On the night of December 7th, 1982, Debbie Carter ended her shift at an Oklahoma bar

called The Coachlight for the last time. The next morning she was found dead in her apartment,

brutally beaten and raped. It was immediately apparent that she had fought savagely for her life:

her bed had been knocked off the frame; her blankets and sheets were gone; the shelf in her

closet torn down; clothes, stuffed animals and mementos scattered around the room. There was a

bloody washcloth shoved partially down her throat. Threatening messages were written on

Debbie’s back: “Duke Gram,” her chest: “die,” her kitchen table: “Don’t look fore us or ealse,”

and the wall: “Jim Smith next will die.” Also found on the wall was a bloody palm print.

After processing the scene, investigators returned to the Ada police department and asked

Debbie’s family to help them compile a list of all the men in her life. They then began calling

everyone on the list and asking for fingerprints and DNA samples. Three of the men on the list

started telling the detectives tall tales. Glen Gore, the last person seen with Debbie while she was

still alive, stated that a man named Ron Williamson had been at The Coachlight that evening

harassing Debbie. However, not a single other person who was in the bar that night remembered

Ron being there. Ron had a local reputation for being a loud-mouthed, troublemaking drunk, so it

is very unlikely that he would manage to spend the evening in a bar without anyone noticing

him.

Three months later, Robert Deatherage was interviewed. He had just finished doing a

little time in the county jail for DUI. Deatherage shared a cell with Ron Williamson and claimed

that they would often argue over the Carter murder. Deatherage was convinced Williamson was

somehow connected and insisted the detectives should focus their efforts on him. A few days

later, a man named Noel Clement was interviewed. He told the story of when Ron confused his

apartment for someone else’s. According to Clement, Ron walked in, picked up a guitar, and
began talking about the Debbie Carter murder. As he strummed, he claimed that seeing the

police in his neighborhood the morning that her body was discovered had made him very

nervous and that “he figured the cops were after him.”

Ron Williamson had suffered from mental illness for most of his life. He was diagnosed

with bipolar depression, alcohol and substance dependence, and paranoid personality disorder.

Due to his illnesses, Ron was unable or unwilling to stay on a medication regimen and would

often experience periods of severe mania, depression, and/or paranoia. He would go through

cycles of having an episode bad enough to catch the attention of the police, going to treatment,

starting a medication regimen, stabilizing for a few months, abandoning the medicine, and

slowly getting worse.

In March of 1983, three months before Ron was officially diagnosed by a psychiatrist,

two detectives from the Ada police department paid him a visit. At first they acted casual, asking

for hair and saliva samples like they did with most of the men in town. When the conversation

inevitably veered towards Debbie Carter’s murder, Ron’s mother provided an alibi and stated

that he was at home with her. They had rented movies from a new video store and she still had

the receipt to prove it. Ron and his family thought that was the end of the whole matter.

Unfortunately, the two detectives thought otherwise. They had taken it upon themselves to

“quietly inform the Carter family that Ron Williamson was their prime suspect,” and that

“though they did not have enough evidence, they were pursuing all leads and slowly,

methodically, building a case against him,” (Grisham, p. 73).

In November of 1983, Ron was in the county jail for check fraud when a rather bizarre

event supposedly occurred. According to another inmate named Vicki Smith, Ron would yell all

sorts of strange things in the middle of the night. He started out by calling her a witch, and then
veered off into saying that his cell was being haunted by Debbie Carter and that he hoped his

mother would forgive him. By this point, “the case against Ron Williamson consisted of two

‘inconclusive’ polygraph exams, a bad reputation, a residence not far from that of the victim’s,

and a delayed, half-baked witness identification,” (Grisham, p. 79).

During the preliminary hearing for his check fraud case, Ron’s behavior was so absurd

and dramatic that the judge ordered a competency evaluation. Strangely enough, this same judge

would later deny Ron a competency evaluation. He seemed to think that the state of Ron’s

mental health was important when it came to a check fraud case, but not in an instance when

Ron’s life was on the line. While this was going on, Ron’s mother visited the Ada police

department and gave a formal, recorded statement providing him with an alibi and showing the

receipts from the video store to prove it. She left the department that day feeling confident that

she had established her son’s innocence. However, the tape of her statement was “lost.” It is

questionable whether the Ada police even bothered to turn on the recorder in the first place since

they were so hell-bent on establishing a case against Ron.

In the spring of 1987, detectives from the Ada police department bullied an employee of

the state crime lab into exhuming Debbie’s body and reprinting her hands. The bloody partial

handprint on her bedroom wall did not match Ron Williamson. If they could determine that the

print actually came from Debbie, it would make it that much easier to build a case against Ron.

Even though Debbie’s hands were printed at her original autopsy, the detectives got their wish:

her body was exhumed and re-printed. Despite four and a half years of decomposition, the

employee at the state crime lab was somehow able to determine that the bloody partial print on

the wall was indeed from Debbie Carter. This information practically delighted Ada’s prosecutor

Bill Peterson. He immediately obtained a warrant for Ron Williamson’s arrest.

 To his credit, Ron never submitted to the bullying and murderous accusations from Ada’s

detectives. He held his ground and repeated over and over that he did not kill Debbie Carter and

wasn’t sure if he had ever even met her. However, Ron did make one ultimately damning

mistake: he told the detectives about a dream he’d had. He dreamed that he was on top of

Debbie, fighting with her and ultimately killing her. After months of hearing all the gruesome

details of her murder, it would be almost expected that folks were having nightmares about it all

over town. Seemingly abandoning this rational explanation, the two detectives interrogating Ron

decided that this was his way of “confessing” to the murder. In their excitement over the

“confession,” the detectives overlooked two very important facts: at the time Debbie Carter was

murdered, Ron was living in Tulsa and had no means of transportation back to Ada.

The county jail in Ada seemed to have an incredible amount of opportunities for inmates

to overhear information that was pertinent to active cases. Shortly after Ron’s preliminary

hearing for the Debbie Carter case, an inmate named Micky Harrell wanted to talk to the police.

He claimed that Ron became distraught upon returning to his cell, crying about needing someone

named Debbie to forgive him, and asking if he could draw a tattoo that said “Ron Loves Debbie”

on his arm (Grisham, p. 142).

Ron’s luck was not improving. With a population of just 16,000, Ada was too small of a

town to have its own public defender. When they were needed, a judge randomly selected one

from a pool of lawyers registered with the Oklahoma Bar. All the popular lawyers became

conveniently busy when Ron’s case came up and Ron was assigned to a blind lawyer named

Barney Ward. Barney had a reputation as one of the best criminal defense lawyers in town.

However, that was the younger Barney, from a few decades ago. The current Barney was a bit of

a curmudgeon and a very hard drinker. There was a legendary story around town that he had to
get a new guide dog because the old one kept leading him to the nearest liquor store. Barney also

had a habit of wearing large dark glasses in the courtroom. Often the other courtroom actors had

trouble telling whether or not he was awake. His opponents soon realized this and began stalling

as much as possible because they knew if they could drag a hearing out past 3:00, their chances

of winning rose drastically.

In addition to his questionable counsel, Ron also had to deal with mistreatment and

downright cruelty from the police and the jail staff. Just before an important preliminary hearing,

the two detectives who had made the so-called “case” against Ron thought it would be fun to get

him riled up beforehand. They let slip that an old drinking buddy had given them a statement

further adding to Ron’s guilt. It was a complete lie, but Ron went off the deep end. When he

entered the courtroom and saw his buddy there, Ron began yelling vulgarities and broke free of

the guards. They tackled him, but Ron was bigger than most of the guards and gave them quite a

challenge. He was kicking and fighting so hard that he knocked over several tables and chairs

before finally being subdued. Ron spent the rest of the hearing shouting and repeatedly

interrupting the judge. Understandably upset, Ron spent hours in his cell hollering to anyone who

might listen about his innocence. The outbursts were so constant that the jail employees began

“adjusting” the dosage of Ron’s medication. While he was in the jail, he received so much

Thorazine that he was practically a zombie. But when his court appearances rolled around, they

lowered the dosage to almost nothing.

Barney’s first major mess-up was failing to raise the issue of Ron’s mental competency to

stand trial. There was an entire jail full of people who could testify to Ron’s mental state. Also,

the judge presiding over Ron’s murder trial was the same judge from Ron’s check fraud case. In

the check fraud case, that judge ordered a psychiatric evaluation for Ron. However, when Ron’s
life is on the line, that same judge decided he didn’t need a psychiatric evaluation. Did I mention

that during the trial Ron was so distressed over a snitch’s lies on the witness stand that he flipped

the defense’s table in the middle of her testimony? Yet this judge still somehow thought that Ron

was completely sane. In addition, while the trial was happening, Ron received his first Social

Security disability check, due to his history of severe mental illness.

However, Barney wasn’t a completely horrible lawyer. He did manage to redeem himself

slightly when two of Ada’s finest tried to present some spectacularly ridiculous junk science.

Instead of sending Ron’s handwriting samples to the state crime lab where certified technicians

could analyze it against the writings in Debbie’s apartment, these detectives took it upon

themselves to investigate the handwriting. Unsurprisingly, the two decided it was a perfect

match. Knowing their opinions weren’t enough to get the evidence submitted to court, the

detectives visited an unknown specialist at the state crime lab who supposedly gave them

“verbal” confirmation that Ron’s handwriting was a match. Barney jumped on this insanity

during his cross examination of the two detectives and made them look like absolute fools. He

eventually got one of the detectives to admit on the stand: “there were similarities in the

handwriting; but you know, it was based on our observations, and nothing really scientific. I

mean, we were, you know, we saw the similarities in it; but, you know, to compare two different

types of writing like this is nearly an impossibility,” (Grisham, p. 166). Barney argued that the

technicians at the state crime lab would beg to differ, had they simply been given the chance to

analyze the writing.

Because Barney was blind, he had been assigned another lawyer to help him by analyzing

visual evidence that Barney could not, like photos and body language. In April of 1988, in the

middle of Ron’s trial, Barney’s assistant decided to jump ship and take a higher paying position
in another county. The judge did not appoint another assistant, and Barney was left to muddle

through as best he could.

Brady v. Maryland is probably one of the most important Supreme Court decisions for a

defendant, second only to the famous Miranda v. Arizona that created miranda rights. Brady is

vital because it said that the prosecution must turn over to the defense any evidence that is

helpful to the defendant. However, Brady failed to establish consequences for not doing so and

as a result this rule is violated more often than we would like to acknowledge. That was also the

case when it came to the prosecution in Ada. The recorded alibi statement Ron’s mother gave the

police shortly before her death went “missing” and was never found. Another Brady violation

was the fact that the police had a recorded interrogation tape of Ron in 1983, where he

vehemently denied involvement in Debbie Carter’s murder and repeatedly proclaimed

innocence, but the tape was never handed over to the defense. One of the detectives slipped and

referenced this suppressed tape during his testimony. When Barney realized the detective was

talking about a piece of evidence that he was never given, he was livid. He immediately made a

motion for a mistrial on the grounds of a Brady violation, but the judge denied it and said he

would hold a Brady hearing on the interrogation video after the trial was over!

After the judge’s egregious violation of Ron’s rights, the jurors were treated to more junk

science, this time concerning the foreign hair samples collected from Debbie Carter’s body. A

so-called “expert” from the Oklahoma state crime lab made a serious fumble on the witness

stand. He said: “these were the only scalp hairs that matched or were consistent with Ron

Williamson,” (Grisham, p. 215). The word “match” is prohibited in hair analysis because it leads

the jury to believe the results have a greater importance than is true. “Consistent with” and

“match” evoke very different levels of confidence in the evidence for the jury. When the witness
said the word “match” for a second time Barney feverishly objected, but the judge overruled him

and said that he could “deal with it” on cross examination (Grisham, p. 216). Because

microscopic analysis tends to be very complex, expert witnesses will often use as many diagrams

and visual aids as possible to help get their point across to the jury. They also have to explain

what they do, how they do it, and why it’s significant in terms the average person can

understand. This so-called “expert” didn’t do any of that. He did not bother to educate the jurors,

instead testifying in an arrogant way that made it seem like he expected people to be thankful

just to hear him speak.

The final nail in Ron’s coffin was the judge. He failed to order a psychiatric evaluation,

refused to grant a mistrial due to the prosecution withholding evidence, and wouldn’t schedule a

Brady hearing until after the trial was over. At that hearing the judge ruled that the prosecution

holding onto the interrogation tape of Ron did not violate Brady… because the prosecution

turned the tape over after the conclusion of the trial. In addition, he flat out ignored the law. Just

three years earlier, the Supreme Court ruled in Ake v. Oklahoma that the state must provide the

tools of an adequate defense to indigent defendants. This is especially important when it comes

to forensic science. The prosecution had multiple expert witnesses lined up to testify. “Ron was

left with only Barney, a competent courtroom advocate, but, sadly, one unable to see the

evidence,” (Grisham, p. 217).

On April 28th, 1988, after just six hours of deliberation, the jurors came back with a

guilty verdict and a sentence of the death penalty. Ron’s hell was just beginning. He was sent to

the death row of a local prison called McAlester. The food was vile and served stone cold,

showers were on a roulette wheel of freezing or blistering, there was no ventilation to speak of,

and the whole place was full of guards and inmates alike who enjoyed nothing more than
tormenting Ron. All throughout the night they would call out taunting phrases about the Debbie

Carter murder and get endless enjoyment when Ron would inevitably explode and start hollering

about his innocence.

Due to the pain and stress brought on by his separation from his sisters and his new

environment, Ron became suicidal in the spring of 1989. He had repeated incidents where he

unsuccessfully tried to slit his wrists, and even one where he managed to light his mattress on

fire and tried to burn himself. It wasn’t until September that he was deemed enough of a threat to

himself to be sent to the state hospital. His condition stabilized during the three months he spent

there, but of course deteriorated again within a week of him going back to death row. He spent

most of the summer of 1990 going back and forth between the state hospital and McAlester.

In 1991, McAlester finished construction on a new “H-Unit” where the death row

inmates would be held. The state spent $11 million on a dungeon. It was completely

underground, with less space and more restrictions than the old setup. In fact, it was investigated

by Amnesty International and found to violate several international standards on the treatment of

prisoners. H-Unit also featured cell intercoms that let the guards speak to a particular prisoner

without having to get too close. Naturally they abused this feature and began resuming their old

Debbie Carter torments.

Ron lost ninety pounds after moving in. The stress of the place caused his hair to turn

grayer than his father’s. “[Ron’s sister] was waiting one day in the visitors room when she saw

the guards lead a wiry old man with long, stringy gray hair and a beard into the room. Who is

that? she thought,” (Grisham, p. 273). Ron’s condition only worsened. In 1992, McAlester

gained a new psychiatrist named Dr. Foster. Within days of meeting Ron, he began petitioning

the warden to have him moved to the prison’s Special Care Unit, or SCU. The higher-ups
refused, citing some vague and mysterious policy that denied death row inmates access to the

SCU. When Dr. Foster kept protesting this rule, citing the obviously deteriorating sanity of his

patient, the warden actually locked him out of the prison for a week.

Ron’s new post-conviction appeal lawyer heard about his mental state and attempted to

have him evaluated by an independent psychiatrist. The prison refused to grant her the access

needed to do a thorough psychological exam. When she recommended that he be transferred to

the state hospital so he could be stabilized and properly evaluated, they again refused. In the end,

the prison only agreed to send Ron to the SCU so that his mental competence could be restored

to a level that allowed him to be executed.

By August of 1994, all of Ron’s local appeals were exhausted. The state scheduled him

for execution as his lawyer began working on a writ of habeas corpus to try and get him into

federal appeals court. Just five days before Ron was scheduled to be executed, a federal judge

granted him a stay of execution while he reviewed the habeas petition. In September of 1995,

Judge Seay issued a one hundred page long opinion that granted Ron’s habeas petition and

ordered a new trial. Among the judge’s choice words for the Ada prosecutor: “God help us, if

ever in this great country we turn our heads while people who have not had fair trials are

executed. That almost happened in this case,” (Grisham, p. 297). Naturally, Ada’s prosecutor

Bill Peterson was not going to give up that easily. He appealed the decision to the Tenth Circuit

Court of Appeals in Denver. The Tenth Circuit Court affirmed Judge Seay’s decision in April of

1997 and granted Ron a new trial.

This time around, Ron had excellent lawyers. They advocated strongly for a competency

evaluation for their client and got it. At a hearing before a new judge in Ada, Ron was ordered to
undergo a psychiatric evaluation. He was deemed by the psychiatrist to be incompetent to stand

trial without a stable regimen of medication.

In January of 1999, the DNA from the rape kit collected during Debbie Carter’s autopsy

was analyzed. It excluded Ron Williamson. His lawyers immediately filed a motion to dismiss

all charges against him. Incensed, Peterson went on the Ada evening news and said: “DNA

testing of the hair samples, which was not available in 1982, will prove [Ron was] responsible

for Carter’s murder,” (Grisham, p. 320). In April of 1999, the state crime lab finally sent out their

report detailing that the hairs did not come from Ron. He was formally exonerated on April 15th.

Due to the prosecutor and police’s blind focus on Ron for so long, they missed evidence

that obviously pointed to the real killer. Glen Gore was the last person seen with Debbie Carter

when she ended her shift at The Coachlight on December 7th. They were seen by multiple

witnesses arguing in the parking lot. Gore was the one who first put detectives on Ron’s trail,

lying about seeing him arguing with Debbie. Out of the forty-some people detectives interviewed

initially after the murder, only Gore’s prints were never submitted to the state crime lab. He even

volunteered to take a polygraph but it never happened. Gore was a career criminal with a history

of violet tendencies toward women. It was incomprehensible that the police were simply

ignoring his presence. Along with prints, they also got hair samples from Glen Gore three times

because they kept “losing” them before they could be sent to the state crime lab. Gore claimed

years later that Peterson threatened him into testifying at Ron’s trial. He also explained that he

was getting preferential treatment from the police because he was selling them

methamphetamine. He was frequently arrested under false pretenses when he owed them too

much money, but for the most part he was strategically ignored. Gore blamed the forty year
prison sentence he was currently serving on trying to get out of the drug trade. He believed he

would have gotten off much easier if he was still willing to be their drug mule.

Regarding Ron, Gore claimed he only made the statement about seeing him with Debbie

due to police pressure. “The police showed [Gore] a lineup of photos, pointed to Ron, and

explained that he was the man they were interested in. Then they directly suggested that I

identify Mr. Williamson,” Grisham, p. 161). Gore would not be tried for Debbie’s murder until

2003, when he was convicted and sentenced to death. He appealed this decision and was granted

a new trial, but was convicted again in 2006. As of this writing, he is serving life without parole

in an Oklahoma prison.