Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

Adolph Munson was convicted of murdering Alma Hall, a convenience store clerk.  Police testified that one of the victim's earrings and a .22 caliber bullet was found in Munson's motel room.  The prosecution claimed a .22 caliber gun was used to murder the victim.  In addition, a jailhouse informant claimed that Munson confessed.  Defense requests for funds to investigate the evidence were denied.  Some eight years later exculpatory facts emerged that had been hidden from the defense.  Additionally, it was shown that a .22 caliber gun was not used to kill the victim.  Dr. Ralph Erdmann, the pathologist who testified otherwise, was subsequently convicted of seven felony counts involving misrepresentation of facts in other cases.

Several witnesses contradicted the police officer who claimed he had found the victim's earring in Munson's motel room.  In addition, evidence proved that the jailhouse informant had lied when he denied that he was testifying in hopes of a deal from the state.  A new trial was ordered, with the trial judge stating that he "was saddened that people charged with upholding justice would do such a thing."  The retrial jury acquitted Munson of all charges in April 1995.  (PC)  [7/05]

In the fall of 1907, a human skeleton was found in a wooded area, about 3/4 of a mile from the nearest road.  The nearest human habitation was the Bates sawmill, about four miles away, near the town of Heavener.  Not long before, in August, an employee of the mill named Bud Terry had mysteriously disappeared.  Terry was in his early twenties.  His aunt, Mrs. Knotts, with whom he lived, had heard nothing from him since his disappearance.  Knotts had raised Terry since he was orphaned, and it was Terry's custom to keep her informed whenever he left home for any length of time.  There was suspicion that W. L. Bates, the owner of the sawmill, and his employees knew more about the Terry's disappearance than they were willing to admit.

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Troy Hickey was convicted of murdering inmate Richard Allen Payne at the Oklahoma State Reformatory at Granite.  Payne's cellmate, Bobby Petkoff, who was serving a life sentence for murdering his brother, first told authorities that he had found Payne lying on the floor, bleeding, when he returned to his cell.  Later, Petkoff changed his story and claimed that inmate Steve Ness stabbed Payne while another inmate, whom he did not know, held him at knifepoint.  When shown a photo lineup, Petkoff picked out the unknown accomplice.  However, Petkoff was later walked past Hickey and changed his identification of the unknown accomplice to Hickey. This identification was illegal because it was a "showup identification."

Three inmates testified against Hickey, including Petkoff.  All were given deals for their testimony, but the existence of the deals were hidden at trial.  Hickey later found out that Petkoff was originally a prime suspect in the murder.  He also found that Petkoff had been covered in blood at the time of the stabbing.  It would seem likely that if Hickey had held him down, Hickey would have been covered in blood as well, but he had no blood on any of his clothing or on anything that he owned.  In 1996, Ness signed an affidavit stating that he murdered Payne and that Hickey was not with him at the time.  The affidavit also stated that Ness hardly knew Hickey at the time of the crime, and that Hickey's conviction was due to mistaken identity by inmate witnesses, after weeks of pressure and coercion by state authorities.  (JD10)  [10/08]

Curtis McCarty was convicted in 1986 for the 1982 stabbing and strangling of teenager Pamela Kaye Willis.  He was sentenced to death.  The conviction was overturned because an appeals court ruled that DA Robert H. Macy Sr. had acted deplorably during the trial and that police chemist Joyce Gilchrist had omitted key information from her forensic reports.  McCarty was retried in 1989, convicted, and again sentenced to death.  The death sentence was reversed on appeal, but after a new penalty trial in 1996, McCarty was sentenced to death for a third time.

Gilchrist was fired in Sept. 2001 for performing shoddy work and giving false or misleading testimony in other cases.  She was involved in more than 1100 cases.  She helped to send 23 men to death row, 11 of whom have been executed.  In May 2007, a judge hearing McCarty's appeal ruled that Gilchrist had acted in "bad faith" and "most likely did destroy or intentionally lose" hair evidence that was crucial at McCarty's trial.  Because potentially exculpatory evidence had been destroyed, McCarty could never get a fair trial.  Citing the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Arizona v. Youngblood, the judge released McCarty and dismissed charges against him.  (L.A. Times)  [6/07]

Jeffrey Todd Pierce was convicted of rape and robbery.  Pierce was part of a landscaping crew that had been working around the victim's apartment complex.  The initial description of the perpetrator did not match Pierce and, when the victim was asked if he was the perpetrator she replied, "I don't think so."  Months later, police arrested Pierce and placed his picture in a photo lineup wearing a tan shirt, which was an item in the victim's initial description.  The victim identified him from this lineup.  At trial the victim told jurors, "I will never forget his face."

Pierce's innocence was proven during the investigation of Joyce Gilchrist, a former scientist at the Oklahoma City Police Laboratory.  Gilchrist was investigated for giving false testimony and for presenting shoddy forensic work.  Pierce's case was one of over a thousand involving Gilchrist's testimony.  Gilchrist claimed that hairs from the victim's apartment, the scene of the rape, matched Pierce's hair.  These findings were disputed in 2001 by the FBI's laboratory.  DNA testing exonerated Pierce and provided a preliminary match to another man.  Pierce served 15 years of a 65-year sentence.  (IP)  [6/05]

(Federal Case)  Kenneth Michael Trentadue, a prisoner at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center, was murdered by federal authorities.  Trentadue was mistaken for Richard Guthrie, a second suspect in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.  There is reason to believe Guthrie knew too much about FBI involvement with individuals directly involved in the bombing.  This bombing, which occurred four months before Trentadue's death, killed 168 people and injured more than 680 others.

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Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot were convicted of murdering Denice Haraway.  Haraway, 24, worked part-time at McAnally's convenience store.  She was last seen leaving the store with a man who had his arm around her waist.  The two appeared to be a pair of lovers.  The store was found deserted with the cash register drawer opened and emptied.  Haraway's purse and driver's license were found inside, and her car nearby.

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E. L. “Lefty” Fowler was convicted of the murder of Helen Beavers.  Fowler was a Duncan policeman and had been with her a short time before she was killed.  Following Beaver's murder, Fowler quit his job, failed to pick up his last check, and engaged in conversation indicating that he was considering suicide.  He also began an excessive round of drinking.

Less than two months after Beavers' murder, Fowler was arrested in Waurika and imprisoned for drunkenness in the Jefferson County Jail.  Three Crime Bureau Agents then fraudulently conspired to transport Fowler to Stephens County for interrogation.  They freed Fowler (by paying his fine) on condition he drive a supposedly drunk cellmate, who was actually an agent, to Stephens County.  Once in Stephens County, Fowler was arrested on bogus charges that were never filed.  He was then denied access to a magistrate and a lawyer, and interrogated under coercive conditions for 12 days.

Fowler eventually confessed to the murder of Beavers, but the County Attorney thought the confession was inconsistent with the facts.  Beavers was then required to give another confession, which was signed at 5 a.m., apparently after an all night grilling.  Even this confession was not regarded as sufficient and Beavers had to give two more before authorities were satisfied.

In 1960, Fowler was granted habeas corpus relief due to his coerced and illegal interrogation.  He presumably was released.  (Argosy)  [4/08]

James Scott Bauhaus was convicting of the murder of Jefferson Dee Hunt.  According to the state, the victim and his wife returned home and found Bauhaus in the process of burglarizing their home. Bauhaus then shot and killed the victim. The victim's wife positively identified Bauhaus. In addition, a bystander outside the home identified Bauhaus as the individual running away from the direction of the victim's home shortly after the crime.

Bauhaus alleges that the testimony of the two eyewitnesses was procured by police misconduct, and that blood and fingerprint evidence retrieved from the crime scene could reveal the real killer if it was analyzed by modern forensic technology. The state has refused to test this evidence and the courts have refused to order such testing.  A police sketch of the perpetrator does not match Bauhaus.  (www.jamesbauhaus.org)  [5/08]