PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "I had already obtained copies of the transcripts of Joe’s 1986 trial and 1989 retrial, but they didn’t yield much information about the investigation itself, and they left open many, many questions. Now decades later, it took a while to figure out where Joe’s extensive court records had been stashed. These, I hoped, would include the investigators’ notes as well as all the evidence compiled against Joe. It turns out that many of them were in Comanche, Texas, in the county courthouse, where the retrial took place. One day last summer, I drove from Austin, where I live, to Comanche to see if I could gain access to those records. Fortunately, the district clerk allowed me to spend the day going through the case file. Calling it a “file” makes it sound more organized than it was; there were heaps of documents, haphazardly arranged, in a box on the floor. Several other overflowing boxes sat on top of a desk, beside files from other old criminal cases. Interestingly, the Bryan records were jumbled together with documents from another murder case, which I would also spend a lot of time looking into—that of Clifton teenager Judy Whitley, who was killed four months before Mickey. Years after Joe’s convictions, Whitley’s killer was determined to be an ex-Clifton police officer named Dennis Dunlap, and in recent court filings, Joe’s attorneys have suggested that there might be a link between Dunlap and the Bryan killing. The fact that the two cases were stored together, all these years later, struck me as rather unusual."
POST: "Blood will tell. How I recreated a 33-year-old murder case," by Pamela Colloff, published by Pro/Publica and The New York Times, on June 11, 2018.
GIST: Hi everyone: Welcome to the first dispatch of the “Blood Will Tell” newsletter and thanks for subscribing. Over the next few weeks, I will be providing you with background on the investigation I conducted into the Bryan case and into bloodstain pattern analysis itself. (If you haven’t read Part I and Part II of my ProPublica/New York Times Magazine story, do that. Spoilers ahead.) I’d like to begin by telling you a little bit about the challenges of reporting on the 33-year-old murder case that is at the center of this story. But before I delve into that, I wanted to mention that I’ve received some excellent questions from a number of you about the case and my reporting. I will be answering many of those questions—like how I first found the Bryan case—in future dispatches. When I began considering whether or not to write about this case, the biggest reporting challenge I saw was simply how old it was. Mickey Bryan was killed in Clifton, Texas, in the fall of 1985—back when Ronald Reagan was president, the Berlin Wall was still standing, and “The Cosby Show” was the most popular TV program in America. I wasn’t sure whether it would be possible to tell the story, let alone find enough details to make it an engaging narrative. All I knew is that there were concerns about the forensic evidence that had been used to secure a conviction against Mickey’s husband, Joe. Complicating matters further was the fact that some of the main players—such as the special prosecutor, Garry Lewellen, and both of Joe’s original trial attorneys—had passed away. Many other people I wanted to speak with, like former Bosque County District Attorney Andy McMullen and the lead investigator, Joe Wilie, of the Texas Rangers, wouldn’t talk to me. And getting people in Clifton to go on the record was difficult because the case had caused a painful split in the community. One reader from Clifton who emailed me after the story’s publication said the question of whether Joe had killed Mickey had “divided friends and families.” So I began to wonder: What documents can I find? I had already obtained copies of the transcripts of Joe’s 1986 trial and 1989 retrial, but they didn’t yield much information about the investigation itself, and they left open many, many questions. Now decades later, it took a while to figure out where Joe’s extensive court records had been stashed. These, I hoped, would include the investigators’ notes as well as all the evidence compiled against Joe. It turns out that many of them were in Comanche, Texas, in the county courthouse, where the retrial took place. One day last summer, I drove from Austin, where I live, to Comanche to see if I could gain access to those records. Fortunately, the district clerk allowed me to spend the day going through the case file. Calling it a “file” makes it sound more organized than it was; there were heaps of documents, haphazardly arranged, in a box on the floor. Several other overflowing boxes sat on top of a desk, beside files from other old criminal cases. Interestingly, the Bryan records were jumbled together with documents from another murder case, which I would also spend a lot of time looking into—that of Clifton teenager Judy Whitley, who was killed four months before Mickey. Years after Joe’s convictions, Whitley’s killer was determined to be an ex-Clifton police officer named Dennis Dunlap, and in recent court filings, Joe’s attorneys have suggested that there might be a link between Dunlap and the Bryan killing. The fact that the two cases were stored together, all these years later, struck me as rather unusual. The documents were extremely detailed. There was a lengthy, typewritten report that chronicled the Texas Rangers’ investigation. There were numerous crime scene photos, witness statements, and Clifton police reports. There was a sworn affidavit from Charlie Blue, Mickey’s brother, about finding the flashlight in the trunk of Joe’s car (if you’ve read Part I, you know this is important) and another affidavit from Bud Saunders, the private investigator whom Blue had hired. There were handwritten notes by investigators which included speculation about Joe’s sexual orientation. As I looked through everything that was there, I realized that I could tell this story—and that the documents, which were written contemporaneously as the investigation unfolded, were actually more helpful, in many ways, than the decades-old memories of the people involved. You may find it interesting to know that the Bosque County D.A.’s office tried to prevent me from getting copies of photos of the flashlight, which were stored at the Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab. I had to file an open records request for these photos, which the D.A.’s office opposed. I was fortunate that the Texas Attorney General’s office eventually ruled in my favor. From all of these documents, I began reconstructing what had happened back in 1985. Much of what you read in the first three sections of Part I—from the discovery of the crime scene to the investigation, after Joe’s arrest, into his sexual orientation—is drawn from those documents. In the next newsletter, I’ll provide some background on how I went about re-examining the police investigation that resulted in Joe Bryan’s arrest, and why I was left with more questions than answers. In the meantime, thanks again for subscribing. Pamela."
P.S. Just in case you missed them:
The entire post can be found at:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/163f106fc1534df5?projector=1
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/c
