Chain of lies in Chain of Rocks Bridge case
By Redditt Hudson
Guest Columnist
The conviction and death of Marlin Gray is the result of a chain of lies and systemic abuse relating to the events that took the lives of Robin and Julie Kerry on the Chain of Rocks Bridge on the night of April 4, 1991.
The critical lie was told by Thomas Cummins, a cousin of the girls who was with them that night. He lied about jumping off the bridge.
Supposedly, Cummins jumped some 90 feet, striking the Mississippi River at an estimated 80 mph. He then swam 30-45 minutes in water that was about 54 degrees in temperature – which would cause hypothermia and then drowning, according to a Misssouri Water Patrol officer – fighting dangerous currents.
Yet Cummins allegedly emerged from the river with no real injuries, the top half of his body completely dry and his hair neatly combed.
The police exposed this lie when they made him take a polygraph exam, which he failed. When confronted with the failed exam, Cummins then confessed that he had wished for more than a platonic relationship with his cousin Julie. He said he went to hug Julie while she was on the rail of the bridge and she fell off, he blacked out, and Robin must have jumped in to save her.
He was then charged with their deaths, a charge later expunged from his record.
Cummins would later claim in a suit against the police that they physically assaulted him, threatened him and fabricated evidence in order to get him to implicate himself in the Kerry deaths. His father, Gene Cummins, present in the next room at the time of his son’s questioning, said the police had treated him and his son well.
Why, then, did the police department settle that suit, awarding Cummins $150,000 in a sealed agreement? Were they guilty of what he charged? If not, what are the implications of paying a key witness whose trial testimony was rejected as absurd by experts and law enforcement professionals? Men were sent to death row for that testimony.
If the detectives who questioned Cummins did beat and coerce him, then why were Marlin Gray’s and Reginald Clemon’s claims that they were beaten and made to issue statements implicating themselves discounted because the police denied them? Especially when their injuries were apparent after leaving interviews with the same police, in the same building, during the same investigation.
A witness described Marlin as “bloody, with his clothes torn off him.” The judge at Reginald’s arraignment, one day after he was questioned by the same officers, ordered that he be taken to a medical emergency room (Reginald was fine when he left his home with the police to be questioned).
Moreover, Marlin and Reginald were repeatedly denied requests for an attorney as they were being questioned – a clear violation of their rights. Had those rights been recognized, Marlin would probably be alive today. Yet Marlin was convicted and put to death.
The word “convicted” gives the uninitiated a sense that a decision was reached through a judicial process characterized by fairness, integrity and equal treatment under the law. But everywhere in this case we find men who were willing to corrupt the judicial process, apparently believing a conviction was attainable once they got incriminating statements from Marlin and Reginald – even when all parties agree that Marlin wasn’t on the bridge at the time of the incident and no physical evidence links Reginald to a crime.
In the words of Marlin’s white codefendant, Daniel Winfrey, whose testimony helped convict Marlin and Reginald – testimony cited recently by those who sent Marlin to his death – “No one is going to believe a bunch of niggers.”
Winfrey is alive and eligible for release soon. Marlin Gray is dead. Reginald Clemons is on death row.
Justice is what every humane person wants for Robin and Julie Kerry. Robin, Julie (and now Marlin) still don’t have justice. Get ready to fight for Reginald’s life.
Redditt Hudson is the racial justice associate for the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri.