18 Years Later, Man Freed in O.C. Murder

A man who spent 18 years behind bars for the murder of a Burger King restaurant manager left prison Friday a free man after Orange County prosecutors called for his conviction to be overturned.

Dwayne McKinney, who was 21 when found guilty of the execution-style slaying and always proclaimed his innocence, smiled softly and clutched a Bible and some personal letters as he left a state prison in Lancaster.

Eighteen years after he urged jurors to find McKinney guilty, Orange County Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said Friday that he now harbors serious doubts about McKinney’s conviction.’

Calling his decision a “bitter pill to swallow,” the county’s top prosecutor acted after earlier in the day receiving the results of a 4 1/2-month probe by his office. Investigators found strong evidence bolstering McKinney’s assertion that he was at his Ontario home during the 1980 killing of the Orange restaurant manager.

Superior Court Judge Kazuharu Makino immediately ordered McKinney free, marking the second time in four years that a judge has responded to requests from Orange County prosecutors to overturn one of their own convictions.

The unraveling of the case against McKinney began in 1997, when a prison inmate wrote to the public defender’s office, saying he planned a takeover robbery at the restaurant. The inmate insisted that another man--currently serving time in prison for drug possession--executed the plan and pulled the trigger. A third inmate who admitted driving the getaway car that night later corroborated the story for officials.

Public defenders spent the two years painstakingly reconstructing the crime, re-interviewing witnesses and building a new case on McKinney’s behalf.

“I’m stunned,” said assistant public defender Denise Gragg, who filed the motion for a new trial, reacting to McKinney’s release.

McKinney, a former gang member, has long insisted that he was the victim of mistaken identity, despite trial testimony from four restaurant workers who pegged him as the killer.

“It’s difficult to look back in this case, having the jury decide it, and go back and find that there is another suspect,” Rackauckas said, adding that he simply doesn’t know for certain whether McKinney, now 39, is innocent or guilty. “When the victims tell you that this person committed the crime, we give a lot of stock to that.”

Jurors in 1982 deadlocked on whether McKinney should be put to death, leaving the defendant serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“Mr. McKinney is very excited that the nightmare has ended,” said Orange County Public Defender Carl C. Holmes, who represented McKinney during his second trial. “He is very forgiving of people, and he is a very religious man now. He’s taken all this in stride.”

Evidence from the outset shed doubt on whether McKinney was the killer, but it was ultimately rejected by jurors. Orange police detectives found no physical evidence linking McKinney to the crime. One detective, defense attorneys alleged in court documents, inappropriately led witnesses to believe a suspect had confessed before a lineup.

Restaurant workers initially told police the killer was taller than 6 feet, far larger than McKinney’s slender 5-foot-9 frame. And alibi witnesses testified that McKinney was at home at the time of the slaying, walking on crutches as he nursed a gunshot wound to his leg inflicted weeks earlier.

Rackauckas--then a respected homicide prosecutor--told jurors that McKinney’s alibi lacked credibility. Some of McKinney’s witnesses, the prosecutor said, had criminal records and should not be believed.

McKinney’s attorney shot back with a closing argument that still resounds.

Deputy Public Defender Christopher Strople told jurors that as a young, unemployed black man in Los Angeles, McKinney would likely have to rely on testimony from people who had run afoul of the law. Assuming that such witnesses lack credibility, he said, “is one reason why innocent young black kids get convicted.”

Holmes said he believes that race played a pivotal part in McKinney’s conviction. The case against McKinney relied purely on his identification as the killer by four white restaurant workers.

“The fact that he is black made it difficult for the witnesses,” Holmes said. Cross-racial identification, he added, is fraught with inaccuracies. He said two witnesses recently told investigators they made a mistake in identifying McKinney as the killer.

The case remained closed for 13 years.

Then the public defender’s office received a letter that changed everything.

Serving time in Lancaster prison for robbery, Charles Hill penned the correspondence to Holmes explaining what he says happened at the Burger King the night of Dec. 11, 1980. Hill wrote that he had planned the robbery but had backed out at the last moment. Instead, two friends participated. The crime claimed the life of Walter Bell, the restaurant’s 19-year-old night manager.

Manager Killed After Safe Is Opened

Bell’s killer had entered the store through a door with a broken lock and vaulted the eatery’s counter. The gunman drew a .22-caliber pistol and ordered workers to take him to their manager, according to court documents.

Noticing Bell, the assailant ordered the manager to open the safe. Bell complied. Before fleeing, employees testified that the gunman muttered, “Don’t move or you’ll get this.” A shot rang out. Bell was struck in the head. The gunman fled to a waiting car with about $2,500, court papers said.

Hill, authorities said, named Raymond Jackett, currently in Ironwood state prison for cocaine possession, as the gunman. The getaway driver, Hill contended, was a cousin, Willie Charles Walker. The two men, Hill told authorities, counted out their take from the heist in front of him that night and told him the shooting had been an accident.

Walker, a convicted rapist and robber, admitted in interviews with investigators that he was the driver that night, officials said. The killer, he told them, was Jackett.

“Apparently [Hill’s] conscience overran him after all these years,” Holmes said. “We knew Jackett was a possible suspect, but we couldn’t prove it.”

Brian March, one of the four witnesses who identified McKinney as the killer in the 1982 trial, said Friday that he has since come to believe that the wrong man was put in prison. March said new evidence that public defenders presented him with in 1998 makes him “99% sure” that McKinney wasn’t the killer.

“Gauging by what I was told, I really don’t think he did it,” March, 37, said from his Pennsylvania home.

Public defenders last year filed a motion for a new trial. Prosecutors, at first skeptical, launched their own probe of the evidence. They interviewed dozens of people, including witnesses at the time and people who could vouch for their credibility. At a meeting Friday morning, district attorney investigators informed Rackauckas about their doubts surrounding the conviction.

Rackauckas said prosecutors are reviewing whether to file charges against Jackett, who is scheduled for release from prison in three months.

“There is a substantial amount of evidence that points to Jackett,” Rackauckas said. “The case is going to remain open. Obviously, it’s extremely difficult to make a new case” against Jackett and the others.

Rackauckas, a staunch supporter of the death penalty, said McKinney’s case has done nothing to alter his stance.

“There’s always a possibility that a jury can be wrong or that the prosecution can be wrong. It’s a judgment call,” he said. “I don’t think it justifies reversing all death penalties. We did the right thing.”

McKinney’s case comes less than four years after county prosecutors asked for the release of Kevin Lee Green. Green had spent 17 years in prison for murder, but was set free in June 1996 after investigators matched DNA crime scene evidence to another suspect.

Times Staff Writer Annette Kondo and correspondent Louise Roug contributed to this report.