Tessmer did not have to wait long for something to break. In late October, 1972, barely two months after Willard Jackson had been convicted of rape, Times Herald columnist Dick Hitt received a letter from an inmate by the name of John Lee Lewis. In the letter, Lewis told the newspaperman:
“I have a very important message to relate, and it’s in the bes interest of Justic, since Justic has been misapplied so unfairly in the case of a man here in Jail. This man is being held for a rape att. to murder and robbery, which I committed! The crime took place on Nov. 28, ’71 at Mrs. Michaels and her roomates Apt. just off of Cedar Springs. The man, Willie Bishop Jackson, has been tried, convicted, and sentenced to 25 years, whic he now has on appeal…”
Two weeks later, Lewis stunned the county courthouse by confessing to the Michaels/Moore crimes in open court. On November 6, Lewis, in Judge R. T. Scales’ court, pled guilty to charges that would eventually bring him five life sentences, and swore into the record a written confession to the specific and detailed crimes against Beverly Michaels and Margaret Moore.
The guilt or innocence of Willard Jackson was again at issue in the city’s newspaper headlines; it would be an uncomfortable waiting game to see when — if — the Court of Criminal Appeals would allow the issue to be settled in court again.
A little more than a year later, on March 22, 1974, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction of Willard Bishop Jackson. Its reason for reversal amused Charles Tessmer. Of all the controversial points of law the defense had appealed, the higher court chose the most innocuous: the “bolstering ” charge. In so doing, the court ignored the highly-charged issues of oral confessions and admissibility of polygraph results. No matter: The attorney now had his second shot at freeing Jackson.
While continuing the search for the watch, Tessmer turned most of his attention to Lewis. The criminal’s two public confessions to the Michaels/Moore crimes had solidified Tessmer’s belief that Lewis should be used as a witness in the second trial. At the same time he renewed requests that Jackson be given another polygraph test or “truth serum” testing. Both requests fell on deaf ears. He also initiated a request for personal effects taken from Lewis’ home after his arrest. Again, denied. A jury would never know if Lewis owned a green coat, or a pair of black patent shoes.
In the meantime, there had been feelers from the DA’s office concerning plea bargaining: negotiating a settlement in return for Jackson’s plea of guilty to the charges. The State eventually offered a relatively lenient 10 years in return for Willard’s uncontested plea. Foreman, for one, urged the defendant to take the offer. He explained in no uncertain terms that the young black would never find acquittal before a Dallas County jury. “Who do you think is going to save you?” he said, “God?!” Tessmer, though less firm on the point than his colleague, also urged Willard to consider the offer. It was, all things considered, a good deal. Willard Jackson said no. He wanted to stand trial again to prove his innocence.
On the seventh floor of the County Courthouse, there was no less activity. The case had been assigned to Russ Ormesher, one of Henry Wade’s top five prosecutors. Ormesher, though the antithesis of Eubanks and Tokoly with his diminutive stature and bookish appearance, was known to be tough. Many of Wade’s other young Turks were better known for flashy courtroom oratory, but few could match the intense 32-year-old in fact preparation. He was, in fact, recognized in some circles as Charles Tessmer’s match in this crucial area of trial law. Ormesher was not only thorough, but inventive: He’d once convicted a savage assaulter by tracing the bite marks he’d left on the victim to his dental records; on another occasion, he’d spent a week in South Dallas looking for a single bullet to pin down a sniper who’d terrorized the area.
After reviewing the record of the first case, Ormesher knew what he had to do. Since this was a second trial, he held a distinct advantage over his predecessors: Unlike Eubanks and Tokoly, Ormesher could look at the defense case in detail, searching for possible holes. First, he would go after the alibi defense. It was just too pat, as far as he was concerned. He and investigators from the office would visit each of the alibi witnesses themselves. Somewhere, somehow, they would find a discrepancy, an error. Secondly, he would fight fire with fire on the Lewis business. Through the grapevine, he’d heard that Lewis was ready to testify a confession to the crimes. Fine, he thought: two can play at that game. He’d just send his investigators to talk to the criminal too. His confession had to be full of impeachable errors.
That would do for the time being, but Ormesher was nagged that he had no “clincher,” no piece of physical proof to cinch the case. Like Tessmer, he firmly believed that a jury could play mind games with any kind of evidence, except hard, cold physical proof. They would not argue with what they could see. The watch was a possibility here, but all efforts to find it thus far had failed. Ormesher surveyed the rest of the evidence. His eyes fell on an item noting that several pubic hairs had been lifted from the scene of the crime in 1971.
The hair. Of course! A group of scientists at Texas A & M University had developed a complex system of hair comparison and analysis based on neutron activation. The process was complicated, but basically, given the right circumstances and samples, it could determine with incredible accuracy whether two hairs belonged to the same individual. Now that would be a clincher. That could place Jackson in the apartment in November, 1971.
The second trial of Willard Bishop Jackson had been under way for a day when both Charles Tessmer and Russ Ormesher received urgent messages.
Russ Ormesher tried to remain calm as he read the results of the neutron activation testing comparing Jackson’s hair and those found at the girls’ apartment November 28, 1971. The results were better than good: They revealed the two sets of hair compared so favorably that scientist-in-charge Dr. John Randall had concluded that only two individuals in 1.5 million could have the same hair. It was the next best thing to a fingerprint.
Across town, Charles Tessmer was also a little short of breath as he listened to Investigator Barnett’s incredible message. “Charlie,” he said. “We have found the watch.” What ?! The investigator continued: He and another assistant, Ronald Goranson, had discovered the watch at Oscar Utay’s pawn shop on Elm Street that morning. Operating on a tip from Lenora Davis, a second sister of John Lewis, the two had found the 14-k, 17-jewel Angelina wristwatch in Utay’s safe — where it had been sitting collecting dust since January 28, 1971. The pawn receipt book reflected even more fantastic news: The watch had been pawned by Ms. Davis. She’d even admitted to investigators that her brother gave it to her for Christmas in December 1971. Serial numbers, general description, everything matched Beverly Michaels’ information. Tessmer allowed himself a low whistle: The Holy Grail had been found at last. After more than two years and considerable shoe leather, the defense of Willard Jackson finally had physical proof that someone else had attacked Beverly Michaels and Margaret Moore. It was the next best thing to a fingerprint.
That scenario would not be played out, however, before some fireworks erupted between opposing counsel. Though ecstatic over the watch, Tessmer was more than a little upset about the news of the hair comparison test results. His motion for discovery before the trial meant he was supposed to get a look at all State’s evidence in the trial to prepare appropriate rebuttal. Now Ormesher was popping a deadly surprise on him: The trial was already a day old, and here was the State prepared to introduce a complicated and controversial piece of physical proof. He had no time to prepare rebuttal witnesses; no time even to prepare a decent cross-examination of Dr. Randall. His only recourse was to ask for a continuance in the trial. That seemed equitable to him under discovery procedure. Whether it would to Gossett was another question. Ormesher was not pleased about the watch, either. It was an impressive piece of evidence. Like Tessmer, he had few options of recourse. He could not deny or argue that the watch was not the right one: The serial numbers matched; Beverly Michaels had already identified it as hers; a jeweler from Neiman-Marcus had traced it through the store’s records. The State would simply have to stipulate that in court. And that had to look pretty good for Jackson. But Ormesher, as always, had an ace up his sleeve. While stipulating that the watch was the victim’s and that it had been pawned by a relative of John Lee Lewis, the prosecutor was prepared to suggest a new explanation to the jury: that the paths of Willard Jackson and John L. Lewis had somewhere, somehow crossed.
Both counsels hastily inspected each other’s new evidence during the next 12 hours. Neither found much out. One of the DA’s investigators perhaps best summed up the increasingly strange case when he said, “I know you think we don’t have the right man, and I know we think we have the right man, but this really makes you wonder.”
At trial the next day, the State introduced the testimony of Dr. John Randall over strenuous objections from Tessmer. Tessmer repeatedly argued that Ormesher had violated discovery covenants and that the defense was due a continuance to prepare rebuttal for the new evidence. The arguments, though passionate, did not fall on sympathetic ears. Judge Gossett, clearly rankled that the first conviction had been reversed, was even less generous to Tessmer in the second trial than in the first. At one point early in the trial, the judge had said, “The Court recognizes you are doing your best to trap the Court into some error … I am going to try this case right, and it’s been reversed once. If it happens to go up again, I don’t want it reversed again.”
Tessmer’s motion for continuance was quickly and firmly overruled.
Dr. Randall, like most scientific witnesses, was an impressive figure. Skillfully prompted by Ormesher, the nuclear science expert explained the neutron activation process. To make a long story short, the doctor said, hair samples are placed in a nuclear reactor. The reactor converts the hair to a “radioactive substance.” That substance, he explained, can be analyzed for “trace elements” in the hair fibers. There are some 30 such elements in human hair; depending on the number of elements found in each sample of hair, and their relative amounts, a positive comparison can be made.
In the case of Jackson’s hair, the doctor found nine trace elements in each sample. Chlorine, sodium, aluminum, bromine, manganese, gold, chromium, zinc and antimony were found in Jackson’s hair; the same nine were found in the hair from the scene of the crime. Moreover, the nine elements appeared in identical amounts in both samples. “The hair samples,” the doctor said, “are indistinguishable.
“To find one person with this distribution, you would have to assemble nearly one and one-half million people.” Ormesher wasted no time pointing out there were not that many black males in the entire state, let alone in Dallas County. On cross, Tessmer played bleeding heart. I have no questions, he said, because we haven’t had any time to prepare for this witness. The lawyer could only hope the jury might feel some sympathy for him — for Willard Jackson. There was a small chance: The scientific testimony was impressive, airtight; but it was also complex and exotic. Good, average folk are sometimes suspicious of things they don’t understand.
Tessmer opened the defense with the testimony of the Longview man who’d previously confused Jackson and Lewis in the identification process. Gossett once again did not allow the testimony before the jury — an early blow for the defense case. But Tessmer had the watch; that would make up for it. He also had his next witness: John Lee Lewis.
Lewis’ confession had been carefully developed through interviews by Portnoy. It was reasonably solid, though Tessmer was aware of several impeachable errors in it. That would simply have to be left to the discretion of the jury. The fact was, here was a man who looked like Jackson, who was confessing to the crimes, and who had been irrevocably linked to a piece of property stolen from one of the victims.
Lewis, looking more than a little goofy with his wild-eyed stare and the gruesome dent in the rear of his skull, took the stand. He testified: “On November 28, there was a lady by the name of Miss Michaels, a blond haired lady … she was coming in from the direction of the night club…” He said he was behind a car, had a .22 with him and two bullets. He followed her up the stairs and asked to use the phone. She refused. “The door was pushed to, but it wasn’t locked. I walked in and pulled my pistol on her, asked her who was there and she said no one but her roommate. So I told her to take me where the roommate was. I told her if she would do what I tell her I would not hurt her…
“I took a watch from the blond haired lady. I got a total of $54 off them. I forced her to have intercourse with me, then I forced her to have, perform a sodomy on me. I shot them after I had robbed them…
“I shot Miss Michaels and then I pointed the gun at Miss Moore and pulled the trigger and shot, and I did not know if I had hit her, so I stabbed her…”
Tessmer additionally established that Lewis had confessed to the crimes in open court in October of 1972; that Lewis had no mustache in the fall of 1971; that he had been involved in the Longview crimes.
Steve Tokoly was ready to cross Lewis. The DA’s investigators had spent no less time with the confessor than Tessmer’s people. The young DA was ready to impeach Lewis on a number of discrepancies. He first established that Lewis had only made his confession in open court after receiving some five life sentences for his crimes. The implication was obvious: Lewis was less than credible because he had nothing to lose by admitting the Jackson crimes.
Tokoly additionally established that Lewis had been placed in a holdover tank with Jackson prior to the trial — thus creating the possibility that he learned many of the details of the crime in conversation. He brought out discrepancies in Lewis’ description of the crime: For example, he told a DA’s office investigator he’d never seen a phone in the apartment; that he’d worn a black leather coat that night, not a green sportcoat; that during the rape, he’d reached two climaxes; that during the intercourse, he’d climbed on top of the girl; that in one interview, he had said he’d committed the crime November 27, not the 28th.
Tokoly finally brought in a conversation Lewis had had with another deputy, John Webb. Apparently Lewis had admitted to Webb the only reason he was confessing to the Jackson crimes was to build an insanity defense. Lewis denied the conversation, but Tokoly smiled confidently. The testimony of John Webb would settle that.
It was, all in all, an impressive cross. But Tessmer was not worried. He had the watch. And he still had an alibi.
But the prosecution was ready for that, too. Through extensive interviewing in Austin prior to the trial, Ormesher had found a few interesting cracks in the alibi. As Tessmer paraded the eight witnesses up again, Ormesher beat them down.
He got Mr. and Mrs. Earls, Ann Jackson’s parents, to admit there had been a gathering of family members in early February to discuss the case; Ann Jackson denied it was a “meeting,” as the prosecutor implied. Whatever, the implication left was that the alibi had been cooked up. Next, Ormesher proved by hospital records that Mrs. Hutchins, the neighbor who’d testified she’d seen Ann and Willard in the Earls’ front yard that night as she left to go to work at the hospital, had, in fact, not been on hospital duty that night.
As for the Mexican-American neighbor, Trelles, who’d heard the car wreck, Ormesher badgered him into admitting that Mr. Earls had talked to him about the incident after Willard was arrested; that he’d peeked out the door rather than viewing the commotion from his front porch.
Finally, he turned to his grand finale: A letter Mrs. Earls had written to Henry Wade in early March, 1972 protesting her son-in-law’s innocence. On its face, the letter was an emotional outpouring from a concerned mother-in-law. But under Ormesher’s unrelenting cross examination, the letter turned into a major prosecution coup.
The letter explained Jackson’s innocence by saying, “He has never had a record. During the years I have known him there has been several women in his house, including me, and he has never attempted to bother any of the other women…” Though written well after Jackson’s arrest, it made no mention at all of the fact that her son-in-law had been in Austin when the crimes were committed.
Ormesher pounded at the elderly lady. At first, she would not even admit the letter was actually hers; Ormesher finally had to force her to sign a sheet of paper so that the signatures could be compared. Then he repeatedly asked her to read from the letter. She did not want to, finally saying, “No. I don’t want to read it no more.”
“I bet you don”t,” said Ormesher. Tessmer protested at least six times, charging the prosecutor with badgering.
Finally Ormesher was through with her. “Well let me ask you this … is there one word, one line at all that you knew he was innocent because he was there with you in Austin at 9:30, November 28, 1971?”
“No, I guess not. But I know he was there.”
Though the basics of the alibi remained intact, the inconsistencies tended to bring the whole story into question.
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