INNOCENCE BETRAYED PART FOUR

'We can all start to heal

By Mary McCarty, Laura A. Bischoff

Dayton Daily News

The call comes shortly after midnight.

"I just talked to your mother and she told me that they got a partial confession out of Earl Mann and

he put himself in your grandmother's house," Cindy Elkins tells her nephew Brandon.

"There ain't no way they're going to keep your dad."

Brandon and his older brother, Clarence Jr., head to Wal-Mart and stock up with supplies for their father: toothpaste, shaving cream, razors, shoes, size 36 pants. They steer away from the color blue.

It is 3 a.m., and as they head to the checkout the notion of Clarence Elkins getting out of prison seems as surreal as the fluorescent lights in the hangar-like superstore.

"I don't know why we're doing this," Clarence Jr. tells his brother.

"We're getting our hopes up again."

11 a.m., 17th floor,

Rhodes Tower, Columbus

Melinda Elkins and Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro are preparing for yet another press conference to pressure prosecutors when Summit County officials call to say they have signed a court order dropping all charges against Clarence Elkins in the 1998 murder and rape of his mother-in-law, Judy Johnson, and the rape of his niece Brooke Sutton.

The five-sentence order wipes away the dirty labels — killer, rapist, sexual predator — as well as the 49 years left on Elkins' sentence.

Standing beside Petro in front of the reporters, Melinda quietly prays to her mother: "We got him, Mom. You can rest in peace now."

Then she faces the TV cameras and says what she's been dreaming of for years: "And I'd like to say to Earl Mann: We got you."

Noon, Mansfield Correctional Institution

Elkins is puzzled when the prison's public information officer tells him he needs to make a phone call.

"This isn't normal," he thinks.

Since results from the cigarette butt DNA became public, Elkins has been in "the hole," locked up for his own protection in case Earl Mann's friends at the Mansfield Correctional Institution might want to do him harm.

He is treated like any other inmate in solitary confinement: shackled and separated from his visitors by glass partitions, released from his cell for only minutes each day. The single bed takes up most of the space, forcing Elkins to sleep with his head next to the toilet.

"Today's your day," Corisa Welch, the prison's public information officer, tells him before dialing the attorney general's office. Elkins grins back at her.

He hears Melinda's voice on the other end of the phone.

"Are you ready to come home?" she asks.

"I've been ready," he tells her.

"Pack your bags," she says. "You're coming home today."

Before they hang up, Clarence urges Melinda to pass a message to his loved ones who would be heading to Mansfield on the snow-slick highways. "Please tell them, 'Don't be speeding,' " he says. "Take your time.''

Noon, University of Cincinnati College of Law

Michele Berry is writing an exam on habeas corpus — the writ used to challenge the constitutionality of incarceration — when an e-mail message flashes on her computer: "Clarence is free."

Berry, 24, a third-year law student from Centerville, has been working on Elkins' appellate case with the Ohio Innocence Project, the University of Cincinnati-based program that uses law students and faculty to re-examine questionable criminal convictions.

The chance to become involved in the Innocence Project was the reason the Chaminade-Julienne graduate picked UC over Notre Dame. Now that the work of the students has helped to free an innocent man, she understands the meaning of that tired cliche, "My heart skipped a beat."

Suddenly she doesn't feel tired or overwhelmed with exams.

3:40 p.m., Mansfield Correctional Institution

The day couldn't be drearier, one of those typical December days in Ohio when it is raining one moment and snowing the next.

As Clarence finally makes his way to the outside, it's as if the sun has broken through the clouds.

Most inmates eventually taste freedom, but Elkins is part of a small fraternity. Nationally, fewer than 500 wrongfully convicted prisoners have cleared their names in the last 15 years.

"We can all start to heal," Melinda thinks, holding Clarence in her arms. "This is the beginning of the end."

It is during his first meal as a free man that Elkins realizes how numerous, even strange, the adjustments to life on the outside will be. He gazes down at his salad and spots an unfamiliar object: croutons. Had he ever lived in a world where you had the freedom to order things like croutons?

Months later, Elkins would tell First Assistant Attorney General Jim Canepa what he learned from his years of confinement: "You know, a lot of people don't realize what they have," he said. "They don't appreciate the little things like the choice of what to eat, the ability to hug your child, the ability to drive down the street, the ability to decide what you want to wear. A lot of people don't realize that until they're on their deathbed to share their love and appreciation with people in their lives.

"You know, I really got a gift."

'I can't deal with this'

The media portray it as a love story: Melinda stood by her man and they are walking off into the sunset together, holding hands. But as Clarence and Melinda approach their silver wedding anniversary, there is no sunset and definitely no holding hands.

Even before their seven-year separation, their marriage had been rocky, strained by unemployment, financial hardship, brief break-ups. "While Clarence was in prison, I didn't know what would happen to this marriage," Melinda says. "I wasn't focused on saving my marriage; I was focused on getting him out of there. The marriage and the emotional part of it were too painful for me, so I put a wall up. I couldn't allow any emotion to come in — and, of course, that led to feelings changing."

On Christmas morning, less than two weeks after Elkins' release, Brandon feels that familiar little-kid excitement. It isn't the gifts under the tree he's anticipating; it's having his dad in the family circle once again. "It's all I needed," he thinks.

But it doesn't last, not even the entire day. After dinner, Melinda tells Clarence: "I feel that it's better you go to your mom and dad's. I can't deal with this right now."

After seven years, six months and nine days behind bars, Clarence lives just 10 days in the same house as his wife. He goes to live with his parents, Charles and Nancy Elkins, in Waynesburg.

Melinda doesn't have the heart to tell Clarence, but there's a reason for her awkwardness. She has fallen in love with someone else, a man she met through work.

When Clarence was in prison, Melinda tried to avoid situations where she might meet men. It didn't seem loyal to Clarence. When she falls in love, it isn't in a smoky bar or a fitness club or through Match.com. It's over the phone, with a supplier for the Canton-based Timken Co. where she works as a customer service representative.

From the beginning, there's a spark in her conversations with Patrick Dawson, a Dixie High School graduate who grew up in New Lebanon.

"You could tell he had this personality," Melinda said. "It just jumped over the phone. I immediately felt this connection."

The attraction is mutual, but Melinda expects Dawson to disappear when she tells him about Clarence. "It scared me at first," Dawson confesses. "It was pretty bizarre." But he is impressed with Melinda when she makes her second appearance on the TV show "American Justice" in October 2005. "She has this bubbly personality, which is pretty amazing considering everything she has been through," Dawson says.

After four months of telephone courtship, Melinda drives to Miamisburg to meet Dawson for the first time. "I opened the door and she stopped me in my tracks," Dawson recalls. "It was love at first sight for both of us."

Adjusting to life outside

Even while living with his parents, Clarence still spends a part of every day with his sons. "The boys will look at me as if they can't believe I'm there," he says.

His mother, too, steals into the living room from time to time to catch glimpses of her son as he sleeps in the La-Z-Boy. As time goes by, she notices less nervousness, less looking over his shoulder. He gradually drops the prison ritual of placing his fork diagonally across the plate after every meal.

Michele Berry is assigned to help Clarence readjust to the outside world, assisting with everything from shopping for a pickup truck to applying for a loan.

"It's tough, starting anew, but he's not jaded and bitter," she says. "He would tell you he has grown as a person. He has been through a horrific experience yet taken only good from it. I'd be a really harsh, angry person."

Clarence gets frustrated because he can't do everything at once, Berry says. His mind is constantly racing, to the point where vegging out in front of the TV is nearly impossible, she says. When he opens a restaurant menu, Berry notices that he appears almost dizzy from the array of choices.

"It has been overwhelming," Clarence admits two months after gaining his freedom. "I'm still trying to find my way."

Martin Yant, the private investigator the Elkins family hired to work on Clarence's case, says he is doing better than others who served time before being exonerated.

But there have been bumps for Clarence. On July 25, he was arrested in Stark County on a charge of drunken driving. He appeared in court last week, pleading not guilty.

'I'm asking you if you'll marry me'

The entire time Clarence was incarcerated, people marveled at Melinda's single-minded focus and almost superhuman resolve.

At a forum in February, Attorney General Jim Petro declared: "I'm not sure I've ever met someone with the courage and determination I've seen in Melinda Elkins."

It is only after Clarence's release that she breaks down, like a marathon runner who just crossed the finish line. She goes on short-term disability after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She continues to see a counselor.

"I went through this whole thing with no medicine, just on constant adrenaline," she recalls. "Now I feel as if I'm coming to grips with my mother's murder, reliving it, starting from Day 1. It almost feels as if it just happened."

Vivid, violent nightmares — her mother pleading for help — disturb her sleep. She awakes every time, feeling shaken and guilty.

Daylight hours are marred by sudden panic attacks. She drops 25 pounds from the stress.

Melinda feels great joy for Clarence, and she feels proud of herself and her entire family. "We took on the state of Ohio, and we won," she says, beaming. But in the next moment she is all but overcome with rage that the job was left to her, a working mother with no college degree or legal credentials.

"There are people hired and elected to do this type of job, the investigation that I was doing, and yet they were so eager and willing to be done with it," she says. "They had a conviction, and they were done. Anger kept me going, fueled me. Clarence was in prison for something he didn't do and nobody was looking for the real killer. But now the anger is stopping me in my tracks. I don't know what to do with it. I can't get back in my groove again."

By Valentine's Day, Clarence and Melinda present a united front at an Innocence Project forum at the University of Cincinnati. But behind the scenes the couple has begun to talk about divorce.

That night Dawson gets down on his knees and presents Melinda with a velvet box containing a diamond engagement ring.

"What does this mean?" she asks.

"I'm asking you if you'll marry me," Dawson says with tears in his eyes.

She answers without hesitation or reservation. "Yes!"

A move to the Miami Valley

In March, Melinda, Brooke and Brooke's 10-year-old brother move to Montgomery County, where they rent a house with Dawson that Melinda decorates with her mom's beloved elephant motif.

For Brandon and Clarence Jr., who stay in northern Ohio near their father, the new boyfriend signals an end to hopes of a reunion. "I always thought once he came home, it'd be normal," says Brandon. "It was a big slap in the face. It ain't normal and it ain't gonna be normal."

Their mother hates to break their hearts. "But I couldn't live without him," she says of Dawson. "It's typical of my life. Nothing is black and white, cut and dried."

For nearly eight years the brothers were invisible victims, collateral damage. The state tried to put their dad to death and sent him away for life. "I don't think people really know what me and Clarence went through," Brandon says, adding, "not that it's all that important."

Given what their father was living through every day, they didn't expect to be more than an afterthought: after Dad, after Mom, after The Case, most of all. It was the cause that united them, made them a family, taking the place of weekend fishing trips to Atwood Lake and the three-man arm-wrestling contests Dad invariably won.

"Every day through your teenage years your father is there to guide you, keep you on track," says Brandon. "I'm pretty proud of myself, proud of Clarence and how we turned out. We could be out drinking and doing drugs, but we knew that wasn't the answer."

Having Dad around again did require some adjustments. Brandon, who lived with Clarence in Waynesburg after Melinda moved to the Dayton area, chafed at some of his father's rules. "Dad, I'm 20 years old," he reminded him one day when his father tried to impose a curfew.

Brooke, too, is adjusting to her new life. She misses her old friends, but feels a certain relief at not being identified primarily as the survivor of a notorious murder case.

She survived, but the killer stole something the girl will never be able to reclaim: her childhood. She can barely remember those days when she played until twilight with her best friends, Earl Mann's three daughters.

"People judge me because of what happened," she says. "There is one particular incident that will bother me as long as I live. In Barberton, this girl didn't like me and she said, 'At least I didn't have sex with my uncle.' "

In the Dayton area she quickly plugs into the teen social scene. It's like clockwork. The minute Brooke arrives home from school, the phone rings, and she'll giggle and gossip with friends over who likes whom and what's happening this weekend. Her curly reddish-brown hair is dyed jet-black with bottle blonde bangs, her girl-next-door look replaced by Goth rocker.

Melinda and Brooke continue to make public appearances and to give interviews to local and national media, including "Larry King Live." Clarence, in contrast, avoids the press, making few public appearances. He wants to move on with his life, fade back into the town where he grew up, maybe start an excavating or landscaping business so he can work for himself.

"I'm a forgiving person and I'm willing to forgive and move on," Clarence says.

In January, Clarence sued the state for wrongful imprisonment, reaching a settlement in a matter of months: $1,075,000. While he is under no legal obligation to share the cash, he is adamant that his friends and family be reimbursed for their expenses. When the first check arrives, he shares some of the money with Melinda.

"I'm very grateful to her," he says.

Justice delayed

In April 2009, Earl Mann is scheduled to walk out of prison. Summit County prosecutors failed to include "with force" in the child rape indictment against Mann back in November 2001. That, as well as other problems with the case, led to a seven-year plea deal with the prisoner who otherwise could have faced up to 114 years in prison.

To make matters worse, Summit County's evidence vaults have been burglarized. Chief Assistant Criminal Prosecutor Mary Ann Kovach dismisses concerns that this will hurt the case against Mann. "The Earl Mann evidence or Elkins evidence is all in my office," she says. "My office is locked every night by me."

Kovach will not comment on the information Cindy Elkins passed on to Brandon and Clarence Jr. the night before their father was released, that Mann gave a "partial confession" about his possible involvement in Judy Johnson's murder.

As for the positive DNA matches, the evidence has yet to result in charges against Mann.

Will Mann ever be charged in the murder of Judy Johnson?

Kovach says only that, "We'll charge him when we're ready to charge him."

The continued delays only add to Melinda's mounting frustration and her unresolved grief for her mother. She tucks a blotchy and tattered black-and-white snapshot — Judy holding Melinda as a baby — into the dashboard of her sporty new maroon sedan. It's a constant reminder that Melinda has never kept her promise to put the real killer behind bars.

"This isn't over for me," she declares. "This was never just about freeing Clarence. This was about Judith Ann Johnson, my mother."

Coming soon

to theaters near you

From Norma Rae to North Country, Hollywood is irresistibly drawn to films about strong women who stand up for their rights, who fight for the little guy, who battle injustice.

It doesn't take long for Hollywood to come knocking on Melinda's door. She holds several discussions with Lifetime TV but ultimately leans toward Universal Pictures. A Hollywood-based attorney is helping to negotiate the deal with Universal executives, who first became aware of the case after Melinda's appearance on "Larry King Live." Independent filmmaker Danielle Lurie has already started work on the screenplay, attending the candlelight vigil with a handheld camcorder and making stops in Columbus and Cincinnati to interview Petro, Godsey and others. "I think Melinda is one of the most inspirational women in American history," Lurie says.

Melinda is anxious when she imagines reliving the ordeal on a 15-by-35-foot movie screen. But a movie could inspire other families with wrongly imprisoned loved ones. It could serve as a cautionary tale for police and prosecutors.

And, Melinda admits, the money — though she isn't sure how much it will be — would help. Last year, she filed for bankruptcy. The movie deal might mean clearing her debts, paying day-to-day expenses and then figuring out how she can parlay all of this into helping others.

"I want Charlize Theron to play me," Melinda tells everyone with a giggle that carries with it the unnerving realization that such casting isn't outside the realm of possibility.

Second chances

On June 7, just as she has done every year on the anniversary of the murder, Melinda leads a candlelight vigil in a park across from Barberton City Hall. This year the focus shifts from freeing Clarence to pressuring authorities to indict Earl Mann.

"Pray for Final Justice for Judy Johnson" proclaims the bright yellow poster Melinda has taped to the gazebo at Lake Anna Park. Judy smiles warmly from a color photo in the center.

April pops a CD into a black boombox and the Beach Boys' Barbara Ann starts blaring, "Bar bar bar bar Barbara Ann." Melinda shoots her sister a look. "That's April," she says good-naturedly as a 2-year-old boy with a brush cut starts dancing in the gazebo. "My mom really likes it," April explains. "I tried to make all the songs all ones my mom likes."

Melinda smiles at her indulgently. She is grateful to be close to her sister once again, and she is considering a move she would never have believed possible a few years ago: letting April's son move back in with his mother.

Since November 2003, April's children have been living with Melinda. Brooke wants to stay with her "Aunt Mindy," but her brother wants to move back in with his mother. Melinda loves the boy as if he were her own, but April has come a long way, she thinks, and deserves a second chance.

It is a family, after all, that has been built on second chances.

Finally, a milestone

On June 23, Clarence Elkins Jr. marries his girlfriend of five years, Angie Reed, in an outdoor ceremony before 200 guests. It's the reunion this family hasn't had. Years after the family splintered in the worst possible way, here they are, together again. Clarence and Melinda are cordial with each other but a bit distant. They bring their own dates.

Melinda, wearing a black silk gown with rhinestones up the front and back, lifts her glass to toast her son:

"I'm proud of the man you've become. I'm deliriously happy you and Angie picked each other for a mate and I know your marriage will survive anything as long as you respect one another and put each other first."

Clarence Jr. was always the one to hold everyone together, she thinks.

"Now this is your turn to be happy and concentrate on your life and Angie's life together," she tells them. "I know that your grandmother would have been extremely proud of you today."

Brooke, too, feels her grandmother's presence. "I know she's there; I just do," she says.

The wedding is officiated by Liberty Baptist Church Pastor Tom Williams, who visited Clarence in prison regularly and helped raise $12,000 for his appeals. Months earlier, when Clarence talked about the wedding, his voice filled with emotion.

"My son postponed the wedding so I could be there," he said.

Elkins missed every day of Brandon's teenage years, Clarence Jr. getting his first job, his sons' ballgames, afternoons spent working on cars with the boys, bonfires with his friends, the birth of a nephew.

He missed his brother's wedding, too, the one where he was supposed to be best man.

Six months ago, he was in prison looking at a life sentence. Now, against the backdrop of Atwood Lake, the scene of so many father-son fishing trips, there is Clarence Elkins, father of the groom, at the wedding of his first-born.

Finally, a milestone he isn't missing.