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From: Jasper
Date: 4/3/02
Time: 9:23:44 AM
The Heidstra timeline represents a reliable "clock" (as defined by Donald Freed's Killing Time) because of Heidstra's regular dog-walking habits. He was conscious of the time because he waked his dogs on the same rout every day, sometimes as often as three times a day for over ten years. He tried to do it at 6:00, 8:00 and 10:00, which required frequent references to a timepiece.
Heidstra lived on Dorothy, three buildings west of Westgate. His normal evening routine was to leave his apartment with his dogs for the last time at 10:00. He would go counterclockwise around the long block bounded by Westgate, Gorham, Bundy and Dorothy. He walked the same route with his dogs hundreds of times beginning from the same place at the same hour and ending at the same place in plenty of time to before the eleven o'clock news started. It took twenty minutes for him to get from his apartment to the intersection of Gorham and Bundy, which means that he normally got there at 10:20 and crossed in front of Nicole's condo (on the opposite side of the street) at 10:25.
This time things were a little different. He didn't get around to starting his walk until 10:15. So, instead of arriving at the intersection of Gorham and Bundy at 10:20, he got there fifteen minutes later - at around 10:35. And instead of turning south on Bundy, he altered his rout out of fear for his old, crippled dogs because of the "hysterical" way the Akita was barking and his perception that the dog sounded like he was on the street. He went down the alley on the east side of Bundy where the old woman kept the black dog and where he heard the "Hey! Hey! Hey!" followed by the argument and the two men arguing.
The second voice - the deeper one - could not have been either dog.
Heidstra could tell by the distinctive way that each dog barked whether it was Nicole's big, white Akita or Elsie Tistaert's little black dog. Heidstra testified that the argument went back and forth for about fifteen seconds WHILE the dogs were barking.
MR. DARDEN: The voice sounded like the voice of a white male?
MR. HEIDSTRA: How could I say that is a white male? I don't know the voice. It could be anybody there.
MR. DARDEN: Did you ever tell Mr. Stevens, my investigator, that it sounded like a white male?
MR. HEIDSTRA: No.
MR. DARDEN: Never said that?
MR. HEIDSTRA: I don't recall that at all. I said it was a clear voice but never what kind of white or brown or yellow.
MR. DARDEN: And then there was that second voice, correct?
MR. HEIDSTRA: Right.
MR. DARDEN: And that second voice, that voice sounded deeper than the first voice, didn't it?
MR. HEIDSTRA: A little bit, but I couldn't hardly hear it with the dogs, the commotion with two dogs there. It was very short.
MR. DARDEN: Did you ever tell anyone that the second voice was a deep voice?
MR. HEIDSTRA: It was deep, it was deeper than the other one other than, "Hey, hey, hey."
Now, here is the crucial sequence. Nearly everyone got this wrong, Fuhrman, Toobin, Bosco, Shapiro, Petrocelli, etc. Heidstra said the same thing every time. The people who reported it got it wrong
1) 10:35: Hears Akita barking hysterically.
2) 10:35: Walks dogs down alley.
3) 10:40: Hears Black dog near Mrs. Tistaert's garage begins barking.
4) 10:40: Hears Akita hesitate.
5) 10:40: Hears man across the street say in a clear voice, "Hey! Hey! Hey!"
6) 10:40: Hears man with slightly deeper voice say something angrily.
7) 10:40: Hears 15-second argument between "Clear Voice" and "Deeper Voice." Cannot make out words.
8) 10:4?: Hears metal gate slam.
9) 10:45-47: Walks to Dorothy
10) 10:45-47: Turns head back to Bundy. Sees light-colored Jeep-like vehicle facing him on Dorothy at the stoplight on the intersection of Bundy. Also sees a car going north and another one going south on Bundy pass each other at the intersection.
11) 10:45-47: Sees the SUV turn south onto Bundy and speed away.
12) 11:00: Arrives home just as the dogs stop barking and the eleven o'clock news is about to come on.
Dividing the length of Dorothy, Westgate, Gorham and the alley east of Bundy into 12 equal segments gives you a pretty good way of measuring the time it took for Heidstra to get from point to point in five-minute increments. That, of course assumes a constant rate of speed averaged over each five minute segment with a two minute allowance for the length of time Heidstra stopped to change course and to listen to the commotion in Nicole's front yard.
Working forward from the time Heidstra left the house, backward from the time he returned and using Denise Pilnak's five minute call to her mother at 10:25 as an interim check on when the Akita started barking, the margin of error can't be more than two or three minutes. That's plus or minus a minute and a half. And for a murder investigation with open-ended theories, red hearings and false time-lines up the ying-yang, that's a damn good clock. --Jasper