Framed

The Norfolk Four#3

Lying snitches continue to plague the American criminal system because police and prosecutors continue to use them.

In 25 percent of the DNA exonerations to date, jailhouse snitches were used at trial to obtain the wrongful conviction.

The snitch, who’d been placed in a cell with Dick, chatted with him long enough to hear of an acquaintance known only as Eric—no last name, yet.

There was no suggestion at all that this Eric was in any way involved in the murder of Michelle Bosko, but such trivial matters were of little concern to the police.

They had to find the third killer.

The snitch passed along the name, and Glenn Ford was back in business.

He tracked down a sailor by the name of Eric Wilson (#3) and asked him to stop by the police department to answer some questions.

Eric knew Dan Williams and had heard rumors about the case.

He figured it was his turn to stop by and tell what he knew, which was nothing new.

Eric Wilson had never been interrogated by the police and had nothing, not even a speeding ticket, on his record.

He was raised in a small town in South Texas, in a strict Southern Baptist home, by parents who were very close.

An average student, he’d joined the navy out of high school and was serious about his military service.

At 10:10 a.m.

, he was led to an interrogation room, where he would remain for the next nine hours.

The interrogation by Detective Ford was his standard act: a quick disposing of the Miranda rights; routine questions that became more pointed, more suspicious; a polygraph exam, “flunked”

of course, though in Wilson’s case the results were inconclusive; then the heavy artillery.

Eric was stunned when told he’d flunked the test, then shocked at Ford’s behavior.

He would testify later that Ford was “very aggressive, very threatening, very angry, very loud.”

Ford tapped him on the forehead with his fingers, stopping only when he accidentally poked him in the eye.

Ford denies this.

His sidekick, Detective Jason Trezevant, recalled it as “probably one of the most relaxed interviews I’ve been involved in in eighteen years.”

And it probably was.

Ford cranked up the pressure, but Eric managed to hang on and deny any involvement.

Ford claimed to have plenty of evidence, his usual assertion.

He did not, however, divulge any of this evidence to the suspect.

There was certainly no physical evidence, and Eric Wilson’s name had not been mentioned in the absurd confessions of Dan Williams and Joe Dick.

A paid snitch had delivered only the name of “Eric.”

Detective Ford had somehow connected the dots, and now young Eric Wilson was being pounded with accusations that he had raped and killed a pretty young woman he’d never met.

Ford showed Eric before-and-after photos of Michelle.

Police interrogations are based on the presumption of guilt, and Ford was not about to accept any denials.

After four hours, he stormed out of the room in disgust.

Detective Trezevant took over as the good cop, and the two chatted about things other than why they were there.

The conversation drifted, then Eric made the mistake of mentioning a dream he’d had.

In the dream a young woman was in distress, something bad was happening to her, though he wasn’t sure what it was.

Eric couldn’t identify the woman, so Trezevant helpfully picked up a photo of Michelle eating a pretzel and suggested that she was the woman in the dream.

Eric said he thought so, perhaps.

The gates were now open.

Ford was back in the room, chasing the dream.

He wanted details—who was in the dream, what was happening to Michelle, where did it take place, and on and on.

Eric tried to fill in the blanks, and when he couldn’t he got plenty of help from the detectives.

Slowly, after several hours, the dream took shape.

Eric, Dan Williams, and Joe Dick were attacking Michelle in her apartment, holding her down and raping her.

At one point, Ford got tired of all the dreaming and demanded that Eric cut the dream shit and tell them what really happened.

Eric was horrified by the thought that maybe he had not been dreaming.

Maybe he had really been there, and if so then everything would make sense—the polygraph test, the evidence the police said they had, the constant assertions by Ford and his certainty of Eric’s involvement.

Confused, frightened, and with his resistance finally broken, he confessed to the rape but not the murder.

Later, Eric would say: “Eventually, it just grates on you.

And you finally say, ‘Well, these guys are supposed to be the good guys.

Maybe they’re right.

Maybe I did do it.

Maybe there’s something wrong with me, so that I don’t remember doing it.’ And at that point you just start to tell them what they want to hear.

I would have done anything—anything at all—to get Detective Ford out of my face.”

He was placed in a small cell at the police station, and there, alone and frightened, the reality of what he’d just done began to settle in.

Two months later, the state crime lab reported that Eric’s DNA did not match the blood, sperm, and other genetic material found at the crime scene.

The police suddenly had a new theory: There were four men in the gang! With no hesitation, the detectives scrambled to find the fourth suspect.

Again, instead of relying on the physical evidence, they chose to interrogate one of the first three.

Since Joe Dick was the most vulnerable, and since his lawyer was the most anxious to cut a deal, Glenn Ford went after Dick.

Under intense pressure to save his “deal,”

and thus his life, Dick finally admitted that three more men had been involved in the attack, for a total of six.

He didn’t know the other three names, but was sure that one was a George.

The fact that Dick didn’t know the names of the members of a gang that somehow got itself organized enough to rape and kill a young woman should have been a red flag, but the police were too desperate to slow down.

By this time, the young sailor had convinced himself that he was guilty and was willing to say anything.

Somehow, in the frantic world of Glenn Ford’s investigation, George morphed into a former sailor named Derek Tice (#4).

Tice had been honorably discharged from the navy, left Norfolk, and was living in Florida.

His only connection to the Bosko case was through the muddled mind of Joe Dick.

He was snatched by yet another heroic SWAT team, charged with rape and murder, and extradited to Virginia.

By the time he arrived in Norfolk to have a chat with Detective Ford, he was a nervous wreck.

His questioning began at 2:15 p.m.

, according to notes taken by Detective Don Brenner.

Glenn Ford went through the preliminaries and had Tice sign away his Miranda rights as if they were of little consequence.

A few more questions, then Ford asked Tice to tell them everything he knew about the rape and murder of Michelle Bosko.

Tice said he knew only what he’d heard, and that he’d been surprised when Dan Williams (#1) had been arrested.

Ford suddenly jumped to his feet, knocked over his chair, and began yelling at Tice to stop his lying.

Tice, stunned and afraid he might get hit, repeated his story.

Ford accused him of lying.

Ford then lied himself when he said: (1) that the other three defendants planned to testify against Tice and even claim that the attack had been his idea; (2) that the police had evidence linking Tice to the crime; and (3) that there was a secret witness who would come forward and place Tice at the scene.

Years later, Ford admitted that he might have raised his voice.

He also denied that he threatened Tice with death by lethal injection, but Tice recalled things differently.

He later said: “Every time that I would say I wasn’t there and everything, he would call me a liar and tell me that I was there, that he knew I was there, and that if I kept telling lies I would go to trial and get the needle.

Ford said, ‘You’re going to die.

You’re going to get the needle.

We’re going to make sure of it.’?”

Hours passed as the grueling interrogation went on and on.

Derek Tice began to wonder if everyone was conspiring against him.

Dan Williams, Joe Dick, Eric Wilson, the police, the secret witnesses.

He began to doubt himself, and began to lose his sense of reality.

Nothing was clear anymore.

And Ford was hammering away.

Five hours passed, and Tice still denied any involvement.

Though he was exhausted, he had no way of knowing that Ford was willing to go much longer, until there was a confession.

At 4:00 p.m.

, Tice was taken to the fateful polygraph room, wired to the machine, and questioned by Detective Will Sayre, the “expert”

at Norfolk P.D.

Sayre had also tested defendants Williams, Dick, and Wilson.

Without Ford and Brenner present, Sayre performed the exam, and at 5:30 informed Tice that he had flunked it.

The polygraph clearly showed that he had been in the Bosko apartment and had taken part in the rape and murder.

According to Tice, Sayre assured him he would get the needle, and that he, Sayre, would be there to watch the execution.

(This was later denied by Sayre.)

Sayre went on to say he knew that Ford could be a “little overbearing,”

and that if Tice wanted to confess, he, Sayre, would be more than willing to take his statement.

At that point, Tice invoked his right of silence.

He said to Sayre that he wanted to get a lawyer, and Sayre said that it might be advisable.

According to Sayre’s notes, Tice said he was not saying anything else until he talked to a lawyer.

For some reason, the business about the lawyer was ignored.

At 7:30 p.m.

, Tice was taken back to the interrogation room.

Ford and Brenner walked in and the browbeating began anew.

Accusations, denials, threats.

Lots of yelling and cursing.

Ford had a photo of Michelle.

He shoved it in Tice’s face and asked him how it would feel if that had been his daughter (Tice had a four-year-old).

Tice thought of her, and how traumatic it would be if her father were executed.

He started crying.

After ten hours, he’d finally cracked.

Years later, he remembered it this way: “Scared, alone, sick to my stomach.

I had a headache, thought Ford was telling the truth about all three of them going to testify against me, thought the polygraph could be used as evidence.

I was afraid Ford was going to hit me if I didn’t make a statement.

I wanted out of that room by hook or crook, felt trapped and that the only way out was to make a false statement…Now, I just feel stupid.”

Tice’s confession began with the basic facts, as fed to him by Ford during the early hours of the interrogation.

Ford insisted that there were others, more than just four, who were involved, and demanded names from Tice.

He mentioned a friend, Geoffrey Farris (#5), but Ford claimed the police already knew about Farris.

Who else? Pulling names from the air in much the same fashion as he was pulling facts, Tice mentioned another friend, Rick Pauley (#6).

Like the other three false confessions, Tice’s was riddled with inconsistencies.

One of the more glaring was his description of the use of a claw hammer to gain entry into the Bosko apartment.

No such entry marks had been found, and Ford knew it.

Tice also said he ejaculated during the rape.

At 1:30 a.m.

, fifteen hours after the interrogation began, Derek Tice signed his confession and was taken to jail.

Three days later, the local newspaper reported that Williams, Dick, Wilson, and Tice had knocked on Michelle’s door, then stabbed and strangled her after a gang rape.

Prosecutors said it was one of the saddest cases they’d ever seen.

Ford would later deny that he had “coached”

Tice during the confession.