The Innocent Man (22 page)

They thanked him for his time and sent him away.

Good news was rare at the Pontotoc County jail, but early in November, Ron received an unexpected letter. An administrative law judge awarded him disability benefits under the Social Security Act.

A year earlier Annette applied for the benefits on
Ron’s behalf, claiming that he had been unable to work since 1979. The judge, Howard O’Bryan, reviewed the extensive medical history and ordered a full hearing on October 26, 1987. Ron was driven over from the jail.

In his decision, Judge O’Bryan noted: “Clearly the claimant has adequate medical documention to show a history of alcoholism, depression that was stabilized with lithium, and has been classified as having an atypical bipolar disorder complicated by an atypical personality disorder, probably borderline, paranoid and antisocial. Clearly, without medications he is belligerent, abusive, physically violent, has religious delusions, and a thought disorder.”

And, “There are repeated episodes of disorientation to time, impaired attention span, as well as impaired abstract thinking and level consciousness.”

Judge O’Bryan had little trouble reaching his conclusion that Ron had “severe bipolar disorder, personality disorder, and substance abuse disorder.” Further, his condition was serious enough to prevent him from obtaining meaningful employment.

Ron’s period of disability began on March 31, 1985, and was continuing.

The administrative law judge’s primary job was to determine if claimants were disabled, either physically or mentally, and thus entitled to monthly benefits. These were important cases, but not life and death. Judges Miller and Jones, on the other hand, had a duty to ensure that every defendant, especially one facing death, received a fair trial. It was sadly ironic that Judge O’Bryan could see Ron’s obvious problems, while Judges Miller and Jones could not.

Barney was concerned enough to have Ron evaluated. He arranged for testing at the Pontotoc County Health Department. The clinic director, Claudette Ray, administered a series of psychological tests and issued a report to Barney. It ended with: “Ron is consciously anxious due to situational stress. He feels helpless to alter his situation or better himself. He may behave inappropriately, such as not attending preliminary hearings which would benefit him, because of his panic and confused thinking. Most individuals would be demanding to hear information and opinions that would influence their future life or death.”

The report was tucked away in Barney’s file and left there. A request for a competency hearing was a routine matter, one Barney had handled before. His client was sitting in jail, about a hundred feet from the courthouse, a place Barney visited almost every day.

The case was begging for someone to raise the issue of competency.

The prosecution of Dennis Fritz got a huge boost from the testimony of a semiliterate Indian by the name of James C. Harjo. At twenty-two, Harjo was already in jail for burglary—he got caught after he broke into the same home twice. In September and October, while he was awaiting transfer to a state prison, his cell mate was Dennis Fritz.

The two became somewhat friendly. Dennis felt sorry for Harjo and wrote letters for the boy, most of them going to his wife. He also knew exactly what the
cops had planned. Every other day they would pull Harjo out of the cell for no apparent reason—his court appearances were over—and as soon as he returned, he began quizzing Dennis about the Carter murder. In a jail full of accomplished snitches, Harjo had to be the worst.

The scheme was so obvious that Dennis prepared a one-paragraph statement that he made Harjo sign every time the cops took him out. It read, in part: “Dennis Fritz always says he is innocent.”

And Dennis flatly refused to discuss the case with him.

That didn’t stop Harjo. On November 19, Peterson listed James C. Harjo as a witness for the state. On that same date, the preliminary hearing for Dennis resumed before Judge John David Miller.

When Peterson announced that his next witness would be Harjo, Dennis flinched. What could this stupid boy dream up?

Harjo, under oath and lying badly, explained to an earnest Bill Peterson that he had been cell mates with Fritz, and while at first things had been friendly, on Halloween night a conversation had turned ugly. Harjo was quizzing Dennis about the details of the murder. Dennis was having trouble with the details, and Harjo deftly managed to poke holes in his story. He became convinced that Dennis was guilty, so he confronted him. This made Dennis very nervous. He began pacing around the bullpen, obviously struggling with his guilt, and when he returned to their cell, he looked at Harjo, with tears in his eyes, and said, “We didn’t mean to hurt her.”

In court, Dennis couldn’t sit through this crap. He yelled at the witness, “You are lying! You are lying!”

Judge Miller settled things down. Harjo and Peterson plowed ahead with their tales. In Harjo’s account, Dennis expressed concern for his young daughter. “What would she think if her daddy was a murderer?” he asked. Then, some truly incredible testimony. Dennis confessed to Harjo that he and Ron had taken some beer to Debbie’s apartment, and when they finished with the raping and killing, they picked up the empty cans, wiped down the apartment to remove their fingerprints, and left.

On cross-examination, Greg Saunders asked Harjo if Dennis explained how he and Ron wiped off their invisible fingerprints while leaving dozens of others. Harjo had no clue. He admitted that there had been at least six other prisoners nearby when Dennis had made his confession Halloween night, but no one else heard it. Greg produced copies of the statements prepared by Dennis and signed by Harjo.

Harjo was discredited when he took the oath, but after Saunders’s cross-examination he looked downright foolish. It didn’t matter. Judge Miller had no choice but to bind Dennis over for trial. Under Oklahoma law, a judge at a preliminary hearing was not permitted to determine the credibility of a witness.

Trial dates were set, then postponed. The winter of 1987–88 dragged on with Ron and Dennis enduring life in jail and hoping their day in court would soon arrive. After months behind bars, they still believed in the possibility of justice and that the truth would be revealed.

In the pretrial skirmishing the only significant victory for the defense had been the ruling by Judge Jones
that they would be tried separately. Even though Bill Peterson had fought the motions for separate trials, there was a huge advantage in trying one before the other. Put Fritz on first, and let the newspaper report the details to an anxious and very curious town.

Since the day of the murder, the police had insisted there were two killers, and the first (and only) pair they’d suspected had been Fritz and Williamson. At every step—suspicion, investigation, accusation, arrest, indictment, preliminary hearing—the two had been linked. Their mug shots were published side by side in the local paper. The headlines repeatedly read, “Williamson and Fritz …”

If Bill Peterson could get a conviction for Fritz in the first trial, the Williamson jurors would take their seats and start looking for a noose.

In Ada, the notion of fairness was to try Fritz first, then follow immediately with Ron Williamson—same courtroom, same judge, same witnesses, and the same newspaper reporting it all.

On April 1, three weeks before Ron’s trial was to start, his court-appointed co-counsel, Frank Baber, filed a motion to withdraw from the case. Baber had found a job as a prosecutor in another district.

Judge Jones granted the motion. Baber walked away. Barney was left with no assistance—no legal eyes to help sift through the documents, exhibits, photographs, and diagrams that would be introduced against his client.

On April 6, 1988, five and a half years after the murder of Debbie Carter, Dennis Fritz was escorted into the crowded courtroom on the second floor of the Pontotoc County Courthouse. He was clean-shaven with a fresh haircut, and he wore his only suit, one his mother had purchased for his trial. Wanda Fritz was sitting in the front row, as close to her son as possible. Seated next to her was her sister, Wilma Foss. They would not miss a single word of the trial.

When the handcuffs were removed, Dennis glanced at the crowd and wondered which of the hundred or so potential jurors would eventually make it to the final twelve. Which of those registered voters sitting out there would judge him?

His long wait was over. After enduring eleven months in the suffocating jail, he was now in court. He had a good lawyer; he assumed the judge would guarantee a fair trial; twelve of his peers would carefully weigh the evidence and quickly realize that Peterson had no proof.

The beginning of the trial was a relief, but it was also terrifying. It was, after all, Pontotoc County, and Dennis knew perfectly well that innocent people could be framed. He had briefly shared a cell with Karl Fontenot, a simple and confused soul who was now sitting on death row for a murder he had nothing to do with.

Judge Jones entered and greeted the pool of jurors. Preliminary matters came first, then the jury selection began. It was a slow and tedious process. The hours dragged by as the aged, deaf, and sick were weeded out. Then the questions began, some by the lawyers but most
by Judge Jones. Greg Saunders and Bill Peterson haggled over which jurors to keep and which to strike.

At one point in the lengthy process, Judge Jones asked the following question to a prospective juror by the name of Cecil Smith: “What was your past employment?”

Cecil Smith: “The Oklahoma Corporation Commission.”

No follow-up questions were asked by the judge or the lawyers. What Cecil Smith failed to include in his abbreviated response was the fact that he’d had a long career in law enforcement.

Moments later, Judge Jones asked Cecil Smith if he knew Detective Dennis Smith, or if he was related to him.

Cecil Smith: “No kin.”

Judge Jones: “And how do you know him?”

Cecil Smith: “Oh, I just know of him, and talked to him several times, had a few little deals with him, maybe.”

Hours later, a jury was sworn in. Of particular concern to Fritz was the presence of Cecil Smith. When he took his seat in the jury box, Smith gave Dennis a hard look, the first of many.

The real trial began the following day. Nancy Shew, an assistant district attorney, outlined for the jury what the proof would be. Greg Saunders rebutted by saying, in his opening statement, that there was indeed very little proof.

The first witness was Glen Gore, who’d been brought back from prison. Gore, under direct examination from Peterson, presented the rather strange
testimony that he did
not
see Dennis Fritz with Debbie Carter on the night of the murder.

Most prosecutors prefer to start with a strong first witness who can put the killer in the same vicinity as the victim, at about the same time of the murder. Peterson chose otherwise. Gore said he may have seen Dennis at the Coachlight at some undetermined point in the past, or perhaps he hadn’t seen him there at all.

The state’s strategy became apparent with the first witness. Gore talked more about Ron Williamson than about Dennis Fritz, and Peterson asked more questions about Ron. The guilt-by-association scheme was put into play.

Before Greg Saunders got the chance to impeach Gore on his lengthy criminal record, Peterson decided to discredit his own witness. He asked Gore about his criminal career. There were many convictions, for crimes such as kidnapping, aggravated assault, and shooting a police officer.

Not only did the state’s prime witness fail to implicate Dennis; he was revealed to be a hardened felon serving a forty-year sentence.

Off to a shaky start, Peterson continued with another witness who knew nothing. Tommy Glover described to the jury how he saw Debbie Carter talking to Glen Gore before she went home from the Coachlight. After a quick appearance on the witness stand, Glover was dismissed without mentioning the name of Dennis Fritz.

Gina Vietta told her story about the strange phone calls from Debbie in the early hours of December 8. She also testified that she had seen Fritz at the Coachlight on several occasions, but not the night of the murder.

Next, Charlie Carter told the heartbreaking story of finding his dead daughter, then Detective Dennis Smith was called to the stand. Smith was led through the lengthy process of describing the murder scene and placing into evidence numerous photographs. He talked about the investigation he led, the collection of saliva and hair samples, and so on. Nancy Shew’s first question about possible suspects was, not surprisingly, not about Dennis Fritz.

“Did you interview a man then named Ronald Keith Williamson sometime during your investigation?” she asked.

“Yes, we did.” Smith, without interruption or objection, then rambled on about the police investigation into Ron Williamson and explained how and why he became a suspect. Finally Nancy Shew remembered who was on trial and asked about a saliva sample from Dennis Fritz.

Smith described how he collected the saliva and gave it to the OSBI lab in Oklahoma City. Shew finished the direct exam at that point and yielded the witness for cross. When she sat down, the state had provided no clue as to why and how Dennis Fritz became a suspect. He had no history with the victim. No one placed him remotely near her at the time of her murder, though Smith did testify that Fritz lived “close” to Debbie’s apartment. There was no mention of motive.

Fritz was finally linked to the murder through the testimony of Gary Rogers, the next witness, who said, “Through our investigation of Ron Williamson, that is when the Defendant, Dennis Fritz’ name came into play, as an associate of Ron Williamson.”

Rogers explained to the jury how he and Dennis
Smith shrewdly concluded that such a crime had required two killers. The crime seemed too violent for just one man, plus the killer(s) had left behind a clue when they wrote, in catsup, “Don’t look fore us or ealse.” The word “us” implied more than one killer, and Smith and Rogers were quick to pick up on this.

Through good police work they were able to learn that Williamson and Fritz had actually been friends. This, in their theory, linked the two killers.