Chapter Five

Of the Coming of John

“It would have been so much easier if he had been out in the woods hunting by himself when
that girl was killed.” Armelia Hand, Walter McMillian’s older sister, paused while the crowd
in the small trailer called out in affirmation. I sat on a couch and looked out at the nearly two
dozen family members who were staring at me as Armelia spoke.
“At least then we could understand how it might be possible for him to have done this.”
She paused and looked down at the floor of the room where we had gathered.
“But because we were standing next to him that whole morning ... We know where he was.
... We know what he was doing!” People hummed in agreement as her voice grew louder and
more distraught. It was the kind of wordless testimony of struggle and anguish I heard all the
time growing up in a small rural black church.
“Just about everybody in here was standing next to him, talking to him, laughing with him,
eating with him. Then the police come along months later, say he killed somebody miles
away at the same time we were standing next to him. Then they take him away when you
know it’s a lie.”
She was now struggling to speak. Her hands were trembling and the emotion in her voice
was making it hard to get her words out.
“We were with him all day! What are we supposed to do, Mr. Stevenson? Tell us, what are
we supposed to do with that?”
Her faced twisted in pain. “I feel like I’ve been convicted, too.”
The small crowd responded to each statement with shouts of “Yes!” and “That’s right!”
“I feel like they done put me on death row, too. What do we tell these children about how
to stay out of harm’s way when you can be at your own house, minding your own business,
surrounded by your entire family, and they still put some murder on you that you ain’t do
and send you to death row?”
I sat on the crowded sofa in my suit, staring into the face of a lot of pain. I hadn’t expected
to have such an intense meeting when I arrived. Folks were desperate for answers and trying
to reconcile themselves to a situation that made no sense. I was struggling to think of
something appropriate to say when a younger woman spoke up.