The Innocent Man (30 page)

The police did not appreciate Greg hiring a lawyer. They obtained a court order requiring him to submit an impression of his teeth. He did, and heard nothing for five months. He was raising his two daughters, working full-time as an ironworker, and hoping the police were history when they arrived one day in January 1986 with an arrest warrant for first-degree murder, punishable by death.

His first lawyer, though well paid and with a good reputation, was far too interested in negotiating a plea bargain. Greg fired him a month before trial, then made
the enormous mistake of hiring George Briggs, a washed-up old lawyer at the end of a long, colorful career. His fee was $2,500, a bargain and a red flag.

Briggs was from the old school of country lawyers. You get your witnesses, I’ll get mine, and we’ll show up at the courthouse and have a good fight. No pretrial discovery. When in doubt, just trust your instincts in court and fly by the seat of your pants.

Briggs was also an alcoholic who was addicted to painkillers that he began taking a few years earlier after a motorcycle accident left him partially brain damaged. On a good day he reeked of booze but could still go through the motions. On a bad day he’d been known to snore in the courtroom and urinate on himself and vomit in the judge’s chambers. He was often seen staggering along the hallways of the courthouse. Greg and his parents became alarmed when Briggs drained a few bottles of beer during a lunch.

His drinking and drug addiction were well known to the trial judge and to the Oklahoma state bar association, but virtually nothing was done to either stop Briggs or help him, or protect his clients.

Greg’s family located a highly regarded bite expert in Kansas, but Briggs was too busy or too hungover to chat with the man. Briggs interviewed no witnesses and, as far as Greg could tell, did little preparation.

The trial was a nightmare. The state called two bite experts, one of whom had finished dental school less than a year earlier. Briggs had nothing to rebut their testimony. The jury deliberated for two hours and found Greg guilty. Briggs called no mitigating witnesses, and the jury deliberated for one hour and set the punishment at death.

Thirty days later, Greg was taken back to court to receive his sentence of death.

In cell 9, Greg hung newspapers across the bars of his door so no one could see him. He convinced himself that he was not on death row, but rather in his own little cocoon, somewhere else, biding his time reading voraciously and watching his small television. He spoke to no one but the Run Man, who, during his very first chat, asked Greg if he wanted to buy some marijuana. Yes, he did.

At first, Greg did not realize that a few lucky condemned men actually left The Row alive. Occasionally the appeals worked, good lawyers got involved, judges woke up, and miracles happened, but no one had informed him of this. He was sure he would be put to death, and, frankly, he wanted to get it over with.

For six months he left his cell only to shower, quickly and alone. Gradually, though, he made an acquaintance or two and was invited into the yard for an hour of exercise and socializing. Once he began talking, he became instantly disliked. Greg was a rarity on The Row, a man who strongly supported the death penalty. You do the ultimate crime, you pay the ultimate price, he argued loudly. Such opinions were unheard of.

He also developed the irritating habit of watching
David Letterman
at full volume. Sleep is cherished on The Row, and many of the men spend half of each day in another world. When you’re sleeping, you’re cheating the system. Sleep is your time, not the state’s.

Condemned killers do not hesitate to threaten to kill again, and Greg soon heard the rumor that he was a
marked man. Every death row has at least one boss and several who want to be. There are factions vying for control. They prey on the weak, often demanding payment for the right to “live” on The Row. When word filtered to Greg that he needed to pay rent, he laughed and sent a message back that he would never pay a dime to anyone for living in such a rat hole.

The Row was ruled by Soledad, the nickname of a killer who’d once spent time in the famous prison in California. Soledad didn’t appreciate Greg’s pro-death-penalty stance, and he really didn’t like David Letterman, and since any boss worthy of respect had to be ready to kill, Greg became the target.

Everyone has enemies on The Row. The feuds are nasty and arise quickly over anything. A pack of cigarettes can provoke an attack in the yard or the shower. Two packs can get you killed.

Greg needed a friend to watch his back.

Annette’s first visit to McAlester was sad and frightening, not that she was expecting anything else. She preferred not to go, but Ronnie had no one but his sisters.

The guards patted her down and checked her purse. Moving through the layers of the Big House was like sinking into the dark belly of a beast. Doors clanged, keys rattled, guards glared as if she had no business there. She was numb, sleepwalking, with a hard knot in her stomach and a racing pulse.

They were from a nice family in a nice house on a shady street. Church on Sundays. A thousand baseball games when Ronnie was a boy. How had it all come to this?

This will become a habit, she admitted to herself. She would hear the same sounds and see the same guards many times in the future. She asked if she could bring stuff—cookies, clothes, cash. No, came the quick answer. Only small change, so she handed the guard a handful of quarters and hoped he passed them on to Ronnie.

The visitation room was long and narrow and split down the center with thick sheets of Plexiglas that were divided by partitions to allow some measure of privacy. All conversations were by phone through a window. No touching whatsoever.

Ronnie eventually showed up. No one was in a hurry at the prison. He looked healthy, maybe even a bit chubby, but then his weight had always gone up and down dramatically.

He thanked her for coming, said he was surviving okay but needed money. The food was awful, and he wanted to buy something to eat at the canteen. He also was desperate for a guitar, and some books and magazines and a small television, which could be purchased through the canteen.

“Get me out of here, Annette,” he pleaded over and over. “I didn’t kill Debbie Carter and you know it.”

She had never wavered in her belief that he was innocent, though some family members now had doubts. She and her husband, Marlon, were both working and raising a family and trying to save a little. Money was tight. What was she supposed to do? The state-funded indigent lawyers were getting themselves organized for his appeals.

Sell your house and hire a big lawyer, he said. Sell everything. Do anything. Just get me out.

The conversation was tense and there were tears. Another inmate arrived for a visit in the booth next to Ronnie. Annette could barely see him through the glass, but she was intrigued by who he was and whom he had killed.

Roger Dale Stafford, Ronnie told her, the famous steak-house murderer. He had nine death sentences, the current record on The Row. He executed six people, including five teenagers, in the rear of a steak house in Oklahoma City in a bungled robbery, then murdered a family of three.

They’re all killers, Ronnie kept saying, and all they talk about is killing. It’s everywhere on The Row. Get me out!

Did he feel safe? she asked.

Hell no, not living with a bunch of killers. He had always believed in the death penalty, but now he was a die-hard supporter of it. He kept such opinions quiet, though, in his new neighborhood.

There were no time limits on the visits. They eventually said good-bye with sincere promises to write and call. Annette was emotionally drained when she left McAlester.

The calls started immediately. On The Row they put a phone on a cart and rolled it to the cells. A guard punched the numbers, then handed the receiver through the cell door. Since all calls were collect, the guards really didn’t care how often they were made. Out of boredom and desperation, Ron was soon yelling for the cart more than anyone else.

He usually began by demanding money, $20 or $30, so he could eat and buy cigarettes. Annette and Renee each tried to send $40 a month, but they had their
own expenses and little extra money. They never sent enough, and Ronnie reminded them of this over and over. He was often angry, claiming that they didn’t love him or they would get him out. He was innocent, everybody knew it, and there was no one on the outside to free him but his sisters.

The calls were rarely pleasant, though they tried not to fight with him. Ron usually managed, at some point, to remind his sisters how much he loved them.

Annette’s husband sent subscriptions to
National Geographic
and the
Ada Evening News
. Ronnie wanted to monitor things back home.

Not long after his arrival at McAlester he heard for the first time about the bizarre confession of Ricky Joe Simmons. Barney knew about the taped confession, but chose not to use it at trial and didn’t tell his client. An investigator with the Indigent Defense System took the video of the confession to McAlester and showed it to Ron. He went ballistic. Someone else admitted killing Debbie Carter, and the jury never knew about it!

Surely this news would soon break in Ada, and he wanted to read about it in the local paper.

Ricky Joe Simmons became another obsession, perhaps the principal one, and Ron would fixate on him for many years.

Ron tried to call everybody; he wanted the world to know about Ricky Joe Simmons. His confession was Ron’s ticket out, and he wanted someone to step forward and bring the boy to trial. He called Barney, other lawyers, county officials, even old friends, but most refused to accept the collect charges.

Rules were changed and phone privileges were restricted after a couple of death row inmates were caught
making calls to the families of their victims, just for the sport of it. On the average, two calls per week were allowed, and every phone number had to be preapproved.

Once a week the Run Man pushed a cart of well-used paperback library books through F Cellhouse. Greg Wilhoit read everything that was available—biographies, mysteries, westerns. Stephen King was a favorite, but he really loved the books of John Steinbeck.

He encouraged Ron to read as an escape, and they were soon debating the merits of
The Grapes of Wrath
and
East of Eden
, unusual conversations on The Row. They stood for hours, leaning through the bars of their doors, talking and talking. Books, baseball, women, their trials.

Both were surprised to learn that most death row inmates do not maintain their innocence. Instead, they tend to embellish their crimes when talking among themselves. Death was a constant topic—murders, murder trials, murders yet to be committed.

When Ron continued to claim he was innocent, Greg began to believe him. Every inmate has his trial transcript close by, and Greg read Ron’s—all two thousand pages. He was shocked by the trial in Ada. Ron read Greg’s transcript and was equally shocked by his trial in Osage County.

They believed each other and ignored the skepticism from their neighbors.

In his early weeks on The Row, the friendship was therapeutic for Ron. Someone finally believed him, someone he could talk to for hours, someone who would listen with an intelligent and sympathetic ear. Away from
the cave-like cell in Ada, and able to unload on a friend, his behavior was stable. He didn’t rant and pace and scream his innocence. The mood swings were not as dramatic. He slept a lot, read for hours, chain-smoked, and talked to Greg. They went to the exercise yard together, each watching the other’s back. Annette sent more money, and Ron purchased a small television from the canteen. She knew how important a guitar was to Ronnie, and she relentlessly went about trying to get one. The canteen didn’t stock them. After phone calls and letters she convinced the officials to allow a local music store in McAlester to sell one and send it over.

Trouble started when it arrived. Anxious to impress the others with his talent, Ron played it loudly and sang at full volume. The complaints came with a fury, but Ron didn’t care. He loved his guitar and he loved to sing, especially Hank Williams. “Your Cheatin’ Heart” echoed up and down the run. The others shouted obscenities. He shouted them right back.

Then Soledad got fed up with Ron’s music and threatened to kill him. Who cares? Ron said. I’ve already got my death sentence.

No effort was made to air-condition F Cellhouse, and when summer arrived, it baked like a sauna. The inmates stripped to their boxers and huddled in front of the small fans sold at the canteen. It was not unusual to wake up before dawn with the sheets soaked with sweat. A few spent the days completely nude.

For some reason, the prison conducted tours of death row. The tourists were usually high school students whose parents and advisers were hoping to scare
them away from crime. When the weather was hot, the guards ordered the inmates to get dressed, a tour was coming through. Some complied, others did not.

An Indian nicknamed Buck Naked preferred the native look and was perpetually nude. He had the rare ability to pass gas on demand, and when the tour groups drew near, his favorite trick was to press his rear cheeks against the bars of his door and discharge a thunderous blast of flatulence. This shocked the young students and disrupted their tours.

The guards told him to stop. He refused. His colleagues egged him on, but only during tours. The guards finally hauled him away when visitors arrived. Several others tried imitations but lacked the talent.

Ron just played and sang for the tourists.

On July 4, 1988, Ron awoke in a foul mood and never recovered. It was Independence Day, a time for celebrations and parades and such, and he was locked away in a hellhole for a crime he did not commit. Where was his independence?

He began yelling and cursing and proclaiming his innocence, and when this prompted catcalls up and down the run, he went crazy. He began throwing everything he could find—books, magazines, toiletries, his small radio, his Bible, clothes. The guards watched and told him to settle down. He cursed them and got louder. Pencils, papers, food from the canteen. Then he grabbed his television and slammed it into the brick wall, shattering it. Finally he took his cherished guitar and slammed it repeatedly into the bars of his cell door.