Image copyright Iain Maitland
After a long career in television, Bill Proctor could have spent his retirement out of public and media attention. Instead, he has been trying to track down a murderer.
His 40-year career in the news. His colleagues at WXYZ-TV, a television station ABC afialiada in Detroit, Michigan, and were collecting their “greatest hits” on a reel, with the idea that no more would come.
Then he rang Proctor phone. The voice of a strange woman said she had information about a murder.
In the mid 1990s, a woman identified as “Amanda” to keep his name confidential, was addicted to crack and West lived in Detroit.
One night, in which was very drugged, a man described as an occasional boyfriend left her apartment to go buy more drugs from a dealer in the building. When he returned, he told Proctor, his hands and jacket were covered with blood.
“I think I killed her” , reminded him that he had said.
Amanda said her boyfriend forced her to collect some things and flee to a house he shared with his brother a few blocks away.
For weeks, as reported, threatened and not out of sight. When it became clear that the police was not looking, she began to relax and she managed to escape.
The police had arrested a different man, as he knew them many years later.
Proctor listened intently. It was a crazy story, told almost two decades later by a woman who admitted he was in an altered by drugs at the time state. But she had been trying to get someone to listen for years, he said, and had even gone in person to the police in 2012 to present an official report. But nothing happened
The woman told Proctor full name of the groom, and then said something that turned his stomach. “You were the journalist investigation into the case,” he said <. /> p>
“You were the journalist”
In the last years of his career at WXYZ, Proctor went from being a reporter chronicling the daily chaos city, a journalist recognized research, publishing stories ever knocked a judge and a police chief of Detroit.
During his career he became deeply skeptical of the criminal justice system to the point who founded a non-profit to help victims with wrong sentences.
But now, if Amanda deserved credibility was Proctor who reported the story terribly wrong.
I it was another journalist’s walk from story to story “
Bill Proctor
After hanging up, Proctor, 67, addressed files on your television. pulled a dusty ribbon January 1996. And saw a mother torn .
“She never got into fights at school, always coming home, you know, after school, she never stayed late, until, until this …, “stammered the woman.
Then Proctor heard his own voice as he appeared the image of the young victim on the screen. The image quality was so poor that there was nothing of the girl.
“Christina Brown had apparently grown very fast,” said the young Proctor in the report. “ His mother says she never suspected that her 12 year old daughter was selling drugs on the street .”
The tape you refreshed memory Proctor, who was the lead reporter on the story, as in others in Detroit, the murder capital of the country, where victims were most very young times.
He just heard the body found by the police, he tried to do exclusively with the family and then published the story in dramatic and without any attachment terms.
Then he moved on.
“In the 1990s, when the murder rate skyrocketed and many people ended up dead were in the drug business, this was just a Horrible element of what was happening around us all the time, “says Brown’s murder.
” I saw this as something special. “
The strange confession LaMarr Monson
The last chapter of the history of Brown showed a few seconds of the appearance of LaMarr Monson, a 23-year-old drug dealer who was immediately indicted for having given the police a false name.
Finally, he was convicted and sentenced to between 30 and 50 years in prison.
On the tape, Proctor Monson described as a man who walked the young Brown of his family, who may have had a sexual relationship with her, and “stolen his innocence and finally his life. “
” There was a confession, so that police investigators had a pretty good idea of why it happened this mortal assault, “said Proctor closing your note.
Something in the old video footage made him sit up and take notice. Was the homicide detective who interviewed. Ghougoian a woman named Joan, who appears briefly, telling Proctor. “The cause of death was the result of multiple stab wounds”
Anyone familiar with the turbulent history of the police department Detroit knows Ghougoian name.
A history that includes 11 years of federal supervision after the Department of Justice United States found that Detroit police was shooting and killing more civilians than any other agency in the country, regularly violating the constitutional rights of suspects.
Less than a year after he gave that interview to Proctor, Ghougoian she starred in the headlines. He was removed from his high office, having been among the first women to run a major homicide unit in the country.
His superiors discovered that she had coerced innocent men to give illegal confessions and then he forced his subordinates to conceal . He was involved in half a dozen forced confessions.
Ghougoian denied the charges and retired from the police in 1999.
As soon as Proctor saw Ghougoian on the tape began to suspect his own report on the confession of Monson.
He began hastily preparation of a monitoring report. He interviewed witnesses, tracked down the mother of Monson and called the same Monson to his prison on the outskirts of Detroit.
By the end, he had convinced Monson was innocent, but his editors at WXYZ. They were not interested in monitoring.
Proctor was devastated. Now saw history as a stain on his impeccable record of 33 years in journalism .
When your day of retreat came, Proctor signed, packed his plates and Emmy awards, and He went to his modest house in a suburb of Detroit.
That was two years ago.
Since then, he has been in a constant research has led him to search the entire country man who believes he is the real murderer.
“ This case is an attempt to claim ” says Proctor.
“I have to feel that I corrected a very sad mistake of justice. “
had been one of them
Proctor was not always the kind of reporter who rushed to condemn the police.
He was one of them.
In the early seventies, was agent Proctor Federal Protective Service, the armed forces and uniformed security responsible for federal lands and buildings in his hometown, Washington DC.
I feel that I corrected a very sad mistake of justice
Bill Proctor
With that he worked it paid for his education and said the daughter she had at 18.
During the day faced with activists opposed the Vietnam War and in the evening sat with those same students in classes at the University of Maryland .
It is obsessed with becoming a TV reporter after meeting Hal Walker, the first black reporter on CBS.
Proctor moved in the television market, from Virginia, passing through Kansas City and Pittsburgh, until he came to Detroit.
And it evolved: being a cocky young presenter became an experienced handled with ease under pressure Reporter
became known as “Dr”
His experience in the world of law enforcement was very well known.
A revealing case
In 1995, while still covered special assignments for the channel, Proctor was approached by a grizzled private investigator.
The bride had hired a man named Frederick Freeman, who was serving a life sentence for murder.
The investigator was convinced Freeman, who now leads the Buddhist name Temujin Kensu was innocent , but could find who would listen.
Kensu was convicted of killing with a single shotgun blast to a young man 20, who he was the son of the mayor of a small town.
He was sentenced although several people testified that he was about 640 kilometers from the crime scene .
Proctor was captivated. He investigated the case for a year. The results of their research turned into a night five-part series that aired on WXYZ.
Got the key prosecution witness who recanted in front of the camera.
“I woke up,” Proctor said about the case. “I was just another journalist’s walk from story to story and the only chance I played running was when there was a fire, that was when I had to get there before it went out.”
The story attracted attention of national media and solidarity of many politicians and judges.
In 2010, a federal judge granted a Kensu a new trial, but the decision was later overturned by a judge an appeals court in 2012 .
Prosecutors said the evidence against Kensu was compelling and that their witnesses had more validity.
Proctor continued to visit Kensu in prison until today.
The case of Kensu transformed Proctor.
innocent Release
The journalist founded an organization without profit organization called Proving Innocence, connecting researchers prisoners not charged with demonstrating strong case for his innocence.
Proctor decided she needed to become a licensed private investigator.
The case also caused Kensu contacted David Moran, pending a public exdefensor appeals he wanted to create a center to handle erroneous judgments.
Moran was interested in cases like Kensu that allowed him to focus on important factors such as the misconduct of a prosecutor, mistakes made by forensic scientists, forced confessions and actions ineffective counsel.
Proctor facilitated a series of meetings between Moran and Bridget McCormack, then dean of clinical law at the University of Michigan and now a judge of the Supreme Court of Michigan.
Both ended up forming Innocence Clinic Michigan.
Since its inception in 2009, Moran and his students have had 30 cases, including that of Kensu and have released 11 men and women condemned unfairly.
Proctor told Moran about the call he received from Amanda, and gave the name of her boyfriend.
Moran dug through its database of cases and found that Monson had already sent a letter requesting the help of the center in 2009, but had been stacked among many other cases marked “to investigate”.
Now, with a new theory of what really happened to Christina Brown, Moran began digging through records Monson to find evidence that Amanda was telling the truth .
The documents provide a dark and convoluted history.
“horrible death”
The body of Christina Brown was discovered January 20, 1996. His death was horrible. She had been stabbed 17 times and strangled. His jaw was broken with a blow strong enough to zafarle several teeth.
I’m finally getting my story is known. It feels good “
LaMarr Monson
The blood in his stomach indicated she had been in the ground frost abandoned house 2752 West Boston for hours struggling to breathe, surrounded by trash and dirty clothes.
Around noon that day, witnesses told police that “Mark” as it was Monson known as selling drugs, had run down the hallway of the building, knocking on doors and asking someone to call 911.
When the paramedics arrived, Brown did not respond. He died soon after.
The other tenants in the building, who knew Brown as “Cristal” and thought the girl 1.70 meters tall was 17, told police that Monson and Brown were selling drugs from the apartment.
Once he was taken to the police station, Monson said that although he had found the body had nothing to do with Brown’s death.
said he had spent the night of the crime in his girlfriend’s house with their daughter 7 years, history later corroborated his girlfriend.
But about 24 hours later, Monson allegedly issued and signed a detailed confession.
The document typed said he had returned to the apartment drunk in the middle of the night and he had discussed with Brown about an alleged sexual infidelity.
Monson’s confession
” Crystal attacked me with a knife in his hand, “says the statement. “I pushed her head out the window in the bathroom, breaking the glass … the knife stabbed in the neck. Crystal collapsed on the floor of the bathroom, the knife fell into the sink. I went to the apartment.”
When Moran compared the testimony of the forensic doctor’s confession Monson saw that did not match.
The stab wounds were superficial and then concluded that the murder weapon was a tank top toilet. The murderer he fractured his skull, and Monson’s confession contained no mention of the cover.
He wrote the confession after the Ghougoian exinvestigadora promised him that he could go home if he signed the statement .
“The interrogation of Monson occurred before a complete forensic analysis,” says Moran. “ The facts do not match. It’s a false confession .”
There was more. A man calling himself “Raymond”, several witnesses identified as “Robert” was interviewed by police the day of the murder.
According to the report, he told an official who was staying with Amanda in the building and who regularly buy drugs to Brown.
Amanda told Robert Proctor became angry after he tried to buy crack on credit and Brown denied it.
It also found a report dwell fingerprint files. He positively identified a fingerprint on the bathroom mirror as Monson. But beneath a note saying that there were other “unidentified”.
Robert Fingerprints
After many bureaucratic laps, Proctor and Moran managed a lawyer from the Attorney Wayne County send them a report on the tracks.
The footprint left thumb coincided with Robert, the man who had drawn Amanda on the phone call.
“I was very excited,” says Proctor. “It’s just another level of claim and another reason of absolute fury that every American should have in a case like this.”
“The police had their hands on the evidence he needed to do more and did not.”
Proctor says he learned of the case that Kensu even with new evidence is not enough for the authorities to re-examine a case.
That’s why the search continues for Robert.
“I really I do not care how he wants to explain, but I need you to tell me what happened when he returned to buy crack on credit to the girl, “says Proctor. “I want you to tell me what he did.”
In early autumn, Proctor made his third trip to Johnstown, Pennsylvania, a seven-hour drive from Detroit.
through databases which can be accessed as a private investigator, Proctor learned that Robert had moved to a small, faded city dedicated to the steel industry. Shortly after the murder, the man went with two of his brothers there.
“I did nothing wrong”
On his first trip, Proctor came to a house where neighbors told him that Robert had moved just months before.
In his second attempt, Proctor ended in front of the brother of Robert. He called and handed the phone to Proctor.
“I did nothing wrong,” recalls Robert Proctor said.
What the Monson family has suffered, what which has suffered LaMarr should not have happened “
Bill Proctor
In his third attempt, Proctor tactics had become more sophisticated.
Through an informant, knew that Robert was ill and suggested way to intercept one of his visits to one of the hospitals in the small town.
He checked the criminal records of Robert and analyzed documents to give their addresses and phone numbers, but did not with the current.
He drove around the house with his brother hoping to see him, but had no luck.
In an effort to prepare for the time to confront Robert Proctor asked a man named Walter Swift accompany him.
26 years in prison
As Kensu, Swift had been a prisoner whose story Proctor further convinced that the criminal justice system was broken and that cases like this were never so simple as they seemed.
In 2009, Swift grabbed international headlines when he was released after spending 26 years in prison for crimes (rape and robbery) he did not commit.
DNA evidence showed the innocence of Swift and after Proctor covered his story became friends .
Proctor thought if knew Robert Swift, a charismatic man who had experienced the horrors of an unjust sentence, could be inclined to tell the truth about the murder.
But Swift is not in Johnstown. He had returned to prison for robbing a store.
When Swift received $ 2.5 million in compensation from the city of Detroit by the time he spent in prison, he and his lawyers decided Proctor appointed as the sole trustee of the funds.
Proctor had hoped to help Swift to write books and give lectures.
But after his release, Swift became drug addict. It appeared at the door of Proctor, in middle of the night, decomposed and demanding money.
Proctor says it can not abandon Swift. His plan is to beg a judge that permits Swift to boarding school in Vermont to be rehabilitated.
“I have no idea what will happen, but it will be part of my life until one day one of us dies, “Proctor said.
” We just want our child at home “
On his last day in Johnstown, the sun began to hide when Proctor was preparing to leave the city.
No progress in its search for Robert and before him is a long journey back to Detroit. It must enrumbarse soon because you might miss hearing Swift.
“I’m disappointed, but not surprised”.
She pauses.
“ Will I keep trying? Probably .”
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