The Innocent Man (10 page)

Bill Peterson, a heavyset young man from a prominent Ada family, had been the prosecutor for three years. His district covered three counties—Pontotoc, Seminole, and Hughes—and his office was in the Pontotoc County Courthouse. He knew the Carter family, and like any small-town prosecutor, he was anxious to find a suspect and solve the crime. Dennis Smith and Gary Rogers were routinely updating Peterson on the investigation.

Glenna described the anonymous call to Bill Peterson, and they agreed that Ron Williamson was probably the caller, and the killer. By walking a few steps from his garage apartment to the back alley, he could actually see Debbie’s place, and by walking a few steps down his mother’s driveway, he could see Glenna’s home. He was right there in the middle, the weird man
with no job and strange hours, just watching the neighborhood around him.

Bill Peterson arranged for a recorder to be placed on Glenna’s phone, but there were no other calls.

Her daughter, Christy, was eight years old and very aware of the family’s ordeal. Glenna kept her close, never allowed her to be alone or use the phone, and made sure she was watched carefully at school.

There were whispers around the house, and around the family, about Williamson. Why would he kill Debbie? What were the police waiting for?

The whispers and gossip continued. Fear quickly spread throughout the neighborhood, then the entire town. The murderer was loose, out there for all to see, and everybody knew his name. Why didn’t the police get him off the streets?

A year and a half after his last session with Dr. Snow, Ron certainly needed to be off the streets. He was in desperate need of long-term care in an institution. In June 1983, again at the urging of his mother, he made the familiar trek, on foot, over to the mental health clinic in Ada. He asked for help, again saying he was depressed and unable to function. He was referred to another facility in Cushing, and there he was evaluated by Al Roberts, a rehabilitation counselor. Roberts noted that Ron’s IQ was 114, “in the bright-normal range of intellectual functioning,” but cautioned that he might be suffering some degree of brain impairment because of the alcohol abuse.

Roberts wrote, “This man may be exhibiting a cry for help.” Ron was insecure, tense, worried, nervous, and depressed.

He is a very nonconforming person and is resentful of authority. His behavior is going to be erratic and unpredictable. He does have problems with impulse control. He is very suspicious and distrustful of others around him. He lacks social skills and is very uncomfortable in social situations. This individual is one who would accept little responsibility for his own behavior and he is likely to strike out in anger or hostility as a defense against being hurt. He sees the world as a very threatening and scary place and defends himself by being hostile or being withdrawn. Ron seems very immature and will present a picture of one who is rather unconcerned.

Ron applied to a vocational training program at East Central University in Ada, stating that he wanted to get a degree in chemistry or, in the alternative, one in physical education so he could coach. He agreed to a more thorough psychological evaluation using a series of tests. The examiner was Melvin Brooking, a psychological assistant with Vocational Rehabilitation.

Brooking knew Ron and the Williamson family well, perhaps too well. His behavorial observations were loaded with anecdotes, and he referred to him as “Ronnie.”

On his athletic career, Brooking wrote, “I don’t know what kind of student Ronnie was in high school, but I do know that he was an outstanding athlete but was always handicapped by temper tantrums on and off the court and generally rude, immature behavior, and a highly self-centered, arrogant attitude. His prima donna attitude, his inability to get along with people, and his
disregard for rules and regulations made him an unfit player about everywhere he went.”

On the family, he said, “Ronnie’s mother has been a hard-working woman all of her life. She has owned and operated a beauty shop downtown for many years. Both Ronnie’s mother and father have stood by him through many, many crises, and his mother is evidently still providing support, although she is just about emotionally, physically and financially drained.”

On the failed marriage, he wrote, “He married a very beautiful girl, who was a former Miss Ada, but she finally could not tolerate Ronnie’s mood swings and inability to make a living and divorced him.”

Evidently, Ron was forthcoming about his alcohol and drug abuse. Brooking observed, “Ronnie has had serious alcohol and drug abuse problems in the past… . He has been a serious pill taker. Most of his drug taking seems to be an attempt to medicate himself out of serious depression. He says that he is no longer drinking or doing drugs.”

Brooking began his diagnosis with bipolar disorder and described it as follows:

Bipolar disorder means that this young man suffers from tremendous mood swings, going from manic highs to stupor level depressive lows. I will diagnose depressed type because that is characteristically where he stays most of the time. His manic highs are usually drug induced and short lived. For the last three or four years, Ronnie has been seriously depressed, living in the back room of his mama’s house, sleeping most of the time, working very, very little and totally dependent on those around him for his upkeep. He’s
come out of the house three or four times and made major moves as though he were going to rehabilitate himself, but they’ve never worked out.

Brooking also diagnosed a paranoid personality disorder because of “a pervasive and unwarranted suspiciousness and mistrust of people, hypersensitivity and restricted affectivity.”

And, for good measure, he added alcohol and substance dependence. His prognosis was “guarded,” and he concluded by saying, “This young man has never gotten it together since he left home more than ten years ago. His life has been a series of problems and devastating crises. He continues to try and get his feet on solid ground, but so far he has never been able to make it.”

Brooking’s job was to evaluate Ron, not to treat him. By the late summer of 1983, Ron’s mental condition was worsening, and he was not getting the help he needed. Long-term, institutionalized psychotherapy was required, but the family couldn’t afford it, the state couldn’t provide it, and Ron wouldn’t agree to it anyway.

His application to East Central University included a request for financial aid. The request was granted, and he was notified that a check was available at the business office of the school. He arrived to pick it up, in his usual unkempt condition with long hair and a mustache, accompanied by two other shady characters, both of whom seemed very interested in the prospect of Ron getting some money. The check was made payable to Ron, but also to an officer of the school. Ron was in a hurry, but he was told to wait in a long line. He felt the money was rightfully his, and he didn’t feel like waiting.

His two buddies were anxious to get the cash, so Ron quickly forged the name of the school official.

He left with $300.

The forgery was witnessed by Nancy Carson, the wife of Rick Carson, Ron’s childhood friend who was an Ada policeman. Mrs. Carson worked in the business office and had known Ron for many years. She was appalled at what she had just seen, so she called her husband.

An official from the college knew the Williamson family. He drove straight to Juanita’s beauty shop and told her about Ron’s forgery. If she would reimburse the school the $300, no criminal charges would be pursued. Juanita quickly wrote a check for the money and went to find her son.

The following day Ron was arrested for uttering a forged instrument, a felony that carried a maximum prison sentence of eight years. He was placed in the Pontotoc County jail. He could not post bail, and his family couldn’t help him.

The murder investigation was proceeding slowly. There was still no word from the OSBI lab on the initial fingerprint, hair, and saliva submissions. Samples from thirty-one Ada men, including Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz, were being processed. Glen Gore still had not been asked to provide hair and saliva.

By September 1983, all hair samples were on the backlogged desk of Melvin Hett, an OSBI hair analyst.

On November 9, Ron, while in jail, submitted to another polygraph exam, this one also administered by the OSBI agent Rusty Featherstone. It was a two-hour meeting, with lots of questions before Ron was wired
for the polygraph. He continually and adamantly denied any involvement in, or knowledge of, the murder. The test was again deemed inconclusive, and the entire interview was videotaped.

Ron adjusted to life behind bars. He kicked the booze and pills because he had no choice, and he managed to continue his habit of sleeping twenty hours a day. But without medication or treatment of any type, he continued a slow mental decline.

Later in November, another inmate, Vicki Michelle Owens Smith, told Detective Dennis Smith an odd story about Ron. Dennis Smith made the following report:

At 0300 or 0400 hours Saturday morning, Ron Williamson looked out his window and saw Vicki. Williamson yelled that she was a witch and that Vicki was the one who took him to Debbie Carter’s house and now she had brought him Debbie’s spirit into his cell and it was haunting the hell out of him. Williamson also screamed for his mother to forgive him.

In December, one year after the murder, Glen Gore was asked to stop by the police station and give a statement. He denied any involvement in the death of Debbie Carter. He said he’d seen her at the Coachlight a few hours before she was killed, and added the new wrinkle that she had asked him to dance with her because Ron Williamson was making her uncomfortable. The fact that no one else at the Coachlight reported seeing Ron there was apparently insignificant.

But as anxious as the cops were to paste together
a case against him, the evidence was simply too scant. There was not a single fingerprint lifted from the Carter apartment that matched either Ron or Dennis Fritz, a gaping hole in the theory that the two were there during the prolonged and violent attack. There were no eyewitnesses; no one heard a sound that night. The hair analysis, always shaky at best, was still bottlenecked in Melvin Hett’s office at the OSBI.

The case against Ron consisted of two “inconclusive” polygraph exams, a bad reputation, a residence not far from that of the victim’s, and the delayed, half-baked eyewitness identification of Glen Gore.

The case against Dennis Fritz was even weaker. One year after the murder, the only tangible result of the investigation had been the firing of a ninth-grade science teacher.

In January 1984, Ron pleaded guilty to the forgery charge and was sentenced to three years in prison. He was transported to a correctional center near Tulsa, and it wasn’t long before his odd behavior attracted the attention of the staff. He was transferred to an intermediate mental health unit for observation. Dr. Robert Briody interviewed him on the morning of February 13 and noted: “He is usually subdued and appears in control of his actions.” But during an interview that afternoon, Dr. Briody saw a different person. Ron was “hypomanic, loud, irritable, easily excited, has loose associations, flight of ideas, irrational thoughts, and some paranoid ideation.” Further evaluation was suggested.

Security was not tight at the intermediate unit. Ron found a baseball field nearby and enjoyed sneaking over
at night for the solitude. A policeman found him once, napping on the field, and escorted him back to the unit. The staff slapped his wrist and made him write a report. It reads:

I was feeling down the other nite and needed some time to think things out. I’ve always felt peaceful on a ballfield. I strolled out to the ballfield’s southeast corner and kind of like an old blue-tick hound I curled up under the shade tree. A few minutes later a police officer asked me to go back to the CTC Building. I met Brents halfway up the field and we walked in the front door together. He said that, after seeing I wasn’t up to no good, that he’d forget it. However, as this letter attests, I’ve been given a write-up.

With the prime suspect behind bars, the investigation into the murder of Debbie Carter came to a virtual halt. Weeks passed with little activity. Dennis Fritz worked for a short time in a nursing home, then a factory. The Ada police harassed him occasionally but eventually lost interest. Glen Gore was still in town but of little interest to the cops.

The police were frustrated, tensions were high, and the pressure was about to increase dramatically.

In April 1984, another young woman was murdered in Ada, and though her death was unrelated to Debbie Carter’s, it would eventually have a profound impact on the lives of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz.

Denice Haraway was a twenty-four-year-old student at East Central who worked part-time at McAnally’s convenience store on the eastern edge of Ada. She had been married for eight months to Steve Haraway, also a student at East Central and the son of a prominent dentist in town. The newlyweds lived in a small apartment owned by Dr. Haraway and were working their way through college.

On Saturday night, April 28, around 8:30, a customer was approaching the entrance to McAnally’s when he was met by an attractive young woman who was leaving the store. She was accompanied by a young man. His arm was around her waist; they appeared to be just another pair of lovers. They walked to a pickup truck, where the woman got in first, on the passenger’s side. Then the young man got in and slammed the door, and a few seconds later the engine started. They left going east, away from town. The truck was an old Chevrolet with a spotty, gray-primered paint job.

Inside the store, the customer saw no one. The cash register drawer was open and had been emptied. A cigarette was still burning in the ashtray. Beside it was an open beer can, and behind the counter was a brown purse and an open textbook. The customer tried to find the clerk, but the store was empty. Then he decided that perhaps there had been a robbery, so he called the police.