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Long road from death row to freedom Slayings:
Verneal Jimerson endured 11-year ordeal

Dennis Williams (left) and Willie Rainge are escorted from the courthouse.

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Verneal Jimerson says if he had been willing to lie, he never would have been sent to death row and never would have had to wait 11 years to taste freedom.

After turning down offers to get out of prison by testifying against three of his friends, Jimerson finally was sent home Monday the way he wanted. Cook County Judge Sheila Murphy ruled prosecutors had violated his due process rights when he first was convicted, so she dismissed all charges against him.

Jimerson, 43, was sentenced to death in 1985 for the 1978 murders of Carol Schmal and her fiance, Larry Lionberg, who were abducted from the suburban Homewood gas station where Lionberg worked. But the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in May 1995 that the prosecution's chief witness had given false testimony.

The court ordered a new trial for Jimerson, and he subsequently was released on $25,000 bond. He has been living in a halfway house since January.

Jimerson turned down several opportunities to get out of prison by testifying against the other three defendants, Kenneth Adams, Willie Rainge and Dennis Williams, said his attorney, Mark Ter Molen. Those men were released on home monitoring June 14 while prosecutors evaluated evidence gathered by David Protess, a Northwestern University professor, and three of his students. They spent six months investigating the case and tracking down the real killers, two of whom signed confessions.

The students also found a man who said he knew the real killers and told authorities that just six days after the crime. His statements never got to defense attorneys.

Jimerson "wants to visit his parents' grave -- both of his parents died while he was in prison," Ter Molen said.

Jimerson, Adams, Rainge and Williams were indicted by a Cook County grand jury in 1978, based on testimony from Adams' girlfriend, Paula Gray. She changed her story before the trial, so the prosecution was down to one witness -- a neighbor who had seen Adams, Williams and Rainge cavorting in the street the night of the killings.

But when Gray, who at different times had been convicted of murder and perjury in the case, wanted to get out of prison in 1985, she went back to her original story implicating Jimerson, Ter Molen said. Jimerson was living with his wife and three children and had no criminal record at the time, Ter Molen said.

"It's an unbelievable miscarriage of justice," he said. New DNA evidence recently showed none of the four men could have raped Schmal before she was killed.

Former Death Row inmate not angry No answer: But memories still raw

BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Chicago -- For now Dennis Williams is confining his movement primarily to a bedroom at the home of his brother and the back yard. But that is still more area he had during his 18 years of confinement on Death Row at Stateville Penitentiary.

At the prison, Williams lived in a closet-sized room that he left for 1 1/2 hours each day and in which he said he ate breakfasts of rancid green eggs and spongelike toast.

Many believe such a life is appropriate for the worst of America's criminals. But Williams was on Death Row for 6,500 days because of a miscarriage of justice. Free now, he says he isn't angry.

Recently, Williams sat amidst the greenery in the yard of his brother's South Side home and said that living 25 to 30 feet from the electric chair -- which is no longer used -- in a strange way inspired him.

"That was one of the things that gave me determination, that gave me strength," Williams told the Chicago Sun-Times. "I realized ... I didn't have to take but a few steps and I'd be behind that door. And I wasn't going back there for no picnic."

Williams said anger was never far away from him. But he said he learned it was less than useless to him.

"I just don't think that anger is the answer," he said. "I don't think that anger is going to get me anywhere. If anything, it's going to hold me back. I can't think clear if I'm angry."

Williams, Willie Rainge, Kenneth Adams and Verneal Jimerson were convicted of the 1978 murders of Carol Schmal and Lawrence Lionberg. Schmal and Lionberg were abducted from the Homewood gas station where he worked. She was repeatedly raped before both were shot to death. According to attorney Robert Byman, Williams became involved in the murder case when a witness told police he saw Williams and two of the other defendants in the neighborhood where the bodies were found. All three lived in the neighborhood.

Williams and Jimerson eventually went to Death Row in separate trials. Rainge was sentenced to life, and Adams got 75 years. Charges were dropped earlier this month against Williams, Rainge and Adams after new DNA evidence and digging by college students turned up the men law enforcement officials now say are the real killers. Charges against Jimerson were dropped last month. DNA tests recently showed none of the four could have raped Schmal before she was killed. Ira Johnson, Arthur Robinson and Juan "Johnny" Rodriguez now have been charged with the killings.

Williams, who unlike the other freed men had a prior brush with the law -- he was accused of setting fire to a motorcycle -- is now living in a pleasant neighborhood with his brother, sister-in-law and their children. But the memories of his life on Death Row are still raw in his mind. Williams' neighbor was John Wayne Gacy, though he said he never was well-acquainted with the executed serial killer. He was friends with Girvies L. Davis and George DelVecchio, both of whom were executed for murder.

"They were the type of guys that, if you made friends with them, they were your friends," he said.

Williams said he survived his ordeal in prison by grasping a kernel of hope from every setback he experienced in court. Now he is sorting through his feelings of contempt for a justice system that wasted away almost half of his 39 years. He is entitled to $35,000 from the state, a figure Cook County State's Attorney Jack O'Malley has called inadequate.