PRISONER EXPRESS

My second chance came when I finally gave up on the hope of cops, lawyers and politicians ever fixing this. I waited over 13 years, then escaped to find the killer myself. During an 11-year struggle to advance from homeless refugee to a successful crew leader, I'd sneak back to Tulsa and study the public records on my case. After extreme effort, parts of the surviving police records surfaced. They revealed that the only two eyewitnesses against me had initially described a person who could not have been me. These at-the-scene descriptions were buried, and 3 characteristics were changed to fit me instead of the culprit. A newspaper photo of me taken at the time proved that I had 5 inches too much wrong-color hair and glasses. A 3rd witness was concealed from us at trial. All 3 women saw the culprit at slightly different times and places. All 3 described and had the police artist draw a culprit with short, neat, light-brown hair and no glasses. At least 8 samples of the culprit's blood were collected, but the cops cleverly concealed its quantity and location at trial. Three public defenders couldn't find it or the names of the cops who collected it. At least 23 of his fingerprints were "smudged" and thus claimed to be useless. At the last second of the trial, the prosecutor duped us all by claiming that the FBI was sent "insufficient" blood for testing, implying that the blood was "used up" in the attempt.

I used up my second chance by taking these records and returning to prison. The judge took away my escape trial to prevent the jurors, media and citizens from learning of the fraud that necessitated my escape.

My third chance vaporized when 39 judges in 8 appeals courts all agreed that nobody lied, nothing was concealed, the public defenders did their best, that I waived every right by being an ignorant kid, and that the two witnesses gave MORE accurate descriptions of the killer 21 months after the crime than they did minutes after the crime occurred. No judge could be made to address the problem of how my hair suddenly grew 5 inches and turned black.

I got a 4th chance when Barry Scheck's innocence project and centurion ministries investigated my case. After 3 years they pried out the FBI paper the prosecutor had testified about to the jurors but had not been able to produce. It revealed that the forgetful cops had collected at least 8 blood samples. It revealed how the 5 experts who had collected them made them all "insufficient" for testing: the FBI had simply decided that Mr. Hunt's murder involved eight different killers who must each be identified separately from one other. Not one was identified, but they did confirm that each was human blood.

My 4th chance went up in smoke when all the judges in 5 courts agreed that I was entitled to no more consideration.

I got a 5th chance when an Australian scientific team learned how to extract DNA from fingerprints. The courts refused to acknowledge my request for forensic testing at my own expense. At about this same time the culprit's fingerprints vanished out of the cop's evidence vault. We didn't learn of their disappearance until years later.

Will I get a 6th chance? Not likely. My options are considerably narrowed. I could easily fall into depression and simply starve, losing the will to live. I could slip into anger and madness to send bloody pieces of me to the authorities who are so hell-bent on protecting the killer. They'd just shoot me full of drugs and make me vegetate in a straitjacket. Starving would get my veins pumped full of glucose and vitamins, hanging myself would be doing a favor to killers and crooks alike. I'm not doing that, ever. No, my task is to endure the daily suffering and injustice, endeavoring to simply outlive all the people who want me here. While I'm patiently awaiting justice and my 6th chance, I'll spend my time marking the dangerous legal pits so that others can try and avoid falling into them. Every year more people are shredded by the system run amok; more people manage to escape it to tell their stories of decades spent innocent in prison or of almost being executed for a stranger's crimes. A 1987 Stanford law review study uncovered 23 innocents executed since 1900. Recently this study was unearthed and published in Scientific American. Over 15 prosecutors have recently been caught destroying DNA that would have caused the executions of even more innocent persons. An entire death row was emptied out due to flagrant, long-term, aggravated police corruption that simply could no longer be concealed from the public nor ignored by the powerful elite. These are good signs that change for the better is occurring in isolated pockets. It could come faster as it feeds on itself. More people escaping to reveal more hideous instances of official malice and corruption.

This is how I got my second wind, if not my 6th chance. Peace was given to me upon seeing that here was a needed Pathfinder. He showed me how the authorities were silencing the victims of their lawyer systems, promising secret payoffs that could be quickly revoked if the required gag order was violated. He gave me the means to hold forth a beacon for others to follow. He gave me the strength to give up my vices and lead a longer, healthier life. He gave me the task of trying to find all of the innocents and helping them to speak with one loud, strong, continuous, educated, convincing, enlightened voice that will eventually be heard and heeded.

However long it takes, I will never give up. I am dedicated to the long haul. I take my inspiration from people who had it worse than me for longer than me, such as Ghandi, Mandela, Mother Theresa, Lech Walensa, and others. My trust is in The Lord. He won't let me down: he will keep me going. He is my reward.