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Sometimes when I'm up here,

I feel I'm high in the balcony of the theater,

looking down on a stage where a great drama has been played.

Oklahomans have always been builders.

It is one of our finest qualities.

And there is one other quality we Oklahomans have always shared.

We are...

the dreamers.

Everything around us, all is the result of someone's dream.

There can be no builders

if there are not also dreamers.

We are the wanderers,

the gamblers, the builders,

the dreamers and the preservers.

We are the cast of a human drama called, Oklahoma.

Yes, I see that.

I've never looked at it quite that way before.

That's the way I've always felt about it.

Let your healing virtue fill this room...

and heal every person in it.

I borrowed my mom's car to go get a pack of cigarettes.

And when I returned mom told me

that the police had been there looking for me,

and I said, "What for?"

"They said, well, something about...

that woman that come up missing from that store out there."

She goes, "They wanted to talk to you for something about this."

So I said, "Can you take me down there?" So my mom was gonna take me down there.

We went to the car and started to back up out of the driveway,

and a police car pulled in the driveway behind us.

They said, "Are you Tommy Ward," and I said, "Yeah."

They said, "Well, we had call-inssaying that you had lived in Ada all your life,

and that you might know who it was that took this woman from the store."

And I said, "Well, no. I've seen them composite drawings on TV."

I said, "They don't look like nobody I know."

And he goes, "We've got some better pictures down here at the police station.

We'd like for you to come down here to look atto see if you might know 'em.

'Cause..." and he goes, "Would you help us out?

If you do recognize someone you would tell us who it is."

And I said, "Yeah, sure."

They took me downstairs to this basement

and they start asking me questions about my whereabouts.

And then at that point, I mean, they just come at me

and started saying, "You did it,

you know you did it, this is how you did it.

They kept on.

And at first, I kept telling them, "No, I didn't."

And they wouldn't take a "No, I didn't do it" for an answer.

They kept lying to me,

and lying to me.

And in fact, after a while, it just got me to lie.

They'd just sit there and kept telling me that...

more like, "Use your imagination.

What about your dream?"

- Did you kill this girl? - No, I didn't.

I wouldn't kill nobody.

I wouldn't take nobody's life away from them.

- Who killed this girl? - I don't know.

I have no idea.

I keep on telling them over and over again that I didn't do it.

He goes, "Well, if you didn't do it, Why would you flunk the test so bad?"

I said, "I don't know." I said, "Look my nerves, I'm a nervous person.

I've got bad nerves, or something, you know?

And I also, it could've been...

the dream that I had after y'all come talk to me the first time

I had a dream."

And they were, "What about your dream?" That's when I told them my dream story.

I was sitting in his vehicle...

and I remember...

like seeing, like through a glass

where I seen, like hands handing money to hands.

And then I had a flash in my dream.

I seen this guy kissing on this girl and she said, "Leave me alone."

I said, "Leave her alone." He said, "If you don't like it, you can go home."

And then I had to flash in my dream,

and I was standing at the sink trying to get something black off my arm.

He said, "Your dreams don't make no sense."

And I said, "Well, what dream makes sense?

Y'all just sitting there, asking me what my dream was about."

And then, he told me that we had to get rid of her...

and asked me a good place to get rid of her.

I told him about a house and about this ditch down by the...

Sandy River.

I thought they'd go out and say that there was flies

because it was just a made-up story.

Did Denise Haraway, she begged y'all not to hurt her,

or what did she say when all this was happening?

She was asking us just to let her go.

Well, I went in at ten o'clock that morning

and I think it was after six o'clock, it was late in the evening,

when they turned the video tape on and...

I gave the bogus confession.

College Heights, Missionary Baptist.

Turn that on, so we can see where we're going.

Well, I got a BB gun when I was about to seven years old,

and I was taught at that time...

you kill nothing...

except to eat...

or to protect yourself.

Five in the clip, nothing in the chamber.

I've had 'em say, "Why?

Why nothing in the chamber?" It's...

personal conviction.

If it came right down to it,

I don't think I would have a problem with shooting somebody,

but it's only in self-defense.

Capital punishment...

if there is no doubt whatsoever...

I'm still against it.

Of course, being a preacher, I go with the biblical...

rendition of that.

God's the only one that should take life.

It's not up to us to play God and say,

"Well, you did this, so you need to die for it."

And you go back into the law and it does say that,

"And eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth."

But as far as being able to say when somebody should die...

and how they should die...

that's up to God.

Okay, just stop right here, we're gonna say prayer.

We're gonna say prayer, Mama.

- Huh? - We're gonna say prayer right here, okay?

Say a prayer?

- Yeah. - So we can eat.

So we can eat.

Lord, we thank you for this day and the blessings you've given.

We thank you, Lord, for these that have traveled this far.

We ask, Lord, that things be done for your honor and Glory.

We ask Lord that you bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies.

These are bodies in your service. Forgive us where we've failed you.

- For as Christ's name, amen. - Amen.

I had heard about the confessions,

and it was by his own mouth, when he called me.

He was telling me about them keeping him in there,

and then how they would go over...

Like he would say something,

and it was almost like they was trying to read to him what they want him to say.

And he said, "I told 'em a dream," that's what he said.

"I told 'em a dream.

I had a dream and I told 'em it was a dream.

And they took that dream as a confession."

What's going on, you know?

How could this be possible?

Here's the one of Tommy.

I told you I thought it was the same one as this one.

- Is it? - Yeah, it is.

This is a picture of Tommy.

I'm not sure if there's a date on the back of it but it looked like he's more...

six, seven.

These are... Look there. You know who that is.

There's no way he would have ever done anything like that.

And I know that because we know his heart.

And we know the type of person he is and there's just no way.

Denise...

never showed up, never called home.

But there was no evidence of where she was.

One interesting thing that happened,

that they found out by talking to people,

was that, all over town, people said they were dreaming about the case.

Dennis Smith was the Chief Detective on the case.

So I went to see him... and I started talking about the case.

And he says, "Let me show you something else, first,

because I'm not worried about that case. Those guys are in jail already."

He says, "It's a case that burns at my stomach.

We had another murder here about a year-and-a-half ago,

a girl named Debbie Carter.

And we still haven't got that person," he says.

And I knew Debbie Carter. We lived on the same street.

And I knew her, every time I look at those pictures,

it just tears me apart.

"And that's the one I would want to solve."

And he hesitates and he says,

"Well, actually, it is solved.

We know who did it."

And I said, "Well, what's the problem if you know who did it?"

And he said...

"We can't do anything about it."

I had went down there one day after work, to the police department.

I go in and ask him and talk to him.

"Well, we just don't know anything. We hadn't come up with anything."

And I'd leave there so upset because I think...

they've gotta do something, they've gotta know something.

In small towns like Ada, the prosecutors and the police...

are under enormous pressure to solve a crime.

In a neighborhood where there are several crimes, could it be the same guy?

It's total fear, total terror, you know, it's, "Find the guy."

Well, it's gotta be two men who did this, okay?

Because it's so violent.

I've been down and read this case file,

every interview, everything that's in that file.

And what there is a mention of, quite often, is Ron Williamson.

Where you live...

I know it. That's what gets me, man.

- You are a very good suspect. - I know it.

I'm just telling you.

Dennis Smith and some local police thought that Ron might have been a good suspect

because of his personal history.

In 1978, Ron had a case in Tulsa, Oklahoma

where he had picked up this gal

and apparently had forced himself on her and had raped her.

He had also been arrested in Oklahoma City.

But in both cases,

he was found not guilty in trial.

He was a regular at the Coachlight and...

there was a report that had Ron Williamson in the Coachlight that night.

He was drinking a lot, partying a lot, raising hell,

no real job.

Lived very near the crime scene.

They are very concerned that you are the one that did it.

Don't you think they've got better things to do than keep coming back on you?

No, that's it.

I'll tell you what, if that's your opinion, you're sadly mistaken.

I've read the reports.

They seriously think that you're capable of committing this type of crime, Ron.

They're hoping that you didn't.

You know what I'm saying?

And if the allegations were to get right again, the same guy's liable to...

do it again.

You know, this scene doesn't look like the scene

of a guy that goes around, you know, pulling just your basic rapes.

Ron was very suspicious, had a bad reputation.

And at that time in his life, the only person Ron was hanging around with

was Dennis Fritz.

And this is their biggest concern with you, with Ron,

because with the history of both of you...

they feel like it's a very strong possibility.

Something went wrong.

Either rejection, resistance, whatever...

and somebody got killed.

I had got home from work at eight o'clock.

Phone rung and it was Dennis Smith.

He wanted me to come down and sign some papers.

And I said, "Sign some papers? What's going on?"

He said, "Come down and me

and Bill Peterson will talk to you about it."

So I went down there.

They handed me this paper. "Sign it."

I said, "What's going on?"

They wanted to exhume her.

I said, "No.

No, we're not gonna do that."

And he said, "Her daddy signed it."

I say, "I don't care what he did. I'm not signing it.

You're not going out there and getting her."

They said, "Well, Peggy, do you want this solved?"

And I said, "More than anybody."

And he said, "Well...

We have found a handprint."

There was a palm print on the side of the wall.

I believe it was below a window.

We're somebody had actually put their bloody palm against the wall

and had a smear there.

The original report says that the handprint is not Debbie's.

And they'd said that it wasn't Ron's and it wasn't Dennis's.

They couldn't go to court with this hand print.

Because, if they had a palm print from a person that was not Debbie Carter's

and if it was not Dennis Fritz and if it was not Ron Williamson's,

then the prosecution probably had a problem.

Somebody else was there with a bloody palm print.

So they exhumed the body and develop...

additional prints and palm print off of Debbie's body.

And later determined, at that point in time,

it was Debbie Carter's palm print.

That was the hardest thing for me to do, was to sign that paper.

And I told him I said, "Oh, wait a minute.

Tell you what I'll do.

I'll sign that on one condition."

Bill said, "What's that?"

I said, "I get to go with you when you go out there and get her."

I thought, "I get one more kiss,

one more hug, one more kiss."

I was at work one morning,

and this guy that lived out on the other side of Rosedale Cemetery,

he come to work at eight o'clock.

He come up me and he said, "What are they doing?

They're out there, it looks like they're digging up Debbie's grave."

"Are they?"

I run and got my keys and my car.

I clocked out.

So she leaves work. She knows exactly what's going on.

She hauls across town.

Gets there, and when she's there...

Just empty hole.

Her open grave is there and there's nobody there with her.

And I just walk over and sit down.

I was so upset

because they wouldn't let me go, I sat there and cried.

There's that big old vault down there, and Debbie's gone.

They must've went out there at 6:30 or seven and started that.

But I was so upset because they wouldn't let me go.

They wouldn't let me.

I just sat there...

kicked my feet in that dirt.

Sat on the side of her grave and just kicked my feet in that dirt.

I was so mad.

And I went and got me a 12-pack and went home.

I think, some of the biggest changes came...

after Debbie's body had been exhumed.

My Aunt Peggy had really...

started to drink.

Oh, yes, got to drinking.

Ooh-wee!

Pills wasn't working.

Nothing worked.

I got to drinking.

I'd get off at midnight...

and I'd stop at a convenience store and get me a whole 12-pack.

And I'd hit them country roads,

roll my windows down, turn that radio up,

and I just sang and drank

and sang and drink.

Throw out them beer cans, get me another one.

She kind of developed almost like a double life,

in that she would just drive country roads and drink,

and somehow make it home and get up and...

go do shift work all over again.

There's times I just...

I mean, I've been on anti-depressers now for 35 years.

You know, it's bad.

It's bad.

Because I had such a hard time and still do at times.

That hand print...

and exhuming Debbie's body,

was a pivotal moment in the relationship that my mom and her sister had.

And my mom actually admitted her.

That was the first time that Peggy went to a psychiatric hospital because...

they broke her that day by having her sign those papers.

She would be so drunk and so out of it,

you know, that she just would be...

on one hand just sloppy and on the other hand just crazy,

you know, with rage and anger. And that's when I...

...really I look back on it.

And that's when I had to decide, you know,

that's when I learned I had to separate myself from it.

I've had to put it on the shelf.

I had a seven year old child, I had to move on.

That was just the breaking point for my mom, she just couldn't...

she couldn't do it anymore and she told her, "I can't...

I can't relive this with you every day."

I don't think it was ever the same after that.

That hand print is what sent them on their way to court.

Debbie's case moved pretty fast after that.

Mr. Williams...?

I never killed nobody! I'm gonna prove it!

Oh my goodness.

He come in one day...

and he was real upset about something.

Mr. Williamson, any further outbursts of anger and this hearing

will be conducted without your presence.

That's fine with me.

This is your own personal decision to waive...

I said, I'm threatening!

He gets mad. I don't know what the lawyer says to him.

But he flips this table.

Papers go everywhere, people sit back.

I'm going, "Oh my goodness."

He throwed my little girl around that apartment like that,

I'll bet you.

Oh my goodness, and I just sat there.

Court record will reflect that Ron Williamson attempted

to overturn a table

and go after the co-defendant in this matter

and had to be subdued and escorted out of the court room.

...first game of the one.

Here's the payout pitch.

It's a hit! There it goes! It's out of here!

Ron was a small-town boy

with a family that was very devoutly religious.

Now thou wicked hateful devil, I come against you!

And I charge you, devil, take your hands off God's property.

By the time Ron was finishing high school,

he thought, as did a number of scouts,

that in this section of Oklahoma, he was gonna be the next Mickey Mantle.

From an early age, he was on that trajectory

to be a professional sports star.

He was drafted and took off.

He was a party boy.

Didn't take care of himself, a lot of booze, lot of girls.

Cocaine hit that part of the world, hit American in early '70s and, you know,

Ron was in the middle of it.

He threw his shoulder out. Hurt his shoulder.

And he came back in rehab and then went back and he hurt it again.

And I think he kind of realized, then, he probably wasn't gonna make it.

But I think he went back maybe a third time and couldn't do nothing.

He just got hurt and couldn't get over it. It is a very sad thing.

And then later on, I guess it just destroyed him.

He just was so down because he couldn't make it and couldn't play.

It's just like the whole world falls in on you.

He just had so much difficulty with letting go of that dream.

That was his lifelong, the only dream he ever had in his life, and it was gone.

He just didn't handle it well at all,

and he turned to drugs and alcohol.

He started showing signs of, I guess it would be...

called manic depressive back then,

bipolar now, I'm not sure what the...

I'm not sure Ron was ever properly diagnosed.

Ron had been in trouble and he was in and out of

that same house up the street.

He would come and use the phone across the street at the neighbors house.

And then I guess he would come out...

and, like, sit on the curb and smoke, or whatever.

So he was sitting across the street from our house...

looking towards our house.

What can I say?

We were scared to death. We thought he was watching us.

We had been inundated with all this fear.

I was terrified of him.

I said it's gotta be more than one.

She could've handled...

one.

'Cause I knew Debbie.

She told me one time, "As long as I've got

teeth and nails and feet

There ain't nobody ever gonna rape me."

Dennis Fritz is my father.

He grew up in both Missouri and in a town in Oklahoma called Talihina.

My mother was a year older than him,

and they met there when she was a senior and he was a junior.

He was a school teacher. He did that for most of my childhood...

in the state of Oklahoma.

He'd move around,

town to town, and teach and coach.

His daughter was in the house when her mom was shot in the head.

by a young man who lived in the neighborhood, who was crazy.

And the daughter was a toddler.

It was Christmas Eve, December 24th,

and we had been living out at a house outside of Durant

and we'd been renting that house from a near neighbor.

And he had a nephew.

That night he actually came over to our house.

He knocked on the door and my mom answered, she recognized him.

He ask to use the phone.

He came in and she stepped out of the room while he did so,

and I was still in there.

So when she came back in she found that he was doing something with me

that was somewhat what she fell inappropriate,

at the time, and so she scolded him.

She told him she was going to call his uncle

and the police and so on, so forth.

So he left.

He went back to his uncle's house and he broke into his gun cabinet,

took the gun out, came back, and shot her through the window.

Got word to my dad and everybody and the police were called.

My dad was just torn apart. It destroyed him.

He couldn't care for me for a period of time following that.

I end up moving to my grandmother's

and then, I think he floated around in jobs and just,

you know, just wasn't real stable during that period.

Has there been any time...

in your life, I think you said something like that,

that you have gotten mad enough at someone where you wanted to kill them?

Well, yes, there has, the man that took my wife's life.

And I wanted to kill the man.

It messed Dennis up for a long time.

He worked on the railroad, he taught school.

He somehow ended up in Oklahoma

and started hanging around Ada, looking for friends, just something to do,

and met Ron.

That was his big mistake.

He was kind of talking crazy that night, you know?

Like talking about...

he didn't wanna live, you know, and he didn't care to live no more.

He'd been drinking a lot.

And...

He passed this girl, this girl passed him on the street

He said, "I'd like to rape her and kill her.

You know, like that." I said, "What are you talking about?

You are talking out of your mind."

Fritz, I don't know. His story doesn't really check out.

He never did tell anyone where he was that night.

And he called in sick to work the next day.

Did you find any pubic hairs...

that match that of Dennis Fritz?

Yes, sir, I did.

I found one pubic hair from a washcloth.

My opinion that it is consistent,

I believe it was Dennis Fritz's...

pubic hair, it's his.

I think Ron was kind of the mastermind.

You know, it was his deal, he thought of it.

Dennis was just kind of...

along for the ride, or whatever.

In Dennis's case, he was found guilty,

and they move into the sentencing phase.

And Dennis came within one vote of getting the death penalty.

RON WILLIAMSON'S TRIAL STARTS APR 27

The defendant says, "Just imagine this.

When I was living in Tulsa, been drinking and taking Quaaludes all day,

and then drove to Coachlight, and drank some more.

I got a little bit drunker.

I ended up at Debbie Carter's door.

Knocked on the door, and she said, 'Just a minute, I'm on the phone.'

I burst in the door, I raped and killed her."

I sit there and thinking how...

Why did they do it? I...

Oh, I hated them so bad.

I just...

I didn't look at them that much.

I kept my head down a lot.

It was just sickening to look at them.

Look at Debbie Carter, you tell me she didn't resist...

with every fiber in her body.

She had all these little places on her nose.

It looks like somebody put out cigarettes on her nose. Oh, it was...

And her lips were so big and Debbie had little lips.

He just...

Was so mad at her.

He done so much to her.

One of her little eyes was all messed up, they said.

And then he had...

stuffed a wash rag down her throat.

They had that wash rag at court.

But they said the inside of her cheeks...

looked like hamburger meat

where she had tried to get that wash rag up.

Well, I found out when I went to court

that there was two things...

that he used on Debbie's neck.

Her cowboy belt and her electric blanket cord.

I bought both of them.

Bought both of them.

Question is who killed Debbie Carter?

Who killed Debbie Carter?

The death was caused by the defendant.

We had lot of people that grew up in Ada who would tell us...

You know when they were kids, you know how your parents say,

"You be home by dark 'cause the boogeyman's out there"?

Well, for them, the boogeyman was Ron Williamson.

Ron Williamson lived in a little thing behind his mom's house.

And you could step outside

the back fence of Williamson's mom's house and see Debbie Sue Carter's... apartment.

A guy with a pretty good arm could put a baseball through the window.

Halfway between them, on the intersecting street,

was a woman named Andrea Hardcastle

that Ron Williams did exactly the same thing too as he did to Debbie Carter

except he didn't kill her.

My neighbor that used to live across the street from me, Roy Haney,

him, and what he introduced as Ronnie Williamson

came over to my house.

It was on a Friday or Saturday night.

He said that the girls like me should share themselves,

and he told me that he was going to fuck me.

He hit me and he knocked me on the floor.

And handling my breast, between my legs.

He was very rough.

I was screaming at first.

And he kept telling me that if I didn't do what he told me to do

that he was gonna fuck me up.

Andrea Hardcastle was a young girl at the time.

She came forward and stated that Ron had molested her...

some years before, although she never pressed charges.

She was also friends with Dennis Smith's daughter...

and also knew Debbie Carter as well, so...

You know, all those kids knew each other basically, so...

Ronnie was sitting on top of my chest

and he said, "You know I'm gonna have to kill you, don't you?"

And I said, "Yes."

And I had already made my peace with God

and just hoped that someone would find the kids.

Glen Gore was one of our witnesses.

He testified that yes,

Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz

was at the Coachlight that night.

And him and Debbie were kind of arguing with each other.

On the night of December the 7th, 1982, did you have an occasion to see him?

Yes.

And where was that?

It was at the Coachlight.

I can't remember who I was sitting there with us.

Anyway, I went up to get me another drink

and Debbie said, "Glen, would you rescue me?"

Saying he was bugging her so...

they went out... me and her went out on the dance floor.

Do you know, did you hear...

or do you know if Ron Williamson, what he said to Mrs. Carter?

No, I was just walking by.

She tapped me on the shoulder, said, "Save me."

Save me.

But you did see the defendant Ron Williams talk to her?

Yes.

As the club was closing, the Carpenters, both Terry and Mike,

both saw Debbie and somebody arguing in her car.

She kind of push him away and got in the car and drove off.

Gary Rogers, agent with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, testified next.

"Ron Williamson told him and Rusty Featherstone

that he dreamed about killing Debbie Carter;

that he was on her with a cord around her neck.

One of Agents asked him why, and he answered, "'She made me mad.'"

Then the witnesses testified who told you about...

hearing Ron Williamson talk about his involvement in Debbie Carter's death.

Terri Holland was the first one of those.

She heard him say to someone else there in the jail...

"...he said he shoved a coke bottle up her ass

and her panties down on the ground.

And Mell Hett was the state last witness,

who told you, tried to explain a little bit

about the science of hair comparison,

and the results that can be obtained from those kinds of test.

Told you that there were two on the bed,

on Debbie Carter's bedding, two pubic hairs,

consistent with those of Ron Williamson,

and that there were two head or scalp hairs...

on the washcloth taken from Debbie Carter's mouth

that were consistent with the head hairs of Ron Williamson.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

you've heard all the evidence in this case.

The evidence is overwhelming.

The facts cry out...

for a guilty verdict.

I'm gonna ask you to say, "Ron Williamson,

you deserve to die for what you did to Debbie Carter."

"We the jury drawn in panel and sworn in the above entitled cause,

drew up on our own, having here for found the defendant,

Ron Keith Williamson, guilty of murder in the first degree,

states his punishment as death."

One of the things

that's really troubling about Debbie's murder

is that when you begin to look at everything else,

to realize that she was just collateral damage.

That it changed everything about our family

and about how...

certainly I've view the world.

Certainly changed everything for my aunt...

but that she was really just collateral damage

in something bigger?

It is sickening that we don't even know what all...

It's 30-something years later and we don't even know what all that is

and how that fits together.

New information tonight in a rape and murder case

that a victim's family thought was over.

Now that family has learned their daughter's killer

could still be on the loose.

New DNA testing could mean that the two men convicted

of the 1982 rape and murder of Debbie Carter of Ada

could go free.

It's our big story tonight at six.

Eyewitness News 5 reporter, Steve Volker, joins us live from Ada tonight.

And Steve, some shocking news in this case that many thought was solved.

It was in this county courthouse where Ron Williamson and Dennis Fritz

were sentenced 12 years ago.

And it will be in this courthouse where we will learn if they will be set free.

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