Dennis Williams, dead at age 46, was the best known of the Ford Heights Four — innocent young African American men convicted of the 1978 abduction and murder of a young white couple. He spent 18 years, one month, and two days in jail and prison for the crime — 14 of those years on death row at the Menard Correctional Center.

Williams was found slumped over by his girlfriend, Alicia Mayes, in the master suite of the home they shared in Flossmoor, Illinois, a south suburb of Chicago, on March 20, 2003 — five years, nine months, and six days after his exoneration and release. Of 107 former U.S. death row prisoners exonerated and released since 1973, Williams was the 15th to die at an early age. An autopsy failed to determine the cause of death, but Williams had a history of seizures that occasionally caused him to lose consciousness dating back a dozen years.

An anonymous tip and a dubious confession

Williams and his codefendants became suspects in the murder, kidnapping, and robbery of Lawrence Lionberg and Carol Schmal and the rape of Ms. Schmal after Cook County Sheriff’s Police received an anonymous tip from a man who lived near the murder scene. That man, Charles McCraney, ultimately placed the defendants at the scene at about the time the murders were believed — incorrectly — to have occurred.

Based on McCraney’s claim, police interrogated Paula Gray, a 17-year-old woman who was borderline mentally retarded. After being held incommunicado over two nights in south suburban motels, Gray testified before a grand jury that she had been present when Williams and three other men — Kenneth Adams, Verneal Jimerson, and Willie Rainge — repeatedly raped Ms. Schmal and then shot both victims to death. Her confession contained only two purported facts that were not known to the police, and both of those assertions ultimately were shown to have been false.

A recantation and its ramifications

Gray soon recanted her statement and thereupon was charged both with the murders and with perjury. She was tried simultaneously with Adams, Rainge, and Williams in the same courtroom before the same judge, but by a separate jury. The charges against Jimerson could not be pursued at that time because without Gray’s testimony there was no evidence against him. McCraney had not placed Jimerson at the scene.

The convictions of the remaining defendants rested primarily on McCraney’s testimony and the testimony of an informant, David Jackson, who falsely claimed to have heard Williams and Rainge talking in jail about how they committed the crime. Forensic evidence — later shown to have been false in one regard and unreliable in another — also was presented by the prosecution. Williams, 21, was sentenced to death, Rainge to life, Adams to 75 years, and Gray to 50 years for the murders and 10 years, concurrently, for perjury.

Exoneration hope comes to grief

After Williams and Rainge, but not Adams, won new trials in 1982 based on ineffective assistance of counsel, Gray agreed to testify against them and Jimerson in exchange for her release from prison. Jimerson was then charged, convicted, and sentenced to death.

Although McCraney originally had not placed Jimerson at the scene, he did so at the trial. Rainge and Williams then were retried and convicted based on the false testimony of Gray and McCraney. Rainge was sentenced to life without parole, Williams to death. Jimerson’s conviction was reversed in 1995 based on prosecutorial misconduct; the prosecutors had failed to correct perjury by Gray, who had falsely stated that she had been promised nothing in exchange for her testimony.

DNA and confessions of actual killers

Now lacking credible evidence against Jimerson, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office agreed to DNA testing in the case. Meanwhile, Northwestern University journalism students working under Professor David Protess found a police file showing that, within a week of the crime, a witness had told the Sheriff’s Police they had arrested the wrong men. The witness said he knew who committed the crime because he heard shots, saw four men run away from the scene, and the next day saw them selling items taken from the robbery of the victims. As a result of police and prosecutorial misconduct, however, the report had not been turned over to the defense prior to trial as required by law.

One of the men identified by that witness, Dennis Johnson, was by then dead, but a private investigator, René Brown, obtained a confession from one of the others, Arthur (Red) Robinson. The other two, Ira Johnson and Juan Rodriguez, ultimately confessed as well. DNA tests conclusively established the innocence of the Ford Heights Four and corroborated the other men’s confessions by linking Robinson to semen recovered from Carol Schmal.

Release and record civil settlement

After his release, Williams struggled financially, working as a counselor in a youth program on the west side of Chicago, enrolled as a part-time student at Governor’s State University, and campaigned for criminal justice reform. His earnings were supplemented in 1997 by a $140,000 settlement he received from the Illinois Court of Claims for his 18 years of wrongful incarceration.

Meanwhile, he had his male co-defendants pursued civil rights suits against the police officers whose misconduct led to their ordeal. Through the discovery process in the litigation, it became apparent that Gray’s false confession had been coerced — official misconduct that prompted Cook County to settle the men’s claims for $36 million. It was the largest such settlement in U.S. history.

A memorable final public appearance

In 2001, Gray’s conviction was thrown out, and the following year Governor George H. Ryan granted her a pardon based on innocence. When Ryan announced the pardon in an address at an event hosted by the Center on Wrongful Convictions in Lincoln Hall on November 14, 2002, Williams was in the audience. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, who had written extensively about the Ford Heights Four case, recalled the poignant moment in his column of March 22, 2003.

“Williams crossed the lecture hall and wrapped her in a huge, gentle, forgiving hug,” Zorn wrote. ”And that's the image I’ll keep. It’s an image that hints of the happy ending that might have come if only he’d lived longer. It’s an image that reveals Dennis Williams as bigger than any of those who ever tried to bring him down. It's an image of a man who sowed more kindness than he received.”

The foregoing article was prepared by Rob Warden, executive director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions. It may be reprinted, quoted, or posted on other web sites with appropriate attribution.

MORE INFORMATION

A PROMISE OF JUSTICE

Case data:

Jurisdiction: Cook County, Illinois
Appellate Counsel: Robert Byman (Jenner & Block)
Date of crime: May 11, 1978
Date of arrest: May 12, 1978
Convicted of: Murder, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping
Prior adult felony record: Convicted, at age 18, of theft of a motorcycle and arson; he acknowledged the former but denied the latter
Trial judge: Dwight McKay (first trial), Frank Meekins (second trial)
Lead prosecutor: Clifford Johnson and J. Scott Arthur (first trial), J. Scott Arthur and
Deborah M. Dooling (second trial)
Defense counsel (type): Privately retained (first trial), court-appointed (second trial)
Sentence: Death (both trials)
Release date: June 14, 1996
Months wrongfully incarcerated: 209
Date of birth: February 13, 1957
Age at time of arrest: 21
Gender: Male
Race: African American
No. of victims: 2
Age(s) of victim(s): Male, 29; female, 23
Gender of victim(s): See above
Race of victim(s): Caucasian
Known factors leading to wrongful conviction: Coerced confession of purported accomplice (Paula Gray), erroneous identification by purported eyewitness (Charles McCraney), jailhouse snitch (David Jackson), junk science (microscopic hair comparison), police and prosecutorial misconduct; ineffective assistance of counsel (both trials, after which both defense attorneys were disbarred)
Did an appellate court ever affirm conviction? Yes
Exonerated by: DNA, confessions of actual perpetrators, pardons based on innocence
Mandated compensation for wrongful imprisonment: Yes — $140,000 from Illinois Court of Claims
Date awarded: July 1997
Months lapsed from exoneration to compensation: 13
Civil damage award: $36 million (for Williams and three male co-defendants, of which Williams’s share was approximately $12 million before attorneys’ fees)
Defendants in civil action: Cook County Sheriff’s Police, including David Capelli and Howard Vanick, and Cook County
Date awarded: March 5, 1999
Months lapsed exoneration to award: 33