Murder victim's family upbraids Netflix

The family of a murdered Ada woman is blaming Netflix now that both murder convictions in the infamous 1984 case have been thrown out.

“It has sickened us to see what has been done over the past few years to distort, mislead and outright lie about the facts of the case,” the victim's family said Friday in a statement sent to the media.

The victim, Donna Denice

Haraway, disappeared from the McAnally's convenience store i n Ada on April 28, 1984. The newlywed college student worked as a clerk there at night. She was 24.

Her remains were found more than a year later in a field near Gerty, about 30 miles away. She had been shot in the head.

Two Ada men — Kar l Fontenot and Tommy Ward — were convicted i n her death but both have insisted for years they were innocent despite their having

confessed. They claimed their admissions came from a dream.

A federal judge vacated Fontenot's conviction in 2019, months after “The Innocent Man” — a Netflix series based on novelist John Grisham's only nonfiction book — renewed national attention to the case.

In December, a state judge threw out Ward's conviction.

“We ask the question why?” the family said in its statement.

“Because the facts of the case and the proof against Ward and Fontenot haven't changed. The only thing that has changed is the release of the so- called true book by John Grisham, followed by the Netflix series.

Both are filled with distortion and are completely one-sided when it comes to the case against Ward and Fontenot.

“Both are commercial enterprises designed to feed off of people's desire to see and read about conspiracies,” the family said. “We could write an entire book refuting the falsehoods and distortions contained in the book, series and briefs filed by the attorneys.”

The family questioned whether the judges actually watched the videotapes of the confessions. “Anyone that has could not believe Ward and Fontenot are innocent men,” the family said.

The reversals in the case are being appealed.

“De nice doesn' t have a famous, wealthy author/film producer or people seeking five minutes of fame to stand up for her,” the family said. “But, she does have her family, the Attorney General of the State of Oklahoma, friends and many good people that worked to find her killers and bring them to justice that will never forget her or who is responsible for her death.”

Among the issues in the case is that key details from

the confessions, made before the victim's body was found, turned out to be wrong. Most significantly, both confessed the clerk was stabbed to death and Fontenot told police the body had been buried near the Ada power plant.

Also, they confessed another man, Odell Titsworth, had participated in the robbery, kidnapping, rape and murder with them. Investigators found Titsworth had suffered a broken arm during a confrontation with police on April 26, 1984, and could not have been involved.

In a 190-page opinion, U.S. District Judge James H. Payne ruled in 2019 that Fontenot did not receive a fair trial because of“numerous” constitutional violations. He ordered Fontenot to be permanently released from custody or granted a new trial.

The judge excoriated police and prosecutors form isconduct and declared newly discovered evidence about Fontenot's alibi and other suspects provides “solid proof” of his “probable innocence.”

“The inept handling of reports, evidence, and all other vi t al documentation from this case clearly falls within a known pattern of police misconduct that the lead detectives and agents working on this case were known to commit,” Payne wrote in the opinion filed in federal court in Muskogee.

Fontenot, now 56, is free while the appeal is pending.

The state judge went a step further, vacating Ward's conviction and ruling he could not be retried.

“Ward was arrested after his video-taped `confession' on October 18, 1984, and has remained in custody for over thirty-five years. Due to the passage of time, the Court is of the opinion Ward will not be able to receive a fair trial,” District Judge Paula In ge wrote.

In making the ruling, the judge for Atoka and Coal counties also pointed to police misconduct and newly discovered information from withheld documents. The judge specifically found Ward was prejudiced by the state's failure to disclose to his defense suspects and leads considered dead ends.

“The investigators seem to have taken on the roles of prosecutor, judge and jury, determining that the only `relevant' evidence was evidence which fit their theory of the case,” Inge wrote. “It also seems highly probable the district attorney's office knew favorable evidence was being suppressed and turned a blind eye ...”

Ward, now 60, r e mains locked up while the appeal is pending.

In the statement Friday, the victim's family pointed out Ward made a second admission about being in the store after witnesses testified against him at his preliminary hearing.

“Because the evidence was so strong against him, he was trying to convince the court that Denice left with him voluntarily,” the family said. “Of course, this testimony of Ward is never mentioned in the book or movie.”

In that testimony, Ward said he and another man, Marty Ashley, had been to the store and that witnesses who saw him there had been correct.

He said t he clerk l eft with them after Ashley flirted with her. He said they let him off at his house and he never saw Haraway again.

Both Fontenot and Ward were sentenced to death after being convicted at trial in 1985 even though the body had not been found yet.

The Oklahoma Court o f Cri minal Appeals or der e d separate new trials because of a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court opinion on defendants being tried together.

Fontenot was retried in 1988 and again sentenced to death. Because of a retrial error, he later was resentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Ward was retried in 1989 and sentenced to life in prison. At his first trial, he claimed he was at his mother's house on April 28, 1984. At his second trial, he claimed he was at a party.