On August 10th, 1984, John Ewing
received a call from the Ann Arbor Police Department advising him to report to the station
immediately because his "property had been recovered." (Ewing had earlier filed
a stolen property complaint).
Shortly after arriving at the station he was locked in an interrogation
room with Detective Eskridge who began questioning him about the Pattie Morris Incident.
Eskridge agreed with Ewing that "nothing improper had occurred
between Ewing and Morris but that his concern was about a 2nd incident in the same area
where a woman actually had been raped." Eskridge said he needed a Polaroid
of Ewing to "clear his name of this sexual assault case."
Eskridge testified (pre hrg 1984)
that he made up the 2nd incident to get Ewing's photo. Ewing stated that he wasn't allowed
to leave the police station until he succumbed to several pictures.
Eskridge also testified that he never wrote a
report about the photo incident. (He also didn't write a report
at the time of the Morris incident because nothing occurred. And as for the sudden
appearance of the forged sketch - drawn almost a year after Coltrain's attack - no police
report was written.
Eskridge testified that Ewing
wasn't evasive about getting photographed. He preferred, however, to offer
gas receipts to prove he was out of town during the time of Eskridge's made up incident.
Eskridge admitted under oath that he
never read Ewing his rights per Miranda.
Don Ferris, Ewing's attorney in 1984,
questioned Eskridge about his motive for the photo. It was obvious to Ferris that Eskridge
viewed Ewing as a viable suspect and intended, all along, to use the the photo to get a
positive ID. Eskridge denied such motivation but within days of obtaining the picture he
held a private photo show-up with the CSC complainants.
The result was 5 coerced positive ID's naming John Ewing as "the rapist."
Jensen Case
Wright Case
Coltrain
Case Bitterman
Acquittal
Each Woman's testimony documents how
tainted the photo show-up was...
