Eyewitness’s identification of Strickland was ‘extremely unreliable,’ expert says

A memory expert testified Tuesday that the lone eyewitness’ identification of Kevin Strickland in his decades-old murder trial was “extremely unreliable.”

Nancy Franklin, an emeritus professor in psychology at Stony Brook University, said Cynthia Douglas told officers on the night of the triple murder that she could identify two suspects, but that she did not know the other two. If Strickland had been one of them, Franklin said, the “glance” she got of the gunman should have been enough to identify him, considering she knew him.

Franklin’s testimony came on the second day of Strickland’s evidentiary hearing, during which Jackson County prosecutors are trying to prove he is innocent in the April 25, 1978, killings and has wrongly spent more than 40 years in prison.

Prosecutors rested their case Tuesday after calling about a dozen witnesses to the stand, including the mother, sister and daughter of the eyewitness who said she recanted her testimony. Franklin was the first witness called by Strickland’s attorneys.

On that fateful night in 1978, Douglas, 20, was watching TV, smoking weed and drinking cognac with her boyfriend John Walker, 20, her best friend Sherri Black, 22, and Larry Ingram, 21, at a bungalow in south Kansas City.

They heard a knock on the door, and Ingram went to answer it with a gun in his hand. When Ingram came back to the bedroom where they were all watching TV, Douglas would tell detectives, he was followed by Vincent Bell, 21, and Kilm Adkins, 19.

Ingram placed his gun on the television set and sat on the bed. But within minutes, Adkins grabbed Ingram’s gun and pulled out another, according to police reports. Ingram asked him what he wanted.

“You know what I want, man,” Adkins commanded, according to court testimony. “Let’s have it.”

Adkins remained in the bedroom as Bell walked to the door and let in the other suspects, Douglas later told police. The men tied up the victims, with Douglas’ hands bound to Black’s. They were told to keep their heads down.

Then each victim was shot. Douglas, who was covered in Black’s blood, was the lone survivor. With shotgun pellets lodged in her thigh, she slumped over with Black, pretending she was also dead. She waited for the killers to leave before freeing herself.

When Douglas was interviewed by detectives, she identified Bell and Adkins, but said she did not know the other two. One had a brown paper sack over his head, she said. The other carried a shotgun and repeatedly told her, “Don’t look at me.”

Douglas was recovering in a wheelchair when she was taken to the Kansas City Police Department about six hours later, at 3:20 a.m. In the presence of detectives and an assistant county prosecutor, she was asked if she knew the man who fired the shotgun.

“No,” she replied.

But the next day, Douglas described the shotgun-wielding suspect to her sister’s boyfriend, Randy Harris, who suggested the gunman might be Strickland, considering he knew Bell and Adkins. She called police and later identified Strickland in a lineup.

Franklin, the eyewitness expert who reviewed the case pro bono, testified there were factors that showed Douglas’ identification was highly unreliable: the stress she was under, the presence of multiple weapons and perpetrators, the fact she was smoking marijuana.

She noted that Douglas’ description of the gunman was “sparse” — even an officer called it “sketchy” — and that Douglas initially “rejected” the idea that Strickland was the suspect when Harris made the suggestion. Franklin said Douglas became convinced Strickland was one of the shooters because of the input by a third party who was not even at the house.

Because Douglas knew Strickland for at least two years before the killings, she should have been able to identify him, even if she only saw him briefly, Franklin said. Identifying strangers is fraught with problems, she said, but familiar faces are “quite good” for identifications.

In a majority of wrongful convictions stemming from false identifications, the witness was initially unsure about their identification but testified at trial that they were certain, Franklin said, citing a study.

Earlier in the day, Judge James Welsh heard testimony from Eric Wesson, publisher and managing editor of The Call, Kansas City’s Black newspaper. He grew up with Douglas and knew her well. Years later, between 2004 and 2009, he believed, she told him she wrongly identified Strickland in the shooting. He said Douglas was “adamant” about it, and he believed her.

Wesson said he thought Douglas reached out to six or seven people about trying to correct her identification. Douglas, who worked for Jackson County family courts, joked that she might get fired over sending one such email from her work account, he said.

Asked by Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker why he was testifying, Wesson said he wanted to be a “voice” for Douglas, who died in 2015. Douglas’ sister said something similar when she took the stand.

Baker’s team has been facing off in court with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, which contends Strickland is guilty.

Assistant Attorney General Christine Krug repeatedly asked Wesson if The Call wrote about Douglas’ alleged statements, to which he said it did not. Wesson said the weekly newspaper had a limited staff and that the publisher at the time called the shots.

But Wesson said he suggested officials who Douglas could reach out to, including an appeals court judge.

“She wanted to right or correct that wrong,” Wesson previously told The Star in a September interview.

Though Douglas’ relatives testified that she told them she picked “the wrong guy,” the attorney general’s office has argued that Douglas did not want to bring Strickland’s case back to court.

In questioning Douglas’ ex-husband, Ronald Richardson, the AG’s office played recorded prison phone calls between him and Douglas. In one, Richardson — who is incarcerated at the same prison as Strickland — asked Douglas if she wanted to talk to Strickland.

“No, I don’t,” she replied, adding that she was “not trying” to pursue it.

Richardson testified that Douglas was hesitant to bring Strickand’s case back to court because there were other families involved in the tragic killings. She appeared to say in one of the recordings that it would not be “fair to them” to bring it up again.

In testimony, though, those who knew Douglas best said they wanted to finish what Douglas started. In 2009, the Midwest Innocence Project received an email from Douglas’ work account that Baker’s office has described as a recantation.

“Today I’m here for my wife,” Richardson said.

Testimony is expected to continue Wednesday morning.