As we are celebrating Father's Day, I have two children, who will be missing their father - again. They sent cards to their grandfather, my 88 year-old father whom, thank God, is still around for them as he always has been, particularly in this decade since they lost their own beloved father. I have another card - a sympathy card - sent to us by the former sheriff of the county, which is supposed to be bringing the killer of my children's father to justice.
On June 25, 2007 it will be the 10th anniversary of the execution-style murder of my husband and companion of over 20 years. Our children, now grown at 24 and 27, are forced to not only face another year without their Dad, but they still have no legal resolution to this matter. The Dekalb County District Attorney's office has no communication with us due to the fact that it still blames me for "leaking" the story of the suspect's escape days after he was indicted in January 2007. I didn't talk to the media about the escape, although with my contacts, I could have done so very easily. But, in an effort not to compromise the investigation (or lack thereof), I implored all of my journalist friends to write very little over the past 10 years. My BFF, Nancy A. Williams, is an accomplished journalist and former editor of Essence magazine. Another BFF, Angeline Hartmann, is a producer and correspondent with America's Most Wanted. In addition, my children and I have a working relationship with our local Fox affiliate, having volunteered for a year as part of its "Call For Action" consumer protection staff which supports the investigative reporters, "The I-Team".
When a Fox-5 reporter got wind of the escape, through his own research efforts, I got a call from the DA's office telling me that if Fox aired the story, my family would be "cut out of the "information loop" and treated as if I were the media. I contacted the head DA personally, letting her know that I was not going to be made a scapegoat for her office's incompetence. I had no control over Fox and if the reporter felt that it was in the best interest of the public to know that a suspected killer was on the run in the community, who was I to object?
Throughout this investigation (or lack thereof), I have tried to take my cue from the family of slain Atlanta socialite Lita McClinton Sullivan, the aristocratic Emory and JoAnn McClinton. Their beautiful daughter was executed in 1987 in her foyer by a man hired by her estranged husband, millionaire James Sullivan, just before she was due to face him in a divorce settlement case. Sullivan avoided prosecution for almost 2 decades by hiding out in such far-flung places as Bangkok. The McClintons sat through trial after trial, both criminal and civil, right up until Sullivan was finally convicted of murder in March 2006. They maintained their integrity in the face of agonizing pain, never once losing their dignity or sense of self-respect. Ten years after the first news of Lita's murder hit the airwaves, I was faced with either taking a book from the McClinton's book of media relations or doing what I refer to "The Nigger News": standing outside in the parking lot, surrounded by everyone on the block, with my hair uncombed, a "grandbaby" on each hip, supported by my sisters, brothers, cousins, and "play-cousins" all wearing t-shirts with a picture of Louis either in his high school cap and gown or his "Pimp Daddy" prom outfit and the words "Sunrise", "Sunset", and 'R.I.P." emblazoned across the front and back. The first 6 years I opted not to speak with media at all, having my girlfriend, Nancy Williams, issue a statement that "Mrs. McCall has no comment and is in seclusion with her children". In 2003, I was contacted by Fox-5 Atlanta's "Georgia's Most Wanted" who wanted to feature the story. I had to be talked into it by the new detectives on the case and reporter, Angeline Hartmann, who was with Fox in Atlanta at the time. I did a quick interview but provided Angeline with photos of Louis with his children and with his band, a tape of his Soul Train appearances, and a Best Of Con Funk Shun CD. I wanted the world to see that Louis was more than just a case number, some crime scene photos, and an autopsy report.
After the announcement of the indictment that I fought so hard to get, I went on the news both on CBS-46 and Fox-5 at the request of the District Attorney's Pubic Information Officer Adora Andy. I was reluctant to do it but, after consulting with Angeline Hartmann, I did so with the stipulation that the nexus of the interview be about the county's need for a cold case squad. The DA's office was pleased with my position on the matter since it had a bad relationship with the Dekalb County CEO Vernon Jones, whose office refused to fund such a venture. Andy told me that the DA Gwen Keyes Fleming felt that the plea would have more impact coming from a citizen. On February 8, 2007, I even sent an email to Mr. Jones and every one of the county commissioners, begging that they allocate funds for a cold-case squad for Dekalb County, the second largest county in the state of Georgia. Again with the support and encouragement of the DA. The day after I sent the email, I got the call from the DA's office saying that Louis' killer had escaped from custody. I then made the CEO's office aware of the escape. I never got a reply to either of my emails from Vernon Jones nor any of the 6 commissioners.
I was asked by the Dekalb County Victims/Witness Coordinator to give the FBI and the US Marshal's office a change to recapture the suspect. Although I have been a publicist and writer of news releases since the age of 19 and although America's Most Wanted was a phone call away for me, I respected and honored the request. Then the DA's office went home for the weekend, leaving me without any knowledge of where the suspect was nor any kind of protection for me and my family after I put myself on "front street" by going on the news when the indictment came down. It was through my own efforts that I found out that the suspect had been on the run for three weeks before officials in two jurisdictions even knew he was gone. It was bad enough that a man who had just been indicted for felony murder was "accidentally" released on bail with an electronic monitoring device. I know that "shit happens" and that the law enforcement is understaffed and under trained. And I know that a criminal or two on "house arrest" sometimes puts his anklet around the cat's neck so that he can run to the store for a pack of smokes. But the cat can't call into the probation officer and she sure can't do it for 20 days! And then the District Attorney's office who FAXED a felony murder warrant to another state and never followed up to see if it had been received, casually tells me that the suspect has been gone for 3 weeks and cared not whether the victims family might be in jeopardy, had the temerity to accuse me of "leaking" the escape to the press when it was a matter of public record.
Well, Fox went with the story and, true to its threat, the DA's office refuses to talk to me, other than cursory phone calls from the Victims/Witness Coordinator. This, after I was assured by both the District Attorney Fleming AND the Assistant DA Dan Geary that I could always talk to them if I needed more than the "cookie-cutter" flip-card, boiler point, form-letter verbiage dispensed by the Victims/Witness staff. Yet I went on the air the following day, with my dignity intact and told the reporter that we still had confidence in the District Attorney.
On April 23, 2007, I called the prosecutor on the case to find out if the suspect had been recaptured. Know what he said to me? That he could not talk to me due to "a prior communication problem"! COMMUNICATION PROBLEM?! Oh, you meant because I would not allow your office to accuse me of a "leak" when the issue was really a "cover-up"?! COMMUNICATION PROBLEM?! The fact that I have only received a handful of phone calls or communiqués from Dekalb County, one of them a sympathy card from your former Sheriff who is now doing a life sentence for masterminding the assassination of his successor?
The suspect was finally recaptured on April 29th in Richmond, VA, the same day that I was leaving Washington, DC after a visit with my elderly parents. He was returned to Georgia on May 2. I found out about the arrest that same day, and it wasn't from the Victims/Witness Coordinator. On May 3, I gave my last news interview with Fox-5 reporter Tony Thomas. Although I did manage to maintain my dignity, á la the McClintons, there was a definite change in my tone. Then we were asked to send in a Victims Impact Statement for the judge to review during the preliminary hearings, arraignment, and other such judicial proceedings. I told the Victims/Witness Coordinator that I had to ponder that a bit. Because I felt that we had been victimized more by the justice system (or lack thereof) than by the actual murderer. He did what he did on one night in 1997. But Dekalb County has ignored us, abused us, used us, threatened us, and damaged us so much deeply than Marques Clair, age 28, of Essex County, New Jersey. Maybe if society had paid more attention to his needs, like better schooling or more than mere slaps on the wrist for his criminal behavior, maybe, just maybe, an 18 year-old boy would not have been able to put a bullet in the back of another human being's head. So callously, with no remorse. Yet I can't be mad at him. No matter how how I try - I can't hate him like I should. But I do hate what Dekalb County has done and continues to do to my own children - dragging a simple homicide case out for years as if it were the Ira Einhorn case.
Too smug, perhaps, are these lawyers. When I expressed my dismay in Dekalb's inability to recapture the suspect quickly, I was told that he "was not the brightest bulb on the tree". Yet he not only eluded law enforcement successfully for 10 years, starting while still a teenage, he got away when they finally got him in custody. Too smug and overly confident in their educations and political accomplishments. Well, that's not what it takes to catch a crook. What happened to "street smarts"? The kind that comes from 20 years on the force, developing a sixth sense, knowing when a criminal is bullshitting you by watching the vein in his neck throb uncontrollably during a well-choreographed "Good Cop, Black Cop" pressure session.
Maybe I watch too much television but I thought that the prosecutors worked with the victim's families. To help show the jury that the "deceased" was once a person. A person loved by a mother, a father, a wife, a husband, a son, a daughter, plus sisters, brothers, cousins, nieces, nephews, uncles, aunts, grandparents, grandchildren, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and just citizens who are tired of unnecessary crime.
And so we come upon yet another year. No closure. No justice. And in this case, without the support and communication of the very persons charged with securing justice. No justice for The McCalls. As it has been for 10 years - JUST US.