Photo in Newspaper Leads to New Charge

Everybody involved agrees that Matthew Thomas McInroe’s picture appeared in the newspaper only because of a mistake in identification. But without that picture, he might not be in trouble today.

The 27-year-old Westminster man was charged in October with murder and four rapes, which led to a story about him in The Times, accompanied by his picture, in November.

Law enforcement officials now know they had the wrong man. Not only did blood tests prove McInroe could not have raped any of the four women, but police found evidence proving someone else had committed the murder.

But that wasn’t the end of McInroe’s problems with the law.

A Westminster woman who was raped April 16, 1985, saw McInroe’s picture in the newspaper, and she told police he was the man who did it.

So when the murder and first four rape charges were dismissed on May 13, McInroe immediately was charged in the Westminster rape and remained in Orange County Jail.

Superior Court Judge Luis A. Cardenas on Friday set an Oct. 13 trial date for McInroe in the new case.

McInroe, released Friday on $25,000 bail after being in jail for nearly nine months, said outside the courtroom that he keeps getting his hopes up only to see them dashed.

“Every time I’d go for one of those line-ups, I’d be confident they’d discover I wasn’t the one they wanted,” McInroe said. “I was so relieved when I found out the charges were going to be dismissed. But the same day I heard about the new case. So here we go again.”

McInroe, who had a job as a quality control inspector for a Santa Ana aluminum company at the time of his arrest, was raised in the area and still has a father and stepmother living in Orange County.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jeoffrey L.S. Robinson, the prosecutor who dismissed the first charges, agrees that fate may have played a trick on McInroe. But Robinson insists that takes nothing away from the validity of the case against McInroe in the Westminster rape.

The Westminster woman has identified McInroe in a police line-up, and a neighbor has picked him out as someone she had seen in the area that day. The rape victim emphatically identified McInroe at a preliminary hearing as her attacker.

Also, Robinson said, McInroe has a record of minor burglaries, one of which included a battery conviction because he grabbed at a woman. Robinson believes the pattern in those cases fits what happened in the Westminster case.

Attorney’s Theory

But McInroe’s attorney, Jack M. Earley, casts a more critical eye at the newspaper picture. The raped woman wasn’t looking for her attacker at the lineup, Earley theorizes, she was looking for the man in the newspaper picture.

In fact, Earley intends to try to make the original charges work to his client’s advantage.

“I hope to use the first charges to show a jury how easy it is for someone to make a mistake in identification at a police lineup,” Earley said.

The murder charge against McInroe was a result of the death of Jimmy Atwell, 35, of Garden Grove. Atwell was killed last October when he confronted a prowler who was cutting through his yard to escape pursuing police officers. McInroe, who was awaiting trial in an unrelated burglary case, was considered a possible suspect and was taken to the Garden Grove Police Department for a lineup.

Identified by Officer

One of the pursuing officers identified McInroe. Records show the officer said he was “100% sure” McInroe was the man who shot Atwell, according to Earley. In subsequent lineups, McInroe was identified by two of four rape victims. He was charged with all the rapes and Atwell’s murder.

It was prosecutor Robinson, who wants to see McInroe stand trial on the Westminster rape, who recognized the police had been wrong about McInroe in the earlier rape cases.

Robinson learned from Earley that McInroe had what the defense lawyer called “an ironclad alibi” for the time of the Atwell murder. Also, tests showed McInroe’s blood type did not match the rapist’s in the four rape cases.

It was Robinson who went back to the Garden Grove police and told them that they should go after someone else. And that’s what they did.

Other Suspects

Garden Grove police began putting other rape suspects under surveillance. One of them was Barrie Lee Hill, 35, formerly of Oceanside who had moved to Garden Grove after serving a five-year sentence for rape.

Hill ended up killing himself in a shoot-out with Garden Grove police June 22. Police tests showed that Hill’s gun had been the gun used to kill Atwell. Law enforcement officials now believe Hill also may have been involved in one or more of those rapes.

Said Earley: “We know that the police officer who was 100% sure about my client was wrong, and we know the two women who identified my client were wrong. I think a jury can be shown how easy it is to make a mistake in these lineup identifications.”

Misdemeanor Cases

Earley acknowledged that McInroe is guilty on the burglary charge pending against him and was guilty in two prior burglaries. But he says all the previous cases against McInroe have been misdemeanors and adds that his client has never done anything serious enough to earn him a jail sentence.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael C. Koski, who is prosecuting McInroe in the Westminster case, has declined to discuss many of the details. But prosecutor Robinson suggests that McInroe has no one but himself to blame for the appearance of his picture in the newspaper.

“If he hadn’t committed the burglary, no one would have bothered to make him a suspect and his picture would not have been in the paper,” Robinson said.