Legal cloud keeps ex-inmate from feeling truly free
Toledo resident Danny Brown, 45, proclaims his innocence today as emphatically as he did when he went to prison in 1982. (THE BLADE/LISA DUTTON)
By MARK REITER
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Danny Brown is trying to put his life back together after being cleared earlier this year of a 20-year-old murder, but he is stuck in legal limbo because he could be indicted again for the crime.
Although he is free from prison after nearly two decades behind bars, lingering doubts about Mr. Brown’s innocence in the death of his ex-girlfriend force him to live in uncertainty.
Mr. Brown, 45, proclaims his innocence today as strongly as he did when he went to prison in 1982.
"I feel better being with people who I love. I can go where I want to, but I still got that cloud hanging over me," he said. "Justice is what I want."
Mr. Brown, serving a life sentence for the murder of Bobbie Russell, was released six months ago after new evidence showed that he did not rape her. A Lucas County judge in May dismissed the aggravated murder charge against Mr. Brown, who spent 19 years behind bars in five Ohio prisons.
However, Mr. Brown’s freedom might be temporary. Prosecutors told Common Pleas Judge Charles Doneghy that Mr. Brown could some day be indicted again for the murder of Miss Russell, a woman with whom he had a casual relationship a few months before she was beaten and strangled in her Birmingham Terrace apartment.
A polygraph exam in April, coupled with DNA test results released the year before indicating he didn’t rape Miss Russell, helped swing open the prison doors for Mr. Brown.
Subsequently, evidence taken from the victim matched the DNA of Sherman Preston, 50, who was convicted last year of killing a Toledo woman in a similar fashion in 1983.
Having the charges dismissed isn’t good enough for Mr. Brown. He yearns for the day that the real killer is prosecuted.
"I am blessed to be out of prison. I have a lot to be thankful for. Things are going to be better some day. I am praying for there to be closure," he said.
In the meantime, he has begun the process of reassembling his life.
After months of interviews and rejections, Mr. Brown landed a job six weeks ago at a Perrysburg Township glass fabrication plant. It’s his first job since getting out of prison.
Mr. Brown, who lives in central Toledo, said he spent an entire paycheck from his $8.50-an-hour job to buy Christmas gifts this year for his eight nieces and nephews. All but one of the children were born after he went to prison.
‘‘This is my first Thanksgiving and Christmas. I want to make them special," he said.
The search for a job was long and frustrating. Newspaper clippings reporting on Mr. Brown’s ordeal were offered to prospective employers, who, either out of curiosity or concern, wanted to know the status of the pending charges.
"One of the first things they wanted to know was what is the situation with the case," he said. "Nothing seemed to materialize for a while because of my situation. You don’t know you are rejected until you don’t get the job. I was thinking they would understand and give me the job. But that didn’t happen."
The days after prison have been spent with family, getting reacquainted with loved ones. His oldest nephew, Todd, was in diapers when Mr. Brown went to prison. His youngest nieces are both 7 years old.
Mr. Brown said he rarely ventured out of his parents’ home on North Detroit Avenue during the first several weeks after his release. He said he tried to savor simple, everyday things, like the chirping of birds and dogs barking.
"The mind is a funny thing. I enjoyed those things because I had missed them. I remember being in prison and looking out the window and trying to perceive the change of nature from season to season. Those were things I didn’t appreciate before I was free," he said.
At night, Mr. Brown couldn’t sleep. He said he used the insomnia to tidy up the house.
"I had a natural awakeness. I can’t describe the feeling. I just couldn’t sleep," he said. "I cleaned up everything within reach. I washed walls, appliances, everything. I was just in that state of mind of cleaning."
A computerized state crime-fighting program intended to resolve cold-case investigations is partially responsible for Mr. Brown’s case getting new life.
The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation matched the semen taken from Miss Russell to Preston’s DNA, which was in a database of 30,000 violent offenders who have been imprisoned in Ohio.
The BCI is conducting tests on blood taken from Preston to confirm a match of the semen, which had been stored in a police lab refrigerator for years.
However, Mr. Brown was convicted largely on the testimony of Jeffery Russell, the then 6-year-old son of the victim. He testified that Mr. Brown was alone when he hurt his mother.
The boy said he saw Mr. Brown pounding on the door of their apartment on the night of Dec. 5, 1981. He said he later saw Mr. Brown break off a leg from a coffee table and beat his mother with it. She was found the next morning, strangled with an electrical cord that had been pulled from a nearby Christmas tree. When questioned by police, the youngster said two men were in the apartment during the attack that night.
Mr. Brown maintains that he has never had any contact with or knowledge of Preston.
John Weglian, chief of the special units division of the county prosecutor’s office, said the testing has not been completed. "We are still investigating," he said.
As part of the investigation, Mr. Russell, who is living near Denver, was interviewed. Investigators are also looking into whether Mr. Brown and Preston could have been together at the time of the attack on Miss Russell.
"We don’t know whether they knew each other or not," Mr. Weglian said. "We have yet to make a sufficient connection between the two of them."
The effort to have Mr. Brown’s DNA analyzed was spearheaded by Jon Richardson, the attorney who represented him at his trial 20 years ago, and Centurian Ministries, a nonprofit organization that works on behalf of prisoners they believe were wrongly convicted of murder.
Mr. Richardson and James McCloskey, founder of Centurian Ministries, pushed for two years to get the DNA testing.
"Danny is really kind of frozen until this is over. He is pretty much a prisoner of this case," Mr. McCloskey said. "We are quite frankly frustrated over the fact [prosecutors] won’t bite the bullet on this and say we are going to let this one go."
In gratitude to Centurian Ministries, Mr. Brown has given speeches at churches to raise awareness of the New Jersey-based group’s efforts to free prisoners.
The prosecutor’s unwillingness to let the case go also baffles Mr. Richardson, who has never given up on proving Mr. Brown’s innocence.
‘‘Danny Brown has lived in a cage for 20 years for something he did not do. Even though he is presently free, the state won’t say the nightmare is over. So it continues; they are searching for evidence that is not there. There is no connection to Sherman Preston. I don’t question their motives. I question their judgment," he said.