Updated with additional links at 9 a.m. Tuesday.
The seven men convicted of the brutal 1984 H Street murder of Catherine Fuller were in court today, the first day of a hearing on new evidence which they hope may set them free.
NPR reported that they appeared in court wearing bright orange prison jumpsuits.
In opening statements attorney Rob Carey said, according to NPR,: “This was a verdict of questionable validity. There is an avalanche of new information today that we submit undermines confidence in the verdict.”
The Blog of Legal Times reported that Carey said “there was an “avalanche” of newly discovered evidence that prosecutors should have turned over to defense attorneys at the time.”
The Washington Post summarized the crime this way:
Prosecutors outlined a horrific scenario during the trial: Fuller, a cleaning woman, left her K Street NE home on a rainy afternoon to fill a prescription. The suspects, then 17 to 21 years old, were smoking marijuana and listening to go-go music at a nearby park.
A group of about 30 confronted Fuller, prosecutors say. She was grabbed from behind and pushed into an alley, where she was beaten and a 2-inch-thick metal pole was shoved into her rectum.
Her liver was shattered, a lung was punctured and four of her ribs were broken, according to authorities. Her body was found in a garage in the same alley that evening.
In June 1985, D.C. Metropolitan Police Deputy Chief Alfonso Gibson told the Associated Press that the then recent killing of 49-year-old Catherine Fuller was “probably one of the most brutal murders that ever took place in Washington.”
Catherine Fuller’s life ended as the sun was setting on Oct. 1, 1984. As she walked home from a grocery store, a group of young toughs followed her. They murdered her in a garage. The crime attracted scant notice.
The police arrested a suspect three days later, one more on Nov. 29, two on Dec. 4, five on Dec. 9 and, intermittently, more suspects as the investigation continued.
The last arrest was May 22.
Sixteen young men, ages ranging from 17 to 22, stand accused of felony murder—a slaying that occurs in the commission of a felony, in this case robbery.
“To the best of my knowledge, it is the largest number of arrests in a single homicide in the city’s history,” said Lt. William White III, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police Department.
The men convicted of killing Fuller were Kelvin Smith, Steven L. Webb, Levy Rouse, Clifton Yarborough, Timothy Catlett, Russell Overton and brothers Charles and Christopher Turner.
The hearing hinges on a question of whether or not prosecutors shared relevant evidence with defense attorneys during the investigation and trial of Fuller’s murder. Such a violation is known as a Brady offense.
Reports the Blog of Legal Times:
At heart of the defendants’ motion are statements witnesses gave to police that placed two other men at the scene, but were never turned over to defense attorneys. Cary, in his opening statement, detailed how three witnesses told police they saw a man named James McMillan in the alley. McMillan, whose house faced the alley, is serving a life sentence in the slaying of another woman, where the crime was “nearly identical” to Fuller’s case, Cary said. In another instance, Cary said police took statements from a witness who implicated a man named James Blue in the crime. The witness told police that Blue “beat the [expletive]” out of Fuller; Blue later went to jail after he was convicted in the death of that witness, Cary said.
Four people who pointed to the guilt of some or all of those defendants at the 1985 trial have since recanted – changed their stories — and D.C. Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg will hear from them over the course of the two-week-long hearing.
According to the Washington Post:
On Monday, Yarborough said he recounted the scenario that had been laid out to him by one detective hours before the taped interview, when detectives beat him. He later testified that detectives told him he would not be arrested, but he was charged with first-degree murder.
The Washington Post reports that prosecutors have “defended the handling of the original case and said the Brady claims “would not undermine confidence” in the original verdict.”
