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Another
Drama
Attorney Bill Kiger insisted that "nothing Matched" in
the McCrady case, but the state had a different story.
I didn't have a story, I just wanted to hear the truth of the
matter, so I could try to figure out who had used "my story"
... or stories to design homicides, because even at trial time I
remained convinced that someone had taken some old stories that I'd
written back in 1991 and converted them into outdoor dramas!
Tire
Tracks
The tire tracks were said to have been visible right up to the
grave. Sounded to me as if whoever put Jenifer into that shallow, hand
dug grave, had driven right over to the hole {actually it was holes,
because there were two graves dug} and deposited her body in the grave.
I didn't think my T-Bird could be driven down into that area and unless
Jackie McCrady had changed tires on his police cruiser, it was not the
vehicle driven into the area either, and neither was Jenifer's blazer
or Jackie's Toyota truck, or the Mustang he was working on restoring. None of
the tires on any of their vehicles matched the prints that were found.
When Beyond Chance aired their story called The Trooper's Wife, a
vehicle was parked at the parking area on the access road, and a body
was depicted as being carried from the vehicle over to the burial spot.
I tried to object to the television version.....actually it was
Dave Garvey's version, since he was the star of the program!
But, the news media being what it is
in this area, my objections didn't get very far. Still, the TV version
was not the version presented in the court room, but since the tracks
could never be matched to McCrady, then I guess it made good sense to
change the story just a little bit so that strangers could see what
"must have happened."
And, after all, it didn't really
matter if the tracks matched or not. Personally I was still wondering
who made those tracks. If Jackie McCrady really was guilty, had he had
an accomplice? Did someone else haul the body to the grave site?
Eventually I decided this was not
probable, as McCrady surely would have told someone, and the accomplice
would have been arrested too.
Fibers
Several pink fibers were found on the sleeping bag. Everyone said
they were "consistent with carpet" fibers. The McCrady's
didn't have pink carpet any where in their
house ... or their vehicles. The "pink fibers" were
never actually traced back to anyone or anything, although the state did a
pretty good job of convincing most people that the old carpet in the
McCrady house must have been pink, and therefore the fibers had come
from it.
There was never any actual evidence, much
less proof, that the old carpet had been pink.
The former owners of the McCrady house remained their neighbors,
and did testify at the trial, but there was no mention of the color of
the old carpet. I was betting it wasn't pink. Otherwise the state would
have made a real issue of it. And why the defense didn't jump on the
issue with both feet, remains another of those
unanswered questions.
And so, the color of the fibers was added to that
"iffy" list that I had tucked away in my mind.
Eventually the list would become about a mile long. And for those
who are following the "behind the scenes" drama of that
other guy; you remember, the one seen hanging around the McCrady
property and watching their house from a distance; the one who had the
name "Jenifer" written in a diary right at the time that
Jenifer and Jackie McCrady were separated; the one who bought a
sleeping bag "like the one Jenifer was found dead in" ...
yes, that guy. Would you believe that I helped "that guy"
install pink {mauve} colored carpet in his bedroom in 1991!
Now isn’t that a
coincidence!
ATTENTION:
Someone
- everyone better read the newly posted story -
The Real
Dummy
Not
My Words
It was Jackie McCrady's attorney Bill Kiger who first uttered the
words, "Nothing matched," but I was probably the first one to
"think them!"
Probably because I'd already watched another man convicted of a
murder in which none of the evidence matched! {See The Hootin' Honey for details}:
Bill Kiger had been his attorney too. I'd written to Kiger back
at that time and told him he would soon be needed in another case, and
for God's sake watch his p's and q's and get ready for the fight of his
life. Apparently he thought I was a flake and didn't pay any more
attention to me. That might have been a bad mistake.
Sleepwear
Jenifer's sleepwear didn't match. The top didn't match the
bottoms, and the top that did match the bottoms was never found. They
said her top was a long Christmas, Mickey Mouse nightshirt.
I figured that would be appropriate to sleep in during September
in our area.
The nights were still pretty warm here in mid-September. The
neighbors testified that their windows were open the night of September
19th, 1996, so it must have been a nice night.
They claimed Jenifer was also wearing a pair of pink silk pajama
bottoms.
First we heard the top was red, then we heard it was white and
finally multi-colored, so who knows for sure what color it was?
The thing that bothered me was the miss-matching of sleepwear.
Women who normally slept in night shirts didn't usually wear pajamas.
Likewise, those who favored pajamas usually wore matching top and
bottoms.
For a while I thought maybe the top to the pajama's
was dirty and in the laundry, but that never panned out and the
matching pajama top was never located during the 3 or 4 searches of the
McCrady household.
A
Couple Of Things Matched.
Pillow shams that matched the comforter that
Jenifer was wrapped in were found in the attic storage area of the
McCrady house.
I wish I could have compared the coloring of the shams to the
coloring of the blanket. I wondered if the shams were a lot brighter in
coloring.... which would indicate {at least to me} that they had been
stored away for some time, while the cover had been used and washed
more.
I also wondered if Jenifer hadn't donated the comforter to her
friend P. who sold it in a yard sale the year before.
But it didn't do me any good to wonder. The shams matched and
that was that.
There was some yellow fiberglass insulation
found on the sleeping bag. It matched the fiberglass insulation in the
McCrady house .... my
house .... my daughter's house .... my cousin's house, and probably 10,000 other houses
in this immediate vicinity. The state contended that it also had found pink
carpet fibers on the pillow shams that matched those found on the
sleeping bag. They held fast to their convictions that the sleeping bag
and the pillow shams were stored in two different places in the house.
And, they say the trash bag matched, but
there again, that couldn't actually be proven since the crime lab lost
it! They said
Jenifer's killer had pulled a plastic trash bag over her head. The bag
contained a red draw string. They found white trash bags with red draw
strings at the McCrady house, so they had another match. They wouldn't
have found any of these trash bags in my house, had they searched it,
because the first thing I did was get rid of the ones I had! There
again, depending on the size and brand of trash bag, you're either
going to get a red, blue, or yellow draw string. There was probably
matching bags in every household in southeastern Ohio; except mine, of
course.
Another thing the McCrady case taught me very quickly was ... you
do NOT use large black trash can liners to store things like blankets,
extra pillows, out of season clothing, etc. etc. I heard them say that
Jackie McCrady had "hidden" the pillow shams in large trash
bags and hidden them in the attic. Bet I got the cleanest attic in
Ohio!!!! It probably cost me a couple hundred bucks, but I replaced all
those black plastic "storage bags" with large plastic
containers with snap on lids. Then, just in case I showed up dead and
buried somewhere, I decided I'd better write on each container and let
everyone know what was inside it. That would save our cops a lot of
hard work, not to mention Mike's butt! He'd never go to all that
trouble anyway. Knowing him, he'd throw a big party, build a bon fire
and roast marshmallows over the evidence!
The
Hair Didn't Match
As previously mentioned in other stories on
this web site, there were several hairs found on and around Jenifer
McCrady's dead body. The most interesting one to me was the one found
clutched between two fingers on her left hand. It was a dark colored
hair of approximately 3 inches in length. It wasn't Jenifer's and it
wasn't Jackie's. In fact, none of the nearly dozen hairs found
belonged to either person. I thought this was astonishing. Guess I was the only
one who felt that way though, all things considered.
I just kept wondering if the 3 inch hair was tested to see if it
contained hair dye. A lot of men dyed their hair now days, just like
the women did.
Heck, I once knew a guy who dyed his hair, which was usually
about 3 inches long in the back, and dyed his beard and mustache too.
'Course he was pretty vain. I was the person who introduced him to the
For Men Only hair coloring for men.
We always used the brown/black on his hair; back when I knew him,
back when we were friends; back before I figured out that he was using
me for cover and a semblance of normalcy. Boy did he pick the wrong
woman!
The
Testimony Didn't Match
Probably one of the most important things in the McCrady case was
the testimony of expert witnesses.
Among the first expert witnesses to testify for the state was Dr.
Lee Lehman, a forensic pathologist with the Montgomery County Medical
Examiner's Office in Dayton, Ohio.
Lehman testified that Jenifer had bruising on her hands and
ankles, indicating she had been bound {although she was not tied up
when found}, but Lehman said ... "He didn't know what she was
bound with other than to say it apparently was a soft
material that did not cut into her skin."
The next day, this same doctor was on the witness stand again.
This time his testimony was somewhat different..... "The
skin around her hands and ankles has actually been worn and torn
off," Lehman said.
This opened the door for the "flexi-cuff" theory, and
by the end of the trial the prosecution was showing pictures of someone's
hands {they claimed they were Jenifer McCrady's} that had almost been
severed, by something very hard and rough, flexi-cuffs, or so they
claimed.
I didn't claim anything at this point. I was too confused. Their
own witness had told two completely different stories and no one
noticed!
The local newspapers reported, "Jenifer McCrady had
ligature marks above her ankles, bruises on her neck, and
defensive-type wounds on her hands and a post-mortem, V-shaped cut at the base of
her right thumb."
Dr. Joshua Perper, chief medical examiner in Florida, was a well known and respected pathologist who has
written numerous books on forensic pathology and co-authored
"Medicolegal Investigations of Death."
His testimony was in stark contrast to that of other pathologists,
in as much as he testified that Jenifer McCrady had not been buried the
full 12 days that she was "missing."
***** See
- THE REAL DUMMY! *****
Dr. Perper based his findings on a lack of marbling of the skin,
little or no slippage of skin and no decomposition of organs.
But it was Perper's reference to "a bite mark" on
Jenifer's cheek that woke me up!
One of the prophetic "clues" that I'd sent to Detective
Winstanley prior to Jenifer's disappearance had included the words; "his
next bite will come from my green eagle." Granted, it sounded strange,
even to me at the time I said it, but later, after Jenifer was killed,
and I learned that her husband had dated my sister, who lived on Greene Street and owned a Native
American gift shop called the Eagle's Gift shop, I had no problem
recognizing ‘my,’ ‘green’ and
‘eagle.’ There were other things that also identified this
portion of the warning and those can be seen elsewhere on this web
site. But Dr. Perper's testimony was the first reference to
"bite" mark that I'd heard.
I also wondered about the "V" that had been cut into
Jenifer's hand after she was dead. It reminded me of that other case
that Attorney Kiger had handled. In that case the woman had been
stabbed in the neck 4 times after she was dead!
It made me wonder what kind of "boyfriends and
husbands" these women had. Wasn't killing them enough? What kind
of man "cuts his victim's after death?" A sadist, that's what
the FBI Profilers called them. Most sexual sadists didn't wait until
their 30's or 40's to become sadists. Usually there were many, many
signs early in the person's life. Only in this area could such a
retarded developer become a state trooper!!! And to think he was
"Trooper of the Year" just one year before he killed his
wife!
Dr. Perper also testified that Jenifer had "scratches or
abrasions on her back which indicated to him she was pulled or dragged
prior to her death."
"There is no indication of this on the
autopsy report, but those scratches or marks clearly show a
pulling," Perper said.
Perper's testimony conflicted with that of renowned forensic
[anthropologist] William Bass, who said Jenifer most likely died 10 to
14 days before her body was found.[ Note: In a round
about way, Dr. Bass also agreed with Perper. Jenifer was missing
12 days. If she had been buried [10] of those days, then Dr. Perper was
right when he said she had not been buried the entire time she was
missing, or dead! Bass also disagreed with Perper concerning the
marbling, skin slippage, and the "bite mark." I thought it
was strange though that Dr. Bass quoted several things from Dr.
Perper's book. I suppose this is why the defense asked Perper to testify .... so the jury
could see that he did not agree with the other doctor's
"interpretation" of his work.
Didn't matter. No one cared. Still, I knew how the man felt. It
was a rare person who could accurately interpret the meaning of another
person's work. And it was even more unusual for people to take the word
of the interpreter when the author said they were wrong? Well, anywhere
else it might be unusual, but not here.
Appearance
Didn't Match
Jackie McCrady suffered a stroke in July of 1996 and was off from
work until September 18th, 1996.
A few days after Jenifer was found
Jackie McCrady was arrested for her murder. When weighed, his weight
was 195 pounds.
At the time of his stroke in July his weight was documented at
198.
First testimony indicated that McCrady "lost
an enormous amount of weight and looked frail and thin."
Then, without hesitation, and in support of the state's
"steroid abuse" theory, McCrady regained his 'muscle
mass, and body weight,' and looked 'puffed up.'
Of course the contention was that he had gone into a 'steroid
rage' and murdered his wife!
Several experts testified about steroid use and how 'rages' were
known results of such use and abuse. And how 'rapid weight gain' was a
result of such use. However, the thing that concerned me the most was
the fact that those same experts said steroids stayed in the system for
up to three months even after they were stopped. I couldn't figure out
when McCrady had used steroids ..... and neither could they!
He'd had blood work when he was hospitalized in July. There were
no steroids or any other 'drugs' found in his system at that time.
And of course he was tested again after his arrest, and there
were no drugs of any kind found.
There was never any more than a three pound difference in the man's
weight. I wondered if this would be typical of steroid use. And there
wasn't any 'three month' time period in which the steroids could have
been worked from his system. If he had no steroids in his system on
July 4th, went into a steroid rage in mid- September, but had none in
his system when he was arrested in October, then I wondered when he'd
used them.
The
Glove Print
There was one smudged 'glove print'
discovered on the plastic trash bag found over Jenifer McCrady head.
The defense said they submitted one of McCrady's gloves for comparison.
It didn't match. No
one ever knew how the print got there or when. It was just like the
hair. If it wasn't Jackie McCrady's then toss it aside, forget it, and
let's get to hell on with this 'conviction.'
Personally, I wondered if the smudged print lined up with the
bruises around her throat! It sounded to me as if the woman might have
been smothered to death with a plastic bag, and in the process, the
killer left a smudged print.... but, it didn't matter what it sounded
like to me.
McCrady vehicles, house and possessions were inspected very
closely for blood. First of all they said there was no blood from the
head wound, and I found this to be somewhat odd. But not being a
pathologist or anything, I figured I didn't have a good understanding
of head wounds and how the heart worked. Perhaps the heart stopped as
soon as the brain was dead ..... no, that couldn't be. I knew of cases where people
were 'brain dead' but their heart kept on beating. If the heart beat
even one time after the bullet entered the head, I'd think there would
be blood. But, as I said, I'm no doctor, so I must be wrong.
[2006 NOTE:] No I wasn't wrong. In the past
nine years I have checked with dozens of people concerning a head wound
that does not bleed .... especially
a gunshot head wound. There is only one way that it would not bleed.
The victim was already dead when the bullet was put into the head,
simple as that. And according to recent information, I think this is
exactly what happened in the McCrady case. Furthermore, I believe the
state knew this is what happened too because of their early
'theory/accusation' that Jackie had kept Jenifer locked up somewhere
for a couple of days before he buried her. This theory was ultimately
discarded when they were fortunate enough to get hold of some
'witnesses' who were willing to testify that they had seen Jackie
McCrady down in the Little Hocking area on the morning Jenifer
disappeared. But I still remember it; it and all the other discarded
ideas and accusations. Everyone better read my newly posted story -- The Real Dummy, because it has some
answers that should have been found clear back in 1996, but weren't.
Regardless, they checked everything and no blood was found. Assuming they were correct that the head
wound did not bleed, then I wondered about those areas on her wrists
and ankles where the hide had been torn off as she struggled to free
herself. Had they not bled either? Apparently not.
Overall, I'd have to say that as far as the evidence went, there
were far more things in the McCrady case that 'didn't match' than did.
And this list is not complete as it stands today. But for today, I am
going to get this page back up because it's been down for a long, long
time so that I could add a few things to it and do needed updates and
changes. Perhaps at a later date I will come back and add even more,
because there are several more things that {in my opinion} should be
addressed and re-examined.
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