Episode 4: Like Dominoes

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you get your podcasts. New episode every Wednesday. Use #TheAlleyPod to share your thoughts on the the latest episode as we uncover the truth behind DC's 8th and H Case.

Seventeen young Black people were arrested for the 1984 murder of Catherine Fuller. Four charges were dropped, and two suspects plead guilty to lesser crimes. Meanwhile, 11 of the arrestees—all of whom maintained their innocence—prepared to face the biggest murder trial in Washington, DC’s history.

Voices & Sounds Heard in this Episode

• Russell Overton, one of the accused
• Timothy Catlett, one of the accused
• Gary Reals, WJLA reporter (archival audio)
• Chris Turner, one of the accused
• Cliff Yarborough, one of the accused
• Detective Patrick McGinnis, Metropolitan Police Department (interrogation tape)
• Levy Rouse, one of the accused
• Derrick Bennet, one of the false confessors
• Charles Turner, one of the accused

Transcript:

Episode 4: Like Dominoes

Gabrielle Sweet: The following story contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised.

Russell Overton: It was a big knock at the door. Boom, boom, boom. So I went to the living room and looked out the window. I seen police cars. Seen the whole walkway lined up with police.

Narrator (Shannon Lynch): There was a detached look in Russell Overton’s eyes as he recounted the morning of December 9th, 1984 to me. He was living with Timothy Catlett at the time. Mr. Catlett also told me how he remembered that morning.

Timothy Catlett: It was just before 7 o’clock, December the 9th, 1984. And we heard a bunch of knocking at the door. So my cousin Larddy, she goes downstairs and goes to the front door and she come running back up the stairs. She was like, “Mama, it's a door full of police down there!” So me and Russell Overton, we lived together. And I look over at him. He said, “I ain't did nothing.” I say, “Well, you know, I did nothing.” So she goes back down the stairs and let them in the door. And I was the first one they asked for: “Timothy Catlett. Get down here! Get down here now!” So I come down the stairs, they slam me down on the floor.

Narrator: Mr. Overton was next.

Russell Overton: So I turn around and go upstairs to tell my grandmother that they lockin’ Timothy up. I got halfway up the steps, they draw their pistols on me. They say, “Freeze! We also have a warrant for you, Russell Overton.” I said, “Okay. Let me put on some clothes.” I took another step. They say, “Freeze! Don't move!” And I was like, “Hold it, hold it. Don't shoot.” And I backed up down the steps and I got down the steps and turned, and throw myself up against the wall. And they put the handcuffs on me and took me out.

Narrator: Around the same time, the police were arresting Chris Turner and Clifton Yarborough at their respective homes in a similarly dramatic fashion. Rather than taking the four suspects directly to the station, they did a perp walk with each of them. One by one, they drove each young man from where he'd been arrested to the intersection of 8th and H where a police van—and the media cameras—were waiting.

Chris Turner described his memory of that day.

Chris Turner: So they put me in a police car. And they drive me down to 8th and H. And they take me out of the police car and it's a paddy wagon waiting for us, which is a police transport vehicle. But I noticed that somebody is there with a camera and they keep aiming up at the 8th and H sign and, and it's not registering to me, I'm just looking at—it's just odd. And I'm sitting there, I'm numb.

Narrator: This is The Alley: DC’s 8th and H Case. My name is Shannon Lynch.

Episode 4: Like Dominoes.

Last time, we introduced Detective Donald Gossage. His familiarity with the 8th and H neighborhood and track record of harassing young people in the area made him a critical person in the investigative team for Catherine Fuller's murder.

16-year-old Carrie Eleby told Detective Gossage that a 19-year-old named Calvin Alston had confessed his involvement in Fuller’s murder to her. Calvin's coerced confession would set off a chain reaction. Many more people were about to be arrested as a direct result of his statement.

Part 1: Cliff's Second Statement

After being loaded into the paddywagon, the four newest arrestees were driven to the homicide office. Investigators took advantage of Cliff’s learning impairments when they first spoke to him back on October 4th. This time, they were straight up brutal.

Mr. Yarborough explained this experience.

Cliff Yarborough: When he came in, he said I lied to them by back in October when they picked me up. I'm talking about I didn't know anything. And he said that, “We found out that you was involved in this murder.” I said I wasn't involved in no murder. The police, they play good cop, bad cop with me. And he would like kick in the door, break in the door. and he was just saying that I'm a liar. And he said that Sanchez had killed three people for lying to him. He didn't want me to be the fourth person. I was a kid, I had got a whole life ahead of me. Then he kick the door open. And he, like he knocked me out of the chair.

Narrator: Many years later, under oath, Cliff described how the detectives put his head in a toilet bowl at one point. It didn’t stop there.

Cliff Yarborough: As they threw me around the interrogation room, I hit my leg on one of their lockers. And as I was crying said, “Man, you broke my leg. You broke my leg.” And the continued on.

Narrator: Cliff was injured during these hours of interrogation so badly that he had to be taken to the hospital.

Clifton Yarborough: When I first went in the room with the nurse, she said, “What happened?” I said, “The police beat me.” But then when a police officer came in there and she asked me again I said, I hurt my leg playing basketball. I just wouldn’t say it in front of the police officer lady that took me to the hospital because they had already let me know, “We’ll do worse that what we did to you the first time if you tell them what we did to you.”

Narrator: After enduring hours of harsh tactics, Detectives Sanchez and McGinnis finally wore Cliff down. They got a new statement out of him.

In an hour-long recap video, Cliff said he saw the attack happen from the 9th street of the side of the alley. He identified 13 young men that participated. Cliff said Fuller was forced into the alley from 8th Street side and that Alphonso Monk Harris and Levy Rouse were the leaders in the attack.

Cliff Yarborough (interrogation video): I seen Monk dragging the lady into the alley. He slammed the lady.

Narrator: The other young men hit and kicked Mrs. Fuller, he said in the video.

Cliff Yarborough (interrogation video): Snotrag hit her and dragged her. Derrick stomped fellas have hit her. Bobo hit her. Daryl hit her. Levy was standing over top of her. Lamont, he hit her. Calvin hit her.

Narrator: He said two of the participants—Derrick Bennett and Levy Rouse—took turns sodomizing Mrs. Fuller with a pole.

Similar to Calvin Alston’s statement, Cliff’s account had some major problems as it relates to the physical evidence. In his October 4th statement, Cliff said nothing about the sodomy. Now, on December 9th, he adds it but gets a key fact wrong. He says Derrick and Levy took turns shoving a pole into Mrs. Fuller. The autopsy, however, showed only a single wound track in the rectal area.

Cliff also says Mrs. Fuller was in the alley when the sodomy took place.

Detective McGinnis: Where was she when he stuck the pole in her?

Clifton Yarborough: Right at the cut of the alley.

Detective McGinnis: Well, was she inside of a building or was she out in the alley?

Clifton Yarborough: She was out in the alley.

Narrator: The problem with this is that the blood evidence clearly showed the sodomy had happened in the garage. The medical examiner on the scene noted that the blood pool coming from the rectal injury suggested Mrs. Fuller had not been moved since the sodomy occurred.

Perhaps the strongest reason to dismiss the idea that Cliff saw the sodomy happen at all is because of the vantage point from which he claims he watched it.

Clifton Yarborough (interrogation video): I went around up 9th Street to the alley, the end of the alley.

Narrator: The inside of the garage is not visible at all if you are standing at the 9th street side of the alley. When you walk into the alley from that side, you have to take a right at the “T” of the alley, and the garage is a few steps down on the right-hand side. Even if he had walked a few steps into the alley, Cliff still wouldn’t have been able to see the sodomy occurring inside of the garage.

There are also several inconsistencies between Cliff’s October 4th statement and the December 9th one.

Now, Cliff says Levy was the leader of the attack. Back on October 4th, he said Levy was just a timid observer. On December 9th, he tells a story about everyone leaving the garage and going up to I Street, where Timothy Catlett disperses the stolen money among the group. In his first statement, Cliff said Mrs. Fuller didn’t have anything to steal. On October 4th, Cliff said there were five assailants. This time, he listed 13.

Furthermore, there are multiple inconsistencies between Calvin and Cliff’s accounts of what happened the day of the murder. They gave all of the participants different roles. They differ on who led the attack. They claimed different people acted as lookouts. They disagree on where and how Fuller was beaten and sodomized. They also differ on who got Fuller’s money and jewelry.

In a statement made years later, Cliff said he was coerced to retell “some statements that someone else made and then asked for me to say it and I just said it because I thought it would get me out.” Cliff refused to talk to the police again after this experience. He’d claim just days later that his statements were false and coerced.

Later that same day, on December 9th, Levy Rouse turned himself in after hearing there was a warrant out for his arrest for murder. Just a few days earlier, on December 5th, Charles Turner and Roland “Burt” Franklin had also been charged.

On the morning of December 10th, 19-year-old Kelvin Smith turned himself into homicide after hearing about the warrant that was out for his arrest. Similarly, on December 17th, Darryl Murchison, 19, turned himself in. The next day, December 18th, 17-year-old Lamont Bobbit was arrested.

Part 2: The Waiting Game

At this point, police had arrested 12 young Black men for the murder of Catherine Fuller.

In court, the government presented the statements they’d gathered in their interrogations. A judge determined that all of those arrested so far would be held without bond. All the young men could do at this point was sit in the DC jail and wait for what was to come next.

For Levy Rouse, the experience was beyond terrifying.

Levy Rouse: You know, [I’ve] never been in jail for a period of time. And, you know, I was just sitting there and all you kept hearing was “the 8th and H gang the 8th and H gang,” and police officers was looking at us like, “How could y’all do this?,” all that type of stuff. And it was just like a nightmare. You know, you’re about to go through something that you never been through. And all you could do is just pray. That's it.

Narrator: It didn’t take long for the group to figure out that Calvin was the reason most of them had been arrested. They were understandably angry at him. At one point, one of them proposed they beat up Calvin for revenge. The group hadn’t been separated from one another in the DC jail, so this kind of attack would have been easy to carry out.

Chris Turner put a stop to that. He told the others that going after Calvin would only make them look guilty. He said what they really needed from Calvin was for him to tell the truth.

Instead of getting physical, Chris talked to Calvin about what had happened. Calvin told Chris that “the detectives got me to say a lot of things.” Calvin apologized repeatedly. He knew he’d messed up in a massive way.

In an attempt to garner leniency, Calvin wrote a letter to the judge saying, “The police forced me to say something that I didn’t see or do which was the lie.” He also proclaimed his innocence in several letters to friends and family members during this time.

Cliff Yarborough also began to realize the effects of the statement he’d made to the police. Like Calvin, he believed he would be able to go home sooner if he told the detectives what they wanted to hear, putting himself at the scene of the crime as a witness. But now he was able to see the truth of the situation. He’d admitted to being an accomplice to a murder. He wasn’t going home.

There was no question: Cliff Yarborough and Calvin Alston had fallen into the trap neatly laid out for them by detectives. What they’d do next, however, would differ greatly. Cliff refused to cooperate with police and prosecutor Jerry Goren any further. Calvin, on the other hand, would ultimately cooperate fully.

Part 3: Another Cooperator

It was almost two months before another arrest was made in the 8th and H case. On February 6th, 1985, Derrick Bennett was arrested. The 18-year-old was one of the people mentioned in Cliff’s coerced video statement.

Derrick’s interrogation followed the now very familiar pattern. The detectives lied to him, telling him they had foolproof evidence that placed him in the alley during the murder. They told him he had two options—he could either take a small piece of the “pie” by confessing and getting a shorter prison sentence, or he could deny his involvement and spend the rest of his life behind bars. Not being able to see another way out, he took a similar route to Calvin Alston. He was coerced into giving a false confession.

After five hours of interrogation, the detectives set up a camera to record a “recap” video of Derrick’s statement.

Detectives Sanchez: The time now is 5:32 pm. The date is February 6th, 1985. We are presently located in homicide office at police headquarters 300 Indiana Avenue, Washington, DC.

Narrator: Derrick said he was in the alley, but only as a bystander. He told the detectives he did not participate in the crime. He didn’t steal any money or jewelry. He simply watched the crime happen because he was, in his words, “curious.”

Derrick Bennett: And I stayed over there for a little while. And, you know, I got curious, I went around there. You know, like anybody else would do, go around there. And I went around and I just seen a shit what they was doing.

Narrator: When asked who all was present that day, Derrick’s answer is very telling.

Detective Sanchez: Do you remember who all the people were that were gathered around when this was being said?

Derrick Bennett: Who was all there?

Detective Sanhcez: Mmmhmm.

Derrick Bennett: Okay, I was sitting on a bench. I know Snotrag because Snotrag always stay with me. And he was there. Like I say, Bobo was there, Levy was there, Hollywood was there. It was, you know, the usual bunch that you locked up was there.

Detective Sanchez: All of the people that we locked up were there?

Derrick Bennett: Yeah.

Detective Sanchez: How do you know we locked up people?

Derrick Bennett: Because I seen it on the news I seen the faces.

Narrator: As with Calvin and Cliff’s statements before, there were some obvious issues with Derrick’s video statement. He claimed he had a very clear memory of the day of the attack. He said the following when asked to describe October 1, 1984:

Det. Sanchez: Do you remember what the weather was like?

Derrick Bennett: It was a clear day.

Detective Sanchez: A clear day?

Derrick Bennett: Mmhmm. (affirmative)

Narrator: But it had been raining all day on October 1st.

Furthermore, the roles he assigned participants varied from Calvin and Cliff’s accounts. He also placed two girls in the alley, something neither Calvin nor Cliff mentioned in their statements.

Detective Sanchez: How many girls were back there, if you could recall please?

Derrick Bennet: Two.

Detective Sanchez: No other girls?

Derrick Bennett: Uh huh. [negative]

Detective Sanchez: Those are the two girls who were back there?

Derrick Bennett: Mmhmm. [affirmative]

Narrator: Derrick claimed there had been “around 50 people back there,” a number much higher than what the others had claimed.

Detective Sanchez: Earlier you said that there was about 50 people back there, your estimation, right?

Derrick Bennett: Mmhmm. [affirmative]

Detective Sanchez: Okay.

Narrator: If that many people were involved in the attack, it would probably result in injuries scattered all over the victim’s body. But Mrs. Fuller only had injuries on one side of her body and one side of her face. Even if the group was smaller than what Derrick said, like the 13 Cliff had suggested, this wound pattern still wouldn’t make sense.

The next day, Derrick went to court to be formally charged with murder. But unlike the others, Derrick was released on bail because he had a steady job, much to the prosecutors’ chagrin.

Two months later, Derrick was arrested for selling $50 worth of cocaine to an undercover cop. This time, when he was brought in for questioning, the stakes were raised significantly. Derrick could face up to 30 years in prison for the drug offense alone. Additionally, the detectives and the prosecutor threatened to pursue charges against his mother for credit card fraud if he didn’t cooperate.

The detectives had the clear upper hand now, and they were ready to push Derrick hard for more information on Catherine Fuller’s murder. To spare himself decades in prison—and to protect his mother—Derrick told the detectives he’d actively been part of the attack. He also agreed to testify in front of a grand jury.

(music fades in)

When you think of a jury, you may picture a group of people, sitting around a table, arguing over whether a person is guilty or innocent. A grand jury, on the other hand, is something completely different.

A grand jury is a group of citizens that decides if there is enough evidence for formal felony charges to be filed against a person that’s been arrested for a crime. The legal word for this is an “indictment.” If a person isn’t indicted by the grand jury, the charges will usually be dismissed. If they are indicted, that person will usually either go to trial or plead guilty.

An important thing to note about grand juries is that the prosecutor in the case is very clearly in control of the entire process. There is no judge presiding and there are no defense attorneys present. Often, the only people in the room are a group of 16 to 23 grand jurors, the person that’s testifying, and the prosecutor.

While a grand jury is supposed to make decisions objectively, the reality is the prosecutor presents the evidence in a way that is favorable to them, almost totally unchecked.

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas once wrote, “Any experienced prosecutor will admit he can indict anybody at any time for almost anything before any grand jury.” Former New York Court of Appeals Judge Sol Wachtler put it more bluntly when he famously said a good prosecutor could get a grand jury to “indict a ham sandwich.”

(music out)

Derrick Bennett met with the detectives and prosecutor Jerry Goren several times to “rehearse” before appearing in front of the grand jury. In an interview years later with a reporter, he explained, “Most of what I said came from Goren and the detectives.” He practiced with them over and over again. When it came time to testify in front of the grand jury, he implicated nearly everyone the police had arrested, plus a few more.

After hearing his testimony, the grand jurors were perplexed. The prosecutor claimed the sole motive was robbery. But according to Derrick, the most gruesome parts of the attack happened after Mrs. Fuller’s pocketbook was snatched.

This prompted several questions. One juror asked, “If the motive was to get money,” then why, “in your mind,” did the attack continue after they took Fuller’s purse? Derrick answered, truthfully, “In my mind, I don’t know.”

Another juror tried to dig even further. They asked if all of the people implicated in the crime knew Mrs. Fuller personally. Interestingly, Derrick answered, “Well, from what I was told, they all knew the lady.”

The juror pressed Derrick further on this point. The following is directly quoted from the record of Derrick’s grand jury testimony, read by my colleague Joe Wilkes:

Joe Wilkes: Juror: ​They never said that this lady had ever done anything to any of them that would make them want to do this to the lady?

Derrick Bennett: ​I’m quite sure the lady didn’t do nothin’. I’m quite sure she never did nothin’ to them.

Juror: ​How would this lady happen to have been picked to be the one?

Derrick Bennett: ​I don’t know.

Narrator: Derrick clearly couldn’t explain to the grand jury why this gruesome murder happened. But that’s not what the prosecutor needed from him. All Jerry Goren needed out of Derrick was a statement that confirmed he, and all of the other young men police had arrested so far, were involved. Derrick had served that purpose.

Part 4: More Arrests

Derrick Bennett's testimony led police to another suspect, 19-year-old Steve Webb. Steve lived about a mile from 8th and H, but his girlfriend lived close to the intersection, so he frequently hung out in the area. Police arrested him in late February of 1985.

The detectives presented the pie analogy to Steve. According to the detectives’ notes, Steve began to tell a story wildly different from what others had recounted in their statements.

He claimed Mrs. Fuller had come from a bar just prior to the attack, and that she was attacked in plain view on H street, and then she was pulled into the alley. Detectives began to set up a camera to get a video statement from Steve. But just before hitting the record button, he broke down in tears. “I’m not going to do the videotape,” he told them, “because what I just told you was a bunch of lies.”

Between May and July 1985, police arrested 3 more alleged perpetrators: Mike Campbell, age 17, Gregory Williams, age 18, and Lisa Ruffin, the only girl charged in the case, age 17. Lisa was also the last arrest that would be made in the 8th and H case.

By the end of July 1985, all of the dominoes had fallen. 17 young people were in custody for the murder of Catherine Fuller, all between the ages of 16 and 25. Ultimately, the grand jury dismissed charges for four of the 17: Gregory Williams, Lamont Bobbit, Darryl Murchison, and Burt Franklin.

That left 13 people charged with Catherine Fuller’s murder. Two of those 13—Calvin Alston and Derrick Bennett—plead guilty to lesser crimes in exchange for shorter prison sentences. They also would agree to testify on behalf of the government at trial.

The remaining 11 maintained their innocence. That meant Chris Turner, Levy Rouse, Charles Turner, Russell Overton, Timothy Catlett, Clifton Yarbourough, Steve Webb, Kelvin Smith, Mike Campbell, Alphonso “Monk” Harris, and Lisa Ruffin were headed to court.

Nothing could have prepared them for the absolute frenzy that was about to surround the biggest murder trial in all of DC history.

Charles Turner: I always felt that I was going to be found innocent. At no time did I think I was going to be found guilty because, you know, you got to you got to have faith in the system. Like, they’re going to find out it wasn’t me at some point and they’re going to let me go. But it didn’t happen.

Narrator: That’s next time on The Alley: DC’s 8th and H Case.

Maika Moulite: This podcast is dedicated in memory of Catherine Fuller. Our host is Shannon Lynch. Our executive producers are Jason Stewart and Shannon Lynch. This was recorded at New America studios and Creative Underground. The cover art is by Samantha Webster. Editorial and media support from Jodi Narde, Molly Martin, and Joe Wilkes. Audio editing and mixing by Shannon Lynch. Social media directed by me, Maika Moulite. Script editing and fact checking by Thomas Dybdahl and Charla Freeland. A very special thank you to Patrice Gaines for keeping this story alive for decades and for supporting this project throughout production. Please subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen and be sure to follow New America on all platforms.