The fact that Robert Cromwell called out to Ella Speaks to ask if she was a hooker the first time he met her didn’t stop the two of them from becoming chummy one fall night in 2001. In a whirlwind romance that lasted several hours, the two of them hooked up, smoked some meth, ate some fast food and went to a couple of bars.
Then she left him to care for her children, one of whom he raped and murdered. He also assaulted Ella Speaks and a friend with a pool cue.
Last week, the Arizona Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence, rejecting his claims of ineffective assistance of counsel and judicial abuse of discretion.
“He seemed so nice,” Ella said, describing him several times as “kind” and “caring.”
Ella was walking from her house in a rough section of Phoenix when she saw Cromwell sitting on a bench. He called out to her, “Hey, are you a prostitute or a police officer?”
Ella replied, “I’m neither one. I’m a mother and I’m having a bad day. Leave me alone.”
After Cromwell chased after her and apologized, Ella forgave him and the two struck up an conversation. In fact, as she was walking toward a store, “Ella saw some men off to her left and was ‘almost relieved’ that Cromwell was going to walk with her to the store,” the Arizona Supreme Court wrote last week.
Cromwell walked Ella home and helped her put transmission fluid in her car. Afterward, she invited him to get fast food with her and her daughters. On the way to the restaurant, Cromwell entertained the children by singing songs with them, Ella testified at his trial.
The group ate hamburgers and then Cromwell and Ella set out for the bars. At one point, while they were drinking in the bar, Cromwell tried to kiss Ella on the lips, but she turned her head and he pecked her on the cheek.
“I can tell you didn’t like it, but I will do it again,” Cromwell reportedly said.
“I don’t think you will,” Ella replied, and she noticed that Cromwell smiled as if he understood, and he apologized. After shooting some pool and filling out a couple of job applications, Ella and Cromwell went back to her place.
It was about 1 a.m.
Since they were getting along so well, when Ella received a phone call a few minutes to come to the aid of two friends who were having an argument, she felt comfortable enough to leave Cromwell alone with her three children, 11-year-old Stephanie Shortt and Stephanie’s younger siblings, Amanda and Heather.
Cromwell told Ella he would just stay in her room while she was gone; she was out of the house for more than an hour.
While her mother was out of the house, 9-year-old Amanda woke up when she heard Stephanie make a noise as if “she was really hurt,” the girl testified later.
In the bathroom, Amanda saw Stephanie standing in the bathtub, unclothed, while Cromwell, with socks on both of his hands, washed her with soap. Cromwell “angrily” told her to get back to bed each time. Amanda saw Cromwell take her sister into her mother’s bedroom, and watched him emerge several times. “During one such trip, Amanda heard a noise like ’silverware shatter,’ and while Cromwell and Stephanie were in the bedroom, she heard noises that made her think Stephanie was hurt,” the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court reads. “She then heard a ‘big bang’ that sounded like a television dropping to the floor.”
Around 2 a.m., Ella and a female friend returned to her apartment where Cromwell attacked them both. He ran from the apartment being chased by Ella. When Amanda saw her mother chase Cromwell from the apartment and the friend, lying on the floor with massive head trauma, she and her younger sister went to look for Stephanie.
They found her in her mother’s bedroom, a blanket covered her unclothed body from the waist down and the television set was resting on her head. The two girls removed the set then ran to get help from the landlord downstairs.
When police arrived, they found Stephanie’s bloody and bruised body. She had “visible wounds on her face and blood coming out of her nose and lips and out of her mouth.” The bedding was also blood-stained.
The responding officer checked to see if Stephanie was breathing and if she had a pulse, feeling a weak pulse in her neck. He also felt her chest rising, indicating that she was breathing. Visible evidence of severe vaginal trauma indicated that Stephanie also had been sexually abused.
She stopped breathing by the time paramedics arrived. The EMTs saw that she had suffered a massive head wound and at least 11 stab wounds to her back.
She was pronounced dead at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix. The medical examiner performed an autopsy on Stephanie’s body. Based on the injuries, he determined Stephanie had received a minimum of five blows to the head and thirteen stab wounds to the back.
Cromwell was quickly arrested, indicted, and tried. He was convicted in February 2003 and sentenced to death.
During his appeal, he claimed that the trial judge erred when he refused to allow Cromwell to fire his court appointed attorney. Apparently he felt the attorney didn’t have his best interests at heart.
The attorney “has no intention of defending me zealously,” Cromwell said. “He has much said in court and on the record that there would be a guilt phase during the trial and he quickly corrected himself in front of you last time I was here, but (he) said no uncertain terms that not only would I be found guilty, but I will die. Those were his exact words to me.”
The court found that the attorney was fulfilling his responsibilities and refused to replace him. That decision was upheld on appeal.