all fit together. A conviction would take a bad cop and killer off the streets. Not to mention what it would do for Whitehead’s reputation.
As a Tennessee Williams’ character once observed, “The unmistakeable smell of mendacity is in the air.” Titus may not have had experience in murder cases, but he had an astute nose for such odors. Realizing that his own legal experience was not relevant, he now talked Paul into hiring a more well-known defense attorney, Gary Mitchell.
Gary, born in Santa Fe, is the oldest of five Mitchell boys. His father worked for years in the highway department in Encino, where Gary and his brothers went to “the smallest school in the state.”
Mitchell gets his true-blue fighting spirit from his mother, Manon Mitchell of Ruidoso, New Mexico and his father, Arney Mitchell. His mother always divided her time between the kids and keeping the books at the Methodist church.
“My mom had this fiery passion about protecting the underdog. My dad was a World War II veteran,” Gary states.
His mother’s “fiery passion” must have affected Gary, who always spoke up for injustices as a youth and as a general loudmouth. He received a scholarship to Illinois Wesleyan College and went to law school at the University of Seattle, Washington.
“Early in life, my father had a great respect for lawyers. He felt lawyers more than anyone else held freedom in their hands. He felt that if we were strong people and stood up for ourselves, we’d always be free.”
Growing up without a television, Gary Mitchell read a lot of books, mostly histories and biographies of people who loved their country and fought to strengthen democracy and rid it of corruption.
“Government is an evil we have to tolerate in order to live together. You have to butcher your cattle in order to eat. You don’t want to have to do it, but you do it. The government’s the same way.”
Mitchell was a prosecutor in Thurston County, Washington, before moving to New Mexico, where he worked his way up from being a “nobody” at low wages to being one of the most well-known New Mexican lawyers of his day.
Mitchell’s expertise has kept numerous people from being sentenced to death by lethal injection in New Mexico and kept many others from prison. His supporters believe him to be one of the best lawyers in this country; his detractors call him nasty names, but Dave Pfeffer, the investigator he often employs, says anyone who knows the guy knows he’s a cowboy with a heart who would provide a stranger a great meal of his own cattle if he was to visit Mitchell at his Ruidoso home.
Recognizing that proving Paul innocent would be difficult, Mitchell decided he needed the services of private detective Dave Pfeffer. Born in Lodi, California, on a black angus ranch, Pfeffer was raised by parents Walter and Darlene in Carmichael, California, until his sophomore year in high school. The family then moved to Long Island, New York. At the high school he attended there, he learned at an early age what it’s like to be on the outside, looking in. The school was ninety-eight percent Jewish and two percent Catholic. The Protestant Pfeffer was immediately distinguished. Also separating him from his classmates was the fact that he wore “funny” clothes, jeans and wild shirts with belts to match and “frat” shoes, which were basic gym shoes with red, white and blue stripes. The Beach Boys were popular in California and Pfeffer’s look emulated them. But the popular people on Long Island wore white shirts, ties, penny loafers and nice slacks underneath their long overcoats.
Nevertheless, it didn’t take long for the charismatic Pfeffer to fit in. He started hanging out with the “in” crowd, which were the jocks then. The “in” crowd for teenagers in later years ditched too many classes for parties to be on sports teams.
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