Following are some of the issues raised concerning the suggestibility of Eskridge's methods to secure a positive ID from each witness. The courts ruled that the photo showup was "properly conducted."
 | Ewing's was the only Polaroid in the stack. The other photos were police mug shots with info written on them. |
| A proper photo show-up should contain pictures that look similar to each other. Judy Coltrain testified that only Ewing's photo showed a hair style and mustache close to the description of the person who attacked her. |
| Colleen Bitterman was raped by a man with no sunglasses and long curly hair. She testified that she was shown the photos 3x before making her positive ID. Ewing's photo was kept out of the first two showings and then inserted the third time. (Ewing was acquitted of that Livingston County Case). Bitterman was the only complainant to make a positive corporeal ID of Ewing. But she also testified that she had seen news articles about Ewing's arrest prior to attending the physical lineup. The lineup sheet contained the names of the men in the lineup. |
| Bitterman was also told by police that she was the fourth person to identify Ewing at the photo show-up. |
| Stacy Arronson, another Livingston County case, described her attacker as similar to Bitterman's - a man (unlike Ewing) with long curly hair. Yet, after being alone with Eskridge at his private photo show-up she identified Ewing as the man who attacked her. (Livingston County dropped charges against Ewing in the Arronson case). |
| Kaye Jensen never attended the photo show-up. She went to a corporeal lineup and failed it 2x. She later testified that "after being alone with my detective in the parking lot she was pretty sure it was Ewing." When in the courtroom she was asked to "identify the man who had raped her," she pointed to John Ewing. |
| More suggestibility is illustrated in the following bits of testimony: |
None
of the complainants was sure of her photo ID. But with time, publicity,
and Eskridge solidifying their memories, they came to believe that John Ewing was a
dangerous "serial rapist." The oldest case was Carol Wright's (5
years). Yet she, like the others, became convinced that Ewing had raped her.
Perhaps most egregious in the way Eskridge handled the photo show-up
was the fact that he told the complainants that Ewing had tried to rape Pattie Morris and that she had made a similar
complaint.
Another outrageous tactic was the manipulation of the photo. Carol Wright & Judy Coltrain were both raped by a man wearing sunglasses. They both later testified that when Eskridge showed them Ewing's photograph he covered the eyes so as to simulate sunglasses.
The more
time the complainants spent with Eskridge and each other, the more
"similar" their cases became...thus perpetuating the "serial rapist
theory." Two descriptive points of Carol Wright's attacker were changed 5 years
later to match the description of Judy Coltrain's attacker. In her 1979 police
report Wright said the attacker had a beard. She also said he wore sunglasses.
The term "aviator" glasses was introduced by Judy Coltrain in 1983 when she
described her attacker. By the time Wright testified about her attack she
"remembered that her attacker also wore aviator style glasses."
