Episode 80: Photo, Hair, Fingerprint

Dec 1, 2017

In 1988, a man in Hickory, NC was sentenced to life in prison based on evidence that experts would later call "junk science." It took him 24 years to convince someone to look at the evidence again. 

 

 

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Artwork by Julienne Alexander.  

Play Episode

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this episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and may not be suitable for everyone please use discretion

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Carrie Elliott was 69 years old she was living by herself her husband had died the year before someone knocked on the door she had the door chained actually opened it just a little bit and then they kicked the door and and pushed her onto the couch and and raped her and then dragged her to the bedroom and and raped her again at 9:22 p.m. a police officer patrolling the neighborhood noticed her broken door and by 951

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Jim Carrey Elliot was at the hospital this was in the small North Carolina town of Hickory she described her attacker to the police an African-American man around 35 years old six feet tall 200 pounds or more with facial hair and wearing a green shirt that he removed during the attack the police put together a sheet containing six photographs of potential suspects Carrie Elliott was white all six men

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on the sheet were African-American she identified the man in position 2

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in 1987 October the 24th on a set

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that's that the morning I got up with taking the shave and I was living with Brenda Smith at the time this is Willie Grimes Brenda Smith was his girlfriend they left the house and spent the day running errands Willie didn't drive so in the early evening Brenda dropped him off at their friend Rachel Wilson's house it was a place where people often went to have dinner and play cards Brenda didn't stay

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she had to work the third shift at a nursing home that night so I stayed and talked play The Lick hard drunk I guess we saw today up until limited of 20 minutes to free of that night drinking and just talking and playing cars and doing

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the next morning after Brenda Smith finished her overnight shift she picked Willie up from Rachel Wilson's house they spent the rest of the weekend quietly and on Monday morning Willie went to work Carrie Elliot had a conversation with one of her neighbors Linda McDowell about the attack Linda McDowell thought she might know a man who matched that description they talked about what he looked like but Linda didn't tell Carrie a name she said she would only tell it

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police after that conversation Carrie Elliot called the police with some more details about her attacker she said he had a mole near his mouth shortly after Linda McDowell also called the police she said she had some information but first wanted to know if there's any reward money available the officer confirmed that there was a thousand-dollar reward and 20 minutes later Linda McDowell showed up at the police station

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she told officers that she'd seen a man wearing a green shirt in the neighborhood on the night of the rape a man with a mole on his face and that his name was Willie Grimes the police revised their sheet of six photographs of potential suspects they replace the photograph of the man in position to the mancari had originally identified with a photograph of Willie Grimes

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and when I got home that to bring the Smith told me that the police had been there looking for me so they had a bunch of ones for me and I see if a whoop I know I ain't did nothing she's I don't know what they were for and so I asked her what she kept me to the police station to find out what they were for did you did you have any reservations going to the police station or in your

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are you thinking I've got to go clear this up well that's what I was going up there to find out what it was and let them know that I hadn't did anything because I knew I had did anything so that's one reason I wasn't afraid to go up there this was on Tuesday more than two days since the attack and on that day Willie Grimes happened to be wearing a green shirt he waited for the police officer who had been looking for him Officer Steve hunt

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to arrive when he got there he came in and I asked what was he looking for me for and he said you was in big trouble you done did a lot of bad things like that nice it work I know I ain't did nothing I know I ain't did nothing I take a lie detector test or do whatever you want me to do because I know I ain't the end up he said I'm telling you one more time you and Bigfoot might be quiet

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why because everything you say can be used against you in this and that so I said nothing else and he told him to fingerprint me and book that that what they did

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he was charged with two counts of rape and kidnapping at the initial hearing carry Elliot was in the courtroom and she had to beat out a identified me audition at what do you remember do you remember when she identified you wanting to feel like I would want to scream out it no that's not me it's your you've got the wrong guy no not at the time because of the way she identify me you know I thought in a way we're going to go pretty

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pretty small

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because they asked her did she see the man that attacked her in the courthouse

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and she said

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I don't really know that look like him over there so

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did you know

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I feel feel like you know everything we're going to go pretty smooth because

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if she knew it would me a distance that she wouldn't have said that look like him she was said that is him sitting right there Willie Grimes was kept in custody until his trial a month passed in jail and then another and another he was certain that in the meantime the police would find the man who did rape carry Elliot and he would go home he was sure of it I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal

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in July of 1988 his trial began at the Catawba County District Court eight people testified that they'd been with Willie during the night for people testified to Willie's nonviolent character but the prosecution had one piece of evidence that seemed foolproof a hair that have been found at the scene of the crime

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Willie Grimes was actually the one who asked for the hair to be examined he thought it would prove he'd never been in carry Elliott's apartment an agent from North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation examined the hair microscopically and testified that it could be a match for a piece of Willie Grimes hair when further questioned he said that it was a match for Willie Grimes or that if it wasn't Billy Grimes it had to be someone of the same race whose hair

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had the same microscopic characteristics microscopic hair examination has since been replaced by DNA testing which is a lot more accurate some experts have since called here comparison junk science the jury deliberated for less than 2 hours 11 of the 12 jurors were white when the but it was real I fear was saw looking for them to say not get the book

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but when they did is read and they said get there

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it just hit me they just feel like I got real heart like I wanted to faint or something though

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and that's when he said that are I'm not going to set us him today I'm going to wait until Monday we'll come back on Monday to give him the sinasohn on Monday he was sentenced to life in prison for two charges of first-degree rape and one charge of kidnapping where first when I got my time

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I got so I couldn't sleep but in a bang

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bacon and Wolverine about the situation that I was in

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and knowing that I wasn't going to get no help after the verdict was read Willie's lawyer immediately asked the judge for access to evidence gathered at the scene that wasn't used in the trial fingerprints were found in carry Elliott's apartment investigators had taken them off fruit from a bowl in her kitchen and they've been tested against Willie Grimes fingerprints they were not a match but somehow this was in a red flag

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investigators speculated that if the prints weren't Willie Grimes then they must belong to the victim but they never even checked Willie's lawyer wanted to run the fingerprints through an FBI database he also wanted someone to test them against Kerry Elliot's the prosecutor said he was quote kicking a dead horse the judge said he would think it over but then nothing happened Willie's defense attorney didn't follow up the judge

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tired and Willie just sat in prison

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but the hardest time of days

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at night when you get ready to go to bed when they call bet time and everybody have to get in bed

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and then

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you'd have doing all that night no one to talk to her no one listened to her this and that cause you wouldn't like to talk nothing after you go to bed Willie worked in the prison kitchen then moved to the bakery and finally to the laundry he was transferred from one prison to the next constantly bouncing from one side of the state to the other often moving with no warning and no information about where he was

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it what's Thanksgiving and Christmas like in prison

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well it was real hard because you didn't never see your people so wherever but it wouldn't as hard if you were working in the kitchen because you will have to cook for those days and sometimes will make you feel pretty good

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try to make something real good for the old days to help the other inmates realized that they had something to look for enjoy themselves or something like that but but Leah it was real hard on you yourself Willie was in prison when his mother died and many of his siblings he spent years dealing with debilitating insomnia and depression and then he got prostate cancer

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he never stopped writing letters to anyone he could think of asking them to look at his case and I went to reach or not to a lot of different lawyers or lot of different

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show that was on TV and this and that and riding clemencies and things never could get no kind of help

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So eventually I felt like I wouldn't go in there we'll get out of there are never getting over here

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you know he was given the opportunity to go home and he would just admit to sexually assaulting this woman and he would not do it he would not go through the program in prison that would have allowed him to be paroled and and he actually said I'd rather stay in prison attorney Chris Mumma first heard about Willie Grimes in 2003 she's the executive director of a nonprofit called the North Carolina Center on actual innocence and you could just tell from Willies

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writing that there was something there but then looking at the case looking at the transcript and seeing all the red flags that we see in wrongful convictions microscopic hair comparison a very very shaky witness our victim identification it's very strong Alibi evidence so a lot of red flags in the case and so we set to work trying to find evidence to prove his innocence because a lot of times it takes that physical evidence is

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we in a rape case so trying to find the the rape kit or the sheets or clothing or fingerprints so we asked for anything that they had that we might be able to use to prove his innocence those requests went to law enforcement they went to the district attorney's office and always came back with the same response that there was nothing left that everything had been destroyed

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without the rape kit and the fingerprints it was going to be hard to prove that Willy's case deserved a review by now will he had been in prison for more than 15 years but then a newly formed organization called the North Carolina innocence inquiry commission agreed to take a look and you know I hate to say it but somebody finally got up out of their chair and actually did what they would call a thorough search

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and that's how they found the fingerprints so that the Chris commission didn't even have to go in and do a search the fingerprints were found just by somebody in the office looking and what did the fingerprint show the fingerprints were run through the the automated indexing system that can be used now keeps track of everyone's fingerprints and those fingerprints matched Albert Turner and Albert Turner actually had been an original suspect in the case and lived or was staying in that

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head had quite the reputation and you know he he didn't confess to the rape but he his story changed and developed in trying to come up with the reason why his fingerprints would have been on they were the fingerprints were actually collected from fruit and the victim's home so why his fingerprints would have been on that fruit

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why was Willie Grimes ever even a suspect well the Grimes became a suspect because of that informant his name would never have been brought up otherwise when Chris Mumma refers to the informant she means Linda McDowell the woman who was paid $1,000 for supplying the name Willie crimes to police and it's interesting Albert Turner's picture was actually in the first lineup that carry Elliot was shown because he was a suspect and but

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Carrie Elliott had described this person as having an afro in the picture they used in the lineup of Albert Turner had his hair was plaited so it was in cornrows and very flat so she just she didn't pick him if you put the pictures of Albert Turner and Willie Grime side by side it is quite striking for someone who's not who where it's across race identification what have you learned about the problems with cross-race identification

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so cross-race identification is it's not a racial issue is just a comfort issue we are more comfortable identifying people we are familiar with that are in our communities that we spend a lot of time with so we can recognize the difference in features for people were comfortable with so whether it's black identifying white or white identifying Asian or Asian identifying black when you don't spend as much time with with someone from another race it the features blend a little more and it becomes more difficult

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occult for identification

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by 2012 it was clear that microscopic hair comparison was unreliable that fingerprints from the scene had not matched Willie but did match Albert Turner and that the whole photo ID process had been problematic from the start the Innocence inquiry commission sent the case to a panel of judges for review had been 24 years since Willie first went into the Hickory police station and offered to take a lie detector test

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it didn't even take the panel of Judges 30 minutes to make their decision where I was to laugh when he about it cause I was out working out working on work release or daddy knew when I got in they were telling me you were free man you a free man damn fault you innocent your dental pilot you innocent

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I didn't know nothing about what they were talking about in this and that book

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when I seen it on TV T is what the running that my eyes and it's that

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that went wanted to be by myself tough cause I want nobody see me crying that's doing this or doing that but wouldn't scrap of being said it was just being crying for me so happiness and that because all that time I was telling him that I was innocent the da didn't even offer any closing arguments he just apologized

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Willie Grimes was 67 years old

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you know you don't see mad why well because we Grandin in

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keeping stuff ball up inside of you

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don't do nothing but make you a person that you not and it make you get Bella and do things that you wouldn't normally do

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in whole and virgin whole and hate is a doing never making you being a worse person and you ears

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we see that actually a lot many Willy's case he's just a forgiving gentle soul but the longer someone is in prison actually the last bitter they are when they get out because they have to let go of the anger in order to survive and so you know there were plenty of years that Willie was in prison that he was angry and bitter and depressed but by the time he unfortunately it takes that long and by the time you get out

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you're just you just want to be free and not have all that anger bear down on you

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we met him at his house in Lawndale North Carolina about 10 miles from where he grew up but it doesn't really know many people there anymore oh when I came up here with the searching for houses and all with the riding around and I saw this house I was living in Gastonia at the time and what I liked about the house because I had a tin roof and it reminded me of

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and I was born up we were rolled up in an old house with 10 Tops on it and it was out by itself wouldn't too close to houses and I don't like to be too close to her in a house that's he answered the door wearing an orange dress shirt he's tall with graying hair he 71 now we sat at his kitchen table he speak so softly and gently that I kept trying to

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pull my chair closer which didn't seem to bother him or if it did he was too polite to say anything I've been laying back in everything free not the way I want it and they said that before I who are taking flip side with my four months ago I went and got passport this and that just in case if I get rid of take more than that where would you go where we were

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you have to go read of poise played I'm going to poke poke too weak oh I had a good friend at with lidded it in there in prison he still they of the action but I just want to go and see

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you lost a lot of your family when you were in prison didn't do yeah large mostly everyone except one of my students I just have one simply living there

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allows two three four brothers

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and I shook the flowers impressive

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are you in close contact with your sister now yeah see I mostly everyday I was old out earlier this morning you update or we try to we talk to one another every day on the phone and I go down there every other day regardless how many days how long exactly were you in prison

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oh I was in prison now 24 years 9 months and 23 days

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The View out the back window of his house is of a Big Field leading down to dense Woods at this time of year the hey has been cut and is rolled into big Bales which Mark the countryside right before we left he walked us outside so he could see the view of the mountains from the front lawn

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oh you can see them

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oh yeah you can get out there in the yard don't freeze solid blocking it not cause that all the leaves but leaving the and you can just pay and look at all

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well it's a beautiful place yeah crowded take care of it Carrie Elliot died in 1989 Albert Turner died in 2016 before he could be prosecuted for her rape over the course of his life he'd been charged with assault

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23 times

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criminalist produced by Lawrence poor Nadine Wilson and me audio mix by raw buyers Matilda foligno is our intern Julian Alexander makes original illustrations for each episode of Criminal and there's a great book about Willie Grimes and this whole thing called ghost of the innocent man by Benjamin rachlin you can find out more on our website this is Criminal.com

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criminal is recorded in the Studio's of North Carolina public radio wnc we're a proud member of radio topia from PRX a collection of the best podcasts around and special thanks to adcirc for providing their ad serving platform to radio Topia I'm Phoebe judge this is Criminal

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