Gergory Freeman: Murder Witness Still On Edge. P-D 7/8/1994

Headline: MURDER WITNESS STILL ON EDGE
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed: Fri., Jul. 8, 1994
Section: WAR PAGE, Page: 5C, Edition: FIVE STAR

THE MYSTERIOUS VOICE on the other end of the line said that she needed to talk to me in person.
We made arrangements, and met over lunch. She called herself Tina, but quickly told me that that wasn't her real name. She didn't want me to know her real name for reasons that were to become obvious.

She said she had been "touched" by a column I wrote earlier this year. It was about Linda Matlock. Although I hadn't known Linda well, we had been acquainted in high school. Earlier this year, as she was helping her daughters with homework in her kitchen, a bullet whizzed through the window, killing her. But witnesses were refusing to help.
I wrote about the importance of witnesses' stepping forward, not only in Linda's case but in others. As long as criminals can do what they want without fear, they'll control the city's meanest streets and some that aren't even so mean.

Tina said the column moved her. "I almost called the police then and there, " she said.
   She explained that she had witnessed a murder last summer. She refused to get specific about it. "I don't want anybody knowing what I saw, " she said.
   She did say that it was a street robbery involving two young men in their late teens. The robber took a watch, a gold chain and the wallet of the victim, and then shot him.
   "It scared me something awful, " she said. "I had been walking down the street when I saw it happen. I ran between two houses and hid."

The murder has bothered her ever since.
"The guy who was killed seemed to be a decent young man, " she said. "He was dressed nice, his hair looked nice and he seemed like he wasn't the kind to bother nobody. It was a shame, and I hated that it happened."

But Tina didn't call the police. "There's no way I would have called the police and said I was a witness, " she said.
"These streets have ears. If I had done that, I might not have been here today."
Fear, Tina explained, kept her from stepping forward. "I wanted to help. But while we have one dead boy now, I don't want it to be one dead middle-age woman later, " she said.

Tina knows people who have been threatened if they tell what they saw. "And the police can't protect you, " she said. "You said it yourself in the column."
St. Louis Circuit Attorney Dee Joyce-Hayes has acknowledged that there is little the police can do to protect witnesses. Unlike the federal government, the city lacks the money to offer around-the-clock protection. While police can take precautionary measures and watch for trouble, they can't afford the kind of protection Tina says is necessary.

Charles Poole, spokesman for Police Chief Clarence Harmon, agrees.
"We'll work to make a witness safer, but we're limited in what we can do, " he said. "We want people to come forward and we'll do what we can do, but it's a personal decision.
However, we can have all the anti-crime marches we want, we can get together in the supermarkets and talk about how bad it is these days, but until we decide to take some risks, the problem of crime will get worse before it gets better."

Tina still worries. "The biggest problem is that these folks go to jail one day and they're out the next, " she said. "They get sentenced to 20 years in jail for robbing somebody and the next thing you know, they're out, mad because you're the reason for them having been in there in the first place. Then they're out to get you."

I told Tina about the "truth-in-sentencing" measure signed into law last week by Gov. Mel Carnahan. Under the law, persons convicted of certain violent crimes will have to serve 85 percent of their sentences. For example, a rapist given 20 years in prison was likely to serve four or five years under the old law. But under the new law, that same rapist would serve at least 17 years. The governor's calling it the toughest anti-crime legislation in the state's history.
Tina chuckled and proved herself to be a true Missourian. "You're going to have to show me before I believe that, " she said. "Politicians always say things are going to happen and you believe them and then you find out they weren't being honest with you."
She had me there.

But the law's on the books now. We'll see how straight they were with us.
"If it is true, though, " she said, "I'll bet a lot of people who are scared like me will be more willing to tell somebody what they saw."
Tina's not ready to tell the police what she witnessed. "But if they can get these hoodlums off the streets and keep them off, I'll feel more comfortable calling the police and telling them what I know, " she said.

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

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