John Grisham - The Innocent Man

It came out of nowhere early in October 1984, when a man named Jeff Miller walked into the Ada Police Department and asked to speak to Detective Dennis Smith. He said he had information about the Haraway case.

Miller was a local boy with no criminal record, but the police knew him vaguely as one of the many restless young people in the town who kept late hours and moved from job to job, usually in factories. Miller pulled up a chair and proceeded to tell his story. The night Denice Haraway disappeared, there had been a party near the Blue River, at a spot some twenty-five miles south of Ada. Jeff Miller had not actually been at the party, but he knew two women who were there. These two women-and he gave Smith their names-later told him that Tommy Ward was there, and that at some point early in the party there was a shortage of alcohol. Ward, who did not own a vehicle, volunteered to go get some beer, and he borrowed a pickup truck from one Janette Roberts. Ward left by himself in the truck, was gone for a few hours, and when he returned without the beer, he was distraught and crying. When asked why he was crying, he said he'd done something terrible. What? everyone at the party wanted to know. Well, for some reason he had driven all the way back to Ada, passing many beer stores along the way, and had found himself at McAnally's out east of town, where he snatched the young female clerk, raped her, killed her, disposed of her body, and now he felt awful about it.

Confessing all this to a random group of hard drinkers and dope smokers seemed like the logical thing to do.

Miller offered no clue as to why the two women would tell him and not the police, nor did he suggest any reason why they had waited five months.

As absurd as the story was, Dennis Smith quickly pursued it. He tried to find the two women, but they had already moved away from Ada. (When he finally tracked them down a month later, they denied being at the party, denied seeing Tommy Ward there or at any other party, denied ever hearing a story about a young female store clerk getting kidnapped and killed, or any other young female for that matter, and denied everything Jeff Miller had included in his tale.)

Dennis Smith located Janette Roberts. She was living in Norman, seventy miles away, with her husband, Mike Roberts. On October 12, Smith and Detective Mike Baskin drove to Norman and dropped in unannounced on Janette. They asked her to follow them down to the police station for a few questions, which she reluctantly did. During the interview, Janette admitted that she, Mike, Tommy Ward, and Karl Fontenot, among many others, had often partied down by the Blue River, but she was almost positive they had not done so on the Saturday night the Haraway girl disappeared. She often loaned Tommy Ward her pickup, but he had never left with it from a party at the river (or any other place), nor had she ever seen him crying and upset, nor had she ever heard him blubbering about raping and murdering a young woman. No, sir, that had never happened. She was quite certain.

The detectives were pleasantly surprised to learn that Tommy Ward was living with the Robertses and working with Mike. The two men were employed by a siding contractor and putting in long hours, usually from sunrise to dark. Smith and Baskin decided to stay in Norman until Ward came home from work, then ask him some questions.

Tommy and Mike stopped for a six-pack on the way home, and the beer drinking was one reason not to go chat with the cops. More important, Tommy just didn't like them. He was reluctant to go to the police station in Norman. The Ada cops had quizzed him about the murder months earlier, and he thought the matter was closed. One reason he'd left Ada was because so many people commented on how much he looked like one of the suspects in the police composites, and he was tired of it. He'd looked at the drawing many times and could see no resemblance. It was just another sketch, drawn by a police artist who'd never seen the suspect and never would, then broadcast to a community quite anxious to link the face to someone living in Ada. Everybody wanted to help the police solve the crime. It was a small town. The disappearance was big news. At one time or another, everybody Tommy knew had ventured a guess as to the likely identities of the suspects.

Tommy had been through several run-ins with the Ada police over the years, nothing serious or violent, but they knew him and he knew them, and Tommy preferred to avoid Smith and Rogers if at all possible.

In Janette's opinion, if Tommy had nothing to hide, then it was safe to go to the police station and chat with Dennis Smith and Mike Baskin. Tommy had nothing to do with the Haraway girl, but he didn't trust the police. After wrestling with the issue for an hour, he asked Mike to drive him to the Norman Police Department.

Smith and Baskin took him downstairs to a room with video equipment and explained that they wanted to make a tape of the interview. Tommy was nervous, but agreed. The machine was turned on, and they read him his Miranda rights, and he signed the waiver. The detectives began politely enough; it was just another routine interview, nothing important. They asked Tommy if he remembered the last interview, five months earlier. Of course he did. Had he told them the truth then? Yes. Was he telling the truth now? Yes.

Within minutes Smith and Baskin, going back and forth with the questions, confused Tommy with the days of the week back in April. On the day Denice Haraway disappeared, Tommy had worked on the plumbing in his mother's home, then showered and gone to a party at the Robertses' home in Ada. He'd left at four in the morning and walked home. Five months earlier he'd told the cops this had happened the day before the disappearance. "I just got my days mixed up," he tried to explain, but the cops could not be convinced.

The detectives' replies were, "When did you realize you hadn't told us the truth?" and "Are you telling us the truth now?" and "You're getting yourself into more serious trouble."

The tone became harsh and accusatory. Smith and Baskin lied and claimed to have several witnesses who would testify that Tommy was at a party by the Blue River that Saturday night and had borrowed a pickup truck and left. Wrong day, Tommy said, sticking to his version. He'd gone fishing on Friday, partied at the Robertses' on Saturday, and gone to a party at the river on Sunday. Why were the cops lying? Tommy asked himself. He knew the truth. The lying continued. "Isn't it true you were going to rob McAnally's? We've got people who are going to testify to that."

Tommy shook his head and held firm, but he was deeply troubled. If the police were willing to lie so casually, what else might they do?

Dennis Smith then pulled out a large photograph of Denice Haraway and held it close to Tommy's face. "Do you know that girl?"

"I don't know her. I've seen her." "Did you kill that girl?"

"No, I didn't. I wouldn't take nobody's life from them." "Who did kill her?"

"I don't know."

Smith continued to hold the photo while asking if she was a pretty girl. "Her family would like to bury her. They'd like to know where she is so they could bury her." "I don't know where she's at," Tommy said, staring at the photo and wondering why he was being accused. "Would you tell me where she's at so her family could bury her?"

"I don't know."

"Use your imagination," Smith said. "Two guys took her, got her in a pickup, took her away. What do you think they did with the body?"

"No telling."

"Use your imagination. What do you think?"

"She could be alive for all I know, for all you know, for all anyone knows."

Smith continued to hold up the photo as he asked questions. Every answer by Tommy was immediately disregarded, treated as if it weren't true or weren't heard by the detectives. They asked him repeatedly if he thought she was a pretty girl. Did he think she screamed during the attack? Don't you think her family should be able to bury her? "Tommy, have you prayed about this?" Smith asked.