Grisham's Folly

I have lived in Ada all my life and have heard all the suppositions as to who was behind the hanging. There were two groups of suspects, (1) the Masons because Mr. Bobbitt who was the victim of the murder which precipitated the hanging was an influential citizen and a local mason, or (2) members of a local club called the 25,000 club which was formed to promote Ada. At that time, there was an area on west Main Street at the time that was called "The Bloody Bucket" because it was full of saloons, brothels, and crime. It was a lawless area of the community which was patronized by most of those who were hung. As a rule, anytime someone associated with the "Bucket" would be charged with a crime, the courtroom would be packed with thugs and criminals to intimidate the jury. The murder of Bobbitt was the straw that broke the camel's back. After the hanging, the "Bucket" dried up and this criminal element fled town. He then states on page 210 of his novel (after the verdict of guilty was returned) "it was hanging time."

 

I am sure the readers noticed this seed, his portrayal of this community as bigots out to make someone, regardless of the evidence, pay for Ms. Carter's murder, and toward the end his mention of the KKK contacting Williamson's family. Grisham drops this seed of KKK presence in this community in hopes the readers will grow a tree for him. I address this issue in my response.

 

Oh, there is much, much more. I have compiled a good deal of it for you in hopes you will read it. You can then decide for yourself whether John Grisham's book is in fact "non-fiction", or, to paraphrase a line from Macbeth, a tale full of sound and fury signifying nothing.

 

This site is dedicated to my family, the tireless law enforcement people I have worked with, and the wonderful people of Ada.

William N. Peterson District Attorney

   GRISHAM’S TALE EXPOSED

by

BILL PETERSON
District Attorney

     I am writing in response to the allegations made by John Grisham in his novel,  An Innocent Man.  After reading only a few pages, I wrote Mr. Grisham a letter regarding the number of errors that I had already found.  His response in writing was, and I quote: “Such is the nature of non-fiction.  Every effort was made to be as accurate as possible, but mistakes are inevitable.”  After reading the novel in its entirety, there are dozens of inaccuracies and misrepresentations.  Each of these misrepresentations cast the police or the prosecution in a negative light.  If these truly were “mistakes,” then one would expect that they would fall on both sides, not just against law enforcement.  

 

            When I first wrote to Mr. Grisham, I also remarked that I understood that he had publicly stated that he expected to be sued over this novel.  He responded in writing that my source was wrong, and that he never had stated he expected to be sued.  My source regarding this statement was Mr. Grisham himself.  In a speech which can be found at        www.law.virginia.edu/html/news/2006_fall/grisham.htm, Grisham told Virginia law students of having to worry about being sued when you write about “real things.”  He then stated that he “really went after the dead,” because the dead cannot sue you.  How proud he must be to be so brave.  Later in the speech, he said that “the prosecutor, who is the real bad guy in the novel” will probably be the first person to sue me in November, because the novel comes out in October. 

 

            In more recent correspondence, Grisham has stated in writing that he does not want to discuss the “mistakes” in his novel, or “re-hash who was right and who was wrong.”  Perhaps he should have determined that prior to writing a “non-fiction” novel.

 

            The following are the major, but by no means all, of the misrepresentations in his  novel.  I have tried to categorize them into the different methods Grisham used to deceive his readers.  Some of his tricks of the trade were a combination of more than one method. 

 

Since many of you have invested enough time to not only read Grisham’s novel, but also to write to me, I ask that you spend the time to read my response.

 

I.  Gore’s statements to law enforcement

 

            One of Grisham’s methods is to tell readers only part of the story.  While what he says is in fact true, he leaves out other very important facts which give a completely different meaning to what happened, and what its import was at the time it happened.

 

            Perhaps the most egregious use of a half-truth is to mislead the readers into believing that I knew that Gore was lying during his in court testimony based on his original statement made on December 8^th, 1982 in which Gore never made any mention of Ron Williamson.  Grisham does this by accurately setting out Gore’s statement on page fourteen in his novel.  However, he then completely ignored the fact that a major part of the civil suit against the police was based on the fact that this report was never submitted to our office.  Instead, what was submitted to my office was a second undated interview done some years later. Grisham gives this statement only a brief mention on page fourteen, saying that it was made “later.”  This undated report was the only statement of Gore presented to our office.  In it Gore stated that he had seen Williamson interacting with Debbie Carter at the club that night.  That I never received the original Glen Gore statement is clearly set out in the report of Mr. Williamson’s expert Tom Gillespie. Gillespie was hired by Williamson’s attorney in the civil suit to evaluate the police investigation.  In his report, Gillespie wrote, “The second, undated statement was the only statement provided to the prosecution…” and …“The prosecutor apparently never learned that Gore’s initial statement on December 8th, 1982, completely contradicted his later, undated statement.” These are the findings of Williamson’s expert witness, not a law enforcement officer.  

 

            The Ada Police Department provided my office with a folder.  The cover letter stated that it contained all reports of the investigation of Debbie Carter’s death.  It also contained an index.  The report of Gore’s initial statement that Grisham sets out on page 14 was not included in that folder or in the index.

 

            Grisham also states on page 14 that Gary Rogers was present during this interview. Had Grisham actually watched the Gore trial, or bothered to read the transcript, he would  have learned that Gary Rogers was not present at the true first interview, nor did he sign the statement as a witness.  Grisham inaccurately tells his readers that Rogers did both. Not only was the signature clearly not Rogers’, but the detective who took the statement testified that he wrote Rogers’ name on the line to use as a routing system. Grisham ignores this testimony so he can pursue his goal of making Rogers look corrupt.

 

            Additionally, the detective who wrote the report on the undated statement by Gore that was sent to our office, the second statement, admitted in his testimony at the Gore trial that he had done the second Gore interview. He also admitted that it was the only one sent to our office.  Therefore, Grisham’s statement on page 148 that the police report had no mention of Williamson plays loose with the truth.  The only statement provided to prosecutors did include Williamson bothering Carter.  The Gore statement submitted to our office states, and I quote: “Williamson was at the club on the night of December 7^th, 1982.  Williamson was standing by himself leaning against a pole.  Carter walked by him (Williamson) and he asked her to dance and she declined.”  Gore then gave a list of people who were at the Coachlight that night, and it included Ron Williamson.

 

            Despite these facts, Grisham continually misleads the readers by inferring that I was allowing Gore to testify untruthfully because his initial statement said nothing about Williamson being at the club, when even Williamson’s investigator found that the initial report had never been submitted to prosecutors, nor had we become aware of it.  The only statement made by Gore that the prosecution received from investigators did have Williamson at the club interacting with Debbie Carter, and therefore Gore’s testimony was consistent with what we believed was his only statement.  Grisham’s intent to try to make the prosecutors out to be the “bad guys,” regardless of the truth, cannot be more clearly shown than by his handling of what was one of the most important issues in the civil case and the Gore prosecutions.

 

            Grisham also criticizes the prosecution for not turning over to the defense the original Gore statement (page 148).  As stated above, this report was never provided to prosecutors by law enforcement, and therefore could not be provided to the defense.  How could I turn over a report to the defense when I had never seen the report myself? The first time I saw it was during the civil suit in 2001.  Grisham could not have inadvertently missed this fact when it played such a major role in both the civil suit and the trials of Glen Gore.  It certainly appears that he has attempted to pull the wool over his readers’ eyes by setting out word for word the statement the prosecution never saw, then hiding the fact that the statement in which Gore implicated Williamson was the only statement prosecutors ever saw.  

 

II.  DNA Evidence

 

            It is unquestionable that Grisham misrepresented how the DNA testing came about and the nature of Mr. Scheck’s involvement in this case.  One need look no further than the case file in the Court Clerk’s office, which is a public record.  On May 7^th, 1997, I filed a notice that DNA testing was going to be performed.  On May 19^th, Mr. Fritz filed a motion objecting to the testing, and attached “Exhibit 1,” which was a copy of a letter Fritz has sent to Barry Scheck and the Innocence Project.  In that letter Fritz writes that the State is proceeding with DNA testing and that “My request is an immediate one that will require prompt action on your behalf.”  There can be no question that the District Attorney’s office asked for DNA testing, and that neither Mr. Scheck nor the Innocence Project had any involvement prior to my seeking this testing.  However, Mr. Grisham portrayed this as “Peterson liked the idea of DNA testing” (page 288) or I “happily went along with the testing” (page 320).  This suggests to the reader that the defense had suggested it and I agreed, when the court documents cited above show this to be blatantly untrue.  Apparently Grisham chose not to include the letters written from Mr. Fritz to the Innocence Project in which he advised them that the State was seeking to do DNA testing, and the Innocence Project had not taken any action.  It is quite clear from the tenor of the letter that Fritz believed the Innocence Project was doing nothing about his case.  I moved for DNA testing in preparation for the retrial of Mr. Williamson.  Mr. Barrett, on behalf of Mr. Williamson, initially objected and then we worked out the details of how the testing would be done.  Mr. Scheck played no role in this whatsoever, and his name does not even appear in the court file until after the DNA testing on the semen had been done and the results published.  One must consider whether this misrepresentation has anything to do with Mr. Grisham’s being on the board of the Innocence Project.

 III.  Who knew what, and when they knew it.

 

            Throughout his novel, Grisham sets out facts that occurred and uses these facts to criticize my actions.  However, he does not point out that these facts did not become known to the prosecution during the Fritz and Williamson investigation.  For example, on page 6 he states that during a dance, Debbie angrily walked away from Gore.  He also states that a month earlier, Debbie had told Mike Carpenter that she was afraid of Gore because of his temper.  These facts only became known during the investigation of Gore after the DNA testing had freed Fritz and Williamson. 

 

            The information from Ms. Graham about Glen Gore’s feelings did not become known to law enforcement until after Fritz and Williamson were freed and Gore was charged.  But Grisham writes about it in the time frame of the crime, 1982, as a reason the police should have suspected Gore.  Grisham uses Gore’s history of violent crimes against women as another reason the police should have suspected Gore, but these crimes did not occur until 1986 and 1987.  In a pattern that repeats itself throughout the book, Grisham writes about an event without saying when it happened.  He then uses it as a reason that the police or others should have known or suspected something, when in fact the event did not occur or become known until years, if not decades, later. 

 

IV.  Misstatement of the facts or ignoring the facts

 

            Throughout the novel Grisham repeatedly misstates the facts.  On other occasions, he ignores the facts.  Apparently by random chance, every time he does this it casts the prosecution or investigation in a negative light.  There are so many occasions that they are broken down into subjects.

 a.  Fritz becoming a suspect

 

            On page 62, Grisham attributes Fritz being added as a suspect as the result of a knee jerk theory that there were two killers.  In fact, Fritz became a suspect when other women made statements that linked Fritz and Williamson together.  One woman testified as to their repeatedly coming to her house, trying to engage her in sex, until she finally ran them off at gunpoint.  After Fritz divulged the incident in Norman where the woman was lured to their car by Fritz, and driven away by them from a hotel, against her consent, there was even more reason to link Fritz and Williamson together in a crime against a woman.  Grisham, in his normal fashion, recites this incident on page 68, and as usual, ignores what the woman said actually happened and chooses to write it in a light most favorable to Fritz and Williamson.  For example, Grisham writes that the woman “hopped into their car.”  In fact, she stated that she had been at the bar, and Fritz had told her that they had a bar in the back seat of the car.  They wanted her to see it.  She went to the car, sat down, and they took off with her.  She began screaming, and Williamson began shouting at her to shut up.  They sped through the streets, running stop signs, and when the car slowed at one point, she jumped out. Needless to say, there was no bar in the backseat.  And if this was just an innocent adventure, as portrayed by Grisham, why would she have jumped from a moving vehicle, and more importantly, why would Fritz and Williamson, as Grisham admits, have spent the night hiding from the police?  Grisham then has the audacity to say, “No charges were ever filed.”  True.  The woman did not know their names, and the Norman police could not identify them.  It was not until Fritz identified Williamson and himself as the perpetrators that their identity was known.  

 

            In discussing this incident, Grisham also claims that the statement was a result of Rogers’ badgering, threatening, and poking Fritz.  The only problem with this account is that Rogers was not even in the room, and the examination was video taped.  Fritz told of this incident during his post polygraph interview which was done with Agent Featherstone.  On page 172 Grisham states that Fritz told this to Featherstone during the interview.   Again, Grisham ignores the facts and rewrites history in an effort to portray Rogers as corrupt.  Apparently in his efforts Grisham has confused himself as to who told what to whom.

 

b.  “Snitches” and other witnesses

 

            Grisham was so eager to portray any testimony from inmates as unworthy of belief that he ignores the testimony of Dennis Fritz.  Cindy McIntosh, you may remember, testified that a conversation occurred between Fritz and Williamson where Williamson asked if Carter’s body was on the bed or the floor.  Grisham portrays her to be a lying “snitch.” However, when Fritz testified at his jury trial, he testified that the conversation between Williamson and himself did occur, and that McIntosh had accurately recounted it. This testimony is contained in Fritz’s trial transcript, which Grisham had in his possession, at page 850-851.  Fritz was asked whether he recalled the conversation which McIntosh testified to.  He said yes.  He was then asked, “Did it happen pretty much the way she said”?  Fritz responded, “Yeah, basically, that was it.  I had been coming over to the preliminary hearing, and I had seen those crime scene pictures, and I had been reading the transcript to Cynthia on her request….And Mr. Williamson was quite interested in knowing what was going on over here because he didn’t attend his preliminary hearing…..And he asked me, then he said, was she on the floor or on the bed—was she still on the floor or on the bed.  And I told him in the pictures she was on the floor.”    Who are the readers to rely on, Grisham’s account or the account of Fritz, who was involved in the conversation. But that was not the last of Grisham’s efforts to cast the prosecution in a bad light regarding the witnesses.

 

            Grisham’s account of Gary Allen’s dealings with Rogers and Smith is a prime example of Grisham’s incredibly simplistic approach.  Grisham wrote on page 192 that shortly after the murder, Dennis Smith approached Allen. One need only read Allen’s testimony to learn that it was Allen who contacted the police and told them he had information, not vice versa as written by Grisham.  Allen’s testimony and his statement also made it clear that he first provided this information in 1987, not shortly after the crime, as Grisham claimed.  Even Williamson’s expert in the civil suit wrote in his report that “Allen was not interviewed until 1987” and that “Allen claimed at that point to remember a middle-of- the – night water hose incident allegedly involving Dennis Fritz and another man in December, 1982.” The allegations made by Allen about law enforcement threatening him was written in November, 2001,  after he learned that the DNA did not match Williamson and Fritz, and when Allen himself was a potential defendant in the civil lawsuit.  The “lead poisoning” statement is itself so outrageous that it is unbelievable, and even Williamson’s expert was skeptical about it stating that “if the affidavit is true” law enforcement engaged in fabrication.  Additionally, Allen’s testimony was that he had gone to great lengths, including researching his father’s diary and checking pay stubs from the time period to figure out which day he had seen Fritz.  He repeatedly testified that he had seen Fritz and was positive it was Fritz, though he was unsure of the exact date.  To accept Grisham’s account, the “lead poisoning” threat scared Allen into testifying as to seeing Fritz but not into testifying exactly when he saw him, nor saying that the other man was Williamson.       

 

            This is a pattern Grisham repeats time after time.  People who have taken the stand and according to Grisham committed perjury, are given full faith and belief by Grisham as to their explanation of “what really happened,” as long as it includes portraying the police and prosecutors as the cause of the witnesses’ actions.  Grisham does not even bother to consider the host of other reasons that may have led to these witnesses testifying, including that they may have actually testified honestly, as in the case of Ms. McIntosh. 

 

            Grisham also incorrectly states that Terri Holland and others were given lenient treatment for their testimony.  Did he bother to compare what they received with what others similarly charged received?  No.  He writes on page 154 that Holland was allowed to make a monthly payment plan for restitution.  This is the same treatment that literally thousands of people have received who have written hot checks in this county.  In fact, every District Attorney’s office has a bogus check restitution department.  At one time, collecting this restitution and attaching fees for each check was the main source the legislature had devised for funding District Attorney’s offices.  So, Terry Holland, for all her testimony, was “paid” with the same sentence everyone else charged with bogus checks received.  Grisham does not tell the readers that Mr. Harjo’s reward for testifying was that he went to prison for burglary.  In fact, Grisham simply tells his readers that the informants were “paid” for their testimony, and yet he does not set out even one witness who received treatment differently than others charged with the same crimes.  Perhaps that is because, as I have discussed regarding Holland and Harjo, it didn’t happen.

 

c.  The bloody palm print

 

            Grisham tried to make much ado about the bloody palm print. The facts of this case have now been tried four times  (Williamson, Fritz, and Gore twice).  At none of these trials did a defendant put an expert on the stand to testify that the palm print did not belong to Debbie Carter.  Agent Peters, on the other hand, has testified four times and has been cross-examined four times.  Grisham does inform his readers that after the exhumation, the palm print was also identified by a second OSBI fingerprint examiner as being Debbie Carter’s. Grisham fails to mention that Ron Smith, of the Mississippi Crime Laboratory, also examined the print and found the print was in fact Debbie Carter’s.  Mr. Smith further stated that the initial prints taken from Debbie Carter at the time of her death were insufficient for comparison purposes, but the exhumation prints were sufficient for comparison purposes. Without even mentioning this to his readers, Grisham chose to write on page 121 that Peters took Carter’s prints during the autopsy, which isn’t true, and that it was a “perfect set of prints.” Peters took the prints prior to the autopsy, when Carter was still in rigor.  The prints were not perfect, even according to the analyst of the Mississippi Crime Lab.  But, if Grisham doesn’t bother to fully inform his readers, he doesn’t have to worry that they might doubt his story. So, contrary to what Grisham would have his readers believe, there was a legitimate purpose in exhuming Debbie’s body. 

 

            Mr. Peters had told me in a phone conversation that when he initially took Debbie’s prints after her death, he had done the best he could given that she was in rigor, but that he did feel he could do a better job if given the chance.  This issue presents a clear example of Grisham’s intent to paint the prosecution and investigators as corrupt, without regard to the facts.  I spoke with Agent Peters on the phone.  No other persons were involved in the conversation.  We both have stated, and testified under oath, that the conversation concerned whether he had been able to obtain a good set of prints the first time, and whether he felt a second attempt could provide a set of prints suitable for comparison.  Grisham, armed with no evidence, portrays this as a conspiracy afoot to be able to prosecute Williamson.  What Grisham neglects, or refuses, to inform the readers of is that Peters testified during the preliminary hearing that he had told Agent Rogers prior to ever speaking to me that he felt he might not have gotten a good set of prints of Debbie’s palm due to rigor, and that her hands were not flat at the time he obtained the initial print.  He had told Rogers that he felt he might not have obtained a complete set of prints, and this information was passed on to me.  This led to my calling Agent Peters.

 

While in fiction it may be acceptable to just invent a conspiracy, in a non-fiction novel one would expect at least a scintilla of evidence of its existence.  Mr. Grisham has none.

 

d.  Williamson within 5 days of execution

 

            Another example of Grisham’s willingness to mislead his readers to sell a novel is his repeated claim that Williamson came within five days of being executed. He states this in his novel, and has repeatedly said it on television interviews.  However, if you listen to the recording of his speech to the Virginia law students, you will hear Grisham explain this issue as follows:   That an execution date had been set for Williamson for thirty days away.  His attorney came to see Williamson and told him “Look, they’re not going to execute you, okay?  I’m going to stop it.  I know I can get you a stay.  We’re going to have some more appeals.  But I’m not going to file it until the last minute.  That’s the way we do things.  I’m not going to file it until so late in the game that the federal judge has no choice but to give you a stay.”  These are Grisham’s words, not mine. Yet he misleads his readers and everyone who sees him on television by repeatedly saying Williamson was within five days of execution when in his speech he clearly states this was solely because his attorney was delaying filing her documents, and that she knew he was not going to be executed and had told him so.  Grisham also neglected to tell the readers that the setting of an execution date is a method used by the Attorney General’s office not to have an execution, but to force the defendant’s appellate counsel to file the paperwork necessary to get to the next stage of the appeal process.  Based on Grisham’s account given in his speech, this is exactly what happened in this case.   

 

e. Williamson’s prior rape charges

 

            Grisham’s portrayal of Mr. Williamson’s prior rape charges reflects a misunderstanding of the law of rape.  According to Grisham, women who go to “clubs and discos are looking for action.”  (Were a politician to make such a statement, the public reaction would be instant.  Apparently writers are free to make blatantly sexist statements without consequence.) He describes Williamson’s behavior as becoming more and more bizarre, and yet claims that women were throwing themselves at him.  Mr. Williamson wrote a letter to me in which he set out the circumstances of these charges. As to his first charge, he wrote, “The first charge resulted from me throwing a girl named Paula on the bed and having sex with her.  I left her feeling raped. She called the police and I received my first charge.”  As to the second charge, he wrote, “The second time I was charged stemmed from when I assaulted a girl whose name I’m not sure of (its all in Tulsa’s court records).  She was walking from a convenience store at night and I took her by the hand and forced her to have sex with me.  The jury acquitted me of it.  So justice is not always served.”  Compare Williamson’s description to what was written in the novel and you may find a difference or two.  Had Grisham chosen to have interviewed me on these issues, he would have known this.  If he did not want my information, he could have interviewed Mr. Wintory, Mr. Ross, or Gore’s attorney Mr. David Smith, all of whom knew about these letters.  Not surprisingly, Mr. Williamson’s attorneys, who Mr. Grisham thanked in his novel for spending so much time with him, also had knowledge of this letter.

 

f.  Gary Rogers’ actions

 

            Grisham also goes to great lengths to attack Gary Rogers, regardless of the evidence or testimony.  As stated above, he claims Rogers was present and witnessed Gore’s first statement on December 8^th, when the testimony of the detective who took the statement was that Rogers was not there, and the same detective stated that Rogers’ name written at the bottom of the page was in that detective's handwriting.  Grisham might have found it helpful to revisit Judge Landrith.  After Rogers’ testimony in the Gore trial, Landrith asked him back into his chambers and apologized to Rogers for the things he (Landrith) had been thinking about Rogers.  Had Grisham actually watched Gore’s trial, he would have found out that Rogers did in fact include statements in his reports regarding Williamson’s mental condition.  He noted that Williamson was irrational, had mood swings, went from passive to aggressive, etc.  He also noted that a previous attempt at polygraphing Williamson was unsuccessful due to Williamson’s erratic manner and ranting and raving.  These reports were then submitted to Roger’s OSBI supervisor, who edited out this information in preparing the prosecutorial report that was sent to me.  In Gore’s second trial, it was established that numerous items were edited out of his report by his supervisor prior to it being sent to me as a prosecutorial report. 

 

g.  The Gore investigation and trials

 

            Grisham’s “mistakes are inevitable” claim cannot explain the total misrepresentation of some parts of this case.  For example, in his speech to the Virginia law students, Grisham stated that he watched the Gore trial.  In the novel, he wrote that “Peterson begged off on conflict of interest grounds, but sent his assistant Chris Ross to sit at the state’s table and take notes.”  This is not only blatantly untrue, but appears to be just another attempt to take a cheap shot at my office.  Had he really attended the trial, bothered to read the Gore court file or transcripts, or asked me why I got out, Grisham would have known that the federal judge in the civil suit told my attorney he wanted me to get out of the Gore case due to the fact that both Gore and I were being sued by Fritz and Williamson.  The judge did not want one defendant in a civil suit prosecuting another defendant in the civil suit. Secondly, he would have known that after I recused, the Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma appointed it to the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office, who assigned the case to Richard Wintory, one of their assistants. Wintory then appointed Chris Ross to prosecute the case with him.  As Mr. Ross had not been part of the prosecution team in the Williamson or Fritz cases, he was allowed to prosecute Gore with Mr. Wintory.  I had no involvement in that matter whatsoever.  Additionally, in both Gore trials, Mr. Ross presented state’s witnesses, cross-examined the defense witnesses, and made closing arguments, which Grisham characterizes as “taking notes.”  Either Grisham misled the students and did not attend the trial, or he did attend the trial, and intentionally misled his readers regarding Mr. Ross’ participation in that trial.  

 

            Grisham also emphasizes the length of time it took to get Mr. Gore to trial.  At one point he surmises that the police and I were “posturing” that the investigation had been reopened (page 323) and that “in 2001 the Ada police concluded the investigation (page 345).”  In fact, the Ada police played no role in the investigation into Mr. Gore.  Two of my District Attorney’s investigators interviewed Gore in prison on March 2, 1999.  This interview ultimately proved to be a major part of the case as Gore denied having had sexual contact with Debbie Carter for a period of two months prior to her death.  (It should be noted that no one besides Gore ever claimed that there had been a previous relationship with Debbie, and all of her friends adamantly denied that she would have dated him).  An OSBI agent was requested and the investigation was assigned to K.P. Larsh.  Larsh later retired, and Agent Jon Jones was assigned.  These two agents had the task of locating witnesses who had lived in Ada nineteen years before.  Many had scattered across the nation.  They located witnesses in many states.  Many had married or remarried and thus had different last names.  Additionally, they had to locate witnesses regarding Glen Gore, not Williamson and Fritz.  The Gore prosecution’s witness list eventually included ninety-seven witnesses, only twelve of whom had been witnesses against Williamson or Fritz.  Charges against Glen Gore were filed by me on April 6, 2001.  The prosecution also needed to obtain a DNA sample from Gore that was not out of the prison data base.  To establish a chain of custody in a DNA case, the state must locate and be ready to present each and every person who had handled the DNA evidence.  This person must be able to testify that this is the swab he handled, this is what he did with it, this is where it has been kept, etc.  Since the DNA match was made by the prison data base, the State obtained a new DNA swab from Gore and submitted it for DNA profiling.  This sample was obtained by court order on April 9^th, 2001, and was sent for testing.  The fact that the trial did not occur until 2003 is due to factors which Grisham, as a lawyer, should understand. 

 

          The court had to appoint an attorney for Gore.  This attorney, David Smith, had to be given time to digest nineteen years of legal history, statements, etc.  During this time, I recused from the case on the insistence of the federal judge in the civil case, and the case was sent to the Attorney General’s office.  The AG assigned the case to Oklahoma County District Attorney Wes Lane, who appointed assistant district attorney Richard Wintory to the case.  Wintory then appointed Lynn Loftis, another Oklahoma County assistant, and Mr. Ross, to prosecute the case with him.  Additionally, all the evidence brought out through the on-going civil suit had to be obtained by Mr. Wintory, Ms. Loftis,  and Mr. Ross for the prosecution as well as Mr. Smith for the defense.  The State and defense both requested and were granted continuances to allow for this until August, 2002, at which time the preliminary hearing was held.  The defense asked for continuances to prepare for trial which were granted.  In May, 2003, Gore’s first trial was held.  Rather than portray the reasons for the delays, which were a matter of record and in the court file, Grisham chose to claim that the police and I were in no hurry to proceed, when in fact the police and I were no longer even involved.     

 

g.  Barney Ward

 

            Close your eyes and picture in your mind Barney Ward as described by Mr. Grisham.  An elderly, has been attorney?  Barney Ward died in 2005 in his mid to late seventies.  During the Williamson trial, he would have been in his mid to late fifties.  However, Grisham neglects to mention his age and chooses to portray him as “past his prime.”  In the mid-eighties and through the mid-nineties, Barney was considered one of the best defense attorneys around, and was at the top of his game.  He was hired by many defendants in many counties.  Grisham states that Barney often fell asleep in court  around three p.m.  This simply is not true.  Mr. Ward was a diabetic.  There were times when his blood sugar would become unbalanced, and he would begin to feel it.  He would tell the court, and a break would be taken for him to eat hard candy, which he always carried in his coat pocket, and drink a soft drink.  In minutes he would be back to himself.  Later in his career, years after this trial, he became wheelchair bound due to complications of his diabetes.  During this time period, he would occasionally fall asleep while sitting in a judge’s office waiting for court to begin, or at other times when there was little activity.  However, he was not sleeping in the Williamson trial, and Grisham’s portrayal of Barney Ward is both misleading and insulting to his memory.  But as Grisham said in his speech at the Virginia law school, it’s easy to go after the dead.

 

            Grisham also writes that “Barney was left with no assistance- no legal eyes to help him sift through the documents, photographs, and diagrams….”  In truth, Mr. Ward had the same assistance he had always had, Linda.  Mr. Ward was an excellent defense attorney, and did not need a pair of “legal” eyes.  In his career as both a prosecutor and a defense attorney, he had never taken another attorney with him to help him look at documents.  As Grisham states, he had always had a woman named Linda.  And despite what Grisham would have his readers believe, Mr. Ward was considered one of the finest defense attorneys around for years before and years after this trial, and he didn’t need a set of “legal” eyes with him to obtain that reputation.  The Court of Criminal appeals, in reviewing his performance in Williamson’s trial, stated he was “a seasoned lawyer, well versed in the criminal law.”

 

h.  A frame up 

            Grisham basically asserts that the investigators were framing Fritz and Williamson. If this was true, how does he explain that they did not use the simplest and strongest method?  If the investigators of this case were intentionally trying to frame Fritz and Williamson, common sense shows that there would be no need to involve jail inmates.  All the investigators would have to have done was interview Fritz and Williamson for an hour or two, and then come out and say they completely and totally confessed.  They told what they did from A to Z.  Why bother with jail house witnesses and their inherent credibility problems?  The investigators knew the facts of the crime scene.  It would have been simpler and made a much stronger case.  Grisham makes no effort to consider this problem with his conspiracy theory.  Instead, Grisham would have his readers believe that the officers would commit enough perjury to make a case, but not enough to make an air tight case.

 

            Grisham’s attempts to portray this investigation as an intentional frame up at times expose him for what he is, a fiction writer.  For example, on page 126, he writes that “The mention of a lawyer spooked the detectives, and they stopped the confession.”  These cops who he has portrayed as corrupt, who he says are physically and verbally abusive to suspects, who he says spoon feed confessions to defendants, who out and out lie, who are not video or audio taping, are spooked because he asked for a lawyer?  Why?  They could just ignore it.  They could just threaten him, couldn’t they?  Weren’t they just making up what he said anyway?  If these detectives really acted in the manner Grisham has portrayed, the mention of a lawyer would not have ended the interview.  This is Grisham vs. Grisham at its finest.

 

i.  Williamson’s incompetence

            Grisham states throughout the novel that it was obvious that Williamson was too sick to be put on trial.  Obvious to whom?  Grisham wasn’t there.  There is a huge difference between being criminally insane and being incompetent to stand trial.  They are two completely different issues.  Is there any question, for example, that Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer weren’t mentally ill?  Yet they were capable of standing trial.  The issue of competency to stand trial is whether you can understand the nature of the charges against you, and are you capable of assisting your counsel in your defense.  Williamson clearly understood that he was charged with the murder of Debbie Carter, and he was capable of assisting his attorney in his defense.  His defense was that he was at home and did not kill Debbie Carter.  He testified to this at trial. 

 

            Criminal insanity, on the other hand, is a defense at trial, but it is a defense where you admit that you committed the crime.  In other words, the defense is “yes, he committed the crime but he was insane at the time.”  The insanity test is whether you understood the nature and consequences of your actions at the time you did them, and whether you understood right from wrong.  Since Mr. Williamson did not commit the crime, and therefore was not going to agree that he committed it, obviously insanity was not a valid defense.  If you want to determine for yourself whether Williamson was able to assist in his defense, look at a copy of the trial transcript.  He testified in his own defense, he testified for quite a while, and he did so without any acting out.  His answers were rational and in response to the questions asked him. 

 

            Additionally, there is a huge difference between being “crazy” and being “criminally insane.”  Regardless of how “crazy” a person might be, they are not criminally insane if they understand the nature and consequences of their actions and they know the difference between right and wrong.  For example, look at the case of Jeffrey Dahmer.  There is no doubt that a man who takes people into his house, turns them into zombies, kills them, has sex with the corpses, then cuts them up and eats them is crazy.  But since he knew that what he was doing would kill them, he understood the nature and consequences of his actions.  Since he knew it was wrong, he understood the difference between right and wrong.  Therefore, although he was as crazy as they come, he was not criminally insane.

 

            As this is applied to Mr. Williamson, he did have a mental disorder.  Of that there is no doubt. But the relevant question was, did he understand that he was being charged with the crime of murdering Debbie Carter, and was he able to assist Mr. Ward in his defense.  The answer to both of these questions was yes.  The fact that Williamson was found to have a condition that entitled him to be on disability, as Grisham writes on page 163, is irrelevant to the question of whether he was competent to stand trial.  Numerous defendants who are on disability are prosecuted and are capable of assisting their attorney.  Mr. Williamson was given a battery of psychological tests, and the report did not find him incompetent to stand trial. 

 

            Despite acknowledging this testing on page 164, Grisham then states “The case was begging for someone to raise the issue of competency.”  Really?  The Court of Criminal Appeals, in discussing Williamson’s competency, stated that “at the time of trial, (Mr. Ward) had the opinions of three mental health professionals that (Williamson) was competent and a malingerer.”  Grisham failed to mention these three mental health opinions.  Mr. Ward had obtained three mental health experts opinions as to Williamson’s competency.  One stated that Williamson had been seen over a period of seven years after voluntarily appearing for alcohol and drug abuse, and that he failed to keep follow up appointments and was suspected by “each counselor who saw him of shamming, malingering, attempting to manipulate the system.”  Despite what Mr. Grisham would have his readers believe, Mr. Ward had obtained mental health evaluations on Williamson, and the reports said he was competent. 

 

j. The lawsuit was settled

 

            Grisham acknowledges that I said the civil suit was frivolous.  As far as the suit pertains to me, I continue to say it was frivolous.  The allegations against me were centered on my phone conversation with Agent Peters.  Despite the fact that the only persons who know what that conversation consisted of are Peters and I, and despite the fact that both Peters and I agreed and testified under oath that I asked him whether he had gotten a good set of prints from Debbie Carter and he said no, Grisham invents for himself, and his readers, what “really happened.”  Without a single witness, Grisham turns this into a conspiracy, and in doing so condemns me for something that never happened.  I ask you to use your common sense.  First, do you think any attorney, be it prosecutor or defense attorney, does not talk to their witnesses?  Of course they do, and it is perfectly legal and ethical. I had been provided with a prosecutorial report in which there was an obvious unanswered question:  Who did the palm print belong to?  If it wasn’t Carter, Williamson, or Fritz, then the investigation had missed something.  On the other hand, if the known prints of one of those three were not complete, they could be reprinted.  Given that Peters had taken Carter’s prints, but not Williamson’s nor Fritz’s, I asked him about hers.  As discussed above, it turned out her prints had not been sufficiently taken. And by the way, since Grisham never bothered to mention it, the print was not Glen Gore’s.  Since we now know that Gore was the killer, and even Grisham is sure of that, how does he explain it not being Debbie Carters?

 

            Although Grisham correctly points out the case was settled, he does not mention that I refused to settle, and the case was eventually dismissed against me.  Apparently, Grisham missed that fact.  I did not fully learn the true nature of the investigation (the missing reports, the excised prosecutorial reports, etc.) until after the Gore investigation was under way and Mr. Wintory, Mr. Ross, and Ms. Loftis were preparing to prosecute Gore.  After reading the novel, were you left with the opinion that I had settled the case?  Of course you were.  That is Grisham’s method.  I refused to settle, never would have settled, and they dismissed the case against me.  I therefore was never given the chance to rebut the allegations made against me by having a jury trial.  

 

k.  Hair evidence

 

            In order to sell his novel, Grisham passed up an opportunity to explain what actually went wrong in this investigation and prosecution.  In the early eighties, hair identification was considered state of the art.  Contrary to what Grisham wrote, hair identification experts were saying that they could distinguish between identical twins, that hair identification was the next fingerprint, and that eventually courts would let them say that the hair actually belonged to a certain person.  In effect, we were being told that if an analyst said the hair is consistent with a suspect’s, it meant it was the suspect’s hair. Based on this information, investigators and I believed not that the seventeen hairs “might” have come from Fritz and Williamson, but that they in fact did.  Since both men denied ever having been in Debbie’s apartment, it was believed by prosecutors and investigators that these hairs were deposited during the crime.  Had Mr. Grisham actually attended the Gore trial, he would have heard the investigators admit this under oath.  However, as DNA has now shown in this case and others, hair comparison turned out to be very unreliable.  Of the seventeen hairs linked to Fritz and Williamson, DNA showed that they actually came from eight different people, including Debbie and Glen Gore.  Grisham passed on a perfect opportunity to document  why any conviction based on hair analysis should have DNA testing done if possible.  Instead, he chose to play loose with the truth in order to have the bad guy vs. good guy approach that he is so comfortable with in his fictitious tales. 

 

            Grisham contended that microscopic hair analysis had been known to be unreliable long before the prosecution of Fritz and Williamson.  If this were true, why then did the defense hire an expert, Mr. Bisbing, to do the exact same type of analysis?  If it was widely known to be unreliable, as Grisham claimed, wouldn’t the defense have hired an expert to testify that the science was unreliable, rather than hire an expert to do the exact same testing that Mr. Hett had done for the prosecution?

 

l.   Williamson’s mother’s interview by law enforcement

 

            Grisham’s handling of Williamson’s mother’s knowledge is similar. Mrs. Williamson did tell investigators that Williamson had come home at 10 p.m.  She did not tell them he spent the night watching video tapes with her.  Grisham relies for this statement on the word of David Morris, a local attorney who Grisham states, “had little respect for the Ada police.”  I can find no one who has ever heard this story before.  In twenty plus years, Morris has never told this to me, or anyone I can find.  Let us examine it logically.  First, why would Morris take this information to the police when he did not respect them rather than keep it to himself?  Why would he not have taped the interview himself, or at least have sat inside with his client while she was making the statement to a detective?  Why would he not record it himself or have demanded a copy of the tape?  Why would he not have kept the video store records, or at least a copy of them? Are we to believe Morris had this information, but never shared it with Williamson's attorney, Fritz’s attorney, or the prosecutors?  Does that make sense?  Morris, himself a defense attorney and claiming to be an attorney for Mrs. Williamson during her lifetime, stood by and kept mute?  Assume the alleged interview between Dennis Smith and Mrs. Williamson occurred, and no tape existed or could be found. Even though Mrs. Williamson was dead, the defense could have presented the records from the video store, they could have called Morris as a witness, etc.  Morris could have told Mr. Ward, Mr. Saunders, Nancy Shew, or me.  Instead, nothing of the sort happened.  As Mrs. Williamson and Dennis Smith are both deceased, the sole witness to this is David Morris, who has never bothered to share it with anyone I know of except for Grisham.  For you readers, call any attorney in Ada and ask them if they believe this part of Grisham’s story. 

 

            The fact that Williamson’s mother had died presented a problem for the defense, and I recognized that.  They could not introduce her statement to the detectives that Williamson came home at 10 p.m. that night because it would have been hearsay.  If one looks at the trial transcript, the prosecution brought it out.  On page 395 of Williamson’s trial transcript, under examination by Ms. Shew, Dennis Smith testified that on March 14, 1983, Mrs. Williamson “made a statement that Ron Williamson was at the, (sic) she knew where Ron was at that night of the homicide.  She remembered it, and Ron was at home. She says I remember him coming home at 10:00 o’clock.  And I made a notation of that- that she had said it.”  Similarly, since Fritz was accused of committing the crime with Williamson, the prosecution also brought out this testimony in his trial.  On page 492 of Fritz’s trial transcript, Dennis Smith, again being questioned by Nancy Shew, testified that, “We asked him (Williamson) where he was at that night, December the 7^th, and he said that he had been out and had come home around 10:00  o’clock that night.  His mother was present and she said that she remembered him coming in about 10:00 that evening.”  In light of Grisham’s position that the prosecutors and investigators were trying to frame Williamson, to convict him at all costs, how does he explain our bringing out that Williamson’s mother said he came home at 10:00 when the defense could not have brought it out if we objected to it as hearsay?  If the investigators and I were really as portrayed by Grisham, why would we bring out this evidence?    

 

m.  “Jail house snitching” is rampant in Pontotoc County.

 

            Grisham stated several times that “snitching” is rampant in Pontotoc County.  This is far from the truth.  Since 1983, there have been twenty-seven murder cases in Pontotoc County other than the Ward/Fontenot and Fritz/Williamson cases.  In none of these cases was there a “jailhouse” confession involved.  Out these twenty-seven cases, there have been 11 jury trials.  At none of these trials did any inmate or jailer testify to a confession made by the defendant.  Of those charged with murder who did not have a trial, all entered pleas of guilty. 

 

n.  Various other mistruths, told for no apparent reason other than to cast the investigators and prosecutors in a bad light, or for no apparent reason at all.

 

            On page 8, he states there was the sound of a struggle over the use of the phone.  The witness did not testify to this.  She testified that it sounded as though Carter put her hand over the phone and was having a conversation with someone.  She never testified she heard a struggle.

 

            On page 7, he says that Gore was let out of the car before they got to Oak Street.  In fact, the testimony was clear in both Gore trials that he was let out on Oak Street.  As they were driving down Oak, Gore told West to just let him out there.  Gore’s mother did live on the other side of town.  However, the facts at Gore’s trial established that he was let out in front of the house of a friend of his mother’s, where he occasionally stayed.

 

            Grisham also misinforms his readers when he says on page 125 that Agent Featherstone replaced Smith in the interview because of the criticism aroused by the novel The Dreams of Ada.  In fact, Featherstone was used because he had already spoken with Williamson, and was able to have a conversation with him.  He had performed the polygraph test on Williamson earlier, and the two had spent a lot of time speaking of their former athletic careers.  A previous attempt at polygraphing Williamson using a different examiner had failed when Williamson became aggravated.  Therefore, it was thought that because Williamson had gotten along with Featherstone, he should be present for the interview.

 

            Grisham also tries to make a point that the investigators did not have Williamson sign their notes made at his interrogation.  However, Grisham also correctly writes that Williamson had stated that he wanted a lawyer, and that when contacted by investigators, attorney David Morris told them to stop the interrogation.  Given those facts, and the vast amount of criminal defense experience Grisham claims to have in his Virginia speech, exactly how would they have had Williamson sign anything without violating his Miranda rights?  They could not have.  When a suspect invokes his right to an attorney, the interview is over.  No more contact, conversation, etc., is allowed.  Given these facts, Rogers and Featherstone did exactly what the law required by stopping and not asking Williamson to review or sign the notes.

 

            On page 192, Grisham correctly sets out that Gore’s testimony from the preliminary hearing was read at Williamson’s trial after Gore refused to testify.  He then goes on to say that the defense was robbed of the opportunity to cross-examine the defendant as to his prior convictions and his movements on that night.  This simply is not true.  When a transcript of prior testimony is read into evidence, all questioning from that hearing is presented.  All questions asked of Gore by the prosecution and the defense were in fact read to the jury.  The defense was not robbed of its chance.  If the defense had wanted to question Gore about these matters, it could have done so at the preliminary hearing.  Additionally, Gore’s prior felony convictions could have been admitted by the defense by simply calling the court clerk to the stand.  The defense did call the court clerk as a witness on other matters, and could have had him identify Gore’s felony convictions. 

 

            On page 341, Grisham again misleads his readers.  He claims that I “admitted” that I met with several investigators and that I “was at the end of my rope.”  In fact what I said in my deposition was that the investigation was “end of rope.”  I had a meeting with Rogers, Smith, and other investigators.  Contrary to Grisham’s imagination, Peters was not there. After the meeting, I wrote “end of rope” on legal pad I had used to take notes during the meeting.  During my deposition, Mr. Scheck tried to get me to say that this meant that I was at the end of my rope.  I refused, and explained to him that it meant that the investigators felt they had done all they could, and the investigation was at the end of the rope.  Regardless of this, Scheck wrote a brief in which he said that it meant I was at the end of my rope.  He, like Grisham, was willing to assign his own version of what I meant.  Using common sense, why in the world would I need to write down that I was at the end of my rope?  Was I going to forget that I was at the end of my rope?  Was I going to need to remind myself?  That is simply ludicrous.  I was noting what the investigators told me, which was my short hand version of “we’ve done all we can.”

 

V.  Assigning credibility to Glen Gore

 

            Regarding Mr. Gore, Grisham correctly portrayed him as a liar, rapist, and murderer, and yet chose to believe him when Gore is speaking poorly about me or claiming to have sold drugs with the police.  In his speech to the Virginia students, Grisham went so far as to say that when he visited Gore in prison he asked Gore whether or not I had threatened him because Grisham had already learned that.  Grisham had “learned that” because Gore had written an affidavit stating it.  Thus, Grisham in effect used Glen Gore to confirm what Gore Glen had said.  Is this investigative journalism? Had Grisham bothered to ask, I would have gladly let him hear Gore’s tape recorded statement to investigators in which he said that he hated me for his first prosecution and that any time he could say anything to hurt me and not get more time for it, he would do it.

 

             Grisham wrote that only a prosecutor like me would let Glen Gore anywhere near his case, and yet Grisham based the vast majority of his claims against me on Glen Gore’s statements.  I used what I believed to be the 1982 statement of a man who at the time had some misdemeanor convictions.  Grisham used the statements of a man who Grisham knew had committed a vicious rape murder and had been convicted of it, who had been convicted of several other violent felonies, and who had perjured himself.      

 

 

            Grisham would have his readers believe that Gore was selling drugs for an Ada police officer named Dennis Corvin.  As for Gore’s alleged association with Dennis Corvin, Grisham sets out the “facts” in such a manner as to suggest that Gore said he was selling drugs for Corvin, and Corvin was later arrested for selling drugs.  The slightest amount of research would have shown Grisham that Mr. Gore made this allegation in August, 2001, some six months after Mr. Corvin had been arrested by my District Attorneys Drug Task Force in February, 2001.  At the time Gore made this allegation, the news of Corvin’s arrest had been public for six months.  Grisham not only failed to include that in his novel, but also omitted the fact that the other officer Gore claimed to have sold drugs with did not even move to Ada until 1986.  Did it never occur to Grisham that perhaps a man who knew he had lied in court, and knew that he was the actual murderer, might feel the need to come up with an explanation as to why he lied other than to divert attention from himself?  Corvin’s arrest provided Gore with an easy target, a point which Grisham obviously did not want his readers to know. 

 

            Additionally, Williamson’s attorneys, while working on the appeal and civil suit, interviewed Gore.  A document was written by them setting out what was said in that interview.  The memorandum reads, and I quote: “One time Peterson interviewed Gore in a back interview room at the jail.  Peterson said something very rude toward him (he couldn’t remember exactly what) and said, ‘You better  hope you weren’t in that apartment,’ or something like that.” Grisham further failed to inform his readers that Gore told Williamson’s attorneys and investigators several versions, which ranged from everything he testified about was true, to he wasn’t sure if it was true, to he lied and none of it was true.  Mark Barrett, Williamson’s attorney who Grisham acknowledges he spent a lot of time with, testified to this at the Gore trial. And yet Grisham mounted a large part of his attack on me based on the statements of this murderer.   In my twenty-eight years as a prosecutor, I have never visited a witness or inmate in the county jail.  When I needed to interview an inmate, I would have him brought to the District Attorney’s office.      

 

VI.  Presenting the “facts” out of chronological order

 

            The order in which events occur is often important in determining their meaning.  As shown above, it is important to know that Gore did not sign an affidavit claiming he had sold drugs with Corvin until six months after Corvin’s arrest on drug charges.  Yet, as written by Grisham, it appears to have happened in the opposite order, as Grisham writes about Gore’s statement on page 150, and does not write about Corvin’s arrest until page 357.

 

            Grisham’s logic as to why the police should have immediately suspected Gore as Carter’s murderer included his being a thug and a known criminal.  Had he bothered to ask, I could have shown him Gore’s criminal history.  In 1982, Gore’s criminal history included an arrest for DUI and resisting arrest, one assault and battery charge, and one misdemeanor forcible entry charge which was dismissed at the request of the complaining witness, a girl he had been dating.  All of the charges which Grisham wrote about regarding his violence towards women occurred in 1986 and 1987. In essence, Gore had four misdemeanor arrests, and how Grisham expected that to make him an immediate suspect in 1982 is completely beyond me.  If one was to be an obvious suspect based solely on his past criminal arrests, but not convictions, Gore paled in comparison to Williamson.

 

            As for Grisham’s stating that I should never have let a person like Gore anywhere near the stand, one must look at the timing of the events.  We believed Gore’s statement was made in 1982.  As stated earlier, he was not in serious trouble with the law in 1982, which is when prosecutors believed the undated report had been written, and so we had no reason to believe he would lie at that time.  Had his statement been made after his 1986 and 1987 arrests, there would have been a reason to question its veracity.  Grisham apparently does not understand the fact that we could not have been suspicious of a statement we believed was made in 1982 based on events that occurred in 1986 or 1987.

 

            Grisham also misleads the readers by placing the knowledge of Johnnie Graham at the beginning of the novel.  This information dealt with Gore having a crush on Johnnie Graham, and the fact that her husband Duke Graham’s name was written on the back of Debbie Carter.  The truth is that the information regarding the crush was not known by the police or prosecutors until after the DNA results had cleared Fritz and Williamson and Gore had been charged with the murder.  After those events, Mrs. Graham called me and told me that she had some information regarding the case that might be relevant.  She met with me and told me of the feelings towards her that Gore had expressed.  Grisham, however, chose to portray this as a reason the police should have suspected Gore from the beginning.  In a pattern that he followed throughout the novel, Grisham chose not to present the events in a chronological order, which allowed him to mislead his readers as to when things happened, and thus mislead them as to what law enforcement should have known or done.  As if this wasn’t enough, he also states that Gore was “banished” from the bar.  This was not true either.  Ms. Graham testified that when people began teasing her husband about Gore’s affection for her, she told her husband to “leave him alone, he’s just a boy.”  Ms. Graham testified that after the problem between her husband and Jimmy Smith, the male patrons of the bar would walk her to her car after closing on the nights that her husband was not there.  She testified that one of the men who did this was Glen Gore.  Had Glen Gore been banished, how would he have been there to walk her to the car? 

 

VII.  Half-truths

 

            As shown in the earlier part of this response dealing with Gore’s statements, Grisham is fond of telling half-truths.  While what he writes is the truth, he leaves out facts that make a tremendous difference.  Below I set out a few of the many times Grisham employed this method.

 

            The testimony of the Carpenters having seen Glen Gore in the parking lot with Debbie Carter was also a concern of Mr. Grisham.  He questioned why they were not asked about having seen Gore in the parking lot with Debbie. Had Grisham attended Gore’s trial, or bothered to ask, he would have found that this fact was not included in any of the reports presented to the prosecution by investigators.  The statements submitted to our office by law enforcement stated that the Carpenters had said that they had seen Debbie in the parking lot talking to a man in a baseball cap who they thought worked at OG&E.  This would not have been Glen Gore. They knew Glen Gore.  They testified that after Debbie’s death, her circle of friends would sit and brainstorm about the case, and Glen Gore’s name never surfaced as a suspect. Thus, Grisham attempts to attack the prosecution for not asking about an event that the police reports did not describe, and which the witnesses to did not even consider when thinking about who might have killed Debbie. Their statement that Glen Gore was the man in the parking lot was not learned by the prosecution until Gore was being investigated after Fritz and Williamson had been freed. 

 

            Grisham gives the same treatment to juror Cecil Smith.  Cecil Smith was a former Ada police chief, and Grisham tells that part of the truth. What Grisham does not tell readers is that Mr. Smith did not know me, and that the defense did not even raise the issue until after the State had rested, not only after a few witnesses.  The court reviewed the questions that were asked of Mr. Smith and found that he had answered them honestly.  This matter was also raised on appeal, and the appellate court found that Mr. Smith had answered the questions honestly.   Mr. Smith was never asked if he had served in law enforcement, and he was in fact retired from the Corporation Commission.  Nor does Grisham bother to tell his readers that every other juror who was retired or unemployed was only asked about their last job.  Instead, he insinuates that there was wrongdoing involved.  In fact, Smith had not worked with the Ada Police Department for 40 years.  The only person who ever said this was a defense attorney.  The truth is Cecil Smith had worked there for 22 years.  He retired from the Ada Police Department in 1958, 24 years before the murder. He then went to work for the Corporation Commission.  Dennis Smith began working at the police department in June, 1965. Therefore, juror Smith’s answers were honest.  Dennis Smith and Cecil Smith were never on the police department together.  Grisham obviously doesn’t care whether his readers know the truth or not about this issue, but would rather leave them with the impression that Cecil Smith served on the police department with Dennis Smith and the other officers.  In truth, there was not a single officer employed at the Ada Police Department in 1982 or involved in this case that served with Cecil Smith. 

 

VIII.  Fabrication

 

            At times, Grisham’s fictional background takes over his first attempt at “non-fiction.”  He either embellishes facts or invents them out of whole cloth. Not one to let the truth stand in the way of a profit, Grisham invents much of his novel, including the words, actions, and motives of others.  I have set out a few of the examples below.

 

            Regarding Grisham’s portrayal of Mr. Gore’s attack on his first wife, I am quite sure she did survive the repeated stab wounds he wrote of, because they never occurred.  Grisham obviously either didn’t even bother to read her testimony from either of the Gore trials, the police reports about that case, or interview the victim, or he did those things and made a conscious decision to mislead his readers.  The victim testified, at both Gore trials, that Gore was holding a knife against her back, and as a friend tried to pull her out the door, the knife repeatedly poked or hit her in the back.  She was not repeatedly stabbed with a butcher knife.  While the crime was certainly serious, it was not at all as portrayed by Grisham.

 

            Additionally, throughout the novel Grisham writes what certain persons were thinking or saying, such as Barney Ward, Gary Rogers, Dennis Smith, and me.  Grisham never interviewed Barney Ward, Gary Rogers, or Dennis Smith.  In his novel he criticizes Gary Rogers for “inserting quotations” where he felt appropriate.  At least Rogers was quoting from a handwritten statement of John Christian.  After making such a criticism, Grisham inserts quotations marks throughout his novel on comments from persons he never interviewed. What was Grisham quoting from when he never interviewed the people he quotes?  Grisham never asked me during the thirty minutes he spent with me what I was thinking at these times.  He just wrote what he would like for me to be thinking in order to create a conspiracy, and sell novels. He didn’t even bother to say perhaps my motive was….he just writes it as though it were true, always attaching the worst motives. 

 

            At other times he invents what people did.  For example, on page 180, he says that “Since the police knew who killed Debbie Carter, they helpfully informed Melvin Hett.  When he received the samples from Susan Land, the word 'suspect' was written by the names of Fritz and Williamson.”  What Grisham does not write about is Hett’s testimony in  deposition and the trials.  In a deposition, Hett testified that the writing of “suspects” was done by Susan Land, another OSBI examiner.  Grisham, however, tells his readers that the Ada Police wrote it.  Nor does Grisham bother to tell his readers that Land’s paperwork contained the names of six other individuals whose hairs had been submitted and had “suspect” written by their names.   Additionally, Hett testified to this point in front of the jury.  In Fritz’s trial transcript, at pages 828-829, Hett testified that “I was advised who were suspects in the case.  I was also advised that every hair sample that was submitted was a suspect in the case, otherwise they would not have been submitted.  I also asked some—about some of the facts in the case -what officers knew about the case.  This is very important in working a criminalistics case is not to work a case blind.  You know, not just to say, here’s the evidence, figure it out.  I was advised there were main suspects in the case.  There were also other samples that I needed to examine closely.”  

 

            Another of Grisham’s exaggerations includes that a table was turned over by Williamson, knocking Barney and Linda to the floor, which was followed by a melee.  At preliminary hearing, Williamson did in fact turn over a table.  It did not knock Barney, Linda, or anyone else to the floor.  There was not an ensuing melee.  Mr. Williamson was grabbed by the deputies, and that was the end of it.  To see Grisham’s willingness to not let truth stand in the way of a good story, listen to his speech to the Virginia Law students.  In that speech, he claims this incident happened in front of the jury during trial.    

 

            At times it appears as though Grisham just can’t help himself.  Fiction flows from his pen regardless of the subject.  For example, on page 167, he writes of Fritz being in the courtroom and wondering who out of the crowd would be jurors “when the handcuffs were removed.”  Fritz, nor any other defendant, is ever seen in handcuffs by a jury or a jury panel.  It simply does not happen and is strictly forbidden in this county and every other county in which I have ever appeared in court. 

 

IX.  Ignoring or misstating the testimony

 

            Grisham has an uncanny ability to ignore testimony that goes against his theory of conspiracy, and is willing to misstate the testimony given in order to bolster his theory.  This happens repeatedly throughout his novel.

 

            Grisham doesn’t mind mixing who did what, as long as he can use it to assign a bad motive to the prosecution or law enforcement.  For example, on pages 155-156, he brings out the testimony from Dennis Smith about handwriting comparisons, all of which was in response to questions from the defense in cross-examination.  However, he concludes this discussion on page 156 by saying, “Though the handwriting testimony was offered at preliminary to help prod the case along, it would prove too flimsy even for Bill Peterson to use at trial.”  Thus Grisham infers that I had brought out handwriting comparison at the preliminary hearing. The transcript of the preliminary hearing speaks for itself.  I did not ask a single question about handwriting comparison in my direct examination, nor did I even try to introduce anything about handwriting comparison at the preliminary hearing.  Mr. Saunders, the attorney for Fritz brought this out on cross-examination of the witness, and then Mr. Ward asked even more questions about it in his cross examination.  On my re-direct, I asked whether the witness had taken both hand writing exemplars to the OSBI.  This is the only question I ever asked, and it was in response to the defense having asked whether one of the exemplars was taken to the OSBI.  This is yet another example of Grisham attempting to cast me in a poor light when I had absolutely nothing to do with the subject. 

 

            Grisham refuses to even accurately portray the testimony from the transcripts.  He writes on page 129 that, “Not a single word was included to reflect Ron’s many denials of involvement in the crime.”  Grisham again misleads his readers. The truth is that John Christian’s statement, which is on the very same page,  included the statement from Williamson that, “Don’t you think that if I was the person that killed her I would have gotten some money from my friends and left town?”  That is a denial of involvement.  It was included in both Christian’s report and Roger’s OSBI prosecutorial report.  Why would Grisham mislead his readers?  Surely not to make someone look corrupt.  

 

            On page 182, discussing Mel Hett’s testimony about hair evidence, Grisham writes, “Not once did he share with the jury the truth that the hairs could just have easily not come from the same source.”  Really?  Again, the trial transcripts speak for themselves.  At page 819 of Fritz’s trial transcript, Hett stated, “Hairs generally, considering one scalp hair cannot be positively identified as coming from one individual and eliminating all other individuals on the face of the earth, unless of course, a comparison was done and they all were eliminated.”  On page 820, Hett testified that hair comparison, “is not a means of personal, positive identification.”  He was then asked if he was telling the jurors that the evidence hair absolutely came from Dennis Fritz, to which Hett replied, “No, sir, I’m not positively identifying Dennis Fritz by hair comparison.”  At Williamson’s trial, Hett testified that the hairs were “microscopically consistent and could have the same source” are terms of art which mean that “the hairs did originate from that source, or there could be or might be another individual in the world somewhere that might have the same microscopic characteristics.  In other words, hairs are not absolute identification.”  This can be found on page 735 of the trial transcript.  After that, on cross examination, Hett testified that hairs are not absolute personal identification. This can be found on pages 767-770 of the trial transcript.  Where it can’t be found is in Grisham’s “non-fiction” novel. Grisham’s statement that Hett left without telling the jurors that the hair might not have come from Fritz is just blatantly false, and the trial transcript, of which Grisham bought a copy and had in his possession during his two year exhaustive search for the truth, shows Grisham for what he is.

 

X.  John Grisham- trial tactics expert

 

            Grisham also repeatedly criticizes my trial strategies and decisions.  For example, on page 169 he mocks me for  “discrediting” my own witness.  Any experienced trial attorney, whether prosecutor or defense attorney, knows that if you put on a witness with a criminal record, you bring it out before the other side does.  This is common trial practice.  Additionally, on page 184 he criticizes my bringing out Fritz’s prior felony conviction and his false pawn shop application.  Again, any trial attorney impeaches the credibility of a witness by bringing out their prior convictions or dishonest acts.  But Grisham, who portrays himself as an experienced trial attorney, does not seem to recognize even these basic strategies.  Either he is not the experienced trial attorney he claims to be and doesn’t know that is how an attorney handles such situations in a trial, or he does know and he again misleads the readers in order to make me look inept in the eyes of the readers who are not familiar with trial strategy.

 

            Grisham continues to show his lack of legal expertise in the criminal field in his argument that a Brady violation occurred.  He writes on page 195 that a Brady violation occurred because the defense was not provided with a copy of a video of Williamson being polygraphed.  He goes so far as to say it would be a “powerful tool” to show the jury.  The only problem with this argument is that polygraphs are not, and never have been, admissible.  Therefore, the tape would not be admissible.  Additionally, the same issue was raised in Fritz’s appeal and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals held that this was not a Brady violation.  Given Grisham’s proven track record of misunderstanding the law and trial tactics, I will rely on the decision of the highest criminal court in Oklahoma rather than on the opinion of a fiction writer.

 

 

XI.  Grisham did not bother to interview any law enforcement officers involved in the case, and only interviewed me for thirty minutes

  

            In regard to the Williamson and Fritz matter, Grisham claims he has spent over two years researching the novel.  Grisham spoke to me for a total of about thirty minutes in June of 2006, well after the majority, if not all, of the novel was written.  He asked me three or four questions, and I asked him one. The majority of the questions he asked me are not even covered in his novel.  He never interviewed any of the officers involved in the investigation.  He never spoke to Judge Miller, despite his frequent visits to Judge Landrith’s office which is about fifty feet from Judge Miller’s office.  He never bothered to interview any of the prosecutors of the Gore trials, nor did he listen to the evidence of the second Gore trial.  Are these the actions of a man who wants to know what was done and why, or a man who does not want to ask, and therefore feels free to assign his own version?

 

            Grisham attempts to link adverse reaction to the novel, The Dreams of Ada, to my action in the Williamson and Fritz case.  This simply is not true.  The Dreams of Ada was not as one sided as Grisham’s novel, but it too left out numerous facts and evidence that we relied on in our case.  Therefore, any reaction to it would not have been meaningful to me as I knew the readers of the novel had not been presented the entire case.

 

XII.  Ward and Fontentot- Dreams vs. Reality

            Grisham’s knowledge of the facts of the Ward and Fontenot case is obviously lacking. His total failure to inform the readers of his novel of the real evidence in this case is appalling.  Below, I will set out the most glaring, but again not all, of his failings. 

 

a. Confessions were not the only evidence

 

             He wrote on page 100 that the confessions “were to become the only evidence the state had at trial” and on page 113 “There was no evidence other than the confessions.”  Grisham doesn’t tell his readers of the eyewitness who identified Ward as being in the McAnally’s convenience store with another man a few minutes before Haraway was taken.  He testified that Ward, and a man he originally identified as Fontenot but later testified he could not be positive about, arrived at the store in a gray Chevy pickup.  He testified that after they came into the store their behavior seemed odd, as they were just waiting around as though they didn’t want to be waited on yet.  As he left he started to get the tag number off the gray primered pickup they were in, but did not because another customer came into the parking lot so he thought everything would be okay. 

 

            Grisham fails to mention the testimony of the three witnesses in the parking lot who testified that they saw Denise Haraway, the victim, coming out of the store with a man who resembled Ward and saw them get in the passenger side of a light colored, possibly gray or greenish gray Chevy pickup truck, with Haraway getting in first followed by the man. One of these witnesses was walking into the store as Haraway was exiting, and he identified Ward as resembling the man he saw.  When he entered the store, he found that there was no clerk present, the cash drawer was open, and a cigarette was burning in an ash tray.  One of the men who stayed in his vehicle in the parking lot knew Haraway from the store, and testified she was the woman coming out.  The man had his arm around the woman’s waist.  Grisham doesn’t tell his readers that in his confession, prior to hearing any of the testimony, Ward said that a vehicle pulled into the lot as they were getting ready to leave the store.

 

            Grisham ignores the testimony of two witnesses at a convenience store three tenths of a mile from McAnally’s who testified Ward and another man were at their store that day, on more than one occasion.  At one time Ward and the other man were inside the store for over thirty minutes playing pool.  The witness had more than ample time to view Ward. On the second time they were there, they were in a gray primered Chevy pickup.  This was shortly before Haraway was taken.

 

 

b.  Ward stated these witnesses were correct and truthful

 

             Grisham doesn’t disclose the fact that at preliminary hearing, after these six witnesses discussed above had testified, Ward, in the presence of counsel and months after any police interrogation, requested to be able to make a statement with a court reporter present.  He took the stand to make a statement, being questioned by his attorney.  In that statement Ward admitted that he was the man who had been seen walking out of the store with Haraway.  He admitted that the man who said he was in the store was telling the truth.  He testified that he remembered seeing the men sitting in the parking lot in the car.  He testified that the cigarette found in an ashtray behind the counter was his.  He testified that the witnesses who identified him as coming into the other convenience store close to McAnally’s twice that day, including once shortly before the time of the kidnapping, were correct, that it was him.   His explanation was that the other person with him was not Fontenot, but another man, and that Haraway ran off with this man after falling in love with him inside the store.  Ward said this man was waiting in the pickup at the time Ward walked out of the store with Haraway.  Ward said they were in a ’69 Chevy pickup truck.  Ward said they dropped him off at his house at about 9 p.m.  According to Ward, he had “blacked out” and forgotten all of this, and seeing the witnesses testify made him recall what had really happened.  These statements by Ward were tape recorded and taken down by the court reporter.  They were introduced as evidence at Ward’s trials.  Apparently in his two years of research, Grisham either could not find them or decided not to tell the readers about them. 

 

c.  Grisham’s account of the interrogations disregards what Ward and Fontentot themselves said about the interrogations.

 

            Grisham devotes four pages of his novel to Tommy Ward’s interrogation, stating that it was a dream and the police fed him the information.  Grisham either disregards or is unaware of the fact that when offered an opportunity to explain why he told what he said in his confession, Tommy Ward’s explanation was not that it was a dream nor that the police told him what to say.  In this statement made in court during the preliminary hearing and with his attorney present, Ward was asked why he made the statements in the confession.  He responded, “When you all questioned me the first time, I just thought it was a funny game, you know, that you all was just playing with me, and so I just made up a lie, you know, and that’s how you all got my statement about being a lie, and I tried to explain it to you about being a lie and everything, and it was all just backfiring.”  During the same statement he also said, when asked about his video recorded confession, that “I just thought it was a put on, you know,” and “I just thought, well, shoot, if I tell you a lie and everything, you all would go down there, you know, and see for yourself it wasn’t true, and then I would be out the next day.  That’s what I thought was going to happen.”

 

            Grisham also apparently has decided to ignore Ward’s testimony given in his second trial.  In that trial, Ward testified for 72 pages.  Ward testified and repeatedly said that he was not threatened by the police during the interrogation, but was merely threatened by the presence of the police.  He never said he was touched or verbally abused.   Grisham goes into great detail about all the threats Ward endured, and he devotes several pages to this process.  On page 100, Grisham goes so far as to tell the readers that “What was not seen on the video was the five and a half hours of nonstop threats and verbal abuse.” 

 

            What Grisham, of course, doesn’t tell the readers is that Ward stated in his confession that he had not been threatened, and even testified in his second trial that he had not been threatened.  Let it be absolutely clear.  Tommy Ward, under oath, testifying at trial, facing the death penalty, stated at page 137 of the trial transcript, when asked by his attorney, “At any time during this interrogation were you threatened with bodily harm?”  Ward replied, “Well, I felt that I was.”  His attorney then asked, “What made you feel that way?”  Ward replied, “Mainly just being around the presence of police.”  His attorney said “Pardon?” and Ward replied “Mainly just being around the presence of the police for what they have done to me in the past.”  He then went on to describe how one time he had a car wreck and a police officer hit him in the back of the head and once they got him to the police station he woke up and four officers were in the cell with him and they were pouring a bottle of whiskey down his throat. 

         

 

            His attorney then asked him to go back to the day of the interview, “Did Mr. Featherstone at any time of the day threaten you?”  Ward responded “Well, it was just the way they was questioning me, telling me I did this and I did that and I was afraid that if I didn’t go along with them they would do me bodily harm.”  Finally, his attorney asked him if any of the officers “threatened to shoot you.”  Ward replied, “Well, Dennis Smith did…he goes, I think we ought to take him out and shoot him.  And that was another point that scared me.”  So, after being asked twice if he had been abused or threatened, and having said no twice, only after his attorney suggested that perhaps someone threatened to shoot him did Ward decide to say this had happened.  Is it reasonable to believe that if someone really had threatened to shoot him, that his response to “were you threatened with bodily harm?” would have been that he was threatened “Mainly just being around the presence of the police”?       

 

            On cross-examination, Ward was questioned why he had repeatedly testified on direct examination that he was not threatened, and then when asked if someone had threatened to shoot him he had said yes.  He then changed his version and said that no one threatened to shoot him until after the confession had been given.  When asked about his testimony that he had not been threatened, but that the police presence threatened him, Ward said “the line of questioning scared me.” 

 

            At the end of Fontenot’s confession, he is asked if he had been threatened and he responded “No.”  He also stated that, “It was on my own free will to get this recorded.”  When asked if he had been allowed to smoke, drink, etc., he stated “Yes, I was served right during the meeting.”

 

             Thus, Grisham has either invented the interrogation, or relied solely on the words of the two convicted men for his details, disregarding what they had previously said or testified to.  Grisham, as usual, did not interview any of the officers present during the questioning.

 

            Fontenot was asked towards the end of his confession if there was anything he would like to add and he stated, “Well, I’ll probably never do it again.  Or at least I’ll never get into any trouble like this again, you know, because I’ve learned my lesson.”  Is this the statement you would expect of an innocent man?

 

            So, not only did both Ward and Fontenot confess, but Ward affirmed the credibility of the eyewitnesses at the preliminary hearing in the presence of his own attorney.  The explanation he offered as to why he gave the confession is completely unbelievable.  He had been questioned about a murder on two previous dates, then polygraphed, and he thought it was a “funny game”?  At some point, doesn’t it make sense to quit listening to what authors or defendants’ attorneys say happened and listen to what the defendants themselves said?   Not “I dreamed”…not “the police told me what to say”…but “I made it up because I thought it was a funny little game.”  Later in his preliminary hearing statement Ward was asked whether everything in his confession was a lie or a dream, his attorney interjected, “That’s beating a dead horse.  The statement he made previously, I don’t know what its going to be, whether it’s a lie or a dream or what.”  These are the words of the attorney representing Ward during preliminary hearing.  Again, who should we believe as to what happened, the attorney who hasn’t made up his mind yet what they are going to claim happened or the defendant who insists he made up the lie?      

 

d. Grisham’s account of the “snitches” ignores what Ward said about them.

 

            As for the jailhouse snitches that Grisham berates, Ward also discussed them in his statement at the preliminary hearing.  Ward stated that he told Jim Allen that he had decided he (Ward) was involved in her disappearance.  Ward testified that Allen told him, “Nah, you’re messing up, you know, he said, you’re getting all confused.” Later, according to Ward, Terry Holland brought him a picture of Haraway from the paper at Ward’s request.  She and Allen, according to Ward, both said “it was a different girl” that Ward thought he had been with.  Based on Ward’s own statements, these “snitches” that Grisham berated in his novel were trying to talk him out of believing he was involved.  Again, these statements of Ward’s are not based on memory.  They were tape recorded and were taken by a court reporter.  This statement made by Ward is completely opposite of Grisham’s version of the inmates actions and motives.  Is it any wonder why Grisham did not inform his readers about this statement?

  

e.  Ward’s whereabouts at the time of the crime

 

            When Ward was first interviewed three days after the kidnapping, Ward told police he was fishing with Fontenot on the night of the crime.  At his second interview, he couldn’t remember where he had told them he was at, but did say that it wasn’t correct.  Ward tried to explain this in his testimony at his trial by saying that after his first interview, he went to some friends’ house and told them about the interview, and they pointed out to him that he had not been fishing, but had been with them.  At Ward’s first trial, his defense was that at the time of the crime, he was at his house working on the plumbing.    At his second trial, his defense was that he was at a party at a friend’s house at the time of the crime, where he stayed most of the night, then left and walked home after he saw Fontenot asleep on the couch.  Ward then went to sleep on the couch at his house and was then awakened to go work on the plumbing.  The “friend” testified that Ward had never been at his house and was not at the party.  Despite the inconsistencies during police interviews and despite Ward’s statement at preliminary hearing, Grisham states on page 89 that “Tommy gamely stuck to the truth” during his interview with the police.  Apparently Grisham was willing to overlook what Ward said from the witness stand under questioning by his own attorney during the preliminary hearing, what Ward said during his confession, and what Ward testified to at his trial under oath, all of which are diametrically opposed to what Grisham chose to tell his readers. 

  

f.  The confessions contained information about Haraway’s clothing that law enforcement did not know.

 

            There are many other facts about the Ward and Fontenot case that Grisham either is unaware of or chose not to put in his novel.  At the time of her disappearance, Mrs. Haraway was at work.  She was wearing a zip up gray sweatshirt.  The police did not know what type of shirt she had on underneath. An off duty police officer had been in the store earlier that evening, and said it was a pastel colored blue or lavender shirt with some type of design on it.  He did not know if it was long sleeved or short sleeved because Denise had on the sweatshirt, nor did he know if it was pullover or button up.  In  the fliers the police put out at the time, most contained no description of the shirt, because the police did not know with certainty what type shirt she was wearing. The only description given in any of the fliers about the shirt was “possibly plaid, color unknown.”  

 

            Both Ward and Fontenot described in their confessions what the shirt looked like.  When her remains were finally found, there were shreds of her shirt present.  The shirt matched the description as given by Ward and Fontenot:  Ward said the shirt was white, with little blue roses on it, button up.  When they asked if it had buttons on the collar, he replied that it did, and that “it had little fringe deals around her collar and around the end of the sleeves.”  At this point, he motioned across his bicep.  When Fontenot was asked what kind of shirt she had on, he said button-up.  He was then asked if it had a design and he said, “Just the ruffles around the buttons and sleeves.  The sleeves had elastic like in them.” He said it was short sleeved.  When asked if it had lace around the collar, he said, “it had ruffles around the collar and the sleeves like the front.” After the arrests, the family of the victim came in.  Denise’s mother was asked by an assistant district attorney if she was aware of the shirt.  She stated she knew exactly what shirt it was because her other daughter had owned it and had given it to Denise.  Both her sister and her mother testified that the sister had previously owned that shirt, and had given it to Denise.  The family could not find it in the clothes at Denise’s house.  They also testified that they had never told the police any one shirt that was missing because they were unable to be sure what all shirts she might have had at the time of her disappearance. 

 

            The only conclusions that can be drawn from this is that either the defendants, in separate interviews, made up a nearly identical shirt description and the victim by an amazing coincidence owned such a shirt, or that the defendants knew the shirt because they were in fact the men who had kidnapped and murdered her.  Ward’s explanation at trial was that they told him two different kinds of shirts, the one he described and a “red striped” one, and he “just picked one.”  Now please.  The police, who don’t know enough of a shirt description to put it in a missing person’s flyer are going to tell him to just “pick one”?  And just by chance, it happens to match what was left of the shirt found with her bones?  

 

g.  Ward was shown a skull with no gunshot wounds, and said it was not her.

 

            Grisham likewise did not describe the time that the police took a skull and showed it to Mr. Ward, hoping he would think they found the body.  Instead, he laughed and said it wasn’t her.  How would Mr. Ward know this was not her skull?  When Mrs. Harraway’s remains were found, there was a gunshot entry and exit wound in her skull.  The skull shown to Mr. Ward did not have gunshot wounds. Needless to say, Ward was not an anthropologist or expert in human anatomy.  Place yourself in his shoes.  You are in jail, and the police have not found a body.  They walk in one day and show you a skull.  Under what circumstances would you know that was not the victim’s skull?

 

h.  The confession's “inconsistencies” are explained

 

             Grisham also makes the argument that in the confessions they said they stabbed her, but that she wasn’t stabbed.  The testimony of the medical examiner was that there was no way to say that she hadn’t been stabbed.  Her remains that were found included the skull and bones, and not all of them.  The medical examiner testified that knives rarely leave marks on bones, and that out of the last seventy-five persons he had examined that had been stabbed to death, only two had evidence of the wounds on their bones. 

 

            Grisham seems to be concerned that there were differences between Fontenot’s confession and Ward’s confession as to the order things were done, etc.  Apparently it has not occurred to him that both Ward and Fontenot included a third person who was not there.  Therefore, unless they had repeatedly rehearsed what they were going to say the third person did, inconsistencies would naturally occur when attributing acts to a person who was not really there.  Fontenot blamed all the stabbing on the third person.  Ward blamed the majority of the stabbing on the third person.  However, both stated in their confessions that she was stabbed in the side, while Ward said she was also stabbed in the stomach and Fontenot said she was also stabbed in the chest.

 

            As to the location of the body, it is true both told a different account of where her body was disposed of, neither of which were true.  Fontentot said the body burned in an old house. Ward said he told them of several places they could put her, including an old house, and then he left and did not know where they had taken her. So, Grisham would have his readers believe that the police told Fontenot her body was burned, after having already taken Ward’s confession where nothing was said about burning the body?  As Ward was being interviewed, he was telling the different locations where he said he had told Fontenot and the third man they could take her body.  In response to this, the investigators would call detectives in Ada and tell them what they had been told.  These detectives then went out and dug in an old house, climbed down into concrete cisterns filled with trash, and checked the other locations looking for Haraway’s body.  To believe Grisham’s account of the interview, one would have to believe the investigators were sending detectives out on a wild goose chase because if they were the ones providing the information, then they would know the body was not really there.  Is that logical?  Common sense should tell anyone the investigators were not simply making up the facts.

 

i.  The facts show that the police did not provide the name of the “third man” to Ward or Fontenot/ Grisham fabricates to make it appear they did

 

            According to Grisham, the police provided the name of the third man to Ward and Fontenot. Is that really what happened? If so, it would only make sense that the police would have already looked into this person’s whereabouts to make sure he was available to commit the crime, did not have an alibi, etc.  But this is not what happened.  The third person was cleared when the police, after being told by Ward and Fontenot that he was involved, found out that he had been arrested by the police two nights before the crime and that his arm had been broken during a struggle with the officers.  His arm was in a full length cast.  So, the police went back to Ward and Fontentot and questioned them on whether or not there was anything unusual about his arms.  No.  How about tattoos?  No.  (The man’s arms are literally covered in them.)  They then formed a photo lineup including the man and asked if either could pick him out.  No.  They then placed the third man in a cell adjoining Ward’s, and later Fontenot’s, and asked if they knew him.  No. To believe Grisham, one would have to believe the police would, out of thin air, suggest a third person being with Ward and Fontenot, and provide them the name without ever bothering to find out where he might have been that night, and then after finding out that he was injured, the police went through all the above steps to disprove his being there, when the officers would have known all along he wasn’t there because they had provided the name in the first place.  This is Grisham’s logic at its finest.

 

            In discussion of this aspect of the case, Grisham again shows that he is more than willing to completely fabricate the facts to sway his readers.  For example, Grisham writes on page 98, “In both confessions, he had been described as wearing a T-shirt with tattoos covering his arms.”  This is a blatant lie.  In Ward’s confession, the subject of tattoos is never discussed by anyone.  In his confession, Fontenot was asked, “Does he have any scars, marks, or tattoos that you’re aware of?”  Fontenot responded, “I didn’t see any of that.”

 

            Simply put, Grisham cannot be believed.  This is a perfect example of Grisham writing whatever he chooses, which the uninformed reader accepts as fact, when it is just plain hogwash.  After Fontenot’s response that he saw no tattoos, the next three pages of questions in the transcript deal with how Fontenot knew this man.  The police all knew this man.  They had numerous dealings with him.  Virtually every inch of his forearms was covered in tattoos.  Had the police been providing the information as alleged by Grisham, why would they ask questions about things such as the tattoos without having provided the correct answers?  Why would the incorrect answer about tattoos make them begin to question him about how he knew him if they had provided the name?

 

            In regard to the identity and actions of the third man, and the location of the body, Grisham ignores an obvious explanation.  If Grisham had bothered to ask any of the prosecutors from that case, he would learned that at his first appearance before a judge, Ward stated that he didn’t think he could be prosecuted if a body was not found.  Unfortunately, the judge told him that he could not be prosecuted if the body was not found.  Following that erroneous statement, Ward provided officers with even more accounts of where the body might be found.  From Ward’s statement to the judge, it is clear Ward did not believe they could be prosecuted without a body.  If Ward believed it, it follows that if they were involved, Fontenot would also believe it. This would explain why they would not tell where she really was.  Secondly, Ward and Fontenot both blamed the worst of the acts on the same third person, and they chose a person with a notorious reputation.  While Grisham chooses to believe the police would suggest the name without even bothering to find out where the man was that night, it is much more believable that Ward and Fontenot decided if they were ever caught to blame it on the third person.  If one considers the evidence in this light, then the discrepancies in the statements and the location of the body are easy to understand.    

 

j.  Grisham did not interview a single law enforcement officer or prosecutor involved in this case

 

            Grisham, throughout his novel, is willing to believe anything he is told by a defendant or defense attorney, and yet never interviewed a single law enforcement officer or prosecutor, save for the thirty minutes he spent with me after he had written his novel.  In two plus years of Grisham working on this case, a total of thirty minutes was spent with anyone from law enforcement.  Yet he is willing to write things as though they absolutely happened, without ever asking the other side.  For example, on page 112, he states that after he was convicted, two “Ada cops” came to Ward and offered to have him spared from death if he would tell where the body was.  Grisham did not hear this from any officer, because he spoke with none.  He did not hear it from a prosecutor, because he never spoke with any about that issue.  So, who is he using for his source?  Apparently Tommy Ward, a man who has twice been convicted of the murder and who not only has shown he is willing to lie to try to get out of trouble, but has testified that he was willing to lie to get out of trouble. Grisham doesn’t even bother to name the “cops” so someone could respond.  As a reader, do you seriously think that Grisham is presenting you with “both sides” of these cases?  He has never even bothered to talk to the other side.

 

k.  Ward and Fontenot on death row?

 

            On page 242, Grisham writes that Ward was convicted in his second trial in Pottowatamie County and received the death penalty, and Fontentot was convicted in his second trial in Hughes County and received the death penalty.  Grisham’s half-truths ride again.  Ward was convicted in his second trial, and it was in Pottowatamie County, but he did not receive the death penalty.  He received a life sentence.  Fontenot was tried and convicted in Hughes County, did receive the death penalty, but was granted a re-sentencing hearing on appeal after the trial court refused to instruct the jury on the newly enacted sentence of life without parole.   The issue was that the crime had been committed before the legislature enacted life without parole as a possible sentence for murder.  But the second trial occurred after the legislature had enacted it. The State had argued that the court should instruct on it, the defense did not want an instruction on it, and the court followed the defense’s request.  Despite the fact that the judge did exactly what the defense wanted, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals found that it was error in this case, and many others across the state, to not instruct on life without parole on cases that occurred before but were tried after the enactment of life without parole.  (The same instructions were used in Ward’s retrial, and the jury was only given the choice of life or death, but the Court of Criminal Appeals did not send any cases back for resentencing when the error resulted in a life sentence, only in those that resulted in a death sentence.) Rather than have another sentencing hearing, Fontenot and his attorneys agreed to accept the prosecution’s offer of a sentence of life without parole.  Grisham, on page 356, leaves his readers a little nugget that Ward and Fontenot are now both serving life sentences.  Again, this is not correct.  Ward is serving a life sentence.  Fontenot is serving life without parole. Grisham wrote that Fontenot was not eligible for parole due to a “procedural quirk,” apparently unwilling to admit that Fontenot agreed to life without parole. Therefore, Grisham misinforms his readers on both occasions that he discusses their sentences.  If Grisham cannot even be factual about something as simple as what their sentences are, how factual is he on anything else he writes? 

 

CONCLUSION:

            Let me address Mr. Grisham’s statement regarding “cleaning house.”  Newspaper articles have been written stating that some citizens of this county do not trust law enforcement based on Grisham’s novel.  The murder of Debbie Carter occurred in 1982. 

      

In the twenty-four years that have passed, many officers have retired, and some have died.  There is a total of one officer at the Ada Police Department who was employed there in 1982.  At that time, he was a patrolman and had no involvement in the investigation of Debbie Carter’s murder.  The Pontotoc County Sheriff’s office has no current employee that worked there in 1982.  The local OSBI agent was not employed in law enforcement in 1982.  In fact, the majority of the local law enforcement officers weren’t even old enough to vote in 1982.  So, this distrust which newspaper articles refer to, if it exists, is a distrust of retired or deceased officers.  There is absolutely no connection between any current law enforcement officers and the investigation of the Carter murder, and there is no reason to question the integrity or honesty of the current law enforcement officers based on Grisham’s novel, even if he had presented it in an honest manner.            

 

           Some people who have read the book, or have heard of it, have asked me whether I still believe in the criminal justice system after two innocent men were convicted.  In 2006, the New York Times published an article written by Josh Marquis which discussed the release of the wrongly convicted.  It noted that an exhaustive study was done of exonerations around the country in 2003.  This study documented convictions over a 15 year period.  During this 15 year period, there were 15 million felony convictions, and 340 inmates who had been wrongly convicted and freed. Mr. Marquis opted to grant the innocent an even greater benefit of the doubt, and assumed that 4000 inmates had been freed rather than only 340.  In other words, for the purposes of argument, he multiplied the number of documented erroneous convictions by over 10.  This still resulted in an error rate of .027 percent.  In other words, 99.973 percent of the felony convictions were proper, even if the number of “wrong” convictions was multiplied ten fold. My answer is yes, I believe in the system.

 

            I would like to address Grisham’s account of my not apologizing to Mr. Fritz or Mr. Williamson.  First, let me say that his inference that if I had apologized no one would have been sued is ludicrous.  Grisham wrote that Mr. Williamson had been telling anyone who would listen that he was going to sue.  Apparently Grisham conveniently forgot this when he later wrote that the refusal to apologize caused the suit. However, as I have previously stated, I did not fully learn the facts concerning the investigation until well after I was dismissed from the civil suit and it was settled.  Only when the Gore prosecution team advised me of the information which they had obtained from the civil suit and the investigation into Gore did I know all of these facts and how they fit together. 

 

            There is a huge difference between apologizing for something and regretting that something happened.  Words cannot express how I feel that two men were convicted who later turned out to be factually innocent.  To say that I am sorry, sickened, or distraught that it occurred does not begin to explain how I feel.  However, in regard to the actions I personally took, I prosecuted a case relying on what I believed to be state of the art science, and relying on law enforcement reports that I believed to be accurate.  I did not take any improper action, nor would I ever condone such action by others. I did not learn of the original statement of Gore until 2001, and I did not learn of the deletions from the prosecutorial report until the second Gore trial in 2006.  I could not apologize in 1999 for something that I did not know had happened, nor could I apologize for things that I never did, regardless of how Grisham “mistakenly” portrays them.

 

            Grisham has tried to paint this community as a bunch of out of control people demanding that someone be punished for the death of Debbie Carter.  This is so far from the truth that Grisham should be ashamed of himself for inferring this happened.  This community is no different than other communities across the country.  People go to work, church, vacation, school, and yes, serve on juries.  In the 27 years I have been District Attorney, I have tried hundreds of cases. In each of these cases the jury required me to present a case that proved a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  For Grisham to infer otherwise is obscene, unfair,  and demeaning to the people who serve on any jury. 

 

            His statement about a call from the KKK borders on ridiculous.  I am sure there are bigots here as well as everywhere else, but neither I, nor my investigators, have ever heard of the KKK being active in this part of Oklahoma.  Ask yourself this.  Why would the KKK, a white supremacy organization, call a white woman (Williamson’s sister) and tell her they were going to get a white man (Williamson) for killing a white woman (Debbie)?  Grisham, without a hint of evidence, says that the KKK is now in the hit man business. This is merely another example of Grisham taking a cheap shot at this community.

 

            Ada and the surrounding communities are wonderful places to raise families.  This is an open invitation to anyone to come and see for yourself and not rely on the writing of a fiction writer.  If you call your dog’s tail a leg, it does not make it a five legged dog.  Likewise, calling a novel non-fiction does not make it non-fiction.  Grisham has proven this beyond all doubt. 

 

            Grisham has spun this criminal case to aid him in his agenda.  He is attempting to advance his anti-death penalty philosophy and to sell novels.  This is not simply my opinion. The review of his novel in the Wall Street Journal labeled Grisham’s novel a “polemic,” and stated it was being used to advance his anti-death penalty beliefs. 

 

            I am personally thankful for two issues in this case.  First, that the case was reversed, and secondly, for the science of DNA.  Grisham fails to point out that there have been over 190 cases to date where DNA has been successful in setting wrongly convicted defendants free.  In many, many of these cases, hair analysis was used by the prosecution.  Our cases are but two of them.  I know my conscience is clear as to my involvement in these cases.  I did the best job I could based on the evidence presented to me and what I believed to be state of the art criminalistics.  I wonder if Mr. Grisham can truthfully say the same thing about his involvement.  I have to live with what I did, and he has to live with what he has done.

 

 

     I am respectfully requesting that you pass this web site on to your friends, relatives, neighbors, and others so with your help Mr. Grisham's novel does not go unchallenged.  By doing this, you give truth a chance.

Outline View:

Introduction

I.  Gore's Statements to Law Enforcement

II.  DNA Evidence

III.  Who Knew What & When They Knew It

IV.  Misstating or Ignoring the Facts

V.  Assigning Credibility to Glenn Gore

VI.  The "Facts" - Out of Chronological Order

VII.  Half-Truths

VIII.  Fabrications

IX.  Ignoring or Misstating Testimony

X.  John Grisham - Trial Tactics Expert

XI.  Grisham's Law Enforcement Interviews

XII.  Ward & Fontentot - Dreams vs. Reality

CONCLUSION 

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