Authors: Tim Junkin
Morin felt better. He relayed this information to Kirk. There wasn't any choice anyway but to allow the FBI to run its own test. Two agonizing months passed by. Morin was home on a Friday night having dinner with Marty and their two sons when Lindsay called him. “I didn't want to bother you at home,” she said, “but after we talked I told the lab to let me know right away what the results were.”
“Yes?” Morin asked quietly.
“Well, the results won't be official for a couple of days. But the test confirmed what Dr. Blake found. Kirk Bloodsworth is excluded . . .”
W
HEN HE HEARD
the news, Gary Christopher considered Kirk Bloodsworth to be the luckiest man alive. To have Bob Morin as an advocate, for him to file a motion to preserve evidence that was supposedly of no value, to have this coincide with an emerging technology that could identify or exclude a person from a tiny sperm sample, to have a stain of semen discovered on discarded clothing after nine years, to have all this convergeâit really was miraculous. Of course Kirk had been unlucky too. He never should have been caught up in the Dawn Hamilton case to begin with. Nor
should he have been subject to such incompetence from those responsible for handling and examining the physical evidence in the case. According to Dr. Blake's examination and findings, the semen stain on Dawn Hamilton's underpants was not that difficult to detect, and it might very well have revealed the blood type of the murderer in 1984, saving Kirk Bloodsworth from the horror he endured.
After Blake's report was disseminated, carefully supported with footnotes, slides, and microphotographs, the FBI had taken an additional two months, but this time had definitively confirmed that Kirk Bloodsworth was not the man who raped and killed Dawn Hamilton. Upon receiving the news on a Thursday night, Bob Morin immediately set out trying to have Kirk released. He spoke to Ann Brobst early the next morning, then prepared a motion for a new trial, which would be unopposed by the state. He filed it early the next day. The plan was for Judge Smith to grant the new trial and then the state would dismiss the case for lack of sufficient evidence.
But that Friday Judge Smith was out of town and wouldn't be back until Monday. The press picked up the news. A Baltimore radio station, 98 ROCKâWIYY-FMâ had a weekend “Kirk Watch.”
“It's eight thirty on Saturday evening, and Kirk Bloodsworth is still in jail,” the disc jockey announced. Radios blared it all over the prison. Two DJs, Lopez and Stash, sent Kirk a request list for his favorite songs. Every song they played was dedicated to “Kirk Bloodsworth, still in the prison . . .” Jayne Miller, a television reporter, ran a two-part series on Kirk. For the guys on Kirk's tier, it was a hoot. “And here is Snoop Dogg going out to Kirk Bloodsworth, who on this fine Sunday morning, June 27, is
still
behind bars . . .” The media frenzy had started.
Over that weekend Kirk happily gave away everything he'd acquired in prison. He gave Half his television and Bozo his cans of
tuna and potato chips. Rock from New York got his cigarettes. They all congratulated him. Kimberly Ruffner even hollered down the tier to him. Ruffner had a lion's mane of dirty blond hair, combed back and parted in the middle. Shorter than Kirk by several inches, he'd grown a full beard when he first came to the prison, and it now covered most of his face. “Blood! Blood!” he said, “come here.” Bloodsworth walked down to where Ruffner stood by the commissary window. “I heard about the DNA. Congrats, man.” He still had trouble looking Kirk in the eye. “You out'a this shit now, man, ain't you? Man, I know where that area is,” he said. “Where that crime was done.” The statement came from out of the blue. Kirk thought nothing of it, nodded, and walked away.
Monday morning Bob Morin met with Ann Brobst and her boss, Sandra O'Connor, in the chambers of Judge Smith. O'Connor said something cryptic about how the DNA results had compromised the integrity of the conviction. All agreed that Bloodsworth had to go free. Bob Morin had prepared an order to that effect, and Judge Smith signed it.
On June 28, 1993, at just after noon, Kirk Bloodsworth was marched by Sergeant Cooley Hall through the Jessup House of Corrections to the departure room. Cooley took turns whistling and laughing all along the way. “You gone and done it, Mister Bloodmon,” he said in that Calypso accent of his. “Good for you, mon. Good for you. Yes, yes, yes. The world it is waitin' for you out there. Go now and get it . . .”
Abdul-Haleem watched Kirk pass and put his hand over his heart. Kirk gave him a salute in return.
In the departure room, the warden gave Kirk the money he'd earned and accumulated over the nine years he'd been working in the prison. It came to just over a thousand dollars. Kirk passed some of it back to Bozo and Half, and some of it to Rock, who'd
stood up for him a few times. They were all happy for him. Rock shouted from behind the steel bars, “See you later, big fellow. Don't let your ass back in here or I'll kick it myself.”
Sergeant Cooley Hall unlocked the handcuffs. Kirk looked down the drive, through the prison gate. It seemed bright out there. People were milling around in the glare. Bob Morin, Stephen Harris, the state public defender, and Thomas Saunders, the district public defender, came up to the departure room to greet him. Kirk and Bob Morin embraced.
“You ready?” Morin asked him.
Kirk was leaning against a table studying a quarter, part of the change he'd gotten from the warden as his prison earnings. He was turning the quarter in his fingers. He looked up at Bob Morin. To Bob, Kirk seemed gentle at that moment. Almost childlike.
“It's smaller than I remember,” Kirk said. He hadn't seen a quarter in nine years. “Have they made these smaller?”
Sergeant Cooley Hall nudged Kirk. Patted him on the shoulder. “Go ahead,” Cooley said. “Go ahead, mon . . . It's time for you to go now . . .”
Kirk put the quarter in his pocket and straightened himself up. He could hear his name being yelled by inmates through some of the barred windows behind him. This time the yells were not catcalls. They were cheers of congratulations, of triumph. With his lawyers at his side, he strutted out through the prison gate, out into the day. He had to squint and shield his eyes as he walked out into the full sunlight.
Curtis and Anita Smith were there to meet him. Several cousins and friends were there. It was a fine summer afternoon. Reporters and cameras were everywhere. Each of the lawyers gave a brief statement at a makeshift podium. During that year, the governor of Maryland had convened a panel to study whether to shorten the
time between conviction and execution. “I think this case will cause anyone with a conscience to pause before trying to expedite putting people to death,” Tom Saunders said.
Morin had advised Kirk to keep his remarks short, but Kirk couldn't help himself. He blasted the state for what it had done to him. He thanked the people who had helped him. “Since my arrest, I've lost so much,” he said, trying to control his emotions. “It's been a nine-year nightmare. The death of my mother is the most painful . . .” He couldn't keep the tears from flowing down his face. Reporters shoved cards at him. Microphones were everywhere. Before he stepped away, he added, “Even though this is a small victory for me, to have proved my innocence, the real killer is still out there. And all of this won't be completed until the real one is behind bars . . .”
One of the disc jockeys, Steve Ash, aka “Stash,” arrived with a stretch limousine, handed Kirk a cigar and a beer, and accompanied Kirk, Anita, Curtis, and Kirk's cousin, Salmo, all over town, broadcasting live from the stretch. This had been prearranged. Kirk was taken to the 98 ROCK radio station for a lunch of champagne, pizza, and sandwiches. The station played Guns N' Roses, ZZ Top, Ozzy Osbourne, and all of Kirk's favorites throughout the afternoon. Kirk had the windows rolled down, and he waved to everyone. He felt like a celebrity.
When Kirk finally got home to Cambridge his family and friends had set up a party at the Suicide Bridge Restaurant, and they celebrated late into the night. Kirk ordered every crab dish he could think of: crab dip, crab cakes, steamed hard crabs, fried soft shells, and crab imperial. Later, back in his house for the first time in nine years, he couldn't sleep. He tossed and turned. He got up and almost urinated in the corner. He cried over what he'd become. He saw his mother everywhere. The house where he grew up seemed haunted, empty without her. He was frightened. He tried to make
toast, then called Bob Morin and woke him up to tell him that he had used a toaster for the first time in nine years. He'd made his own toast. He wept again. The house seemed so much smaller than before. Like it had shrunk over the years. Later he realized that the trees outside had grown so tall that they now dwarfed his family home.
Kirk and Anita tried to become a couple. But once Kirk was out, Anita seemed more like a sister to Kirk. And right off, she began scolding him, urging him to walk the straight and narrow. The one thing he didn't need was someone telling him what to do. He needed space and time; he needed to blow off steam. He needed his freedom. After a couple of weeks they fought. Kirk was sorry, felt guilty; she had been good to him, had helped him, but it just wasn't going to work. Anita went back to Baltimore.
Kirk and his cousin, Salmo, went down to the beach. They stayed drunk for three days. When Kirk came back he reviewed the statement issued by the state's attorney's office concerning his release and what the prosecutors said to the newspapers. In her press release, the state's attorney described over three pages of detail the evidence against Kirk Bloodsworth. The statement then indicated that he was released because, as a result of the DNA test, his conviction now “lacked the necessary integrity.” There was no longer enough evidence to hold him.
In her news conference, Sandra O'Connor declined to say that Bloodsworth was innocent and offered no apologies. “There are no other suspects at this time,” she said. “Based on the evidence, our office did the right thing in prosecuting him,” she said. “I believe he is not guilty,” O'Connor added. “I'm not prepared to say he's innocent.”
There is a strain of hubris that affects certain people in power, people with authority. It can be slow to develop, like a dormant infection. If not guarded against, it can breed an unhealthy arrogance,
a cocksureness that their judgments are beyond fallacy. Such self-righteousness allows them to close their minds to new possibilities. It can cause right-thinking people to do terrible things. The devil has a long tail.
Few people in Kirk's hometown had any idea what a DNA test meant. These statements by Sandra O'Connor undercut everything he thought he'd accomplished. They left a bitter taste. That week some neighbor of Curtis and Kirk left an anonymous note on the pickup truck parked in their driveway.
Child killer!
was all it said.
H
OW DOES A MAN
recover from an experience like Kirk Bloodsworth's? How does he recapture the lost years, the lost dignity? How does a man forced to become an animal in order to survive in a vile and violent jungle reenter his community and find his way? How does a person get past being branded a monster for a crime he didn't commit?
Over the months and years following his release, Kirk felt as if he were riding a roller coaster. At times a speed trip was all he wanted, a manic headlong rip into alcohol, partying, girls, a desperate flail to make up for lost time, a lost life. At other moments, he found himself engaged in a private, quiet, and somber search for peace, for recovery, for a way to heal.
He found that he couldn't stand being in any kind of small enclosure. He'd get claustrophobic, dizzy, and sick to his stomach. Everywhere he went he needed someone with him. He was terrified to be alone. He needed at all times to have a credible alibi witness at his side, someone able to confirm his whereabouts twenty-four hours a day.
Kirk had walked out of prison directly into the spotlight of a
national death penalty debate. A lightning rod, a face to put on a harrowing story of injustice, he went from no one listening or believing a word he had to say, to everyone clamoring to hear his story. His very first week back in Cambridge, he spoke to the kids at his church school about his experience. He found it calming and strangely satisfying. A U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee on innocence and the death penalty, chaired by Representative Don Edwards from California, invited him to testify. Kirk asked Bob Morin if he'd go with him. Morin helped Kirk write his speech. There he was, this Eastern Shore crabber, now speaking in the halls of Congress. Kirk followed the script Morin had prepared for him and told his story. During the committee hearing Representative Charles Canady, a Florida Republican, made a remark suggesting that the system must only balance the risk of executing an innocent man against the danger of letting a convicted killer go free on a technicality. Kirk couldn't restrain himself. He jumped to his feet. His face was red, angry. “Well, that's no consolation for me or you if it was your son sitting on death row,” he shouted out.
“Well, I didn't mean to offend you,” Canady said, taken aback.
“Well, you already did, sir,” Kirk replied.
Kirk Bloodsworth would be no shrinking violet when it came to speaking out about the death penalty.
In those first months Kirk and Bob appeared on numerous television talk shows together, shows hosted by Oprah Winfrey, Connie Chung, and Larry King. They appeared before Congress, and Kirk addressed several state legislatures. Kirk made a compelling presence. His story was real and true. There was no denying the torture he endured. But fame can be short lived.
Bob Morin, meanwhile, pursued a compensation package from the state for Kirk. A Maryland statute provided the mechanism for compensation but first required that the inmate be pardoned on the basis that he was innocent of the crime for which he'd been
convicted. If this occurred, then an amount could be paid, though how much was left entirely to the discretion of state officials.