by Barry Siegel
He could have kept writing for many more pages, but he made himself stop. This represented a new beginning for them, and one of the happiest moments of his life. He felt like a father again after so many years of living with only memories. He had just one request: Could Ron send him a picture of his family? “I will close this by telling you once more that you and your letter have made me a very happy, proud and grateful man. I love you Son, with all my heart.”
* * *
Days later, at his home in Aurora, Ron heard a knock on his door. The mailman had a certified letter for him—really, a thick, bulging package. He sat in his living room chair for one hour, trying to get up the courage to open it. Like his father, Ron worried what words he’d find, what response. Was his dad telling him it’s too late, get lost? That would be rough, after he’d reached out. Ron kept staring at the package. From the kitchen, Deb kept calling out, Just open it. Finally, he did. His eyes fell first on “a miracle took place,” then on “I love you.” Words written by his father. Ron struggled to continue reading.
Bill had enclosed some of his poems and essays, and a few letters he’d received from the Justice Project. Ron looked through everything with mounting wonder. He found his father’s overall attitude extraordinary. No bitterness or rage, such incredible faith and conviction—it flat out amazed him. How could someone be so positive and upbeat in his situation? How could his dad have accomplished all he had while in prison? Even more now, Ron wanted to determine the truth about his father. He wanted to see the evidence.
Father and son continued to exchange letters that summer and fall. Ron wrote about his family: Deb and Megan, thirteen now, “the light of my life”; his two stepchildren, James and Sara, who called him “Dad”; and Sara’s two-year-old daughter, Taylor Ann—Ron’s granddaughter. He wrote about his job as a delivery truck driver—“put me behind the wheel of a car or big rig and I am happy as a clam.” He wrote also about his estrangement from his mom, her not approving of his marriage, not attending his wedding, “barely acknowledging” her granddaughter—“I pretty much have given up trying to fix things. With Mom it’s her way or the highway.” He told Bill he wanted to hear his father’s voice. Could Bill send him the needed forms to complete, could they arrange to talk on the phone?
Macumber wanted to hear Ron’s voice, too, but he asked if they could wait just a little while. He didn’t want to cry in front of the other prisoners. “I still find tears in my eyes just thinking of the miracle that has taken place.… There is no privacy when we use the phones here and right now I don’t trust my own emotions so please bear with me for the time being.” He didn’t yet have the photos Ron had sent because they’d arrived inside of an album, judged “contraband” by the prison authorities. He had, though, received a letter from his granddaughter, Megan, the first of many she’d send him. (“Hi! It’s me, Megan! How are you? I would like to congratulate you on all the books, novels and poetry you have written! I am a typical teenager! I love music, I love boys, I am obsessed with clothes! I love junk food! I would really like to know more about you!”) The letters from Ron and Megan had opened “a whole new wonderful world for me. I now have a family. People who care.” If Ron wanted to read any of his books—Ron had asked—he could get copies of the manuscripts from Bill’s cousin Jackie Kelley. Meanwhile, here were photos of Bill’s parents, Ron’s grandparents. “They loved you three boys so very much. Your grandpa helped you land your first fish. It was a rainbow trout and a real monster. Your grandmother used to feed the three of you homemade chocolate chip cookies all day and then wonder why none of you were ever hungry at mealtime.”
By late September, Ron was holding in his hands one of Bill’s books. His admiration deepened. “Most people might have just given up, but you have done so many special things. I have read your letters over and over and am just blown away by them. The love and caring that you have shown means more to me than you will ever know. You are my Father. I am proud of you. I respect you and I love you. Regardless of the outcome I love you, Dad.” He had, as well, come to a conclusion: “Could my mother do something like this? I believe that she could.… I do not trust my mother.… Finally to the big question. Do I believe my father is a murderer? NO. I believe an innocent man is now sitting in prison.… There is too much pointing to that conclusion. The confession of Ernest Valenzuela is the biggest piece of evidence. Also, Mom had access to the files, the cards and to the shell casings.… You should not be there and I will do everything I can to get you out.” Ron wanted his father to know one other thing: “I do have memories of you. I remember hunting in the desert for dove and quail. I remember jasper hunting and the belt and belt buckles you made for us. I remember racing BMX and the time I split my finger in the sprocket of the bike. You patched me up and I went back to racing. I remember the space capsule you made for us. I remember a lot. I have never forgotten you.”
Macumber, flooded that fall and winter of 2003 by letters from Ron, Megan and Deb, walked through the Douglas complex’s Mohave Unit as if on a cloud. Later, he wrote: “I had suddenly gone from a lonely old man to once again being a father, with the wonderful addition of being a grandfather. I can honestly say that even though I was still in prison, I had to be one of the happiest men in this world.”
He and Ron finally heard each other’s voices on December 7. As arranged, following prison protocol, Bill called collect. They had only fifteen minutes to talk, the prison’s limit. Later, Ron would not remember much of what they said, other than “hello” and “I love you.” He recalled the feelings, not the words, and the sound of his father’s voice, so oddly like his own deep baritone. Mainly, he recalled trying to hold it together. He hadn’t felt nervous ahead of this call, as he had with the first letters, but he had wondered, What will we say after all this time? In the end, it didn’t really matter. Happiness, the eerie voice just like his, the struggle to not break down—that’s what filled the fifteen minutes.
On his end, Bill, despite delaying this first call to prepare, could not hold back his tears. “I have not cried many times in this place,” he wrote Ron and Deb that evening, “but I did today.… Megan, never in his life has this old man ever heard a sweeter voice.… What a wonderful day this has been.”
* * *
It took a good while, but there came another, even more wonderful day. After exchanging letters and phone calls regularly all through 2004, talking at least once every two weeks, Ron finally made plans to visit his father in the spring of 2005. His work schedule and the family’s budget had presented obstacles, but he’d fixed on a weekend when he could make the long drive from Colorado. Deb would stay home to take care of their menagerie of animals, which included two dogs and two cats. Megan, fourteen then, would join him. He and his daughter left on Thursday, March 31, with plans for a two-day journey, Ron stopping to show Megan Phoenix, Tombstone and Bisbee. That first night, they stayed at a Super 8 motel in Phoenix. When they reached Douglas, late in the afternoon on Friday, they drove out to the prison just to make sure of its location. They did not want to get lost the next morning.
On Saturday, April 2, they rose early in their room at the Douglas Motel 6, Ron feeling impossibly nervous. They followed the same route the Justice Project team had taken two years before, back up Arizona 80, right on Highway 191, then seven miles winding through a barren reach of desert. Going through the initial gates and security process only tightened Ron’s nerves. In the entry area, where they had to show identification and pass through a metal detector, he grew even jumpier. A guard led them down the hallway, into the large visitation room full of round tables. Five steps into the room, Ron heard someone call out his name: “Ronnie?” He turned to see a man he did not know. “I’m your Uncle Bob,” the man said. This was Robert Macumber, Bill’s brother, who’d driven down from Illinois with his wife, Toots. With them were the Macumbers’ cousin Harleen and her husband, Jay, from Apache Junction. They’d all been visiting Bill regularly over the years, often taking their RVs, p
arking them ten miles from the prison in Double Adobe Campground, staying a whole week there so they could see Bill on two consecutive weekends. Jay and Harleen had even attended the Outlaw Rodeos. Bob Macumber was sixty-seven, two years younger than his brother, a bit shorter and stockier—closer to Ron’s size and build. Apparently Bill had arranged for everyone to meet this weekend. Ron felt weird at first—he didn’t remember these people—but soon they were making introductions. This is Megan. This is Toots. Bob told Ron, “You can’t imagine how long we have been waiting for this moment.” They began talking, catching up, sharing reports about their families. Ron had his back turned to the interior door where prisoners entered the visitation area. Megan put her hand on his arm. “Dad,” she said. “He’s here.” She had not seen a picture of Bill; she just knew. Ron turned around. Holy crap, he thought. He’s tall. At six foot four, Ron couldn’t remember ever looking up at anyone. He did now. Father and son said nothing at first, just hugged. Bill was crying, Ron was crying, Megan was crying. Finally, everyone sat down at one of the big round tables. Ron had only an entire lifetime to review for them. The others explained how they’d tried to find him and his brothers. Bill, a natural storyteller, recalled things he and Ron used to do together. He also spoke of his own childhood, his and Bob’s, growing up in Iowa. Bob pitched in with stories, as did Toots and Jay and Harleen.
Eventually, they started talking about the case, started to go over the many questions Ron had. Issues about Carol and her family. All the elements of what had happened. Ron learned about his Uncle Bob dating Carol before Bill. He heard more about the kitchen-window shooting and his mom’s relationship with the sheriff’s department. Bob told of how sheriff’s deputies had picked up both his and Bill’s .45 pistols for testing back in 1962. Sitting and listening, Ron thought, They can’t possibly be here concocting this stuff on Bill’s behalf. It had to be true. He’d grown ever more convinced of his father’s innocence. He regretted thinking of his father as such a horrible person for so many years. Ron dreamed of the day he’d be freed.
By Sunday afternoon, the talk had turned back to memories and tall tales. Bob told Ron he had a lot of Bill’s stuff—drafts, writings, photos of great-grandparents, army mementos—that they wanted to give him. Everyone made plans for future visits. Ron vowed to try to get back to Douglas twice a year—at least until they gained Bill’s release. That prospect sounded a gratifying final note. When visitation hours ended at 4:00 P.M., they all rose and hugged.
From the visitation area patio, looking through a chain-link fence, Bill Macumber watched Ron and Megan walk across the parking lot toward their car. Then he turned back to his cubicle. He thought he saw a great deal of himself in Ron, and a great deal of both of them in Megan. To him, reconnecting with Ron made everything else shrink to insignificance. He’d be seventy soon. If he died in prison, if he never got out, so what, it didn’t matter. These two days had been the finest and most wonderful he’d known in the past thirty years.
“My friends here have been kidding me for the last two days about coming back down to earth,” he wrote Ron on Tuesday. “I suppose I have been walking a foot off the ground since our visit, but it’s hard not to. I am happier right now than I have been for many, many years, and I’m sure it shows.”
CHAPTER 16
Playing Long Shots
JUNE 2003–JULY 2008
Since launching the Justice Project, Larry Hammond had watched class after class of volunteer law students go from failure to failure, despite their marvelous minds and energy. Innocence projects, by their nature, were often about failure. The legal obstacles they couldn’t get over, the injustices they couldn’t fix. They were always playing long shots. That they needed newly discovered evidence with verdict-changing capacity was tough enough. To accept non-DNA cases, as the Justice Project did, made it even tougher.
If only the Justice Project had paid professionals at the helm who could truly own the Macumber case. But they didn’t. Larry Hammond had his consuming private practice at Osborn Maledon, as well as various death row cases—appointments from the county and federal courts. Bob Bartels, besides his position at the ASU College of Law, served as a special assistant United States attorney for the District of Arizona. Rich Robertson had a private investigator’s firm to run, having added several PIs to his staff. The Macumber case, like the others at the Justice Project, depended on volunteer pro bono forensics experts and a steady influx of law students, who kept graduating and moving on. The Macumber case also depended on two Justice Project supervisors with distinctly different modes and outlooks. They revered each other, but Bob Bartels’s measured caution at times conflicted with Larry Hammond’s impetuous optimism. Where Hammond, far less skeptical, invariably wanted to run to court with a petition, Bartels often favored further investigation. Facts drove Bartels, feelings Hammond. The tension between these impulses now began to affect the Justice Project’s handling of the Macumber case.
In late June 2003, Bartels decided that he needed to interview Jerry Jacka once again—his third visit, the team’s fourth, to this fingerprint technician turned famous photographer. Jacka had moved from Phoenix and now lived on a 120-acre ranch near the remote town of Heber, three hours to the northeast. On June 26, Bartels drove up there alone. Since his earlier visits with Jacka, he’d had time to think about matters and carefully examine the print photos they’d obtained by court order. Despite Steve Anderson’s “gold mine” analysis the year before, Bartels still had questions. How much did Jacka really remember about this particular case? How exactly had he lifted the prints? What kind of paper card had he placed the print on? Why hadn’t he sent Latent Lift 1 to the FBI? Most important: Exactly how had Macumber’s palm print ended up on the Chevy Impala?
Bartels chewed on these issues as he drove north on Arizona 87, the Beehive Highway, then east on Highway 260 toward Heber. Gradually the scenery changed from low to high desert, then, just past Payson, to primarily ponderosa pine forest. The elevation shot up abruptly at the Mogollon Rim, the highway a steep climb now, the view at the top spectacular. Jacka’s ranch, set in a forest filled with towering pines and verdant meadows, sat at the end of a dirt road north of the highway. Bartels found the hard-to-spot spur and turned onto the property. Jacka emerged from his home to welcome him.
The photographer had preserved the historical ranch house as he added on. Bartels was impressed: the remodeling first-rate, lots of glass and views, everything rustic, the open kitchen–family room built around a big cedar tree. They settled in that room to talk, Bartels’s eyes on the tree’s thick trunk, its higher branches spreading through the twenty-foot-high ceiling. Jacka, friendly and cooperative as before, tried to answer all his questions, though Bartels’s inquiries, in 2003, concerned a job he’d done one day in 1962. Often, the best Jacka could say was My standard procedure would have been …
They started by looking at the small Polaroids of Latent Lift 1. Jacka confirmed what he’d said before—he must have taken or been given these, to help prepare for the first trial in January 1975, as they bore the date “8-23-74” and someone else’s initials. No, he did not remember how he oriented the lift tape, in relation to the chrome strip, when he lifted the print in 1962; he could only say that he probably applied the tape parallel along the length of the strip, rather than across it. He didn’t know what would have caused the relatively faint diagonal line they both saw near the top of Latent Lift 1. He couldn’t tell whether the print card represented the same latent print he’d lifted from the chrome strip in 1962. Looking at the Polaroid photo of LL-1 and one of Steven Anderson’s blowups, he couldn’t be sure whether it was a finger- or a palm print—it looked like a palm print, but sometimes you can be fooled. He had not sent LL-1 to the FBI because in the early 1960s, it wasn’t the sort of print they could characterize for purposes of searching the FBI database. He wasn’t sure why they hadn’t included LL-1 in the prints reproduced on the flyer they distributed nationwide—he might just have concluded
that the other latent prints were better for comparison purposes.
Bartels next asked Jacka if he remembered whether he’d photographed Latent Lift 1 while it was still on the chrome strip, before lifting it. Jacka had no specific recollection of doing so but said that was part of his standard operating procedure. Together, they looked at the blowup from Jacka’s file, which seemed to show the same palm print as in LL-1 but in an unlifted state on a shiny surface. At Macumber’s first trial, a Phoenix Police Department technician, Joe Garcia, had thought them identical, “one and the same.” Jacka, studying the enlargement now, agreed that it probably was a blowup of the photo he’d taken of Latent Lift 1 before lifting it. Again, though, he didn’t have a specific recollection; he’d possibly been given the blowup before the first trial in 1975.
Toward the end of his visit, Bartels shared with Jacka some of what bothered the Justice Project about the Macumber case, including the Primrose statements, the Valenzuela confessions, and Carol’s history and access to the sheriff’s file. He also told Jacka about their fingerprint expert’s opinion that the version of Latent Lift 1 used at trial, as depicted in the Polaroid photos, could not have come from the chrome strip. As best he could, Bartels explained why, emphasizing the faint diagonal line near the top of LL-1. This information appeared to energize Jacka. He knew that Bartels had a 1959 Impala’s chrome strip in his truck. Earlier he’d passed on inspecting it. Now he suggested that they take a look.
In Jacka’s garage, they studied it and the LL-1 photo, with Bartels pointing out how the portion of lift tape above the faint diagonal line in the photo appeared different from the portion below. Jacka, testing theories about the line’s provenance, put his own fingerprint on the chrome strip, but his decades-old lift tape crumbled, keeping him from completing the experiment. As they played around with his fingerprint kit, Jacka brought out some small squares of paper-thin plastic-like material, similar to photographic film. He’d sometimes used that material to make lift cards, he said. He again studied the Polaroid photos of LL-1. In fact, he added, it’s very likely he’d used this plastic-like material for LL-1. Bartels thought that significant; from experience, he knew it wasn’t hard, using Scotch tape, to lift prints off any kind of paper, but photographic paper made it easier still—a piece of cake.
