The Innocent Man (21 page)

The first day of the preliminary hearing dragged on with the laborious testimony of Dennis Smith, who described in detail the crime scene and the investigation. The only surprise came when Smith discussed the various writings left behind by the killers—the message on the wall scrawled in red fingernail polish, the “don’t look fore us or ealse” in catsup on the kitchen table, and the scarcely readable words on Debbie’s stomach and back. Detectives Smith and Rogers thought such handwriting might be traceable, so, four years earlier, they asked Dennis Fritz and Ron Williamson to write something on a white index card.

The detectives had virtually no experience with handwriting analysis, but, not surprisingly, they felt strongly that they had a match. The samples given by Fritz and Williamson, words written in pen on an index card, looked suspiciously similar to the red fingernail polish message left on a wall and the smeared catsup in the kitchen.

They took their suspicions to some unidentified agent at the OSBI, and, according to Smith, this agent agreed and gave them a “verbal” confirmation.

Under cross-examination from Greg Saunders, Smith testified, “Well, the handwriting, according to the person we talked to, was similar to the handwriting we found on the wall of the apartment.”

“What about the table?”

“Both of them were similar.”

A few minutes later, Barney grilled Smith on the
handwriting analysis. He asked Smith if he had a report from the OSBI on Ron’s handwriting.

“We did not submit it,” Smith admitted.

Barney was incredulous. Why wasn’t it submitted to the OSBI? They have the experts. Maybe they could have eliminated Ron and Dennis as suspects.

Smith was on the defensive. “There were similarities in the handwriting; but, you know, it was based on our observations, and nothing really scientific. I mean, we were, you know, we saw the similarities in it; but, you know, to compare two different types of writing like this is nearly an impossibility. You have writing with a brush, you have writing with a pencil, and that’s two different types of writing.”

Barney replied, “Well now, you’re not trying to tell this court that there’s a possibility that these two boys, Dennis Fritz and Ronnie Williamson, took turns with that fingernail brush, or fingernail polish brush, and wrote a statement about Jim Smith and the other, you know, one of them wrote one letter and just alternated or anything of that nature which would give you the same conclusions, are you?”

“No, but I think it was our opinion that both of them had a hand at the writing, not necessarily on the same writing, but, you know, there was several different writings in the apartment.”

Though the handwriting testimony was offered at the preliminary to help prod the case along, it would prove too flimsy even for Bill Peterson to use at trial.

At the end of the first day, Judge Miller was concerned about Ron’s absence. At a bench conference, he
expressed his worries to the lawyers. “I’ve done some reading about the absence of the defendant. I’m going to have Mr. Williamson brought back over about a quarter till nine and inquire one more time whether or not he still wishes not to be present. If he does, then he’s going back again.”

To which Dr. Barney added helpfully, “Do you want me to load him down with about a hundred milligrams of—”

“I’m not telling you what to do,” Judge Miller interrupted.

At 8:45 the following morning, Ron was escorted into the courtroom. Judge Miller addressed him by saying, “Mr. Williamson, yesterday you had expressed your desire not to be present during the preliminary hearing.”

“I don’t want to even be up here,” Ron said. “I didn’t have anything to do with this killing. I never—I don’t know who killed her. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Okay. Your conduct and your disruptive behavior—you can reclaim your right to be present if you so desire, but you’ll have to promise and be willing not to be disruptive and disorderly. And you’ll have to do that in order to reclaim that right. Do you wish to be present?”

“No, I don’t want to be here.”

“And you understand that you have the right to be here and listen to all the witnesses’ testimony?”

“I don’t want to be here. Whatever you all do I can’t help it. I’m tired of being crazy about this. It’s suffered me so much; I just don’t want to be here.”

“Okay, and that’s your decision. You do not wish to be present?”

“That’s correct.”

“And you’re waiving your right to confront witnesses by doing that under the Constitution?”

“Yes I am. You all can charge me on something I didn’t do. You all can do anything you want to do.” Ron then looked at Gary Rogers and said, “You scare me, Gary. You can charge me after four and a half years of harassing me, sir, you all can go at it because you all is the ones in control, not me.”

Ron was taken back to jail, and the hearing resumed with the testimony of Dennis Smith. Gary Rogers followed with a tedious narrative of the investigation, then OSBI agents Melvin Hett and Mary Long testified about the forensics involved in the case—fingerprints, hair analysis, and the components in blood and saliva.

After the state rested its case, Barney called ten witnesses—all jailers or former trustees. Not a one recalled hearing anything vaguely similar to what Terri Holland claimed she heard.

When the testimony was over, Barney and Greg Saunders asked the court to dismiss the rape charges because they had not been brought within three years of the crime, as required by Oklahoma law. Murder has no statute of limitations, but all other crimes do. Judge Miller said he would rule on the motion at a later date.

Almost lost in the shuffle was Dennis Fritz. The focus of Peterson’s prosecution was obviously Ron Williamson, and his star witnesses—Gore, Terri Holland, Gary Rogers (with the dream confession)—all testified against Ron. The only proof that remotely tied Fritz to the murder was the hair analysis testimony of Melvin Hett.

Greg Saunders argued long and hard that the state had not met its burden of proving probable cause that
Dennis Fritz was connected to the killing. Judge Miller took the matter under advisement.

Barney joined in the fray with a noisy motion to dismiss all charges because of such light evidence, and Greg followed suit. When Judge Miller didn’t issue a ruling immediately, when it became apparent he was actually considering the merits of the defense motions, the police and prosecutors realized they needed more evidence.

Scientific experts carry great weight with juries, especially in small towns, and when the experts are employees of the state and called by the prosecution to testify against criminal defendants, their opinions are deemed infallible.

Barney and Greg Saunders knew the hair and fingerprint testimony from the OSBI crowd was suspect, but they needed some help to dispute it. They would be allowed to cross-examine the state’s experts and attempt to discredit them, but they also knew that lawyers rarely win such arguments. Experts are hard to pin down, and jurors are quickly confused. What the defense needed was an expert or two at its table.

They filed a motion requesting such assistance. Such motions were commonly made but rarely granted. Experts cost money, and many local officials, including judges, cringed at the idea of forcing the taxpayers to cover the bill for an indigent defense that ran too high.

The motion was argued. Left unsaid was the fact that Barney was blind. If anyone needed help in analyzing hair fibers and fingerprints, it was Barney Ward.

C H A P T E R  8

T
he paperwork flew back and forth. The D.A.’s office amended the charges and dropped the rapes. The defense lawyers attacked the new indictment. Another hearing was needed.

The district court judge was Ronald Jones from Pontotoc County, which, along with Seminole and Hughes, comprised the Twenty-second Judicial District. Judge Jones was elected in 1982 and, not surprisingly, was known to be pro-prosecution and tough on defendants. He believed strongly in the death penalty. He was a devout Christian, a Baptist deacon whose nicknames included Ron the Baptist and By-the-Book Jones. He did, though, have a weakness for jailhouse conversions, and some defense lawyers quietly advised their clients that a sudden interest in finding the Lord might prove beneficial when facing Judge Jones.

On August 20, Ron, unrepentant, was brought before him for an arraignment, the first time the two met in
court. Judge Jones spoke to Ron and asked him how he was doing. He got an earful.

“I have one thing to say, sir,” Ron began loudly. “This—I feel strongly for the Carter family, as much as their kinfolks.”

Judge Jones asked for silence.

Ron continued, “Sir, I know that you don’t want—I, I didn’t do this, sir.”

The guards squeezed him and he shut up. The arraignment was postponed so Judge Jones could review the transcript from the preliminary hearing.

Two weeks later Ron was back with more motions by his lawyers. The jailers had fine-tuned the Thorazine. When Ron was in his cell and they wanted peace, they pumped him full and everybody was happy. But when he was scheduled to be in court, they reduced the dosage so he would appear louder, more intense, more belligerent. Norma Walker at Mental Health Services suspected the jailers were juicing Ron and made a note in her file.

The second appearance before Judge Jones did not go well. Ron was outspoken. He professed his innocence, claimed people were telling lies about him, and at one point said, “Mother knew I was at home that night.”

He was eventually returned to the jail, and the hearing continued. Barney Ward and Greg Saunders had requested separate trials, and they pressed hard on this issue. Saunders especially wanted his own jury without the baggage of a co-defendant like Ron Williamson.

Judge Jones agreed and ordered separate trials. He also broached the issue of Ron’s mental competency, telling Barney in court that the matter needed to be dealt with before the trial. Ron was finally arraigned, entered a formal plea of not guilty, and went back to jail.

The Fritz case was now on a different track. Judge Jones had ordered a new preliminary hearing because the state had presented so little evidence against Dennis at the first one.

The authorities didn’t have enough witnesses.

Normally, a prosecution with no hard evidence would worry the police, but not in Ada. No one panicked. The Pontotoc County jail was full of potential snitches. The first one they found for Dennis Fritz was a career petty criminal named Cindy McIntosh.

Dennis had been strategically moved to a cell closer to Ron so the two could talk. Their feud was over; Dennis had convinced him that he had not confessed.

Cindy McIntosh claimed she got close enough to hear the two talk, then notified the police that she had the goods. According to McIntosh, Fritz and Williamson discussed some photographs submitted during the first preliminary hearing. Ron wasn’t there, of course, and he was curious about what Dennis had seen. The photos were of the crime scene, and Ron asked Dennis, “Was she [Debbie Carter] on the bed or on the floor?”

The floor, Dennis replied.

This, to the police, was clear proof that both men were in the apartment and committed the rape and murder.

Bill Peterson was quickly convinced. On September 22, he filed a motion to add Cindy McIntosh as a witness for the state.

The next snitch was James Riggins, though his career as such was short-lived. Hauled back from prison to
face charges in Pontotoc County, Riggins was being returned to his cell one night when he passed another cell. Inside, he heard someone, perhaps Ron, admitting that he killed Debbie Carter, that he had two rape charges up in Tulsa, and that he would beat the murder rap just like he’d walked on the rapes. Riggins wasn’t clear who Ron was doing all this confessing to, but in the snitching world such details were not important.

About a month later, Riggins changed his mind. In an interview with the police, he said he was incorrect about Ron Williamson, that in fact the man he heard doing the confessing was Glen Gore.

Confessions were contagious in Ada. On September 23, a young drug addict named Ricky Joe Simmons walked into the police department and announced he’d killed Debbie Carter and wanted to talk about it. Dennis Smith and Gary Rogers had no trouble locating a video recorder, and Simmons began his story. He admitted that he had abused drugs for years, his favorite being a home brew called crank, which included, among many ingredients, battery acid. He said he had finally kicked drugs, had found God, and had been reading his Bible one December night in 1982—he thought it was 1982 but wasn’t sure—and for some strange reason began wandering around Ada on foot. He ran into a girl, presumably Debbie Carter but he wasn’t sure, and gave several conflicting versions of how he and the girl got together. He might have raped her, then maybe he didn’t, and he thought he choked her to death with his hands, after which he prayed and vomited all over the apartment.

Strange voices were telling him what to do. The details were a blur, and at one point Simmons said, “It seemed like a dream.”

Oddly, at this point Smith and Rogers did not get excited over the prospect of yet another dream confession.

When pressed on why he had waited almost five years to come forward, he was finally able to explain that all the recent gossip around town had led him to remember that fateful night back in 1982, or maybe it was 1981. But he couldn’t recall how he entered Debbie’s apartment, or how many rooms it had, or in which room he killed her. Then, suddenly, he remembered the catsup bottle and scrawling words on the wall. Later, he said a friend at work had been talking about the details.

Simmons claimed to be clean and sober during the confession, but it was obvious to Smith and Rogers that the crank had taken its toll. They dismissed his story immediately. Though it had as many inaccuracies as Tommy Ward’s, the detectives were not impressed. Smith finally heard enough and announced, “In my opinion, you didn’t kill Debbie Carter.” Then he offered to get counseling for Simmons.

Simmons, confused even further, insisted that he had killed her. The two detectives insisted he had not.