Final Argument: An Inquiry Into the Torture and Murder of Mac and Muff Graham on Palmyra Island Perpetrated by Buck Walker and Stephanie Stearns, and the Subsequent Trial of Stephanie Stearns.

by Tom Bucy

Two sailors from San Diego, Mac and Muff Graham, were brutally murdered by Buck Walker and Stephanie Stearns on Palmyra Island. Muff's death was particularly egregious in that she was horribly tortured before her death. Upon death her remains were chopped up and stuffed in a small aluminum container and buried on Palmyra.
After killing the Grahams and stealing their sailboat, Walker and Stearns returned to Hawaii to repair a plank in the hull that was damaged by bullets that were discharged from Muff's derringer as she fought for her life with Stearns in the cabin of the Sea Wind.
On arrival in Hawaii the hull was repaired and the boat repainted. Before Stearns and Walker could depart for the South Seas they were discovered aboard the Sea Wind and arrested for theft of the boat.
They were tried in separate trials. Both were found guilty of theft and several lesser charges. Walker was returned to prison on parole violations and Stearns sent off to jail for several months.
Seven years later, Sharon Jordan and her husband, while beach combing on Palmyra, discovered the remains of Muff Graham. Upon discovery, warrants for murder were issued for both defendants.
On apprehension, their trials for murder in the first degree were scheduled. Walker, in a separate proceeding was tried first. After two weeks in trial, he was found guilty, the jury deliberating for less than two hours.
Stearns trial followed in February 1986. She was defended by Vincent Bugliosi, well known prosecutor of Charles Manson. He was assisted by Leonard Weinglass of Chicago Seven fame. In a daring and brilliant tour de force directed by Bugliosi, after several weeks of trial, Stearns was found not guilty, despite overwhelming evidence she was directly connected with the planning and execution of the Grahams.
The defense team was aided by Judge King who made several rulings which assisted Stearns. Another factor that played a major role in Stearns' victory was the extraordinarily weak and confused prosecution directed by Elliot Enoik. Stearns, a prolific liar overwhelmed the jury with the onslaught of her lies. Prosecutor, Elliot Enoki, was completely out-gunned by the defense. (During summation he went so far as to apologize to the jury for his lack of preparedness.)
The decision of the jury was a shocking miscarriage of justice with blame aplenty to go around. All the dots were in evidence -- they simply had to be connected. Apparently that was too much work for the somnambulant jury.
Final Argument is a tale of the sea, a derelict wooden ship and murder. It is a belated Final Argument made on behalf of the Grahams that sets the record straight.

Genres: True Crime

544 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 20, 2014

Reviews

[Susan Burns · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bugliosi's "And The Sea Will Tell" is an absolute prerequisite to this book. The entire point of "Final Argument" is to argue against "And The Sea Will Tell"; plus, Bucy doesn't start the reader off by explaining the story's narrative - so if you don't already know about the tragedy of Palmyra backward and forward, you'll be lost for a while.

This book as issues. First and foremost, it is in terrible need of an editor. It's easy to tell that this was a passion project for Bucy, and I'm sure he was eager to get it out into the world, but any new set of eyes could have fixed the several dozen typos and repetitions found throughout, which greatly detract and distract from the points the author is trying to make. Second, while Bucy describes himself as a veteran trial lawyer, he announces many conclusions that he himself has drawn as if they are fact and provides not a shred of evidence to support them. (Spoiler: I can see why Enoki turned down his offer to bring another murder case against Stearns.) He repetitively describes a series of rapes and abuses against Muff Graham that have never been reported by any coroner or forensic pathologist who examined her. These are events that have happened only in Tom Bucy's demented imagination and he just can't stop talking about it - which is more than a little disconcerting.

However, if you are able to set aside the problems laid out in the above paragraph, there actually are many interesting insights to be found in this book that will shed light on some of the confusing aspects of "And The Sea Will Tell" and Bugliosi's win for the defense.

For what it's worth, at the end of the day I do agree with Tom Bucy's assertion that Stephanie Stearns is compulsive liar and sociopath who is responsible in some way for the murders of Mac and Muff Graham. She is free today because her brother was able to buy a shark of an attorney and the prosecution was unprepared and outmatched. Sadly, what we have here is a legal system - not a justice system.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: I received this book as a Goodreads Giveaway.

As a follow-up to Vincent Bugliosi's "And the Sea Will Tell" this book works well. Both books recount a terrible series of crimes on a rather forsaken Pacific island. I was haunted by my initial readings regarding the fate of Mac and Muff Graham and Bucy's work intensifies those feelings.

Bucy rebuted the evidence, personalities, and legal decisions of this 1974 case from beginning to end which is why reading Bugliosi's book first is important. I cannot imagine anyone who has read "And the Sea Will Tell" not wanting to read the Bucy book.

Many questions that weighed on my mind were addressed in "Final Argument" in a convincing way, leaving me frustrated with the lack of accountability that is a calling card for this whole matter. In fact, Bucy's book is the closest Muff Graham will get in this world.

[Carolyn Comings · Rating 2 out of 5]

I first learned of the Palmyra murders when I saw the TV miniseries based on Vincent Bugliosi's book. I read the book soon after watching the TV show, and have re-read it a couple of times in the intervening years. This fascinating story has stayed in the back of my mind, and every so often I will Google "Palmyra" to see if there is any new information. That is how I found out about Tom Bucy's book.

**Spoiler warning**

The author provides quite lurid detailed accounts of the actual murders of both Mac and Muff, but never states where he learned these details. He states as fact that Mac was murdered aboard the Iola when he came to retrieve a generator, and that Mac's body was left aboard when that boat was deliberately scuttled by the perpetrators. He also states as fact (and in great detail) that Muff was brutally tortured and fought for her life to the end.

I have not been able to find any explanation of how the author came by this information. It is not included in the book, and I have found these details nowhere else on the net. Thus, I cannot rule out that the murder details as described in the book are pure speculation on the author's part, with some of the speculation based on the examination of Muff's recovered bones.

I concur with the other reviewers who pointed out the repetitive passages in the book. When I found myself reading the same thing multiple times, I started to skim, but I don't think I missed anything, because I was watching closely to see whether the source of those murder details was ever going to be explained.

I read the ebook edition from Kobo, and it has many spelling, grammatical and sentence structure errors. I would strongly recommend that the author have the book professionally edited, take out the repeats, explain where he got the murder scene details OR clearly state that they are speculations on his part, and republish.

My suspicion that the murder details are speculative is supported by the fact that near the end of the book, the author imagines (and clearly states that he is imagining) how the story might have turned out differently if Muff had managed to turn the tables on her would-be killers and escape with her life and her boat. Alas, she was indeed killed, and her husband's body has never been found.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting Comparison to "And the Sea Will Tell"

This book discusses MANY facts and situations about the tragic 1974 Graham murders aboard the Sea Wind that were not mentioned in the Bugliosi book. Or rebutts many of the same.

Having read both, I enjoyed reading Final Argument as it presented many, many (hundreds?) of facts/tidbits of new information not in the Bugliosi book. I found Final Argument superior in this regard.

I was disappointed, however in the editing of Final Argument. Many facts and scenarios were repeated so many times I just skipped over those pages. There were also many, many misspellings or incorrect words...it was annoying to say the least.

But it is still a compelling read.

[Lekeke Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do u read the dook

[Guido Maschio · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is both interesting and clumsily misleading. Beside that it is full of useless repetitions and after a while that was a real pain in the ass. And toward the end it becomes a horror fiction book, too.

I found very interesting the new informations recovered from the trial depositions; that shows how Bugliosi in his "And the sea will tell" was cleverly witholding little details from us in order to paint a better picture of Stephanie Stearns, his client in the murder trial.

But Bucy fails to deliver his theory. I remember him wandering for long long pages to prove that Iola wasn't seaworthy by examining boat building technology. Sure Iola wasn't a model boat, but however she managed to bring her crew from Hawaii to Palmyra. Then Bucy tries to destroy Stephanie Stearn reputation as a sailor .. why did they take so long to arrive to Palmyra? . He could have spared the fatigue. All knew that Stearns (and Walker) NEVER sailed a boat before, except a brief navigation test around the Hawaii with Richard Musick giving Walker navigation tips. They learned to sail from books and one must admit that they did pretty well, managing to get to Palmyra. Another remarc by Bucy is about the fact that Stearns in her diary/log referred to Walker as R (Roy , the fake identity he was using at the time). Bucy makes a big thing of this: if she did write the logbook for herself why did she indicate Buck as Roy in her writings? So he concludes that this shows that Stearns falsified the logbook writing it after the murder of the Grahams, in order to cover their tracks, taking into account the fact the others will be reading it and so indicating Buck as R (Roy). In fact Bucy is wrong because in the early entries of the diary Stephanie refers to Walker as Buck. And if you read the Walker book "Palmyra: the true story of an island tragedy" you will know that the diary entries sometimes were written by Walker himself. I really don't see that diary as a clever criminal artefact. There are many other criticism I could do but the strongest is about the way Bucy depicts the Muff murder. As another reader wrote, Bucy uses pages and pages to describe cruel tortures inflicted to the poor Muff before the murder, without showing one single evidence. I was really upset when I read those long cruel pages coming out of nowhere. Even the more pessimistic forensic result of the Muff autospy wasn't as truculent as Bucy (totally invented) description of poor Muff last hours. So, if you are interested in the Palmyra case I recommend the book, but be warned ... Bucy is totally biased and tries hard to prove that Stearns was the mastermind of a cruel crime that started since she and Buck left Hawaii on the Iola.
I don't believe so.

[Joan Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was very interesting in the beginning, but as you got into the book there were too many he said this, she said that, and this other person said something else. I just gave up reading because I felt like it was just too repetitive.