New witness in 1991 killing of Black teen IDs accomplice, who denies it

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. (WOOD) — A new witness who has come forward in the 1991 killing of a Black teenager said he had a “bird’s-eye” view of the events that led up to it.

He called the killing of 15-year-old Eric McGinnis racially motivated.

“I was hanging out right on the very corner,” he said, pointing to the roof of a building across from what was then The Club, a hangout for teens, in downtown St. Joseph.

He said he later watched the beating of McGinnis at the hands of two white men not far away along the St. Joseph River.

“I don’t know if he felt much after the first hit,” he said. “It was like a rag doll.”

One of those men, Curtis Pitts, then 19, was identified in 2022 by the state as the likely killer. He died by suicide in 2003 and was never charged.

The death of Eric McGinnis: Questions then, questions now

The new witness, a career criminal, has identified a St. Joseph man he said was the accomplice. That man, who has no criminal history, denies any involvement.

“It’s like, whoa, what is going on for someone to do that?” he said of the new witness.

The witness said he kept his secret because of threats made against him. He doesn’t want to be identified.

McGinnis’s uncle, Bennie Bowers, a retired Michigan State Police lieutenant, said the family is asking the state Attorney General’s Office to reopen the investigation based on the new witness. The AG’s Office said it expects to determine by next week if it will do so.

The witness said he was smoking pot on the roof of the building just after sunset on May 17, 1991. He was 15. He said he saw McGinnis outside, talking to girls.

McGinnis lived in Benton Harbor, was a sophomore at Benton Harbor High School, a member of Junior ROTC and the NAACP in Benton Harbor. He sang in his church’s choir.

“I’d seen him all the time at The Club,” the witness said.

For reasons unclear, he said, McGinnis took off running north. Minutes later, a crowd of white men left The Club, including Pitts, he said.

“He was alert, mad, mean, it was everything all in one,” he said.

Moments after leaving The Club that night, the new witness said, Pitts was in a pickup truck in an alley directly below him as he continued to watch from the roof.

“I could have spit on their car,” he said.

He said Pitts was talking to the driver of a car that was stopped and facing the other way.

“Curtis is hanging outside the window saying, ‘Help me find this (N-word),'” he said. “I knew a chase was on of some sort.”

The driver of the other car, he said, was the man who later helped with the killing.

He said he climbed down from the building.

“I wanted to be snoopy and watch a fight, honestly,” he said. “I didn’t know it was going to be the racial thing it turns out being.”

He said the sounds of loud cars and squealing tires led him to the edge of the bluff overlooking Lake Michigan and the St. Joseph River.

“The headlights got me to look that way (to the north, toward the river), then I recognized (the accomplice) getting out of his car,” he described.

He said the alleged accomplice took off running toward the river near the railroad tracks, so he scampered down the steep hill for a better look. He said he watched from along the railroad tracks, maybe 100 yards from the river. The riverbank looked a lot different then. A marina had been recently developed, but there were no condominiums yet to block his view.

“It was a bunch of rocks and construction stuff all through here at that time,” he said.

The alleged accomplice caught up with McGinnis first, he said, as McGinnis tried escaping onto rocks along the river.

“(The accomplice) actually kind of kept him, sheep-herded him to the water,” he said. “That’s what I saw.”

“That’s when (the accomplice) kept him in that water by throwing rocks,” he continued.

He said Pitts arrived moments later, pulled McGinnis off the rocks, then attacked him.

“He was kicked, he was beat. Curtis did most of the damage. I’m not going to say he didn’t,” the witness said. “I did not see either one of them push or kick him into it (the river), but through the actions that took place after and during that fight, it almost looked like he (McGinnis) was making an attempt to roll off.”

He said he saw McGinnis go into the river. He said Pitts and the other man laughed, then walked away.

He said he has no doubts about who he saw that night.

“Not one bit,” he said. “I watched it from those tracks, and knew both. It’s a small town. You kind of know everybody.”

McGinnis’ body was found in the river five days later, his death at first labeled an accidental drowning.

Some in Benton Harbor, including McGinnis’s family, believed the death was racially motivated. Some accused the St. Joseph Police Department, which was investigating the case, of a cover-up.

The state Attorney General’s Office reopened the case 30 years later, ruled it a homicide and identified Pitts as the likely killer.

AG’s report: Benton Harbor teen chased, knocked into river in 1991

“I don’t think they intended to kick him into the river, just my perspective,” the new witness said. “I think it was supposed to be a good old-fashioned (expletive)-whooping. That’s as plain and real as I can say it, a lesson, but it didn’t end up being that way.”

The man he identified as Pitts’ accomplice denies it all. He was 19 at the time and said he was an arm-wrestling champion. He’s now 53 and works as a mason.

While he knew Pitts, he said, they didn’t hang out together. He said he didn’t know McGinnis. He said he wasn’t there that night.

He said he’s known the new witness for years. In fact, they are Facebook friends.

Target 8 is not naming him because he hasn’t been charged. Unlike the new witness, he has no criminal record.

“It is astonishing to hear him say that after all these years, and it never even happened, so I’m like, what is the motive?” he said.

He said AG investigators spoke to him last year.

“Who would be standing on top of a building and why would he wait 33 years now to come forward and say something and then his story didn’t even corroborate the other stories?” he said. “Because you know what? It didn’t happen. It didn’t happen the way he said.”

Other witnesses have provided different accounts: One said it was after midnight, another said the sun hadn’t set, it happened farther downriver on the pier, that Pitts and others jumped into the river to try to save McGinnis.

Mom of Eric McGinnis homicide suspect: ‘He can’t defend himself’

The new witness said he tried telling the story to then-Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey in 2004 in exchange for a break in a theft case, but that Bailey refused to listen. Bailey, now retired, told Target 8 he has no recollection of that. He called the new witness a con man.

The new witness acknowledges he’s been in trouble with the law, leading to time in jail and prison. State police records show a history stretching from 1996 to 2022 that includes drugs, repeated burglaries, fraud and embezzlement.

The new witness said he was threatened by Pitts and his own uncle, who was a friend of Pitts, to stay quiet. His uncle died several years ago.

“I didn’t know how to bring it forward without the fear or retaliation,” he said. “Suffering for 32-plus years now.”

He said he told his story to the AG’s office last fall.

“I was a criminal, and I’m cleansing myself of that old me, to be a different person, and this is one of those baggages I have to get out,” he said.

A man who said he worked security that night at The Club also has doubts about the new witness’s account.

“I was a bouncer, a doorman on the weekends,” Michael Buchbinder explained.

“All of a sudden these witnesses came out of nowhere. They saw it all. I don’t believe that,” he said.

The new witness “had to be a possum if he saw this from up there,” he said, pointing to the roof of the building across the way. “It was dark out.”

He said he was working the front door when McGinnis got kicked out for slapping his ex-girlfriend, who was white.

“I says, ‘Eric, you know you got to leave, come back next week when you’re calmed down,'” he said.

Minutes later, he said, Pitts and two other white men rushed out of the club.

“Curtis says, ‘Where’d that (expletive) (N-word) go?’ I says, ‘Why?’ He says, ‘I’m going to kill that (expletive) (N-word). He slapped my girlfriend,'” Buchbinder recalled. “I said, ‘Man, what’s wrong with you?'”

He said he watched the three men take off running.

The two other men have since died. The doorman said the man now identified as the accomplice was not there.

“I used to work with his dad. I’ve known (him) since he was little. (He) was not here that night. (He) did not do nothing. I’ll swear to that,” he said.

The doorman said he moved to Mississippi for work the next day and never talked to police.

“I was here. I saw it all. I don’t know why they never interviewed me or nothing,” he said.

As for the man who recently came forward, he said he hopes his account leads to criminal charges.

“I don’t have anything to hide,” the new witness said. “I don’t gain anything by what I’m doing except the mental peace that I’ve been needing from this incident 32 years now.”

He said he has no reason to lie:

“What do I gain?”

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