Is Justice Ever Possible for Dyke and Karen Rhoads?

by Diane Fanning

"I'm told I'm naive to expect prosecutors in an adversarial system of justice to seek truth rather than victory and go wherever the evidence leads them. Until now, this story seemed to underscore that naivete and serve as yet another frightening example of how the engine of the State, once in motion, can roll right over the innocent as well as the guilty."  –Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune

I knew the basic outline of facts in the 1986 double murder of Dyke and Karen Rhoads. I knew that two innocent men, Herb Whitlock and Randy Steidl, were convicted of that crime. Herb received a life sentence, Randy the death penalty.

I knew there were problems with the investigation. I had no idea of the extent of the problems. If it weren't for Bill Clutter, investigator with the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, maybe none of us would have ever known.

Clutter traced the unethical behavior of law enforcement back to the original investigators in Paris, Illinois. They rounded up two witnesses: the town drunk and a known drug addict. They plied the two with booze and fed them the story of Herb and Randy's responsibility. It didn't matter that they contradicted each other in places. It didn't matter that other, more reliable witnesses possessed information that made their stories lies–the investigators simply ignored that information.

The unethical–in fact, criminal–behavior of these officers was complicated by the less than honest prosecution team. Ed Parkinson and David Rands hid exculpatory evidence from the defense. The two state's attorneys were familiar to me; they also played a major role in the perversion of justice that resulted in the wrongful conviction of Julie Rea.

After years behind bars, the injustice perpetrated on Herb Whitlock and Randy Steidl was finally receiving the attention it deserved, thanks to Clutter's relentless investigation. The Center for Wrongful Convictions rallied to their cause, and 48 Hours began producing a show about the case.

That's when Michale Callahan entered the picture. Callahan, a lieutenant with the Illinois State Police, was newly promoted to investigations commander over a nine-county area in Eastern Illinois. His first assignment: Take a fresh look at the murder of Dyke and Karen Rhoads.

When he started on the case in 2000, Callahan assumed that he was expected to uncover the truth.  He believed that if he found merit in anything uncovered in his investigation, it would lead to a re-opening of the case.  Soon, he learned that the truth was the last thing the state wanted to find.

At first, he thought he must be mistaken about his suspicions.  He had always believed the Illinois State Police where he'd served for decades was an honorable institution–above politics and dedicated to justice.  That idealism was soon dashed when he stood in the office of his superior officer.  She told him that he could not re-open the case.  It was "too politically sensitive."

Callahan was not a political puppet.  He was a man of principle.  He could not accept the fact that any murder was "too politically sensitive."  Although he'd been ordered to stop investigation of the case, he continued to work with federal law enforcement in any way he could.  He'd discovered a fetid stream of corruption running through the state government and its agencies, iincluding the Illinois State Police. He could not ignore that.

Callahan's reward for pursing truth and justice?  His payment for uncovering institutional corruption?  He was removed from the investigations and stuck in a desk job in the patrol  division.  They insisted it was a lateral move for the betterment of the department, but Callahan knew better.

Michale Callahan's book, Too Politically Sensitive, is the story of the corrupt culture in the highest reaches of Illinois government, the pursuit for justice for the Rhoads and the cover-up order by the highest ranks in the administration of the Illinois State Police.

It is a warning to all of us.  Illinois is only the canary in the coal mine.  There is corruption in every state that needs to be ferreted out before it takes complete control of our system of justice as it has in the Land of Lincoln.

Yes, Herb Whitlock and Randy Steidl have been vindicated and released from prison after approximately two decades behind bars.  What about the two victims, Dyke and Karen Rhoads?  Will they ever find justice?   Even if new dedicated, ethical detectives took over the case at this point, the original investigation has been so compromised, it would probably be impossible to identify and convict the real killers.

Instead, those who committed the cold-blooded, vicious murders of Dyke and Karen Rhoads still walk among us–smug in knowing they got away with murder, confident in the protection they continue to receive from a corrupt state agency and the excessively unethical prosecutors who orchestrated this travesty of justice.  And no one has been punished for perpetrating this deliberate miscarriage–no one but the one man who blew the whistle.

When the Casey Anthony trial begins, currently scheduled for May, you'll find daily updates of the case on Diane Fanning's blog, Writing is a Crime.

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Seeking Justice

by Katherine Scardino 

Anthony Graves is now 46 years old. He was sentenced in 1994 by a jury to die for committing capital murder in Texas and has been incarcerated since August 1992. In 2006, his conviction was overturned by the appellate court for prosecutorial misconduct. The misconduct was the state’s failure to tell the defense that the co-defendant had been trying to tell the prosecution for a long time that he lied on Anthony, saying that Anthony Graves had nothing to do with this case. The co-defendant was also tried by a jury and sentenced to death. In 2000, he was executed. While lying on the gurney, waiting for his lethal injection, he turned to the people watching this killing, and announced, again, that Anthony Graves had nothing to do with this crime. That is about as powerful a statement as you can get.

One week ago, I received a call from the prosecutor. She told me she was dismissing the case against my client, Anthony Graves. I lost my breath. It was an astonishing statement to hear in a case like this. Anthony’s defense team has been fighting for his innocence for years. I have been on this case only three years, and there have been other lawyers before me. My co-counsel, Jimmy Phillips, Jr., and each and every one of those dedicated, smart lawyers told me that we were representing an innocent man. And, I do not mean “technically” innocent, or “not proven,” or that the evidence was lost, stolen or somehow dissipated over the years. I mean really purely innocent. He did not commit this crime.

So, what happened to make a newly appointed, seasoned, tough prosecutor make such a pronouncement? Especially knowing that it would be one she would have to defend. It is very simple. She and her investigator actually investigated. One would assume that in 1992, when he was accused of this crime, there would have been an investigation. There was, but the investigation was skewed by unethical, dishonest law enforcement and prosecutors who heard what the co-defendant said and believed that the case was over. Nothing would stand in the way of finalizing a serious case in this small county--not even an alibi by the accused.

But, then, there was Anthony’s trial in 1994. Was there some investigation done in that year? No. How about in 2006 after the judges sitting on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans reversed this case for a totally new trial? One would think the powers that be in this particular county would do some re-thinking about their position. Sadly, it was not done then either.

Only now, with a jury trial looming in the not-so-distant future, did the prosecution think that perhaps a serious investigation needed to be done. This time it was--and it was done right. This prosecutor and her investigator talked to every person involved in this case. They turned over every stone and looked at every piece of paper. In the end, there was no other conclusion but that Anthony Graves was innocent.

I have been asking myself how I really feel about the awesome experience of seeing this man walk free in the sunshine, wearing a sports jacket and slacks, hugging his mother for the first time in 18 years. I think I am angry. I am angry because people were lazy and ignorant. Anthony is black, he was in a small community and it was 1992. I do not need to say anymore. No one cared. No one wanted to go out of their way to be absolutely certain that all the proper work had been done. And, it wasn’t.

Someone asked me last week, "Does this dismissal reinforce your belief in the criminal justice system?" My response was, “No, it scares the hell out of me.” If one mean-spirited prosecutor, who had the power to make life and death decisions, could do this to my client, he or someone like him could do it to your son or daughter, husband or wife. Then, we had our Governor make a statement like “this shows that our criminal justice system worked.” I tracked down the reporter who published that story and I told him that Gov. Rick Perry had to be joking. How could he say that the system worked, after an innocent person spent 18 years incarcerated for a crime he did not commit? Not to mention that 14 of those years were spent on death row, where Anthony lived in a box and was fed through a slit in the door, with one hour a day alone in an alley-like place where he was exposed to the sunshine.

But, enough about me and my feelings--what about Anthony Graves? How is he doing? Absolutely amazing! This man never gave up hope. He always believed that he would win his freedom one day; he just did not know when that day would come. He maintained his dignity and integrity throughout, which is obvious to anyone who has a conversation with him now. Anthony says he does not want to give those people any more of his energy. No bad feelings from Anthony. He wants to get on with what is ahead of him now during the last half of his life. They took away his best years. You know, those years where you get married, raise children, play baseball with your son. He missed all that. But, he is not angry. One reporter asked him, “What now? Are you going to sue the county? Are you going to try and get your compensation from the state?” Anthony said all he wanted to do was “seek justice.” Personally, I hope that this justice involves compensation from the state.

I think justice would be best served if the prosecutor who failed to investigate this case during his tenure, which caused Anthony’s conviction, would spend 18 years of his life in prison. I suppose I have all the anger that Anthony refuses to acknowledge. That is probably good. Anger at ignorant, arrogant people is a dead-end street. But, in this case, it will be a while before I can say that I am no longer furious at the people responsible for this travesty.

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"I Used To Be Mad..."

by Katherine Scardino

That’s what Ernest Sonnier told the reporter who asked how he felt after spending 23 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Harris County, Texas, now has the distinction of having convicted six innocent people that we know of. They are the six fortunate individuals who could scream loud enough to get the Texas Innocence Project to look at their cases and demand action. I am on the board of the Texas Innocence Project; I learned last week it has more than a thousand cases to review to determine if there is even one more out there who should be freed. That's in Texas alone. Only a handful of workers are willing to labor that hard for so many hours and so little pay.

Mr. Sonnier spent his 23 years in prison knowing he was innocent. His family knew he was innocent; his mother says she knew because he was at home with her.

How often do prosecutors hear that alibi? Yeah, right, home with mom. The law says that until someone is convicted, he is presumed innocent. Why is that so damn hard for prosecutors and judges to remember and honor? Why have we all become so prejudiced against people accused of committing crimes that we assume they are guilty, no evidence required? Just ask someone accused of sexual abuse of a child whether they felt their jury looked at them fairly.

So, what happened to Mr. Sonnier? He was convicted in 1986 for the 1985 aggravated kidnapping and rape of a woman who lived in Alief, Texas. Two men grabbed her and raped her repeatedly in their car until they stopped at a store, giving her the chance to flee and call police. DNA evidence was handled poorly by the prosecutor and the Houston Police Department Crime Lab. The newspaper article about Mr. Sonnier’s release used the phrase “faulty forensics." Translate that to “HPD Crime Lab technicians lied.” There are only two ways you can get “faulty forensics” - falsifying results and lying in court, or contaminating evidence, knowingly or not.

It was not unusual several years ago for crime lab technicians to assume they worked for the prosecution and that their test results should help prosecutors. Such skewed results meant some innocent people, like Mr. Sonnier, wasted their lives in prison.

I cannot, in my wildest dreams, see how anyone could maintain their sanity and humanity while locked in prison for a crime they did not commit. I can't imagine the thoughts that would course through my mind -- about the hopelessness, helplessness and sheer futility of life, not to mention my seething anger.

The repercussions of losing most of the good years of your life? How about the aging of yourself and your family? Your children, nieces and nephews are all grown after 23 years. Your parents may be dead or in failing health. Your health has most lik ely deteriorated because of poor medical facilities in prison or the aging process we all endur e. But we endure it in freedom, with access to the best medical facilities available. Mr. Sonnier barely had a doctor or medication, let alone access to Texas Medical Center.

The problem is simple: Arrogant power controlled by small minds. The solution is not so simple. It would be a large step forward if our judges and prosecutors really believed in the presumption of innocence.

So, Mr. Sonnier, how do you feel today? Are you angry?

“No”, he says... "I used to be mad...”

Bless your heart, sir. Our best wishes for the rest of your life.

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A New Year, A New Lease on Life (Minus 5 Years Lost in Prison)

by Katherine Scardino

In mid-December, a 51-year-old man was freed from prison after a conviction for sexual assault of a child. In 2002, Ricardo Rachell (pictured in plaid shirt) was convicted by a jury for sexually assaulting an 8-year-old boy and sentenced to serve 40 years in prison. He supposedly had all the systemic safeguards to protect innocent citizens from being wrongfully convicted.

In this case, the term "innocent" means just that: Innocent. That term is used by me and other defense lawyers in trials and we define it to jurors as evidence that is "not proven." In Mr. Rachell’s case, he is actually innocent—as innocent as DNA can tell us.

Of course, he had a court-appointed defense lawyer; he had a judge who allegedly oversees the trial and rules without bias or prejudice; he had a jury of 12 people from the community in which he lived; and he had a prosecutor who took an oath to "see that justice is done." All failed Ricardo Rachell.

Back in 2002, there were a rash of sexual assaults of children in the neighborhood where Mr. Rachell lived. The modus operandi involved the assaulter riding a bicycle and approaching young boys with an offer to pay them if these boys would help him with some "chore"—such as delivering newspapers, removing trash, etc. The criminal would then lure these boys to a vacant house or some other spot and molest them. (Right: composite sketch of actual suspect.)

This was a terrible crime against our children and people were alarmed and frightened. Local politicians came to the neighborhood and spoke to the people; police officers were on the alert in the area; prosecutors were ready to prosecute.

Then a young child pointed the finger at Mr. Rachell, and within 24 hours his life turned into a living hell. He was arrested, thrown in jail, where he waited several months for his trial by a jury. DNA evidence was obtained from this child, given to the same officer who investigated Mr. Rachell’s case as well as other similar cases in the neighborhood, and the officer then delivered this critical evidence to Houston's infamous Crime Lab—where it sat . . . and sat . . . and sat. . . .

Mr. Rachell told his mother that he absolutely did not do this. He wrote letter after letter to his defense lawyer begging him to investigate other similar crimes in the neighborhood. He wrote letters to the judge; to the police; to the newspapers—all to no avail. We can only assume that he was simply saying "I did not commit this crime." Mr. Rachell was most likely unaware that DNA had been obtained from the complainant in his case—evidence that would ultimately exonerate him.

After Mr. Rachell’s arrest and while he was in jail, the attacks continued—still with a man on a bicycle . . . still with the request to the young boys to do some chores. The police officer who arrested Mr. Rachell was the same police officer who investigated other similar offenses while Mr. Rachell was cooling his heels in the county jail.

And did I mention that the complainant in Mr. Rachell’s case never said anything to anyone about a facial deformity when describing his attacker? Ten years before he was falsely accused of sexually assuaulting the 8-year-old boy, Mr. Rachell had been disfigured by a shotgun blast to the face after someone accused him of having been on their property.

Since his disfigurement, Mr. Rachell was known in the neighborhood as "Scary Man." His appearance likely contributed to the witch hunt against him. While the police were aware of the accused's facial abnormality, the complainant's failure to mention it did not seem to bother anyone.

It is incomprehensible to me that this situation could have occurred in my jurisdiction. How did this happen? Why would this police officer not say something like, "Hey, guys, do you think we should look at this case a bit closer?" What about the prosecutor? Surely he was aware of other similar offenses in the neighborhood occurring while Mr. Rachell was in jail.

But the worst failure was the defense lawyer. Why would he ignore the pleas of his innocent client? Do defense lawyers who take court-appointed cases hear too many clients proclaim their innocence—even in the face of obvious guilt—that they/we become inured to the truth when we hear it?

The news reports state that the defense lawyer claims to have had no knowledge of any DNA evidence. All the lawyer had to do was file a Discovery motion and in response to this motion, the prosecutor would have said he had the DNA evidence and he would have been required to produce the test results to the defense lawyer, or the prosecutor would have had to lie and say there was no such evidence. There is no indication if any of these things happened. Incredibly, the State never had the DNA evidence tested prior to trial. They had their witness.

As a result of this mass of errors, this innocent man spent nearly six years in prison. To the average person, it would be horrible to be in a prison, but can you imagine how horrible it would be to be locked up and be innocent? Worse, to have been wrongfully convicted of molesting a child. We all know how child molesters are treated in prison. Now imagine having a facial deformity on top of all that and you have some idea of what this man suffered while in confinement.

I want to leave Mr. Rachell’s case and jump to another real and recent case. I was hired to represent a young man about twenty-two years old. From his statements as well as from accounts given by his family and friends, my young client was a good dad who loved his baby girl more than anything in this world. He was with her as often as the mother allowed. He had recently finished a tumultuous relationship with a young woman who was the mother of this 3-year-old baby girl and a final order relating to visitation and child support had been signed and entered.

One recent Sunday, my client allowed his then-girlfriend (who knew the mother of the child) to return his daughter to her. It made the mother very angry that my client, the dad, did not personally return their child. Within 24 hours, this 3-year-old child had allegedly accused her daddy of touching her inappropriately.

Of course, Child Protective Services (CPS) gets involved and the police start investigating. My client hires an attorney. He gets arrested and goes to jail, all the while saying he did not do anything. He told me his story, and consequently, I made an appointment with the assistant district attorney who was assigned to handle his case so I could watch the video of the child.

It was apparent after viewing the video that the CPS interviewer of this 3-year-old child had manipulated the responses to her questions. There is no way I can explain how that is done—you would just have to see it. The child even named another perpetrator in her video—along with my client.

I discussed with the prosecutor the possibility of my client testifying in front of a Grand Jury. A Grand Jury is the filtering system for all felony indictments and at the state level is made up of 12 people who listen to the prosecutor discuss the cases. Defense lawyers are not allowed in the Grand Jury room. The Grand Jury then decides whether there is enough evidence to bind the case over for a jury trial. The Grand Jury either issues a "true bill"—meaning the case will be formally indicted and the defendant must defend himself in a courtroom—or a "no bill," meaning that the Grand Jury decided that there was not enough evidence.

In a few cases, the Grand Jury hears testimony from complainants, defendants, and witnesses, as it did in my client’s case. In the last 24 years, I have probably allowed three or four clients to testify in front of a Grand Jury. This is not a usual practice in defending clients, because defendants are Constitutionally protected against testifying against themselves and defense lawyers do not always have "innocent" clients.

My client testified in front of a Grand Jury, and he was "no billed." This means that his case will be dismissed. The system worked the way it was designed. My young male client dodged a very serious bullet. If he had been in a situation like Mr. Rachell's, he would have had to present his case to a 12-person jury—made up of people like you and me, citizens who abhor sexual assault of children and generally believe that if you are sitting in that "defendant’s chair" in the courtroom, there must be a reason. A conviction and a sentence of many years is more likely than not.

I compare these two cases to show that one was very lucky and the other was very unlucky. The circumstances surrounding Mr. Rachell’s case were even stronger for doubt or even innocence than they were in my client’s case.

Unfortunately, every person that Mr. Rachell looked to for assistance turned a deaf ear. One mistake piled on top of another. How many more of these cases are we going to hear about—years later? How many more people will have their lives torn apart with false allegations? Does the public understand how easy it is for a citizen to be indicted for a case of sexual assault based solely on the statement of one person? These cases are not unlike the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600s. All it takes is one person pointing a finger at you—then you may find yourself in Mr. Rachell’s living hell. Be aware.

At least Mr. Rachell is now free. And he's starting out the new year right. This week, he went for his first "free world" haircut in several years (pictured right). And a Houston plastic surgeon has volunteered his services to reconstruct Mr. Rachell's face. The doctor was contacted by U. S. Representative Al Green, whose district includes the neighborhood where Mr. Rachell lives with his stepfather. "The guy needs help," said Dr. Joseph Agris. "That is what we do. We will take care of this gentleman and there will be no charge."

Dr. Agris is no stranger to performing surgery out of charity. Four years ago, he offered his services to several amputees who'd lost their right hands under Saddam Hussein's regime. Today those men can shake the doctor's hand.

Now Dr. Agris has extended a helping hand to Ricardo Rachell. In his first physician-patient consultation, Agris clutched Rachell's hand with his own, according to yesterday's Houston Chronicle. "I can tell you from my experience, it won't be a one-time operation," Agris said. "Don't look at trying to pay anything. We are going to get through this."

Soon Mr. Rachell will finally face the world as the man he really is, not as the Scary Man the State put away.

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Mystery Man:Kerry Max Cook (Part 4 of 4)

For Independence Day, Women in Crime Ink presents a four-part series written by Kerry Max Cook, a man who struggled for twenty-two years to regain his freedom. This is the fourth installment. Read Part 1, Part 2 , and Part 3 .

by Kerry Max Cook

After I’d lost everything that mattered to me most in the world my freedom, my self-respect, the person I loved the most, I came face to face with the fragility of humankind. And I dedicated my life to forgiveness: of myself, of those I had wronged, and those who had wronged me. I began living the truth that hate only hurts the person who is doing the hating.

In my heart I built a shrine that represented the love I had for Doyle Wayne and I promised him–and myself–that I wouldn’t give up, no matter what.

In defiance of my lawyers, I resumed a media campaign to the press. My lawyers had strenuously advised me against this, saying the press would distort my story and use it against me.

But I had nothing to lose now.

I’d been in prison for over ten years now, with no progress. I’d seen what happens when you let other people control your destiny. It was time I controlled my own, completely.

I wrote to David Hanners, a reporter at the Dallas Morning News. I told him that if he found anything untrue about my story, I would voluntarily walk into the execution chamber to be executed.

My persistence with David Hanners and the Dallas Morning News produced a gigantic break by bringing me and my story out of the darkness and into the light with the headline “Inmate Was Railroaded" splashed across the front pages.

For the next two years I worked exclusively with David Hanners, and this alliance produced over 40 front-page stories, such as “Convicted Man Called Innocent,” “Key Evidence in Cook Case said to be False" (the aging of the fingerprint) and many, many more.

This helped save my life.

My second break came when I persuaded Jim McCloskey (left) of Centurion Ministries to take on my case.

Centurion is a New Jersey-based, non-profit organization that investigates an inmate’s claim of innocence, and if they find evidence to support the inmate’s claims, they hire an attorney and go into the field to collect the hidden or undeveloped evidence.

I had written Jim McCloskey before, but had only been sent a form letter.

Armed with the Dallas Morning News’ front-page investigative stories, I stuffed an envelope full and again wrote Jim McCloskey.

This time, Jim McCloskey wrote back:

“Before I commit to any case, I require an honest, detailed account of your life and a detailed description of your conviction. An innocent man named Matt Connor once wrote us 60 pages. I know that is a lot, and that was an extraordinary case. I look forward to reading your story.”

All during the day, and well into the night I worked on my response. Finally, I wrote:

“Dear Mr. McCloskey: Enclosed please find my 61-page autobiography. I am one page more innocent than Matt Connor was.”

Jim McCloskey took my case. He hired a Houston attorney named Paul Nugent (on left with Kerry and attorney Scott Howe to his right) and for ten grueling years, it was a David and Goliath-like fight, but we prevailed as a united front.

Paul, Jim, and the Dallas Morning News literally saved my life.

So . . . who DID rape and murder Linda Jo Edwards? Twenty-two years lter, a law-enforcement crime lab discovered semen on a long overlooked piece of evidence and tested it in an effort to answer that question.

The DNA belonged to none other than the original suspect–Linda’s married ex-lover, James Mayfield.

But police and prosecutors had so corrupted their case against him in their blind pursuit of me for over two decades, it made it impossible to legally charge him–even in the face of his genetic fingerprints at the crime scene.

Those who prosecuted me were politicians first. They never admitted their mistake. The truth in this case was never as important as their careers. And their careers blossomed.

District Attorney Jack Skeen was nominated “Prosecutor of the Year” by the Texas State Bar, which is made up of county and district attorneys. Jack Skeen is now a District Judge overseeing justice in Tyler, Texas.

Doug Collard, the policeman who started it all by aging my fingerprint and making it the killer’s calling card? Years later, Collard told a fingerprint licensing board—in addressing a complaint filed against him by a fellow member, after the Dallas Morning News publicized his perjury regarding the "aging" of my fingerprint—he shouldn’t be held responsible for his perjury because the District Attorney’s Office made him do it. He finished out his career with honors and retired a few years ago.

It’s worth noting that Detective Collard’s Response to the Complaint filed against him was deliberately hidden while prosecutors fought up the appellate ladder to have me executed.

District Attorney Jack Skeen argued all the way up to the United States Supreme Court that the guilt of the accused was beyond any doubt because Doug Collard testified that the my fingerprint could only have been left on the patio door of the victim at the time she was raped and murdered, making it the “killer’s calling card.”

I did finally get an apology but it didn’t come from the police or the prosecutors–even in the face of DNA exoneration. Ironically it came from the only person involved in my case that had the courage to admit he really was a criminal: Shyster Jackson.

The most significant lesson I learned serving 22 years of a wrongful conviction is the power of forgiveness. The ability to forgive gave me the power to be free.

I was imprisoned on the worst death row in America and now I was free. Death row might have had my body, but it didn’t have my mind. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. “

I never let go of mine.

Read Kerry's complete story in his book, CHASING JUSTICE: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit

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Mystery Man: Kerry Max Cook (Part 3 of 4)

In honor of Independence Day, Women in Crime Ink presents a four-part series written by a man who struggled for twenty-two years to regain his freedom. Below is the third installment. Read Part 1 and Part 2 .

by Kerry Max Cook

When I arrived at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in the summer of 1978, I entered the most violent and primitive prison system in North America—a hate factory so dangerous and barbaric, a federal judge declared it “cruel and unusual punishment,” and said it offended principals of human decency in violation of the Constitution of the United States.

There was no security. From the petri dish of prison, the Administration culled the strongest, meanest convicts they could find and used them as inmate “guards.”

• These inmate “guards” used this privilege as power and ruthlessly ruled over the other prisoners with brute force.

• Everyone carried a homemade knife and used it to fight to the death.

• If you got stabbed, it was an inmate orderly who tended to your wound with iodine. If anything else was wrong with you, you got Tylenol, which was dispensed as the prison panacea.
  

The fight for my life was always on two fronts: the court system—intent on backing the police and prosecutors and executing me—and the prison system full of violent, crazy inmates determined to kill as many of each other it took to feel safe from one another.

Not a day went by that I wasn’t consumed by courtroom images of witnesses, police, and prosecutors all working together to ensure I was convicted and sentenced to death. These images often left me mentally and emotionally crippled with rage and despair.

“Truth-hunger is a hunger just as real as food-hunger,” H.P. Lovecraft said, and I was starved to understand how I could have been sent to this purgatory.

This is when my transformation began, from a ninth-grade dropout, a 22-year-old kid, really—and therefore, by definition, someone who expects someone else to come to the rescue—into the CEO of my own life, a grown-up who had to fight for himself. And when you’re fighting a legal system, that means getting an education.

In one empty cell, I found an old Webster’s dictionary. And I read it from A to Z, practicing new words on staff and prisoners who often didn’t know what I as talking about. My brother, Doyle Wayne, was my only outside support. He sent me educational books so I could learn how to write and speak effectively.

Because I was classified “Death Row,” which meant automatic Administrative Segregation, I wasn’t permitted to attend the prison school system. I persuaded them to at least allow me to be sent a GED handbook so I could study from my cell and take the exam directly, and I passed.

Then I enrolled in college correspondence from Sam Houston State University. I had a GPA of 4.0 when the Texas Legislature passed a law banning anyone sentenced to death from taking "in-cell" college courses. The logic was, I was there to be put to death—NOT to get an education. Nevertheless, following a more or less conventional path, after college I went to graduate school. Ignorance of our legal system helped send me to Death Row innocent, so I read law books voraciously.

My most prized possession was a Black’s Law Dictionary Doyle Wayne saved up and sent me for Christmas. He also paid for a paralegal correspondence course and eventually I received a paralegal certificate. Once I was educated, I stuck out my shingle and started practicing as a jailhouse lawyer.

I wrote writs for other prisoners in exchange for stamps and the writing materials I needed daily to fight for my life. I hammered day in and day out on a manual blue Royal typewriter to anyone empowered to help me: The President, the Governor, the Justice Department, and all media outlets.

I also wrote to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state's highest appellate court for death penalty appeals. After nine years, they finally wrote back: ruling 8-1 in favor of my conviction and execution.

The Court said my argument that the evidence was insufficient to support a jury’s verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt was overruled because:

• The eyewitness to the murder had seen me in the apartment at the exact same time the pathologist testified the victim had died, and a policeman testified the fingerprints were left on her patio door.

• A fellow inmate testified that I had confessed the murder and told the jury things only the real murderer could have known.

  
  

In stunning fashion, the highest criminal court in Texas simply echoed the fabrications of the police and prosecutors. It became apparent the appeals court never even reviewed the actual transcripts in the case.

Announcing the high court had cleared the way for my execution, a Dallas Morning News photograph showed the transcripts of my case sitting in the basement of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals building. If you look closely, you can see the seal was never broken from when Smith County sent them up.

I had always assumed that anyone given the ultimate penalty was entitled to a meticulous judicial review.

I was wrong.

Darkness came to my Death Row cell, and this time, I had to draw strength from an empty well.

My whole life, my biggest inspiration had been my brother, Doyle Wayne. He was the person who made me believe that nothing was impossible, and no mountain was too high to climb.

Two weeks after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals cleared the way for my execution by saying nothing was wrong with my conviction, Doyle Wayne was shot and killed. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it cost him his life.

I found myself faced with this brutal irony: here I was in prison, branded a murderer, and now I had lost my only brother to a senseless, violent homicide.

I finally understood how Linda’s family must be feeling. It was awful.

I wanted to kill. I wanted to die. I wanted . . . to start over.

So I did.

Kerry Max Cook is the author of CHASING JUSTICE: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit.

The story of Kerry’s struggle concludes here tomorrow.

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Mystery Man: Kerry Cook (Part 2 of 4)

For Independence Day, Women in Crime Ink presents a four-part series written by a man who struggled for 22 years to win his freedom. This is Part 2 of his story. Read Part 1 here.

by Kerry Max Cook

So I was charged with capital murder, for the sexual assault and slaying of a woman I'd met once in my life. Although I played no part in her death, the implications of the accusation meant my life was jeopardized. I wasn't a murderer.

But I wasn't an angel either. As a juvenile, I ran away from home a few times, stealing a car or two—usually one to get where I needed to go, and after I ran out of gas, another to get back. One of those cars happened to belong to the sheriff. Definitely the wrong car to steal.

As a result, I wasn’t the most popular person with law enforcement in the small East Texas Town of Jacksonville. Having a police record and a set of fingerprints in the law enforcement database drew attention to me.

At the scene of Linda Edwards' slaying, a policeman found 13 identifiable fingerprints inside the apartment that could have yielded the identity of the killer. “Identifiable” in that each print contained enough points to make a positive identification. But because whoever owned those prints didn’t have a record, police weren’t able to determine the owner. The 13 fingerprints found at the murder scene were destroyed and police and prosecutors settled on me as the suspect.

One of the murder weapons was an orange-handled pair of scissors. On the handle, pressed in blood, the same policeman found a “whorl fingerprint” (left), a type shared by 65% of the people on the planet – including the victim.

But not me.

All ten of my fingers are classified in fingerprint jargon as “tented arches” (right). I don’t have a single whorl digit on any of my ten fingers. Not surprisingly, the policeman dismissed the whorl fingerprint without establishing that person’s identity.

Other evidence was suppressed, bungled, or just plain conveniently lost.

Sworn statements to police, secret grand jury testimony, all told the story of how Linda and I had met out by the pool and I had ended up at her apartment as an invited guest. But the police and the prosecutors hid this critical exculpatory evidence and it wouldn’t be discovered until a new, dedicated defense attorney found it buried in the District Attorney’s files 15 years later.

A drop of blood was found by Linda’s patio door. Maybe it belonged to the killer. You’d think you’d submit it for forensic analysis. But not the police in my trial. They said the reason they didn’t submit if for comparison purposes was because, and this is a direct quote: “It was the same color as the rest of the blood in the apartment.

Then there was the case of the missing ankle stocking. Police and prosecutors contended I had snuck off into the night with one of Linda’s ankle stockings packed full of body parts as a souvenir. But law enforcement never found the stocking.

In Texas, as any other jurisdiction that uses the Death Penalty as a punishment, the crime of murder can be elevated to a capital offense punishable by death if and when the murder occurs during the commission of another felony. In my case one of those underlying felonies the state relied on to make the murder death-penalty worthy was “theft of a stocking.”

Fifteen years later another jury in a separate trial broke open the plastic bag that contained the victim’s blue jeans that had been sealed in a police vault since the first trial. Jurors shook them to determine the victim’s height and out fell the second missing stocking. Apparently it had been shoved up the pant leg of the victim’s jeans.

Evidence at the second trial would show that the prosecution had a win-at-all costs mentality:

• They coached the only eyewitness to the murder, Paula Rudolph, to change her initial eyewitness account of the murderer to implicate me, and guaranteed her new identification would go unchallenged until an ambush at trial when it was too late by making her unavailable to the defense.



• The District Attorney conspired with a policeman to fabricate “expert” testimony to make my fingerprint the killer’s calling card.



• They conspired with the pathologist to change the time the victim died and to create the most inflammatory aspect to the case – missing body parts, carted off in a missing stocking.

• They deliberately suppressed available evidence that Linda and I had known one another and met three days before she was killed.

• Finally, they persuaded a convicted murderer to commit perjury in order to guarantee my conviction. Edward “Shyster” Jackson was dubbed the “Star witness for the State.”

Records ultimately proved that prosecutors made him a secret deal: his freedom from a murder conviction and life sentence in exchange for testimony that I confessed to him while sharing a jail cell that I raped and murdered Linda Edwards. Shyster told the jury that the confession story took place in August. Jail records later established that at that time of the purported confession, I was kept in solitary confinement, unable to talk to any other inmates. Those records mysteriously disappeared without explanation.

It was crazy. It was like I was the main character in a John Grisham novel fighting against a corporation that was out to convict me at all costs to escape any appearance of wrongdoing.

After about my fifteenth year on Death Row and days away from execution, Shyster Jackson finally told the truth on an MSNBC Special Report with Geraldo Rivera: “Deadly Justice.”

I was essentially penniless—the $500 my Mom and dad scraped up to hire an attorney just wasn’t enough. I was powerless to counter a parade of perjury, coached testimony, shady agreements, and inflammatory theories.

In a five-day trial I was found guilty of all charges contained in the indictment, despite absolutely no proof to support the allegations of rape, murder, theft of a stocking, or burglary.

One moment I was in the courtroom crying as I reached out to say goodbye to my mama, daddy, and brother, Doyle Wayne, and the next moment I was being given the execution number 600 and pushed into a five-by-nine-foot concrete tomb.

Kerry Max Cook is the author of CHASING JUSTICE: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit.

The story of Kerry’s struggle continues here tomorrow.

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Mystery Man: Kerry Max Cook (Part 1 of 4)

In honor of Independence Day, Women in Crime Ink presents a Mystery Man Marathon - a four-part series written by a man who struggled for twenty-two years to regain his freedom.

by Kerry Max Cook

Part of any job, whatever you do, is dealing with “bad days.”

The worst day of my life started at the end of the day. It was about 6 o’clock one night, when a co-worker walked up and said, “Kerry, can you come in here for a second?”

I stepped into an adjoining room, which was strangely dark. Suddenly, the room exploded in light. Handcuffs were slammed down on my wrists. I was arrested for the rape and murder of a woman whose name I didn’t recognize. Then things got really bad.

The officers drove me to a police station where I was ordered to remove all of my clothing in front of a young female dispatcher. Nude, I was pulled down a hallway and pushed into a restroom. As the door closed, a volley of punches rained down, slamming me to the floor. Dragging me by my hair into a stall where my head was pushed into a toilet bowl, a police officer screamed "Confess!"

Next I was put on a private plane in the middle of the night and flown to Tyler, Texas. At about 3000 feet up, a detective threatened: Admit to being a rapist and murderer, or be pushed out of a plane.

Twelve hours later, I sat naked in a freezing jail cell on a cold slab of steel, with a new job: to free myself.

At the time, I didn’t know I had 8030 more days to go in this new occupation: it would be 22 years before I’d be able to walk down the street a free man again.

And I didn’t know that meant that I would have to change myself into a completely different human being.

I needed to make sure I didn’t die by lethal injection—or get killed by a psychotic prison inmate before the justice system realized they’d made a terrible mistake. And if I screwed up—if I failed to change—I’d be dead.

Failure was not an option. You hear that all the time in corporate America, where the worst-case scenario means you’re fired. But in my case, if I failed, I would be executed. If I was going to have any hope of succeeding, I would have to become a whole new person.

This is the story of my transformation.

Like many of the best and worst stories in life, this one began with romance. Her name was Linda Edwards. She was 21 and I was 20 when I met her by the swimming pool at an apartment complex in Tyler, Texas, where we both lived.

We talked, we flirted, and Linda invited me to her apartment. We made out, she left a few passion marks on my neck, and we said goodbye. That was it: the first time—and the last time—I ever saw her.

Two months later, I was arrested for her rape and murder.

For the next year, I sat in a solitary confinement cell, awaiting trial—a year in which the police and prosecutors added to my story, by making up one of their own.

It took me 22 years to prove they completely fabricated their case against me.

In the police report, the victim’s roommate Paula Rudolph, the only eyewitness to the crime, stated that the man she saw in Linda’s bedroom at the time of her murder was the victim’s silver-haired, married, 45-year-old ex-boyfriend, James Mayfield. Paula knew what he looked like. She worked directly for James Mayfield at the local university.

But at my trial a year later, Paula changed her story and said that the murderer she saw was me even though the drivers license photo taken the day the victim’s body was discovered showed that my hair was long, brown, and to my shoulders.

The district attorney’s office had this photograph in their possession at the time of my indictment, but kept it hidden for 15 years, when a defense investigator discovered it.

Immediately after my arrest, the District Attorney placed Paula Rudolph under the “protective custody of the Tyler Police Department” and made it impossible for my attorneys to question her. Research shows that a witness’s best recollection is moments or hours after witnessing a crime, not a year later.

A local psychologist with no forensic experience was told that I once worked as a bartender in a gay bar in Dallas. He worked that into a profile and labeled me as a maniacal, homosexual killer and a misogynist.

The pathologist changed his original estimate of the official time of death, adjusting it to match the exact time the policeman swore my fingerprint was left on the victim’s patio door, making it the “killer’s calling card.”

Everything hinged on this policeman’s "aging" of my fingerprint. But there is no way to scientifically determine the age of a fingerprint. The technology didn't exist in 1977, and it doesn't exist today. Still, his claim was the only piece of evidence to support an arrest warrant based on “probable cause.” Later, he restated it under oath to indict me on capital murder charges and bind me over for trial.

Kerry Max Cook is the author of CHASING JUSTICE: My Story of Freeing Myself After Two Decades on Death Row for a Crime I Didn't Commit.

The story of Kerry’s struggle continues here tomorrow.

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MYSTERY MAN MARATHON

A Special Mystery Man Series

This week, we are doing something special to commemorate the holiday weekend. Beginning on Thursday, Women in Crime Ink will publish a four-part Independence Day Series running from July 3 through July 6.

We have a special Mystery Man lined up just for the occasion. Freedom means a lot to this man. Our next guest contributor spent more than two decades on Texas Death Row for a crime he did not commit. In a fight for his life, he fought his way to having his conviction overturned and now has been cleared by DNA evidence.

Along the way, he learned the power of forgiveness.

Today, he is a free man and the father of a delightful, polite, and rambunctious 8-year-old boy. He has written a book about his incredible ordeal. This weekend, he will share his experience with you right here at Women in Crime Ink.

Think this Mystery Man is too easy to guess? As Americans, we would prefer to believe a wrongful conviction and death sentence to be a rare, almost non-existent occurrence. Yet, as most of us have learned, scientific advances have resulted in hundreds of post-conviction DNA exonerations.

Too many of them were falsely accused men headed for the death chamber when science and defenders stepped in to ensure that justice was served. The real mystery in our guest contributor's story is how the government was able to incarcerate an innocent man for more than two decades, and bring that man within days of a court-ordered execution.

This American's story is powerful and thought-provoking. He has a rare perspective on the criminal justice system, a viewpoint most of us cannot begin to comprehend. Read the first installment tomorrow, Thursday, July 3rd. This is a special Independence Day Series you won't want to miss.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

We hope you caught our last Mystery Man, true-crime author and 48 Hours Mystery correspondent Peter Van Sant. You'll find our next Mystery Man working hard in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln. You've seen him on 48 Hours and 20/20. He's popped up in books including Through the Window by Diane Fanning and Victims of Justice by Thomas Frisbie and Randy Garrett. If you are ever wrongfully convicted, he's someone you'd really want on your case. He helped obtain the exoneration of Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez when they were convicted of Jeanine Nicarico's murder—a crime actually committed by serial killer Brian Dugan. Our guy also found the forensic evidence that freed Randy Steidl from Death Row. Finally, this week's Mystery Man played a major role in the case of a wrongful conviction he's writing about this weekend. You won't want to miss it. Check back here on Saturday.

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