The defense calls Dr. Finch.
R. (for Raymond) Bernard Finch, M.D., 42, rose from his seat in the jammed Los Angeles Superior Court room and made his way to the stand. His strong surgeon's hands were steady, his greying, close-cropped hair neatly brushed, his handsome face marked with confidence and a seeming eagerness to tell his story. With that eager telling last week began the climax of a remarkable murder trial, concerning, as most do, lust and money, but also involving such elements as wife swapping and credit ratings, such characters as a self-styled lady killer, a brash mistress and a hysterical maid, such props as a "do-it-yourself murder kit" and a gift Cadillac—and centering around Finch's wife Barbara, found dead last summer with a bullet in her back and three skull fractures. On trial with Finch for her murder was his mistress, Carole Tregoff, 23.
As prosecution and defense forces spun their separate versions of the murder, there grew the specter of not one but two Bernie Finches, and the key to the trial lay on the question of which was the real Finch.
First Finch. The prosecution's Finch, as depicted in the case built by Deputy District Attorney Fred Whichello, was an immoral, sinister schemer. Though the doctor was enormously successful (part ownership of a thriving clinic, income of about $200,000 a year, a $50,000 home in the fancy Los Angeles suburb of West Covina, a 22-ft. speedboat, three cars), his marriage to Barbara was a dismal failure. It was a second marriage for both; they had met when she was his secretary and then had swapped spouses (he had three children by his first wife). The marriage was about six years old when he got involved in a hot affair with his medical secretary, Carole, who was also married. He had threatened Barbara, the 19-year-old Swedish maid testified, and once even beat her up. "Mrs. Finch told me everything," wrote Housemaid Marie Anne Lidholm to her mother in Sweden, according to a letter introduced in evidence. "He had hit her . . . tried to get her out in the car, which he threatened to drive over the ridge ... He also told her that if she didn't take everything back about the divorce, he had a man in Las Vegas whom he would pay thousands of dollars to kill her."
When Barbara withdrew money from their joint account and put it into her own, said Whichello, Finch forged a $3,000 check. And finally, to prevent Barbara's attempt to get the divorce, which could possibly have netted her all of their $750,000 estate under California's community property laws, Carole and Finch hired a self-styled ladies' man from Las Vegas named John Patrick Cody, who was to get $1,400 for murdering Barbara.
As Cody glibly told the story from the stand, Finch said: "Before you kill her, tell her the bullet came from Bernie."