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The prisoner:
6 years, 4 months, 18 days
BY GERALD M. CARBONE and CATHLEEN F. CROWLEY
Journal staff writers
In his first three months at the state prison,
Scott Hornoff heard of the birth of his third child, a son Jacob.
Five months in, a bank repossessed the family's
car. Soon after, his wife was forced into bankruptcy.
His family did not like to tell him bad news. He
learned of the death of his favorite dog, a Newfoundland named Whitney,
in a roundabout way. He worried: if they wouldn't tell him about the death
of a dog, what else might they be hiding?
No one liked to tell him good news either, stories
of a trip taken or a good meal eaten out. They didn't want to torment
him with what he was missing.
Prison was blue steel and cinder blocks. It was
khaki shirts and the non-stop hum of the ventilator. It was standing for
the "count" four times a day and learning quickly to trust no one. Scott
grew convinced that one inmate was wearing a hidden wire, hoping to catch
him confessing to the murder of Vickie Cushman.
Scott was 26 when she was murdered, 33 when he arrived
at the ACI; he'd be eligible for parole at age 48. Scott knew he would
never win parole; parolees must show remorse, and Scott would never apologize
for something he did not do.
Prison is a dangerous place for an ex-cop. Scott
served his time in protective custody, in a 6-foot by 10-foot cell with
a bed and a toilet. He discovered that the hiss of the toilet flushing
could cover the sound of his sobs.
Scott lived for visiting hours. He'd hold hands
with anyone who came: his mom; his wife, Rhonda; his three boys. The warm,
human contact made him feel like he wasn't a caged animal.
The days dragged. Scott learned origami, the Japanese
art of sculpting paper. He fashioned simple cranes from the silver foil
of cereal boxes and over time he learned to create more elaborate creatures:
a wolf, a peacock, a dragon. He taught himself to draw.
Sometimes he'd jog in his cell, staring through
barred windows, pretending to be running through the woods with his brother.
Scott developed the "thousand-yard stare" that he still can't shake.
The running in his cell was hard on his legs; sleeping
on a steel bunk was bad for his back. He felt the onset of the aches and
pains of middle age. His blond hair grayed at the temples.
While Scott ran in place, events in the outside
world plodded forward: his third son grew from diapers to grade school;
the oldest passed from grade-schooler to teenager; Superior Court Judge
Robert D. Krause denied a second appeal for a new trial; Rhonda sought,
and was granted, a divorce.
The 1999 divorce, Scott says, was mutual. He told
Rhonda he would win his freedom, but he did not know how long it would
take. He didn't want her tied to that place, the prison.
With the divorce, the destruction of the Hornoffs
was complete: Scott and Rhonda had lost their money, their property, their
marriage; Scott had lost a career and his freedom. Almost every day he
thought of suicide.
Scott endured the prison routine: Thursdays was
French toast day, Saturday night was franks and beans; he'd trade his
Saturday night dinner for somebody's Thursday breakfast.
At mealtimes they sat on steel stools at steel tables
in groups of 4; they had 9 to 12 minutes to eat. Scott would swill his
food, swivel around and face the wall. His table mates would ask: Why
do you eat so fast?
He'd say, "Well, I'm not here for the atmosphere."
Often he would not eat at all. He lost weight, enough
so that Joel S. Chase, his lawyer, worried. Scott was more than Chase's
client; he was his friend.
Scott's conviction tortured Chase. Every day Scott
served in prison, Chase second-guessed himself: Why did I let this happen?
He prayed to God daily for a second chance to right the wrong.
In the periods when Scott would not eat, Chase gave
him pep talks: "The truth will come out and we'll get you out of here."
Other times Chase was surprised at how well Scott
bore the burden of being an innocent cop condemned to life in jail.
Scott once told Joel: "I guess this is meant to
be. I'm meant to go through this so others don't."
Scott says now: "Growing up I always felt a connection
to those who had suffered throughout time, whether it was the slaves from
Phoenicia and Crete, and the Christians in Rome, and the Jews and handicapped
in Nazi Germany and the Salem witch trials, the Spanish Inquisition. Whatever
it was, I felt a connection with the innocents who had suffered. Even
though I wasn't on that caliber and suffering as greatly as any of them
did, I still felt some type of connection."
AFTER THE divorce, Tina Dauphinais, Scott's friend
from Rocky Point, began to visit him in prison. She sensed that Scott
wanted to hear stories of the outside world, of family trips and good
meals, to live vicariously through them. She would hold her cell phone
above the surface of Narragansett Bay and swirl her hand through the water
so Scott could hear it trickle. If she heard a loud bird, like a cardinal,
she'd hold out the phone to let him listen; she'd bring the phone to parties
so Scott could hear laughter.
Tina became obsessed with winning Scott's freedom.
She knew he was innocent; each passing hour was another one wasted. She
watched television shows like Forensic Files; she'd call and e-mail the
programs asking for help, with some success. With Tina's prodding, the
National Police Defense Foundation and the Innocence Project began battling
to free Scott Hornoff.
Tina arranged her work schedule around visiting
hours. Other times, she would sit on a patch of grass by the parking lot
where Scott could see her from cell P3. When a fence was put up, blocking
his view, she tied a yellow ribbon to it.
Scott liked visits from his sons. But a psychologist
was concerned that Scott was giving the boys false hope. In a report to
a Family Court judge, he insisted that Scott stop "making promises of
things they will do together."
The psychologist said that "Joshua believes he can
decide to live with father when he is 14 years old and presumably because
his father will be free."
WHILE SCOTT Hornoff stayed stuck in a kind of purgatory,
the real killer enjoyed the small milestones of a good life. Todd Barry
began his own business, Barry Construction; his wife gave birth to their
second child, a daughter; a real-estate boom gave him a tidy profit when
he sold his Pawtucket house and bought another in Cranston.
The Barrys moved to Cranston in the summer of 2002,
13 years after Todd killed Vickie Cushman. By fall, Todd was having serious
mental problems. Since breaking into carpentry a few years out of North
Kingstown High School, he had felt self-assured, handy, competent. Now
completing even simple tasks was difficult, a chore. He felt "edgy."
He chalked it up to stress; he stopped working to
see if that would lighten his load. That backfired. Out of work, he could
not sleep. A doctor prescribed sleeping pills; they did not work.
At first he didn't know what was rising from the
depths of his mind. He felt something coming out his subconscious about
"how awful I felt."
In a video-taped confession to the state police,
Todd says: "Listen, 13 years, 13 years. There's a lot of things going
on in 13 years that you don't remember, that you've put back into different
corners of your mind, and then you have a breakdown, and you haven't slept
in two-and-a-half weeks almost."
Then on a Saturday morning he suddenly knew what
haunted him: Vickie. "And then the whole thing comes -- it's coming crashing
down that I've been hiding all these years and this guy's in jail and
there's no friggin' way I can have this guy in jail with me outside. No
way. No how."
He wanted to tell Donna, but how? How do you tell
your wife, a mother of two children who still had their baby teeth, that
her husband, their father, is a murderer?
SUNDAY:
The Confession
Gerald M. Carbone can be reached at gcarbone@projo.com
and Cathleen F. Crowley can be reached at ccrowley@projo.com.
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