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innocent and he would help us prove it. Eventually, after several calls and hours of
conversation, he claimed to know where the murder weapon, which had never been
recovered, might be located.
We tried to get as much information out of him as we could. We also checked his
background. He told us that he’d had some conflicts with another man in town and that the
more he talked the more he blamed this other man for the shooting death of Morrison. When
we investigated this theory, we weren’t impressed. The other man didn’t match the
eyewitness descriptions of the person seen leaving the cleaners, and he didn’t have our
caller’s history of stalking, violence against women, and preoccupation with the Morrison
murder. We began to think that our caller could be the person who had murdered Ronda
Morrison. We had dozens of phone conversations with him and even met him a couple of
times. We were less and less convinced that the man he was accusing of committing the crime
was involved. At some point we asked him some direct questions about where he was on the
day of the murder, which must have alarmed him because we heard from him less often after
that.
Before I could tell any of this to the ABI investigators, Taylor said, “We think you may have
interviewed our suspect and may have collected a good bit of information from this guy. We
were hoping you might allow us to have access to that information and those interviews.” He
named our suspect.
I told them we would give them access to the information we had collected. None of it was
protected by attorney-client privilege; we had never represented this man or obtained
anything confidentially. I told Taylor and Cole to give us a few days to organize the
information, and then we would turn it over.
“We want to get Walter out of prison as soon as possible,” I insisted.
“Well, I think the attorney general and the lawyers would like to maintain the status quo
for a few more months, until we can make an arrest of the actual killer.”
“Right, but you do understand that the status quo is a problem for us? Walter has been on
death row for nearly six years for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Taylor and Cole looked at each other uncomfortably. Taylor responded, “We’re not lawyers
so I can’t really understand where they’re coming from. If I was in prison for something I
didn’t do and you were my lawyer, I hope to hell you’d get me out as soon as you could.”
When they left, Bernard and I were very excited, but we remained troubled by this plan to
“maintain the status quo.” I decided I would call the attorney general’s office and see if they
would concede legal error in the pending appeal, which would ensure relief at the appellate
court and perhaps expedite Walter’s release.
Another lawyer from the attorney general’s office named Ken Nunnelly had taken over the
appeal. I had dealt with Nunnelly in several other death penalty cases. I told him that I’d met
with the ABI investigators and that I understood there were some case developments that
favored Mr. McMillian. It became clear that the state lawyers had been discussing this case
quite a bit.
“Bryan, it’s all going to work out, but you’ll need to wait a few more months. He’s been on
the row for years, so a few more months are not going to make that much of a difference.”
“Ken, every day makes a difference when you’re locked down on death row, and you’ve
been wrongly convicted.” I tried to get a commitment but he offered nothing. I asked to meet