Twelve people sent you a crucial message last week, in as loud and clear a voice as they could muster, one which Charlotte-Mecklenburg Chief of Police Dennis Nowicki hopes desperately you didn't get. Were you listening?
It's a message some of us have been trying to convey to you for a long time now: Dr. Ed Friedland didn't kill his wife, Kim Thomas, more than seven years ago. Marion Anthony Gales did. And the police have a lot to answer for as to their bungling, their deceit, and their attempts to cover their butts, at an innocent man's expense -- a sorry tale which continued in a shameless display of desperation, up until the very end of this unprecedented murder case.
I know how hard it is to give up your long-held judgments. It wasn't easy for me, almost exactly one year ago, as I began to examine the truth for myself, to accept the possibility that what we'd all been told for years -- that Ed Friedland was a cold-hearted wife-killer -- was a horrible mistake. You might have struggled with my assertions to you, beginning last March with a cover story in this paper entitled, "Rush To Judgment," that our police department went after the wrong man, while letting a murderer escape responsibility. And lots of people are invested in making sure you hang on to those wrong impressions at all costs.
But now that the seven men and five women -- ten whites and two blacks -- who filed somberly into their seats in a courtroom drawn tight with tension for the last time Friday morning have told you what they know, it's time for you to pay attention. Those people who listened to three-and-a-half weeks of dramatic, often unexpected testimony, stood, one at a time, having needed only five hours of deliberations to unanimously declare that Marion Gales, in a bungled burglary attempt, cut Kim Thomas' throat and left her lying dead, face-down in pools of her own blood, with her hands cuffed behind her back, leaving her infant adopted son crying in his crib, while her husband went about a normal day at three area hospitals caring for his kidney-diseased patients.
If you need help understanding how emphatically this jury has spoken to you, consider this: Marion Gales, a career criminal, who's currently serving out what was to have been a 24-year sentence in the state prison system, and who has no money, was ordered to pay $8.6 Million to Ed -- $3.6 Million in compensatory damages, and another $5.0 Million in punitive damages. They knew Gales can't pay it. They also knew making that award was the only way they could tell you how wrong we've all been about Ed -- and about how despicable the actions of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department have been. And continue to be.
Need an example? Try this one, which highlighted, in one episode, what went wrong with this case from the beginning, and what continues to stink about it now:
Last Monday, as Gales' defense team was winding up its case, which didn't defend Gales as much as it repeated all of the years of slurs against Ed, we were treated to one more twist. The prior Wednesday, a Gaston County appliance repairman had called the police with a wild tale, never before told in all these seven years, that he'd once serviced a microwave oven in the Friedland-Thomas home -- and that he'd been emotionally traumatized to find Kim looking like she'd been horribly beaten about the face and arms with something like a baseball bat. And to top it off, he said he'd seen a pair of handcuffs conveniently left lying out on the kitchen counter.
Both were critical points. No one has ever been found who'd credibly say Ed ever laid a hand on Kim -- who, as a staunch feminist, would never have tolerated such actions from her husband in the first place. And no one has ever been found who would credibly claim that Ed, or Kim, ever owned handcuffs. But Gales, a man with a violent history, did.
Such so-called "testimony" would be crucial, right? Now, guess who ended up taking the repairman's calls, and dispatched a homicide investigator to interview him? Deputy Chief of Police Larry Snider, that's who. Snider is one of the four officers who Friedland is suing personally for his actions, along with the City of Charlotte, in a separate malicious prosecution law-suit filed in June. Ask yourself this: What's the Deputy Chief doing involving himself even now in a case in which he's personally being sued?
And how effectively did the police investigate the man's amazing claims, before having Gales' attorneys attempt to get such testimony in front of the jury? You decide: Having established from Kim's appointment calendar that a GE repairman did, indeed, come to the house to fix a microwave oven on January 23rd, 1990, Ed's attorney, Dave Rudolf, cross-examined the homicide officer, outside of the jury's presence, at a hearing to determine the credibility of the repairman's story. That questioning went something like this:
Rudolf: "Don't you think it would have been a good idea to talk to anyone else who might have seen Kim that day to see if they could confirm that she had such horrible bruises on her face?"
Officer: "Yes."
Rudolf: "So, did you try to find anyone like that before bringing this so-called 'evidence' forward?"
Officer: "No, I didn't have time."
Rudolf: "Did you know that an hour after the repairman came to the house, Kim's appointment calendar says that their insurance man was there, and that he saw no such bruises on her? And did you know that the next day, she and her best friend, Jan Ellen, met with about 10 other women at a sort of Tupperware party, and that Jan Ellen will testify that there were no marks on Kim at that time?"
Officer: "No, sir."
Judge Bridges, barely restraining his incredulity, appropriately threw out the whole crazy story. The jury never heard it. But they did hear plenty more, from officers who were trapped, time after time, into admitting mistakes and incredible lapses in judgment.
They heard that, unbelievably, another of the four officers being personally sued by Friedland is still, to this day, assigned as the lead investigator charged with pursuing Kim's murderer.
They heard from Assistant District Attorney Richard Gordon, the man who'd approved bringing criminal charges of first-degree murder against Ed in 1994, and who then dropped them in pre-trial hearings in March, 1995, when he found out that the police had concealed from him all of their evidence against Gales -- something they're required by law, not to mention common decency -- to disclose. Gordon's outrage about being inappropriately used to indict Ed was, I'm convinced, a critical turning point in the jury's understanding of this case.
They heard from the supervisor of the crime scene technicians, who testified essentially that the reason there wasn't any physical evidence inside the home against Gales was because of critical mistakes.
They heard from prison inmate Jeffrey Carter, who told of his cell-mate, Gales, once confessing to him, "I didn't mean to kill that lady." And while the defense tried to discredit Carter, the jury focused on two critical points: Carter said Gales told him that, after killing Kim, he'd sat down on a few steps beside the dining room where she was found, to figure out what to do next; and that he later threw his blood-covered docksider shoes into the sewage drain. If Carter were lying -- other evidence and testimony tended to confirm both facts -- how could he have know those details? And, why would Carter lie in the first place, knowing that he'd be putting his own life at risk, being labelled a "jailhouse snitch," when he had absolutely nothing to gain?
This jury has sent you a mighty message, but some of those with the most to lose now are still trying to deceive you. Here's what Chief Nowicki said after the verdict was rendered: "It is unfortunate that the full and complete story of the Thomas murder investigation could not be presented in the course of Dr. Friedland's civil action against a jail inmate with no financial resources with which to prepare a defense . . . The Police Department stands firmly behind the four officers who have been sued by Ed Friedland . . ."
Poppycock. Gales got a month-long trial, with four attorneys -- including an ex-judge -- who, despite their protestations to the contrary, were more than likely aided by a cadre of big-time law-firm types representing the City of Charlotte, who daily monitored this trial from the back row. And it's Friedland, not Gales, who was David to the Police Department's Goliath, and it was Ed's attorneys, Dave Rudolf and Tom Maher, and their investigator Ron Guerrette, who had to pry every bit of information out of steel-clawed fingers by court orders, over a period of seven years.
The police blew this case horribly, not through malevolence, at first, against Ed, but by incompetence, and then compounded their mistakes time after time, trying to justify themselves, regardless of the absurdity of the picture they tried to paint -- and continue to do so even up to the present moment.
Meanwhile, Marion Gales -- having been found responsible for Kim's murder, and who, according to sworn testimony, has, in the past few months, threatened to kill at least three people if they testified against him -- is scheduled to be released on parole next February. Do you want this man back on the streets of Charlotte? Or is it time for District Attorney Peter Gilchrist to re-examine his apparent decision not to prosecute Gales criminally?
Listen to the jury. They're the ones who know, and who've tried to warn you that something stinks. Now it's up to you to pay attention, and to insist that the continued stone-walling end, once and for all.
It's the least we can do to make amends to a man who's wife was butchered, who once faced the death penalty in a capital murder charge, who lost his medical practice, and who deserves his life back -- as best we can manage to accomplish that.
Because the same thing can happen to you.
Jerry Klein's talk-show on 1110AM WBT (99.3FM) airs Monday-Friday, 8:00 - 11:00 pm, and Sunday 7:00-9:00pm. And you can check out Jerry's Internet web-site at: http://jerryk.com
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