The Innocent Man (38 page)

Mark: “Let’s back up a minute. Why was it important for you to write the monument company?”

Ron: “Because I know Joe Gifford. When I was growing up, I mowed his yard, as a kid, with Burt Rose, my next-door neighbor. And knowing that, if Mr. Carter and Ms. Stillwell bought a monument here in Ada, Oklahoma, they bought it from Joe Gifford, because he
is the only monument works here. I grew up by Gifford Monument works.”

Mark: “Why would you write to Forget-Me-Not Florist?”

Ron: “Because, knowing, if they bought flowers here in Ada, Ms. Stillwell is from Stonewall, Oklahoma, knowing that if they bought flowers here in Ada, they possibly could have bought from Forget-Me-Not Florist.”

Mark: “How about the funeral home?”

Ron: “The funeral home is, Criswell Funeral Home is the funeral home, I read from Bill Luker’s brief, stating that they are the people responsible for handling the funeral and burial arrangements for the decedent.”

Mark: “And it was important for you to let them know Ricky—”

Ron: “Yes, he was an extremely dangerous man, and I asked for some support in getting him arrested.”

Mark: “That’s because of handling funeral arrangements for Ms. Carter?”

Ron: “That is correct.”

Mark: “Did you also write to the manager of the Florida Marlins?”

Ron: “I wrote to the third base coach of the Oakland Athletics, who later became, yes, the manager of the Florida Marlins.”

Mark: “And did you ask him to keep some sort of information he gave you under his hat?”

Ron: “No, I told him the whole story about the Del Monte catsup bottle that Simmons said that Dennis Smith, holding up a Del Monte catsup bottle in his right hand on the witness stand, and Ricky Joe Simmons saying he raped the decedent with a catsup bottle, I wrote to Rene and told him that that’s the most shocking piece
of evidence I’ve ever seen in the forty-four years I’ve been alive.”

Mark: “But you know that the Florida Marlins manager told some other people about it, is that right?”

Ron: “Probably so, because Rene Lachemann is a good friend of mine.”

Mark: “So, is there something you’ve heard that makes you believe this?”

Ron: “Oh, yes, because I used to listen to Monday night football and I listened to the World Series, and I’ve been listening to some reports on television, and through the media, that that Del Monte catsup bottle has become infamous.”

Mark: “Okay, you hear them talking—”

Ron: “Oh, yes, definitely so.”

Mark: “On Monday night—”

Ron: “Definitely so.”

Mark: “And during the World Series—”

Ron: “It’s a cheering pep squad sick ordeal I have to go through, but it’s, nonetheless, necessary for me to get Simmons confessed that he did, in fact, rape, rape by instrumentation and rape by forcible sodomy and murder Debra Sue Carter at her home at 1022½ East 8th Street, December the 8th, 1982.”

Mark: “Do you also hear Debra Carter’s name mentioned during—”

Ron: “Yes I do.”

Mark: “Is this during Monday night football also?”

Ron: “I hear Debra Sue Carter’s name continually.”

Mark: “You don’t have a TV in your cell, do you?”

Ron: “I hear other people’s television. I have heard them at Vinita. I had a television on death row. I definitely hear that I am associated with this horrible crime
and I am doing my very dead level best to clear my name of this stinking mess.”

Mark paused so everyone could catch a breath. Spectators exchanged looks. Others were frowning, trying not to make eye contact with anyone. Judge Landrith was writing something on his legal pad. The lawyers were scribbling, too, though putting sensible words together was not easy at the moment.

From a lawyer’s perspective, it was extremely difficult to examine an incompetent witness because no one, including the witness, knew what answers were likely to spew forth. Mark decided to just let him talk.

In attendance for the Carter family was Christy Shepherd, Debbie’s niece, who had grown up not far from the Williamsons. She was a licensed health counselor who’d spent years working with severely mentally ill adults. After a few minutes of listening to Ron, she was convinced. Later that day she told her mother and Peggy Stillwell that Ron Williamson was a very sick man.

Also watching, but for different reasons, was Dr. Curtis Grundy, Bill Peterson’s chief witness.

The questioning continued, though questions were unnecessary. Ron either ignored them or gave a quick answer before returning to Ricky Joe Simmons and rambling on until the next question cut him off. After ten minutes on the stand, Mark Barrett had heard enough.

Annette followed her brother and testified about his unstable thoughts and his obsession with Ricky Joe Simmons.

Janet Chesley testified in detail about her representation of Ron and her efforts to get him moved into the Special Care Unit at McAlester. She, too, described his nonstop ramblings about Ricky Joe Simmons, and said
that he was unable to assist with his defense because he talked of nothing else. Ron was improving, in her opinion, and she was hopeful he would one day be able to get his new trial. But that day was still far away.

Kim Marks covered much of the same territory. She had not seen Ron in several months and was pleased with his improved appearance. In vivid detail, she described Ron on H Unit and said she often thought he might die. He was progressing mentally but was still unable to focus on anything but Ricky Joe Simmons. He was not ready for a trial.

Dr. Sally Church was the final witness for Ron. In the long and colorful history of Ron Williamson’s court proceedings, she was, incredibly, the first expert to testify about his mental health.

He was bipolar and schizophrenic, two of the most difficult disorders to treat because the patient does not always understand what the medications do. Ron often stopped taking his pills, and that was common with the two disorders. Dr. Church described the effects, treatments, and potential causes of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.

During her examination of Ron, the day before at the county jail, he asked her if she heard a television in the distance. She wasn’t sure. Ron certainly did, and on the television show they were talking about Debbie Carter and the catsup bottle. It happened like this: He had written to Rene Lachemann, a former player and coach with Oakland, and told him about Ricky Simmons and Debbie Carter and the catsup bottle. Ron believed that Rene Lachemann for some reason had mentioned this to a couple of sports announcers who began talking about it on the air. The story spread—
Monday Night
Football
, the World Series, and so on—until now it was all over the tube.

“Can’t you hear them in there?” Ron yelled at Dr. Church. “They’re yelling Catsup!, Catsup!, Catsup!”

She concluded her testimony with the opinion that Ron was unable to assist his attorney and prepare for trial.

During the recess for lunch, Dr. Grundy asked Mark Barrett if he could meet with Ron alone. Mark trusted Dr. Grundy and had no objection. The psychiatrist and the patient/inmate met in the witness room at the jail.

When court convened after lunch, Bill Peterson stood and sheepishly announced:

Yeah, Judge, I visited with our witness [Grundy] over the recess, and I think the State of Oklahoma would be willing to stipulate that… competency is obtainable, but at this particular point in time, Mr. Williamson is not competent.

After watching Ron in court and chatting with him for fifteen minutes during lunch, Dr. Grundy did an about-face and changed his opinion. Ron was simply not ready for a trial.

Judge Landrith ruled Ron to be incompetent and wanted him back in thirty days for another look. As the hearing was winding down, Ron said, “Could I ask a question?”

Judge Landrith: “Yes sir.”

Ron: “Tommy, I’ve known you and I knew your dad, Paul, and I’m telling you in honest truth, I don’t
know how this Duke Graham and this Jim Smith business, you know, how it correlates to Ricky Joe Simmons. I don’t know that. And if that’s about my competency, let me get down here within thirty days and let’s get Simmons arrested, put him on the witness stand show this videotape and try to get a confession from him as to what he actually did.”

Judge Landrith: “I understand what you’re saying.”

If “Tommy” did, in fact, understand, he was the only one in the courtroom who did so.

Against his wishes, Ron was returned to Eastern State for more observation and treatment. He preferred to remain in Ada to speed things along toward his trial, and he was irritated with his lawyers for wanting him at Vinita. Mark Barrett was desperate to get him out of the Pontotoc County jail before more snitches appeared on the scene.

Then a dentist at Eastern State examined a sore in the roof of his mouth, did a biopsy, and discovered cancer. The growth was encapsulated and easily removed. The surgery was successful, and the doctor told Ron that had it gone untreated, say at the county jail or at McAlester, the cancer would have spread to his brain.

Ron called Mark and thanked him for the stay at Eastern State. “You saved my life,” Ron said, and they were friends again.

In 1995, the state of Oklahoma drew a blood sample from every prison inmate, began analyzing them, and entered the results into its new DNA data bank.

The evidence from the Carter investigation was still locked away at the OSBI lab in Oklahoma City. The
blood, fingerprints, semen, and hair samples from the crime scene, along with the numerous prints and blood, hair, and saliva samples taken from the witnesses and suspects, were all in storage.

The fact that the state had possession of everything did not comfort Dennis Fritz. He didn’t trust Bill Peterson and the Ada police, and he certainly didn’t trust their cohorts at the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. Hell, Gary Rogers was an OSBI agent.

Fritz waited. Throughout 1998, he corresponded with the Innocence Project, tried to be patient, and waited. Ten years in prison had taught him patience and perseverance, and he had experienced the cruelty of false hope.

A letter from Ron helped. It was a rambling, seven-page hello on Eastern State letterhead, and Dennis chuckled as he read it. His old friend had not lost his wit or his fight. Ricky Joe Simmons was still loose, and, damn it, Ron intended to nail him.

To keep his own sanity, Dennis stayed in the law library, poring over cases. He made a hopeful discovery—his habeas corpus appeal had been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Pontotoc County was in the Eastern District. He compared notes with the other law clerks and the combined wisdom was that the Western District did not have jurisdiction over him. He rewrote his petition and brief, and re-filed in the proper court. It was a long shot, but it energized him and gave him another fight.

In January 1999, he talked by phone to Barry Scheck. Scheck was at war on many fronts; the Innocence Project was swamped with wrongful conviction cases. Dennis expressed his concern with the state
having control of all the evidence, and Barry explained that that was usually the case. Relax, he said, nothing will happen to the samples. He knew how to protect the evidence from tampering.

Scheck’s fascination with Dennis’s case was simple: the police had failed to investigate the last man seen with the victim. It was an enormous red flag, and it was all Scheck needed to take the case.

On January 26 and 27, 1999, at a company called Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp), near Raleigh, North Carolina, the semen samples from the crime scene—the torn panties, the bedsheets, and the vaginal swabs—were tested against the DNA profiles of Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz. A DNA expert from California, Brian Wraxall, had been hired by the attorneys for Ron and Dennis to monitor the testing.

Two days later, Judge Landrith delivered the news that Mark Barrett and many others had been dreaming of. The results of the DNA tests had been analyzed and confirmed at LabCorp, and the semen from the crime scene excluded Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz.

As always, Annette was in close contact with Mark Barrett and knew the testing was under way, somewhere. She was at home when the phone rang. It was Mark, and his first words were “Annette, Ron is innocent.” Her knees buckled and she almost fainted. “Are you sure, Mark?”

“Ron is innocent,” he said again. “We just got the lab results.”

She couldn’t talk for crying and promised to call him back later. She sat down, and for a long time she
wept and she prayed. She thanked God over and over for his goodness. Her Christian faith had sustained her through the nightmare of Ron’s ordeal, and now the Lord had answered her prayers. She hummed a few hymns, cried some more, then began calling family and friends. Renee’s reaction was almost identical.

They made the four-hour drive to Vinita the next day. Waiting there were Mark Barrett and Sara Bonnell—a little celebration was in order. As Ron was brought into the visitors’ room, Dr. Curtis Grundy happened by and was invited to hear the good news. Ron was his patient, and they had developed a close relationship. After eighteen months at Vinita, Ron was stable, making slow progress, and putting on weight.

“We have some great news,” Mark said, addressing his client. “The lab results are back. The DNA proves you and Dennis are innocent.”

Ron was instantly overcome with emotion and reached for his sisters. They hugged and wept, and then instinctively broke into “I’ll Fly Away,” a popular gospel hymn they had learned as children.

Mark Barrett immediately filed a motion to dismiss the charges and turn Ron loose, and Judge Landrith was anxious to address the issue. Bill Peterson objected and wanted further testing on the hair. A hearing was scheduled for February 3.

Bill Peterson opposed the motion, but he could not do so quietly. Before the hearing, he was quoted in the
Ada Evening News
as saying: “DNA testing of the hair samples, which was not available in 1982, will prove they were responsible for Carter’s murder.”

The statement rattled Mark Barrett and Barry Scheck. If Peterson was cocky enough to make such public claims at such a late hour, was it possible that he knew something they didn’t? Did he have access to the hair taken from the crime scene? Could the samples be switched?