March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Clarke’s ex-wife testifies at retrial > Objection to witness cites `extreme bias’

BANGOR — The ex-wife of defendant Harold Clarke “will do anything to convict him” of manslaughter including contacting a juror’s family, defense attorney Steven Peterson said Wednesday.

Peterson argued that the jury should not hear the testimony of Joy Little, the ex-wife, because of her “extreme bias.”

But Superior Court Justice Andrew Mead decided Little’s testimony should be heard in the second day of Clarke’s manslaughter retrial.

Last June, a Bangor jury was unable to come to a verdict and a mistrial was declared on a charge that Clarke, a 35-year-old urchin diver, beat 4-year-old Deanna Wadsworth to death in a Rockland apartment on Nov. 7, 1994, while he was baby-sitting for her. He now is being retried on the charge.

Police said the child died from internal injuries from a severe blow to the abdomen, administered within a few hours of death. Ambulance crews said the child was in full cardiac arrest when they arrived at 1:25 p.m. the day of her death. Medical experts said the child had so many injuries inflicted over such a long period of time she was a classic case of “battered child syndrome.”

During the June trial, Little was in a Rockland house when a telephone call was made to the wife of a juror on the eve of jury deliberation, Little admitted on the stand Wednesday. Under cross-examination by Peterson, Little said the call was made without her knowledge, while she was in the bathroom and was not intended to influence the jury to send Clarke to prison, so she could get full custody of their son. She said there was “no friction” between her and Clarke, whose marriage preceded his relationship with Deanna’s mother.

During a hearing conducted in the jury’s absence, attorney Peterson said anyone would have to be “naive beyond belief” to believe Little’s story. He sought to exclude Little’s testimony on the grounds of extreme bias, but Justice Andrew Mead allowed Little to testify.

In the first trial, Little told the jury that Clarke “hated” the child and blamed her for troubles he was having with her mother, Tamara Wadsworth Willette. The child and her parents lived together in an on-again, off-again relationship in a Brewster Street apartment in Rockland. Little said Wednesday only that the child often wet her pants when she was alone with Clarke, just to make him mad.

It is a clear defense strategy in the retrial to cast suspicion on the child’s mother, Tamara Wadsworth Willette. The Rockland waitress came home briefly on the day of the child’s death, while Clarke was baby-sitting.

Downstairs neighbor Amy Lee said Clarke never struck Deanna, was good with the child and with his own three children. When Lee was called upstairs to help on the day the child died, Clarke was trying CPR to revive the stricken child. He checked on the child several times when the ambulance crew took over, whereas the mother never embraced the child and never touched her during the emergency procedures. She went downstairs and made phone calls, Lee said.

Peterson asked if that behavior made her angry. “Yes,” Lee said.

Ann Marie Hupper of St. George, who once worked as a waitress with Willette, said employees had to force the mother to call a doctor when Deanna was injured in the months before the child died. One day, Deanna had a huge bump on her forehead and was drifting in and out of consciousness at the Rockland Cafe, but Willette was more worried about her relationship with Clarke, according to Hupper. Hupper dialed a doctor and made Willette talk to him, she said. Only then did the child get medical attention.

Hupper said Deanna had black eyes and bruises on her body in the months before her death. When employees called the injuries to the mother’s attention, she ignored them, Hupper said.

Restaurant cook Joanne Peters Wadsworth said Willette went home to care for her sick child from 10:45 to 11:40 a.m. the day her daughter died. Willette returned to work and was “staring into space” before she got a call from Clarke at 1 p.m. that Deanna had stopped breathing.

Testimony is expected to last until next week.


Have feedback? Want to know more? Send us ideas for follow-up stories.

comments for this post are closed

You may also like