John Grisham - The Innocent Man

Two days later he was informed that there had been a mistake. Some paperwork had been mishandled somewhere along the way. A stay was in place, and Mrs. Ward would not be collecting her son's body anytime soon.

Such false starts were not unusual. Several weeks after her brother left Ada, Annette received a letter from the warden. She assumed it was correspondence of a routine matter. Perhaps she was right, given the trigger-happy mood at McAlester.

Dear Ms. Hudson:

It is with empathy that I must inform you that your brother, Ronald Keith Williamson, Number 134846, is scheduled to be executed on 18 July 1988, at 12:02, A.M., at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary.

Your brother will be moved from his current cell to another cell on the morning prior to the execution date, and at that time his visiting hours will be changed, and will be as follows: 9:00 A.M. to 12 Noon, 1:00 P.M. to 4:00 P.M., and 6:00 to 8:00 P.M. Visiting during the last 24 hours will be limited to clergymen, Attorney of Record, and two other visitors who have been approved by the Warden. Your brother has the right to have five witnesses present at the execution. These witnesses must be approved by the Warden.

As difficult as it may be, funeral arrangements must be considered, and these arrangements are the responsibility of the family. If this responsibility is not assumed by the family, the State will attend to the burial. Please inform us of your decision in this matter.

If further information is needed, or if I may be of assistance in other ways, please contact me.

Sincerely,

James L. Saffle, Warden

The letter was dated June 21,1988, less than two months after Ronnie arrived at McAlester. Annette knew that appeals were automatic in capital murder cases. Perhaps someone should inform the authorities in charge of the executions. As unsettling as the letter was, she was able to set it aside. Her brother was innocent and would someday be proven so in a new trial. She adamantly believed this, and would never waiver. She read her Bible, prayed continually, and met often with her pastor. Still, she had to ask herself what kind of people were running the prison over at McAlester.

After a week or so on The Row, Ron walked to his door one day and said hello to the man in cell 9, directly across the hall, twelve feet way. Greg Wilhoit said hello, and they exchanged a few words. Neither was anxious for a long conversation. The next day Ron said hello again, and they chatted briefly. The next day Greg mentioned that he was from Tulsa. Ron once lived there, with a guy named Stan Wilkins.

"Is he an ironworker?" Greg asked.

Yes, he was, and Greg knew him. The coincidence was amusing and broke the ice. They talked about old friends and places in Tulsa.

Greg was also thirty-four years old, also loved baseball, also had two sisters who were supporting him. And he was also innocent.

It was the beginning of a deep friendship that helped them both survive their ordeal. Greg invited Ron to attend chapel, a weekly service held off The Row and attended by many capital defendants. Cuffed and shackled, the inmates were herded into a small room where they were led in worship by a saintly chaplain named Charles Story. Ron and Greg seldom missed the services and always sat together.

Greg Wilhoit had been at McAlester for nine months. He was an ironworker, a tough union man with a record of marijuana possessions but nothing violent. In 1985, Greg and his wife, Kathy, separated. They had two infant daughters and a lot of problems. Greg helped Kathy move into an apartment and stopped by almost every night to see his girls. They were hopeful the marriage could be patched up, but both needed some time alone. They remained sexually active and faithful; neither slept around.

On June 1, three weeks after the separation, a neighbor in Kathy's apartment building became alarmed at the nonstop crying of the two daughters. The neighbor knocked on the door, and when there was no answer, she called the police. Inside, on the floor downstairs, they found Kathy's body. Upstairs, the two toddlers were in their cribs, hungry and frightened.

Kathy had been raped and strangled. The time of death was between 1:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. When the police interviewed Greg, he said he was at home, asleep by himself, and thus had no alibi witness. He adamantly denied any involvement in his wife's murder and resented the questioning from the police.

The investigation produced a fingerprint on a phone that had been ripped from the wall and was on the floor near Kathy. The fingerprint matched neither Greg nor his wife. The police found pubic hair and, most important, what appeared to be a bite mark on Kathy's breast. A crime lab expert confirmed that the killer had bitten the breast hard during the attack.

Being the estranged spouse, Greg was soon the leading suspect, though the fingerprint did not match. Melvin Hett with the state crime lab concluded that the pubic hair was not microscopically consistent with Greg's sample. The police asked Greg to submit an impression of his teeth to compare with the bite mark.

Greg did not appreciate being a suspect. He was completely innocent and didn't trust the police. With the help of his parents, he paid $25,000 and retained a lawyer. 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 firstdegree 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.