THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994 TAG: 9406040199
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOE JACKSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940604 LENGTH: NORFOLK
``I was doing everything in the lockup while waiting,'' said Brian Curtis McCray. ``I shot baskets, I read, I tried to sleep. I thought, `They're gonna find me guilty again, they're sentencing me now.' And I couldn't think past that.''
{REST} But when the jury came back last week, it acquitted McCray of all charges in the Halloween 1992 shotgun slaying and robbery of convenience store manager James Harris.
In August 1993, another jury had found McCray guilty of the murder and sentenced him to 43 years in prison. McCray fainted when he heard that verdict.
Nine months later, he relived it all - the late-night arrest in February 1993 at his girlfriend's house, the trial, the anger at a justice system he believed was unfair while all the time maintaining his innocence.
But the second time, the jurors agreed with him. The state's case was flawed, based on the changing testimony of teenager Larry Edwards and tainted by the prosecutors' suppression of evidence favorable to McCray's case. A mistrial was declared in December when the suppressed evidence was revealed.
McCray, 26, slumped in relief when Circuit Judge Alfred W. Whitehurst read the jury's findings the night of May 27: not guilty of first-degree murder, robbery, abduction, unlawfully wearing a mask and use of a firearm.
``I was shocked, I was stunned,'' McCray said Thursday in the Norfolk City Jail, where he is serving seven years for a previous robbery conviction. ``I wanted to jump up, but I didn't. I asked the bailiff, `Tell me . . . I'm not dreaming.' I asked the same when I got back to my cell. `It's true, man,' said the guy in the next bunk. `They found you not guilty.' ''
But there is still bitterness. After the murder charge, he lost his job, his friends, his girlfriend. ``After the first trial, I stayed on the phone, talking to her,'' McCray said quietly. ``But she couldn't deal with 43 years. I can't blame her. She was scared. I was too.''
He's only seen his 2-year-old daughter, Dashar, once in the 15 months he's been in jail. He talks to his 5-year-old son, Antoine, on the phone. ``He says, `I seen you on TV, Dad,' '' McCray said. ``He came here once, but no more. He's scared - he said he doesn't want to get locked up.
``There ain't no justice,'' McCray said. ``Police and prosecutors don't play fair - they railroad you if they want a conviction. I'm gonna teach my daughter the law when I get out. I'm gonna teach her to protect herself.''
He knows there will always be questions about the case - that some people will always think he's guilty. ``I lost everything, even my reputation,'' he said. Because of that, he won't let Norfolk prosecutors forget him, he said.
He has contacted Richmond lawyer Sa'ad El Amin about suing Norfolk prosecutors for civil rights violations. ``Once I'm out, I'll be in court, watching what's going on,'' he said. ``They've bought me for life.''
McCray's ordeal began Oct. 31, 1992. McCray and his co-defendants, Denaldo Hill and Donald Marcus, visited the Jr. Market on Westminster Avenue at about 6:30 a.m. Hill argued with Harris over the price of some orange juice. At 8:17 a.m., three men in black robbed the store and killed Harris. Edwards later told Investigator David Browning that he saw McCray and the others outside the store, but the boy's statements changed frequently. In addition, Browning discounted Edward's identification when he learned another boy told him of seeing the three earlier in the morning and suggesting that he tell police so they could split a reward.
Then, in February 1993, Investigator Shaun Squyres took over the case. ``Squyres was convinced I did it,'' McCray said. ``I went over to homicide offices once, I said, `What's going on here - Browning didn't charge me.' Squyres said, `Forget Browning, he's no longer with us, he got fired.' '' But Browning did not resign until September, when he quit in protest over how the case was handled.
On Feb. 23, McCray was arrested.
``It was 2 a.m.,'' he recalled. ``I was at my girlfriend's house. We heard noises outside - we looked out the window, and there were all these cops. At first, they went into the neighbor's house. But I told my girlfriend, `They're coming for me.'
``Squyres came in and said I was under arrest. I came down the stairs with my hands up. They handcuffed me - all my girlfriend's kids were looking. She gave me a kiss and Squyres shoved me away like some kind of animal. He said, `You're going to get the death penalty.' I knew then this must be personal.''
From the time of his arrest until the August trial, McCray drifted in a state of disbelief. ``I didn't know how all this happened,'' he said. ``I knew I was innocent, but how could I prove it?'' he said. ``I was hoping maybe the real killers would come and confess. But then I realized that wasn't gonna happen.''
Still, McCray thought he would be vindicated by the first jury. But those jurors did not know about Edwards' flawed testimony or the debate between detectives and prosecutors about evidence being suppressed.
After his conviction, ``I was filled with hate,'' McCray said. ``Hatred of the system. How could this have happened? I had a terrible attitude. . . . I kept getting into arguments. I thought everyone was in a conspiracy against me.
``The night after I was convicted, I got into a fight with a guy in my cell,'' McCray recalled. ``It was stupid - he took my blanket and we got in each other's face. I ended up getting 15 stitches over my eye.''
In September, McCray's father approached The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star about his son's case, and soon afterward McCray wrote a letter to a reporter from the jail. ``I was sentenced to 43 years for something I know nothing about,'' he wrote. ``But I won't give up my life, nor will I lose my sanity.''
He felt hope again when the newspapers published his story in November and a mistrial hearing was scheduled. On Dec. 15, Whitehurst ruled that prosecutors held back favorable evidence and that McCray should get a new trial.
``Even then,'' he said, ``I was having flashbacks. People said things about me during the trial that wasn't true. Everything the judge ruled seemed to be in favor of the prosecutor. When I got a new trial, I rejoiced, but I really wondered how it happened.''
As he waited for his new trial, ``I grew depressed,'' he said. ``I kept thinking about suicide, so I asked for a psychiatrist. A social worker talked to me. She said, `What you're going through is normal.' I thought, `This ain't normal. Uh-uh.'
``Everything was building up. Sometimes I'd be in the jail, reading the transcript of my original trial, and I'd come to the point where the judge read the verdict,'' he said. ``Guilty for this. Guilty for that. I'd jump up. `You all right?' somebody'd ask, and I'd say, `It's all coming back.' ''
McCray's four-day retrial began May 24. ``There was so much tension,'' he said, shaking his head. ``I was in a fight for life and death. It was my last chance, I knew.''
He insisted on testifying. His lawyer, B. Thomas Reed, advised against it. ``But I had to,'' McCray said. ``I felt I had to say something. After all these months, I had to let it out. They had to know the truth.''
The jury went out at 1:50 p.m. Six hours later, they said McCray was not guilty.
Yet even now, there is disbelief, he said. And distrust. ``There's still times when I'm sitting here and all of a sudden it feels like I'm gonna break down,'' he said. ``I don't, but I still get real shaky.
``It was like that before the acquittal. It was like, how can you trust anything when this happens? How can you live when this sort of thing goes on?''
{KEYWORDS} SUPPRESSED EVIDENCE NORFOLK POLICE DEPARTMENT NORFOLK COMMONWEALTH ATTORNEY'S OFFICE
by CNB