Ron Williamson

Ron Williamson (February 3, 1953, Oklahoma—December 4, 2004) was a minor league baseball catcher/pitcher who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1988 in Oklahoma for rape and murder.

Williamson was the 41st pick in baseball's 1971 amateur draft, a second-round selection by the Oakland Athletics. He spent the 1972 season primarily with the Coos Bay-North Bend A's, hitting .265 in 52 games. In 1973, he had a poor year, hitting .137 for the Key West Conchs with only 13 runs produced in 59 games. A shoulder injury derailed his career for the next few years. His father, through a childhood friendship with Harry 'the cat' Breechen, got him a look with the New York Yankees, where he pitched in their minor league system for parts of 1976 & 1977. In his last season, he pitched in 14 games, working 33 innings. At the age of 24 his baseball career was over.

Ron Williamson Mug Shot

Williamson's life went into a tailspin after that. He became a drug and alcohol addict and suffered from mental illness, becoming depressed and living with his mother. In 1982, Debra Sue Carter, a waitress in an Ada, Oklahoma bar he frequented, was found dead. Williamson along with Dennis Fritz was cited as a suspect by the police five years later on flimsy testimony but was found guilty and sentenced to death in 1988 while Fritz was given a life sentence. The evidence included that of "hair sampling" which is now accepted as generally unreliable. This evidence concluded that 13 of the 17 hairs found were "microscopically consistent" with those of Fritz and Williamson. They even included a very misleading "match". Despite the damning testimony, the prosecution failed to mention (and the defense failed to bring up) that although the hair samples could have implicated the pair, they equally could have cleared them both. Such was the unreliability of the testing.

After 12 years on death row, Williamson was cleared by DNA testing, and was finally freed. He died in a nursing home of cirrhosis of the liver five years after being freed. Thorazine and other prescription drugs may have precipitated the cirrhosis. Best-selling novelist John Grisham read his obituary in The New York Times and made him the subject of his first non-fiction book, An Innocent Man, published in 2006. The book became a bestseller.

Many of the residents of Ada continued to believe that "Ronnie" was guilty long after he had been cleared by the judge. Indeed he himself and Dennis Fritz had both reportedly felt the need to keep an eye over their shoulder since their release, such was their belief that the incompetent Bill Peterson and other officials of the Ada police would try to bring them to trial again.

Ricky Joe Simmons

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During his final years Ron Williamson became increasingly convinced that Ricky Joe Simmons had committed the murder of Debbie Sue Carter (due to the confession of this mentally ill man). It became an obsession, especially on Death Row and was known to scream about this, and his own innocence for up to 24 hours or more. Even after the conviction of Glen Gore he was known to mention Simmons in phone conversations and press for a conviction, telling the trial judge to drop the conviction of Gore and prosecute Simmons.

Glen Gore

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Glen Gore was later convicted of the murder of Debbie Carter. He was the last person seen with Carter, and also had been seen arguing with her on the night of her death. Furthermore after her murder he had contributed a swab and hair sample. These were never processed.

Once Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz had been cleared of murder, Glen Gore eventually came to trial, owing to the DNA evidence that had cleared Fritz and Williamson. This evidence had proved that it was Glen Gore's DNA that was left at the scene and his hand print on the wall of Debbie's apartment. Bill Peterson had obviously previously found that the bloody hand print matched neither Williamson, Fritz nor Carter, yet being as arrogant and obnoxious as he was, more than four years later, he persuaded an "expert" to testify that it was the hand print of Carter, and thus remove any reason to look for another suspect. His work was later discredited and some people realized he had made a mistake in convicting Ron and Dennis. Others continued to believe that they were guilty due to the testimony of lying snitches, exaggerating prosecution, and unreliable defense.

Family

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Anette and Renee were Ron's sisters and stood by him to the end. They never doubted his innocence and continued to fight, provide and visit. In such a tight knit community where it was the easy option to go with general consensus, they stood by their brother, knowing that he was, deep down, a kind man who had made mistakes and lost sight of the bigger picture, but who was always a "Strong Survivor".

References

• The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by John Grisham, Doubleday Books, 2006, ISBN 0385517238.

External links

• Ron Williamson - from PBS Frontline
• Baseball-Reference.com Bullpen article