The Missing Frames
A. “A Prayer for the City”
B. Payments to the Government Witnesses
C. The Elusive Nurse
D. The Government's Unexpected Witness
E. The Mysterious Bag Lady
F. The Medical Interns
G. More Unanswered Questions
H. G. Bissinger (Buzz), a respected investigative reporter and author, mentions the Giovanni Reid case in chapter ten of his popular-selling book, "A Prayer for the City." A former investigative reporter with the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chicago Tribune, Buzz Bissinger wrote that he spent five and a half years shadowing different figures in then Mayor of Philadelphia, Edward Rendell's administration for his book. The Pulitzer Prize winning journalist wrote on his observations of prosecutor Michael McGovern, whom he said he observed on several cases including the Reid case. In a section of his book titled, "Getting Paid," Bissinger paints a very disturbing picture of the prosecutor. He portrays McGovern as a ruthless and over-zealous egomaniac who seems to get a high on winning by any tactic necessary, including some questionable ones.
A case in point can be found in a passage of Getting Paid . Bissinger describes how McGovern intimidated government witness Tyrone Mackey before he took the witness stand. He said that the incident took place during a rehearsal on how Mackey was to testify when he took the stand. According to Bissinger, Tyrone Mackey slipped up during the rehearsal and said that Reid was at least fifteen feet away when Dwayne shot Mr. Janke, instead of he was within inches of the victim when he was shot. Tyrone's statement actually supported the diagram of each person's position that had been penned in on the police-drawn map by Richard King a year and a half earlier.
Judging from what the writer wrote next, it seems that Mackey's slip-up got McGovern's dander up because he wrote, "McGovern got in Mackey's face and stayed there with that scary and schizophrenic street look and warned him that he would be under oath and he had better tell the truth." McGovern's tactic worked because Mackey had a different recollection when he got on the stand. Buzz wrote that he testified on direct examination that Reid was standing in proximity ("within inches") to the victim when he was shot.
Tyrone Mackey was not the only witness to have placed Mr. Reid some distance away during the time of the shooting. Richard King, the other government witness who had earlier placed Reid on the police-drawn map several feet away from the confessed killer and his victim, seemed to have had an "epiphany" when he took the stand. Buzz Bissinger wrote that King testified under oath placing Reid within inches of the victim, but that he then contradicted himself under cross-examination and placed Reid several feet away from the victim at the time of the shooting. On page one hundred eighty-four in a "Prayer for the City", Buzz Bissinger also pointed out the problem with distance. He said that the witnesses had difficulty "pinpointing the exact location of Carlton Bennett and Giovanni Reid in relation to the victim." In a different sentence on the same subject, he said that they "lacked precision". Reid told me that it would be years later before former state witness Tyrone Mackey would tell him about how he had told Mr. McGovern that he was innocent just moments before the trial got underway.
B. Payments to the Government Witnesses
The Commonwealth failed to disclose to the defense and ultimately to the jury how they had placed Dajuan, Tyrone and his brother Richard in protective custody and lavished them with gifts of money and stays at several expensive hotels and luxury apartments to ensure their appearance at the preliminary hearing. They also had limousine service at their disposal. Hmm, all of this and the brothers still blundered on the witness stand. Were they trying to slip the truth to the jury when they placed Mr . Reid several feet away from the independent contemplator who robbed and shot Mr. Janke?
Several years after the shooting, in the same notarized statement to the private investigator which was mentioned earlier in the story , Tyrone Mackey recalled how the District Attorney had misled him, his brother Richard and friend Dajuan to believe that there was a "contract" out on their lives.** Mind you, Dajuan Bennett, who would have been one of the targeted victims, was living in the same household with two of his so-called, would-be executioners (his cousins - Carlton and Dwayne Bennett). Might this have been another reason for Dajuan dropping out of the witness protection program and refusing to testify? Maybe with the help of family members, he was able to deduce that the story was highly unlikely.
A couple of days after the shooting, police investigators happened upon Ms. Lorraine Hill in the same vicinity where the shooting had taken place. They used their encounter with her to conduct an on-site interview. Transcripts show that Ms. Hill pointed out for them where each person was supposedly standing when the shot rang out. Since she said that she never initiated contact with police and that she'd had no prior contact with any police officers before their chance encounter, just how did they know about her existence? And how did they know that they would be able to locate her a few days after the shooting in the immediate vicinity of where the shooting had taken place? And better yet, how did they know that she would be there at the very time they happened upon her? While on the witness stand, the presiding judge, Honorable David Savitt, questioned Ms. Hill on how the police knew about her and how they knew when and where they would be able to find her. Ms. Hill told the court that the police told her that someone had told them that they had seen a woman dressed in a nurse's uniform in the area around the time of the shooting. Funny how I never came across one police statement report where a witness (onlookers and responding police officers, etc.) mentioned seeing either a female nurse or a woman dressed in a nurse's uniform before, during, or after the shooting.
When Ms. Hill went to the police station on August twelfth for a formal interview, she told them about how she had witnessed three, dark-skinned Black males on a stoop with Mr. Janke. She went on to tell the detective that while one stood in front of him, that the other two sat one on each side. When she repeated her story to the court, the soft-spoken Lorraine Hill had to be asked several times to speak louder. In contrast to her scenario, a medical student related to the police how he had moments earlier driven by the intersection where Mr. Janke was said to have been sitting on some steps. However, he said that he witnessed him sitting alone.
Ms. Hill's unwavering testimony certainly begged for an explanation as to why Reid was seated at a defense table in the first place. Why? Because not even in one's wildest dreams could he be described as dark-skinned! Under cross-examination, Reid's court-appointed attorney, Michael E. Wallace, asked Hill if she would describe Reid as dark-skinned and she responded, "no". She was even unable to identify him in court as being one of the persons whom she said she saw locking one of their arms underneath the victim's while pulling him to a standing position where he was then walked, robbed and shot point blank in the head.
One mystery that begs for some clarification is why the prosecutor, Michael McGovern, made it a point in seemingly leading Ms. Lorraine Hill to identify herself to the court as a nurse that was on her way to work when the shooting occurred. Mr. McGovern asked, "Miss Hill, I see that you're in a white nurse's uniform, how long have you been a nurse?" and Ms. Hill replied, "three years." Conversely, one and a half years earlier and only two days after the shooting, Ms. Hill had provided her interviewer in the Homicide Division with a different occupation for herself, one that did not require the educational level or the skilled training of a nurse. In addition, her information proved that she did not even possess the educational qualifications for a skilled nursing position (Practical, Registered, or otherwise).
It seems that Reid's co-defendant's court-appointed attorney, Mr. Harrison, was interested in what Ms. Hill had been wearing on the morning of the shooting because he asked her, "And what were you wearing at that time?" and she responded, "White uniform." This was an essential question because in an earlier statement, Mr. McGovern intimated to the court that Ms. Hill had been wearing a white uniform on the morning that Mr. Janke was robbed and shot. Mr. Harrison continued his questioning with many more pointed questions concerning her nursing skills, in which she seemed to lack (Click on "Trial Excerpts").
Stranger yet, is how Ms. Hill testified to having witnessed a crime as it was unfolding, and all the while knowing that her presence was known to the so-called assailant(s). According to her police report and trial transcripts, Ms. Hill seemingly hung around the immediate vicinity before, during, and after the robbery and shooting. Further, she even told the police about what she did after the victim had been shot. The "nurse" said that she left to go to a nearby phone booth to call for help and then returned to be at the side of the gravely wounded man. Yet, witnesses (two male medical students, onlookers and police officers) only mention two men as being at the side of the gravely injured man. By the way, why didn't Ms. Hill seem to fear for her own safety? She was after all a potential eyewitness.
Reid told me that Ms. Hill was not present at his preliminary hearing. Would she have been able to identify him had she been there? Might it be that someone had already decided on guilt and innocence and thought it to be a waste of the government's time? To presume a defendant guilty is not in accordance with the constitution. If the very players of our judicial system use conjecture to decide guilt or innocence, then our very system of fairness is already corrupted.
D. The Government's Unexpected Witness
Transcripts show that before Ms. Hill testified that Mr. McGovern seemed to catch Judge Savitt off guard by calling an unexpected witness to the stand. From all indications, the judge wanted to know what happened to Ms. Hill and just what was going on. He asked McGovern "What happened to --?" and, McGovern replied, "-- Oh, she'll be testifying shortly, Your Honor."
It is my belief that McGovern might have wanted the unexpected witness to testify before Ms. Hill because the witness' professional background could help lend credibility to the jury, and also indirectly establish credibility as to Ms. Hill's professional identity. Whereas Mr. McGovern asked the unexpected witness about his professional credentials, he did not ask the same of Ms. Hill. The witness, who was dressed out of uniform, was asked questions such as, where he attended college, his professional status (professional level and/or classification) and where he was employed. In the case of Ms. Hill, he only suggested to the jury that by her wearing a white uniform to court that she was a nurse. He never came right out and asked her where she attended school, her classification as a nurse or even where she was employed.
McGovern made a pivotal move when he asked Judged Savitt if he could bring Ms. Hill into the courtroom while the unexpected witness was still on the stand. The judge wanted to know, "what for?" After McGovern explained why, he then granted him permission to bring her in. Well, it turns out that McGovern wanted the surprise witness to identify Ms. Hill to the court as the same woman that he saw a year and a half earlier dressed in a nurse's uniform at the crime scene. Though Mr. McGovern asked the witness where he was and what he was doing when the shot rang out, he never asked the same of Ms. Hill. Why not?
McGovern seemed very concerned about the distance between the street that the unexpected witness lived on, which was the seventeen hundred block of Kater Street and the intersection of Seventeenth and Bainbridge Streets, an intersection that is located a half a block south of the seventeen hundred block of Kater Street. But, why such an interest in that intersection when it is in the opposite direction of where the shooting took place? McGovern wanted to know because that was the direction in which the suspects allegedly ran. Anyway, the witness approximated the distance to be "forty feet." If his answer is correct, then I am left to guess that the distance between Bainbridge and South Streets - the area where the crime took place - would be roughly eighty feet. I will get back to the unexpected witness and why I think Seventeenth and Bainbridge Streets might hold the key to many unanswered questions; and I don't mean which direction the suspects ran, either.
A major sticking point in the Commonwealth's prosecution of Reid can be found in the police interview statement report of government witness, Richard King. When King was asked by a homicide detective at the end of his interview, "Is there anything else you can add that you think might help us with this investigation?" he answered, "just the crazy lady, she saw most of it too." King had mentioned this woman earlier in his interview when he said, "and there was a lady on the phone carrying a lot of bags, like a bag lady, and she looked at us, and I told her to 'just go ahead.'" (I wonder if that was an anticipatory response, as in "go away; don't come over here bothering us, leave us alone.")
Richard King's police interview took place on August sixteenth, four days after the police had stumbled upon Ms. Lorraine Hill in the same vicinity where the shooting had taken place. While the late King can not tell us what he meant when he told the bag lady to "just go ahead", Dajuan Bennett and Tyrone Mackey probably could tell us, since they were the two who had been walking with him when the incident took place.
Another puzzling question is why Lorraine Hill never once mentioned in her police interview report anything about a bag lady, since according to her testimony, she was an eyewitness from the beginning to the end. Could Richard King have mistaken a professionally dressed nurse (in a white uniform) for a bag lady? If he had, other than the bags, what else was it about her appearance that might have made him think that she was a bag lady? For that matter, what was it about her behavior that morning that made him think that she was "crazy"?
Incidentally, Ms. Hill had described an encounter to the police that certainly bared some similarity to Richard King's experience with the bag lady. She told them that, "I was walking on the south side of South Street towards Seventeenth Street coming from Eighteenth Street . As I got to the drug store door near the corner, I saw a Black male come across Seventeenth Street , walking towards me on the same side of the street. (This would corroborate King's encounter with a woman; that is, if Hill was indeed that same woman.) She went on to say, "I thought he was going to take my pocketbook, so I crossed the street to the north side of South Street ."
As absurd as it might seem, if King had mistaken Ms. Hill for a bag lady, then she may have crossed the street after he purportedly said to her, "just go ahead". In addition, Ms. Hill also told the police detectives that "The Black male then walked back to the southeast corner to where I saw a White guy sitting on the step and two Black guys sitting there too." She added, "I knew the White boy was in some kind of trouble by the expression on his face." Just where was Ms. Hill standing that she could see the expression on the victim's face, since she said that one of the assailants was standing in front of him? I could not help but to notice how her precise directional usage in her police report did not reflect the same type of language used throughout her court testimony (Click on "Trial Excerpts"). Aside from that, when the B lack male began walking in her opposite direction, why didn't she choose that opportunity to vacate the area, since she said that he had made her feel uneasy?
Now, back to why I feel that Seventeenth and Bainbridge Streets might hold the key to some unanswered questions in this case. The elusive bag lady seems to figure prominently here. Dajuan Bennett and Tyrone Mackey also mentioned this shadowy figure in their statements to the police. Mr. Mackey told the police, "We was walking on the left-hand side of the street and there was a lady at the phone booth at Seventeenth and Bainbridge. Rich said to her, 'don't worry, we're not going to do nothing to you.'" (I must admit that I was taken aback when I read that. Why? W-e-l-l, not that they don't exist, but I have yet to meet a young, Black man living in the hood who goes by the nickname of "Rich". Corporate America ? Yes. Hood ? No.)
If Mackey's recollection is correct, then King's announcement might have been to allay the fears of a woman who might have mistakenly thought that one of the three, dark-skinned men walking in her direction was going to try and snatch her pocketbook. Nevertheless, it still isn't clear why King thought the woman to be "crazy". Maybe he heard the "bag lady" muttering into a telephone, as he, Dajuan and Tyrone were about to pass her on their southbound walk on Seventeenth Street towards home. Or, maybe she was ranting and raving over the phone in an incoherent manner. Nevertheless, it was immediately after that encounter that Mackey told the interviewer, "that's when I heard a gunshot."
Another point of interest is where Ms. Hill related to a homicide detective that before police or paramedics arrived on the scene that two doctors had been tending to the gravely injured man. She said, "one of the doctors said he had seen them also when he pulled into the garage." In addition, when the detective asked her, "Did anyone tell you about this incident?" she answered, "just the doctor that was working on the white boy, he said he saw what happened." Conversely, while testifying on the witness stand nearly a year and a half later, she said that ".and I told the doctor that was there on the scene what had happened." followed by, "I told him that he could tell the police, and I left and went to work."
Ms. Hill also told the interviewing detective that although she had walked down the street to dial "emergency" for Mr. Janke, that she left before paramedics arrived. She further stated to them that when she walked back to where the gravely wounded Mr. Janke lay, that the two "doctors" were there administering aid to him. Puzzling is what she said happened next. Ms. Hill said that she did not mention to the responding police officers that she was an eyewitness to the crime. Her explanation was that, "The police made me move back and I told the doctor I had to work and I left."
Police Officer William Gibson stated in his report that other arriving officers "began to search for witnesses to the shooting" after paramedics arrived. Police Officer Lonize Anderson must have been one of those officers because she wrote in her statement, "I started asking people if they saw what happened or heard anything." ( Since it appears that the first arriving officers might not have asked the standard question of possible witnesses, I must assume that Ms. Hill left before "other arriving officers began to search for witnesses to the shooting.") Continuing, Officer Anderson said that, "Two doctors or male nurses, # [sic] Steve Baker, and #2 Rodney Finalle [sic] that they saw males standing around this guy & then heard a gunshot. They said that the males ran south on Seventeenth Streets after the shots."
Ms. Hill's story parallels that of a medical student. The intern told the police how while on his way to pick up a "fellow student" for a meeting at Presbyterian Hospital, that he noticed a man, later identified as Mr. Janke, "alone, sitting on the steps of a building on the southeast corner of Seventeenth and South Streets." Might Ms. Hill have mistaken this intern for a doctor?
One of the interns, identified as Rodney Finalle, told the police that "there were approximately four to five Black males milling around this corner, they did not have contact with the White male at this time." The intern who is now a doctor said that he drove past the intersection and parked close by in front of his "fellow intern's" apartment building. While his peer was standing in his doorway, locking his front door, is when Dr. Finalle said that the two of them heard the sound of a nearby, single gunshot.
According to Dr. Finalle, he and his passenger then drove around to where they thought the sound had come from. They quickly came across the body of Mr. Janke, (a medical student just like themselves) lying gravely wounded at Seventeenth and South Streets. While Dr. Finalle waited in his car, he said that his passenger ran a very short distance to his apartment to call the police. Dr. Finalle's passenger was the unexpected wit ness who testified a year and a half later that Ms. Hill had been dressed in a nurse's uniform on the day of the shooting. He too is now a physician. His name is Dr. Stephen Baker.
Dr. Finalle told the police during his interview that "There was a Black female, (forty-years-old, short, medium build, wearing a windbreaker-type jacket. She was on her way to work) who came up and stated she had seen what happened, she could not wait because she was on her way to work." Why didn't Dr. Finalle mention a "nurse" or a woman dressed as a nurse when describing this "mysterious" witness to the police? Why would he think a "windbreaker-type jacket" would be more identifiable than a white uniform of any kind?
Conversely, there is no mention of a woman approaching the interns, or a woman dressed in a white uniform, or a female nurse for that matter, anywhere in Dr. Baker's police interview report. He did, however indicate to the police that while he was standing in front of his doorway, that he saw three, young, "dark complected" males running south on Seventeenth Street. He even gave them a description for their approximate height and weight: "none of them looked large and none looked skinny." Did the police ask Dr. Finalle if the "lady in the windbreaker-type jacket" on that August morning left any identifying information with him (so that they could contact her later)?
Was it just coincidence that the "lady in the windbreaker-type" jacket's conversation with Dr. Finalle mirrored the same conversation that Dr. Baker testified in court that he had had at the crime scene with a "nurse," later identified as Ms. Lorraine Hill? Just to reiterate, Dr. Baker's police statement report did not mention him having a conversation at the crime scene with anyone. What was memorable about Ms. Hill that Dr. Baker would be able to identify her in court one and a half years later? By the way, why wasn't the "lady in the windbreaker-type jacket" called in to testify?
Why did the police and onlookers readily assume that the interns were members of the medical community and not the nurse? The interns were dressed in scrubs that morning, so why wasn't the same professional identity assumed of Ms. Hill who was said to have been dressed in a white uniform? Again, there was no mention of a nurse being present in any of the police interview statements that I have on hand.
So, just when and how did the police learn about a nurse being in "the vicinity" around the same time the crime took place? Remember, when asked a similar question by Judge Savitt, Ms. Hill testified in court that the police who conducted the on-site interview told her that they knew about her because someone had told them that they had seen a nurse walking in the vicinity. But who was the person that told them that?
Ms. Hill stated that the police made everyone move back and that was
when she left. But, why would they have asked a professionally dressed
nurse before medics arrived to move back, and yet not ask the same of
the interns? The police evidently thought highly enough of the two interns
that they not only included them inside of the roped off crime scene,
but they even asked one of them to go inside of the victim's
pockets and pull out his wallet.
Although the image of six depraved males roaming around Philadelphia looking for a victim probably left an indelible print on the minds of the public, in the final analysis, the Commonwealth had to go along with Ms. Hill's whittled down version of there having been only three assailants. And, it didn't seem to matter that the two on trial did not even match her description. It was established that Reid and the other five young men were present during the time of the shooting, so why didn't Ms. Hill see the other three? Despite the fact that they were separated by some distance, Reid contends that they were all still in eyeshot of one another. This is conceivable if all six young men were on Seventeenth Street . But, where would that have placed Ms. Hill?
Where was Ms. Hill standing that she did not notice a six-foot, sixteen-year-old, light-skinned Reid? Might she have been standing on a side street where he was not in her viewing range? Maybe the "bag lady" who King said was at a phone booth at Seventeenth and Bainbridge could help shed some light on this perplexing question since he said that "she saw most of what happened." The answer might clear up why Reid never saw Ms. Hill nor she him. If Ms. Hill was on Bainbridge Street at Seventeenth, it would have put her in eyeshot of the original three state witnesses - the late Richard King, his brother Tyrone Mackey and friend, Dajuan Bennett. Supposing this is true, it would then help to explain why she not only kept insisting that the assailants were three, dark-skinned Black men, but it would also shed some light on why she never mentioned seeing the other three men (Giovanni Reid, Carlton Bennett and Dwayne Bennett).
Just whom was Ms. Hill describing when she spoke of the Black male whose presence frightened her as he walked in her direction? She told the police that the same person who shot Mr. Janke was the same person who had earlier frightened her as he walked in her direction. Might Ms. Hill have been confused about what she saw since it had already been established that a light-skinned Reid (who would have stood out from the others) was positioned closer to the end of the block to where the confessed shooter stood? This would mean that her description of one of the three, dark-skinned men as the perpetrator of the crime is inaccurate.
I questioned Mr. Reid about the complexions of King, Mackey and Dajuan Bennett and he told me that all three, including the late Richard King would be considered dark-skinned men. I also asked his mother about the complexions of the five young men who were present on that fateful morning. She told me that she did not know Dwayne Bennett and had never heard his name before "Jerry's" (Giovanni) troubles. But, she told me that she knows Dajuan and Tyrone and that she can vouch that they are of a dark complexion. During my daughter Rosie's investigation, she observed for herself that Reid's co-defendant, Carlton Bennett, is brown-skinned. Apparently, Ms. Hill agrees with Rosie (See "Commentary").
When I questioned Reid about the bag lady, he seemed oblivious. He told me that although he had read mentions of a bag lady in some of his paperwork, he never thought twice about it. Furthermore, he said that he never saw a bag lady on the morning in question or a woman dressed as a nurse, for that matter. He went on to say that the only persons that he ever saw in the immediate vicinity were the five people with whom he had been with since the time Dwayne and Carlton Bennett joined them, and of course the victim. He seemed very surprised that I was showing an interest in her. Why didn't anyone question the bag lady? Why was she not at the preliminary hearing or trial, since Richard King said "she saw most of it."?