i mean, the fact of the matter is, you talk about domestic violence terrorist. the person who s dead here is mark stover. yeah. he s the one against whom the violence was committed. here is something that we ve learned in this country haven t we? you don t negotiate with terrorists. michael didn t know that. or michael felt he could negotiate with a terrorist. linda felt she could negotiate with a terrorist. the reality is, you can t negotiate with a terrorist. and mark stover was a domestic violence terrorist. mark s friends and clients had now been gathered around the courthouse here in mount vernon, determined to tell the world, anybody who had listened, that those claims are both unfair and untrue. most of all these reports that we hear, are filed by her alone in her eyewitness alone and absolutely no one else. so you have to weigh that in it some point to, that it doesn t have that much meat to it. i just knew that wasn t true
after mark stover disappeared, the moment had come, the verdict. the courtroom was packed. on one side mark s supporters, on the other michiel oakes . his children, his grandchild and his love linda opdycke. all waiting to hear oakes fate. we, the jury, find michiel glenn oakes guilty. guilty. not self-defense. murder. the oakes children, the ones michiel claimed that he had been trying to protect when he killed mark stover, cried, screamed, fell apart. as they watched their father taken away in handcuffs. all rise, please. and then the next month in a more ordered courtroom, the convicted killer stood before
so instead he said he ditched marks car at the casino, looked around for a place to dump the body. there s a dilapidated looking dark thing. and i got my car so close to that is possible and muscled him out and dropped him in the water. an area investigators had searched but never found anything. then he said he drove across the state, not to his kids, but to linda s house. though he insisted he did not tell her any of what just happened. he did not tell her what he had done. i just said i had a really bad day. when the police showed up the next night, he admitted, he did try to throw out some evidence. what was your intent? i needed one more day. i was trying to not get arrested just yet. but of course he was arrested and charged. and now it was prosecutors turn to challenges story. about, for example, that
victim, marks dover. remember, mark s friends in clients and nothing but good to stay about him. but w that oaks attorneys would use whatever evidence they could to paint the dog trainer as a threatening, gun loving predator. someone michael oakes would have feared. in here, the real work of the defense began. they focus to a large degree on silver s behavior, with his ex-wife. linda opdycke, said brown was stalking harassed for years. after leaving silver. it wasn t just the incident in which are ex-husband was caught rummaging through her garbage. he made a habit of showing up at her house, uninvited said brown. exposing himself, appearing in the bathroom after she got out of the shower. pointing a rifle letter through the window. leaving handwritten notes. threatening voice mails.
was quite a surprise. linda opdycke, defense witness. i felt this was an important part of the story that i could tell, about a dangerous stalking situation. and if there s any information that i could offer up, i wanted to do so. keith morrison: and as she began, it was clear she was here to join the defense s campaign against victim mark stover s character. would you agree that mark stover was dogged in pursuit of his prey? yes, i would. keith morrison: the defense claimed michiel oakes knew linda opdycke had been stalked by her ex-husband. and that went to his state of mind when he acted in self-defense. so now, linda told the jury some stories she d earlier told oakes, her claim, for example, that mark appeared in her bedroom one night. and he had a pistol in his hand and laid it on the pillow next to my head and was very disturbed. keith morrison: and another time,