Convicted Killer Finally Takes the Stand

Convicted murderer Bridget Callahan testified on her own behalf for the first time Thursday, saying she had wanted to take the stand during her Ventura County trial last fall but that her attorney wouldn’t let her.

Court-appointed attorney Joseph O’Neill is under fire for his representation of Callahan, 31, who was found guilty of first-degree murder in November after jurors concluded she aided two skinhead gang members in the 1998 killing of Ventura teenager Nichole Hendrix.

Callahan’s new attorneys, Kay Duffy and Jim Farley, are pushing for a new trial, arguing that O’Neill was abusive to Callahan, unprepared and overwhelmed by the complicated case.

O’Neill denied those accusations when he testified in a hearing last month.

On the witness stand Thursday, Callahan said O’Neill routinely yelled at her, saying “I was dumb, and that I was stupid for taking my case to trial.”

“He kept saying I just needed to take a deal,” she said.

Prosecutors had offered to let Callahan, who acted as an informant in the case, plead guilty to second-degree murder, but she refused. That plea would have allowed her a chance for parole after 15 years. Her conviction, however, mandates a life prison sentence with no possibility of parole.

Callahan accused O’Neill of failing to investigate the credibility of key witnesses at her trial, and said the Oxnard attorney refused to call witnesses she believed would have helped her case. She said she asked O’Neill several times to allow her to testify, but that he would not let her.

According to O’Neill, the two discussed the issue and both decided it was not a good idea.

In court last week, Superior Court Judge Vincent O’Neill Jr. said he wanted to hear from Callahan, prompting Thursday’s hearing.

Much of Callahan’s testimony involved the retelling of her own version of events -- an account she has given on several occasions to police and to a Ventura County Grand Jury.

One key issue is an accusation by Duffy and Farley that O’Neill did not explore a defense of battered women’s syndrome for Callahan, nor did he consult with an expert in the syndrome.

Under questioning by Farley on Thursday, Callahan told of the horrors of living in a skinhead gang, where dominating men kept her under close watch and often beat her up or ordered her to be “jumped” if she didn’t behave.

Callahan said when Michael Bridgeford and David Ziesmer allegedly kidnapped and killed 17-year-old Hendrix in the bathroom of a Ventura motel room, she feared for her life.

That fear continued, Callahan testified, as Ziesmer forced her to stay with him every minute in the weeks after the murder.

On the night of the killing, she said, Ziesmer ordered her to drive a pickup truck with Hendrix’s bloodied body in the back to Santa Barbara, and then to Oxnard, where the trio shoved the body in a garbage can and covered it in cement.

The ordeal terrorized her, Callahan said.

Farley asked why she never tried to leave or tell authorities about what had happened, particularly when police officers went to her home on an unrelated matter, shortly after Hendrix was killed.

“I figured if [Ziesmer and Bridgeford] couldn’t find me, they would go to my family, and I would rather have something happen to me than my family,” Callahan testified.

Even after the two men were arrested and put in jail for beating up a man on Ventura Avenue, Callahan said, “I didn’t feel [going to police] was an option.”