Episode 2: Prisoners of Their Initial Hunch

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.

An anonymous tip led to a theory of a “violent gang attack” that captured detectives’ imaginations—without substantial physical evidence. How could the DC justice system mishandle this case so egregiously from the start? In a city built by slave labor and steeped in racial politics, you don’t have to look too hard to find answers.

Voices & Sounds Heard in this Episode

• George Derek Musgrove, DC historian
• Gary Reals, reporter (archival audio from WJLA)
• Patrice Gaines, former Washington Post reporter
• Chris Turner, one of the accused
• Cliff Yarborough, one of the accused
• Timothy Catlett, one of the accused
• Charles Turner, one of the accused
• Jim Trainum, former MPD homicide detective and false confessions expert

Transcript:

Episode 2: Prisoners of Their Initial Hunch

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

“I served 26 years in prison for a crime I did not commit...”

Narrator (Shannon Lynch): This is The Alley: DC’s 8th & H Case.

Episode 2: Prisoners of their Initial Hunch

On the evening of October 1st, 1984, Catherine Fuller's body was found in an alley near the busy intersection of 8th and H streets Northeast in Washington, DC.

Police received several early leads. The young man that found her body, William Freeman, said he saw 2 men fleeing the alley when police arrived. He, and other witness, were able to identify these 2 young men through an array of photos.

Another lead came from an anonymous caller who said he’d heard of a gang called the “8th and H Crew” that supposedly committed crimes in the alley. Tipster Michael Lee Jackson shared an account of walking through the alley around the time of death and hearing groans coming from the closed garage.

Lastly, 2 individuals told police that they were approached by a man and woman outside of the liquor store where Catherine Fuller was last seen alive. The couple sold them a ring just hours after Fuller's time of death. The ring was identified as belonging to Catherine.

After considering these early leads, Detectives Sanchez and McGinnis decided to pursue the theory that the “8th and H Crew” committed the crime in a gang attack. None of the other leads would be pursued extensively.

Why was the DC justice system allowed to egregiously mishandle this case? In a city built by slave labor, you don't have to look too hard to find answers.

Part 1 - Historical Context

Washington, DC, was founded in 1790 after George Washington chose it to be the U.S. capital. He picked this location specifically because of its proximity to both slave and non-slave states. From its inception, DC was shaped by racial politics.

Slavery played a very real, tangible role in the development of the city. Some of the most important landmarks in DC, such as the White House, were built partially by enslaved people.

Washington, DC has long had a prominent Black population that has fought to keep its presence known.

After the passage of the 15th Amendment, right after the Civil War, Black men in The District voted in local politicians that looked like them to represent their best interests.

George Derek Musgrove: What you get is the emergence after the war of Black political power and African Americans become sort of a regular part of the District. And they're not just, you know, serving in elected office. They're also encouraging the Metropolitan Police Department to hire black officers.

Narrator: That’s George Derek Musgrove, an historian that co-authored the book Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy in the Nation’s Capital. I had a discussion with him about DC history in March of 2023.

G. Derek Musgrove: you're getting all of these changes in the way that the District is structured. There is a very robust counter revolution that then occurs primarily among conservative white Democrats and conservative white Republicans. And these two groups of people share an antipathy to Black voting, and many of them actually share a hostility to poor white people voting. And so they begin to lobby Congress in 1870, 1871 to create a much more restricted form of government that essentially contains democracy, a government that's more appointed than is elected, and that most of the places where money would be spent would actually be in the hands of the appointed officials. And Congress gladly obliges.

Narrator: For the century that followed, DC residents weren’t able to elect anyone to represent them in local government.

DC voters were not allowed to cast a ballot for President until 1964. They were not able to directly elect a Council and a Mayor until 1974. Even then, Congress continued to have the power to override any laws DC resident’s made for themselves. This is the case to this day.

After the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, a revolt spread throughout the city. One of the places most affected was the H Street Corridor. It devastated economic development.

George Derek Musgrove: What the revolt does is convinces a lot of those store owners that it's time to take their business out of the city. And so what you really have is, is the exodus of capital from the old black business districts of the city. H Street, U Street, Nicholas Road. The other thing that you have when it comes to the 1968 revolt is that the federal government clears the lots in the riot corridors. But doesn't provide the funding that the city needs to rebuild. And so for a couple of months, you actually get the charred remains of a lot of these businesses just sitting there. Once they're cleared, though, the money never appears. And this is because local white banks don't lend in black neighborhoods through the eighties. And so big parts of H Street just had these empty blocks.

Narrator: In the 70s in DC, a signature musical genre was born in DC called go-go. Go-go is an unmistakable subgenre of funk music. It is truly a sound unto its own. The style is underscored by syncopated rhythms created with bass, snare, conga drums and cowbells, among other instruments. Another important aspect of the genre is its element of live audience call and response. By the 1980s, go-go was embedded in the culture of native Washingtonians.

Go-go isn’t just a genre of music, it’s also an event. It’s a concert, but it is also a place to socialize. On weekends in the 80s, many young DC residents could be found at go-gos, doing what most young people do – dancing, listening to music, and flirting with whoever caught their eye. These events happened at venues like the historic Washington Coliseum aka the Uline Arena, which stood less than a mile from 8th and H.

Author Patrice Gaines was a reporter for the Washington Post back in the mid-80s. She explained a central feature at go-gos:

Patrice Gaines: You know, I had been to go-go concerts and I knew that there's a call and response and they might say, “Is 8th and H in the house?!” and they all yell. And so people were identified in that way by their neighborhoods, by their areas. But it didn’t mean that they were really like a gang. It was a crew of people that hung together or just represented their community.

Narrator: Chris Turner, who you heard from in the last episode, grew up in the 8th and H area and frequented go-gos in his youth. He explained that when fights broke out, Crews stuck together to protect their own:

Chris Turner:There were fights at every go-go. Every single go-go. Someone stepped on somebody's foot, somebody pushed somebody. And you understood that and you knew that. And that was the norm. And guys out of Northeast stuck together

Narrator: So, was the 8th and H Crew a violent gang? Or was it a group of teenagers that attended concerts together and occasionally got into fights? The people investigating Catherine Fuller’s murder had very little understanding of the neighborhood. They didn’t know the dynamics of go-go culture. When a group of young Black men with a unifying name was pointed out to them, it was easy for them to label them a malicious gang.

However, for the people that actually lived near 8th and H, they were mostly unaware of the threat of gangs in their neighborhood.

Gary Weaks (TV reporter):You live around here?

Resident on the street: Yes.

Gary Weaks: Never heard them?

Resident on the street #1: No. Never heard of them, never seen them either.

Gary Weaks: You ever heard of a gang by the name of the 8th and H Crew?

Resident on the street #2: No, I haven't.

Gary Weaks: Never heard of them?

Resident on the street #2: Hmm. No, not a gang.

Narrator: Patrice Gaines described the interactions she had with community members in 1985:

Patrice Gaines: Well what struck me when I first got to the neighborhood as a reporter was the fact that people were astounded that it was thought that there was a gang in their community. There was no fear of these young men. I didn't get the same picture from the people in the community that I got from what police said.

Narrator: The year 1984 saw fewer homicides than all but one year (1985) between 1972 and 2004. It wasn’t until several years later, in the late 80s and early 90s, that DC earned the moniker “murder capital” of the country. This was fueled by crime associated with the crack epidemic. The number of homicides per year peaked in DC in 1991 at 509, compared to 182 in 1984.

Chris Turner was 19 years old in 1984. He remembers The H Street Corridor as a relatively safe, home-grown business district within a tight-knit community.

Chris Turner: There was shoes stores there, there was the wig shop, the uniform shop, People’s Drugstore, it was Murray’s Steakhouse. There was vendors out there on each corner selling jewelry, selling fruit, selling food. My family had been in the Northeast H Street area for, I want to say, 70 years, and so no matter where I went on H Street, it all felt like home to me.

Narrator: H Street, today, is a far cry from what it was back in 1984. The family-owned businesses are few and far-between. Neighborhood churches sit in the shadows of tall luxury apartment buildings. And of course, there's a Starbucks and a Whole Foods. But the alley where Catherine Fuller's body was found remains.

Part 2 - A Vulnerable Target

On October 4th, three days after Catherine Fuller’s murder, at around 4 pm, detectives picked up Clifton Yarbourough and his brother Ernie, the same Ernie mentioned by the anonymous caller in episode 1.

Clifton’s friends called him Cliff. He was 16 years old and a student at Eastern High. He excelled in a local basketball league. The trophies lining his parent’s living room were proof of that.

Cliff, Ernie, and the rest of their family had lived in the neighborhood surrounding 8th and H for many years. They were well-known in their community and were very familiar with the Fuller family. One of Mrs. Fuller’s sons, William, would attend church with the Yarbroroughs from time to time. When I interviewed Mr. Yarborough in late 2022, he told me:

Cliff Yarborough: I knew Mrs. Fuller, she lived on my block. My grandmother cook a lot sweet potato pies, a whole lot of cakes. She would always tell us take some around to Mrs. Fuller.

Narrator: Back in 1984, Cliff was a special education student. He had a verbal IQ of 66, putting him in the bottom 1 percent.

When he was brought into the homicide office on October 4th, he was placed in an interrogation room and left alone to stew, handcuffed to a chair. Steeped in nothing but his own thoughts, he was thoroughly confused. He hadn’t done anything wrong, so why was he here? Cliff didn’t yet know the answer to that question, but already he felt like whatever it was, it wasn’t going to turn out well for him. He had no adult or lawyer with him. He was scared.

The detectives spoke briefly with Cliff’s brother, Ernie, and released him shortly thereafter. Finally, they entered Cliff’s room.

He was immediately hit with questions about the Catherine Fuller murder. Cliff insisted he knew nothing about the crime, but the detectives didn’t believe him. As a 16-year-old student with a learning disability, Cliff was an easy target for them.

Cliff was at the station for more than five hours, during which police pressed him for information. They told him they knew Alphonso “Monk” Harris and Levy Rouse were involved. He told them repeatedly he knew nothing about the crime.

Clifton Yarbourough: They did ask me about Mrs. Fuller's murder, and I said I didn't know anything about it.

Narrator: The detectives left Cliff in the room alone again for a while and then returned with a pre-written document. They asked Cliff if he could read and write. He could write, he said, but he couldn’t read very well. When they asked if he wanted Detective Sanchez to read his statement for him he answered, “Yes.” The detectives asked Cliff to initial every page as they read it out loud.

Cliff Yarborough: So they had a statement that was already written out. And they told me to put my signature by it and I can go home. And I put CY, CY, CY, CY my initials of my name at the end of each sentence.

Narrator: Here’s my colleague Morell Mackey reading the statement:

Morrell Mackey: I was standing on 8th and H Street, me and some of my friends, and one of them said that that lady has some money, big money. So they say let’s go get paid. The lady turned at 8th and H and crossed the street, so they went behind her. And I came across H Street the other way. And the lady started screaming. Then she stopped and I walk[ed] home.

Narrator: According to the detective’s notes, Cliff supposedly talked to his friend Alphonso “Monk” Harris the day after the crime. Monk allegedly told Cliff that a mutual friend of theirs, Burt, was involved. Monk also said their other friend Levy Rouse was present, but was hesitant to actively participate. Monk said Mrs. Fuller “didn’t have nothing” to steal.

Here's former Washington Post reporter Patrice Gaines again:

Patrice Gaines: Now the thing is, Mrs. Fuller didn't have a lot of money. And the people that they arrested, if they didn't know her personally, they knew her as a woman in the neighborhood. If you live in a poor neighborhood, you know who has money and who doesn't. So this was another thing that didn't make sense to me that that many young people would want to split $30 or whatever small amount Mrs. Fuller would have. They would know that she wouldn’t have a lot of money.

Narrator: Furthermore, if the statement had truly been written in Cliff’s own words, why would he refer to Mrs. Fuller, a woman he was very familiar with, as "the lady" instead of by name?

The detectives could have arrested Cliff right then and there for aiding and abetting a murder, but they didn’t. Instead, with Cliff’s “statement” in hand, Detectives McGinnis and Sanchez got a warrant signed for the arrest of Alphonso “Monk” Harris, another one of the individuals named in the anonymous tip.

Part 3 - The First Arrest

Monk Harris was 22-years-old at the time of his arrest. He lived with his family less than a mile away from 8th and H. Monk frequented his on-and-off-again girlfriend’s place that stood just a few blocks from the intersection. He also worked as a mechanic in the area.

Monk was convinced police had been after him for a long time. A cop that patrolled the area named Donald Gossage had harassed him for years, arresting him repeatedly. Monk didn’t have any history of violence towards women.

Monk was arrested at his house without incident at 12:35 am on October 5th. At the homicide office, he gave police a statement about the day of the murder. He said he was at a friend’s house near 9th and I Streets Northeast from about 1:00 to 4:00 pm. After that, he visited his girlfriend until 5:30 p.m. Then a friend gave him a ride home. That evening his sister-in-law called his family’s house and told him someone had been killed at 8th and H. In the following days, police were able to interview Monk’s girlfriend and mom, who seemingly corroborated Monk’s alibi.

Later that afternoon, Monk made his first court appearance and a public defender was assigned to him. You’ll hear from Monk’s lawyer later in this series.

At Monk’s first hearing, the judge determined there was probable cause that Monk had been involved in the crime. He ordered that be held without bond in the DC Jail.

Part 4 - Digging In

By October 6th, less than a week after the murder, Detectives McGinnis and Sanchez had located and talked to all three of the young men mentioned in the anonymous caller’s tip – Alphonso “Monk” Harris, Levy Rouse, and Ernie Yarborough. One of them, Monk, was now in custody. But other than Cliff’s signed statement, investigators had little evidence that shored up the gang attack theory. Rather than reevaluating and following other leads, police dug in further. Any young man known to hang around 8th and H was brought in for questioning.

One of these young men was Timothy Catlett. About a week after the murder, Timothy, whose friends called “Snotrag,” told police he had no insider knowledge of the murder or the 8th & H Crew.

Timothy was 19 at the time and was living with a friend of Catherine Fuller’s named Mary Overton, and her son Russell Overton.

Timothy Catlett: You know, it was all gentle from the beginning, and then it turned to something else.Then the trick part came in was like, you know, sign these paper papers right here. And I was like, Sign what papers? Papers saying you will testify. Testify about what? Don't worry about it just sign the damn papers. I said, “man I'm not signing no papers!”

He didn’t succumb to the detectives threats and walked out of the station without signing anything. Detectives Sanchez and McGinnis decided to keep a close eye on him.

Another young man brought in by the detectives was 20-year-old Charles Turner. Charles is the older brother of Chris Turner.

Charles Turner: Yeah It turned into an interrogation. Everything was focused on what I knew. Every question they asked me was pertaining to the murder of Catherine Fuller.

Narrator: At 6:45 pm on October 10th, Charles gave detectives a written statement. He adamantly denied having any knowledge of the murder. He said he was home when it happened. Towards the end of the interview, Detective McGinnis asked Charles bluntly, “who killed the lady in the alley”? Charles answered, “I don’t know…I’m serious, man, I don’t know”.

Part 5 - Missed Suspects

While detectives McGinnis and Sanchez continued to pull in young Black men in an attempt to bolster their gang theory, other crimes against women were happening in the area surrounding 8th and H. Police told the Washington Post they knew of at least six instances of women being beaten and robbed around the same time of Catherine Fuller’s murder.

On October 24th, Nadine Winter, a member of the DC Council, was violently robbed in an alley half a mile away from where Catherine Fuller was murdered. Winter, 59, was repeatedly hit in the head and knocked to the ground in the 1100 block of K St NE. This was not just a “snatch-and-run” robbery. It was a vicious assault. She later recounted she’d feared for her life at the time.

The next day, October 25th, another woman named Marylin Ludwig experienced a similar nightmare. She was attacked by two men around 8:30 am just blocks away from the Fuller murder scene. Ludwig immediately reported the crime. And after she described the suspects to the police, they were able to track them down promptly.

One of these men was 18-year-old James McMillan, one of the two men that was identified fleeing from the alley where Fuller's body was found. He had a significant criminal record, with violent crimes against women being a continuous thread. In 1984, he was charged with the assaults against Nadine Winter and Marilyn Ludwig and ultimately served 8 years for these offenses.

It’s important to note here that the other young man charged with McMillan for the Winter and Ludwig assaults was not the same guy McMillan had been seen with in the alley after Fuller’s murder.

McMillan was a newcomer in the area and a bit of a loner. He did not spend time hanging out with the other young men in the neighborhood and therefore, he didn’t fit into the profile of a member of the supposed 8th and H Crew.

On October 26th, 41-year-old Ammie Davis was arrested for disorderly conduct and brought into the 5th district police headquarters. After reviewing her case, police told her she was free to go. But instead of leaving, she asked to talk to the supervisor at that station, which, on that day, was Lieutenant Frank Loney.

Davis sat down in Loney’s office. She was hesitant to talk at first, but then dropped a bombshell. She said she had information on a murder. Davis then went on to describe a man in his 30s named James Blue. According to her, she had witnessed Blue “beat the fuck out of” Catherine Fuller in the alley the day of the murder. Davis described it as a rainy Monday and the same day Blue had gotten out of jail. Both of these details were confirmed later on.

Ammie admitted to the officer that she was afraid of James Blue, and that was why she was so hesitant to talk. Lieutenant Loney made a report of the conversation and gave it to the homicide unit. Months later, when he was informed that arrests had been made in the case, Loney assumed Blue was among them, but he wasn’t.

Part 6 - Hitting Another Dead End

By November, 1984 Detectives McGinnis and Sanchez had hit a wall. Monk’s arrest didn’t result in any meaningful leads. They’d talked to dozens of people from the neighborhood at this point, but no one had meaningful information regarding gang members that could lead to an arrest.

Here’s my colleague Lee Drutman reading a quote from what Detective McGinnis told a Washington Post reporter about how he felt at this point in the investigation.

Lee Drutman: “Someone had to know about this…the neighborhood as I knew it—the bus stop, the park, the commercial establishments. Someone had to see the lady go back in the alley. But no one was offering information.… It took so long because there were so many people and so little cooperation.”

Narrator: Detective Sanchez felt the same. Here’s my colleague Joe Wilkes reading what Sanchez told the reporter at the time.

Joe Wilkes: “How could 25 people be in the alley and nobody saw anything?” “I thought people would rally around us and come out of the woodwork, but they never did.”

Narrator: But that wasn’t true, was it? Several community members had come forward to share information related to the murder.

William Freeman, James Robinson, and Jackie Tylie, the people to first encounter Fuller's body, gave extensive statements to police and identified 2 young men fleeing the scene.

Ronald Murphy and Vivian Watts told police about the people outside the liquor store who sold them one of Mrs. Fuller’s rings.

Ammie Davis gave an eyewitness account of James Blue viciously beating Catherine Fuller in the alley.

All of these potential suspects did have one thing in common. None of them fit the profile of a member of the supposed 8th & H Crew. They were either too old or didn’t hang out with the other young people at the intersection. So therefore, none of these suspects were pursued extensively.

Furthermore, all of the “members” of this alleged gang – Cliff Yarborough, Monk Harris, Levy Rouse, Charles Turner, and Timothy Catlett – had cooperated with police when brought in for questioning.

In his book Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer’s Reflections on Dealing with the Death Penalty, former prosecutor Scott Turow said that under “enormous pressure to solve these cases, police often become prisoners of their own initial hunches.” In other words, detectives are human, and therefore can fall victim to tunnel vision and confirmation bias.

This is a common occurrence, and it make sense. Investigators often pick a theory early on and stick with it in order to solve cases as quickly as possible. If they change theories a month or two into an investigation, it almost guarantees a delay in closing the case. But problems arise when the first theory they pick is the wrong one.

In their complaints about lack of community cooperation, Sanchez and McGinnis failed to consider a clear possibility. Maybe no one came forward to share information about a gang attack because one never happened.

Jim Trainum: I was looking at the case file and I thought “this is weird, something is wrong here”. It just stood out as something very similar to the Central Park Five.

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