Disappearing witnesses

On Nov. 7, 1988, Lawrence Ulmer and McKinley Boone were working at the Clark Oil Station on Gilbert Avenue. According to Ulmer, Clardy entered the store and told him, "I have a gun" and "Give me your money."

Ulmer tricked him, saying, "I don't have any money. I'm changing shifts. The guy in the back has the money." When Clardy approached Boone, Ulmer ran across the street to call 911. Boone said he and Clardy got into a scuffle and he managed to mace Clardy. Police picked up Clardy near Eden Park.

Both witnesses attended Clardy's pre-trial hearing. They met with the arresting officers and Assistant Prosecutor R. Daniel Reif. They both identified Clardy.

Both Ulmer and Boone say the last they heard, Clardy got a continuance. They say authorities never contacted them again.

A porter at the Justice Center while awaiting trial, Clardy had access to Campbell's pod and had opportunity to rummage through his legal papers. He could have learned enough about Campbell's case to fabricate a confession. But he embellished.

Clardy told the jury Campbell had confessed to stabbing Turner in the stomach and cutting his throat. However, the coroner's report showed Turner wasn't stabbed in the stomach, nor was his throat cut.

Six years earlier, another county prosecutor gave his opinion of Clardy's truthfulness. Robert Ruehlman, now a common pleas judge, was the prosecuting attorney when Clardy was convicted of two counts of aggravated robbery in 1983.

Ruehlman urged the judge to give Clardy the maximum sentence.

"This defendant went to trial, and I feel that he committed a lot of perjury, wasted the county's money in a two-day trial putting on his gang of liars," Ruehlman said.

Following his testimony against Campbell, all felony charges against Clardy were dismissed -- for want of prosecution. Prosecutors claimed their witness didn't show up, so after six months they had no case.

Reif explained the collapse of Clardy's prosecution in a sworn affidavit June 30, 1995.

"The reason that the case was dismissed is that I could not locate the victim of the robbery to testify," the affidavit says. "I asked the Cincinnati Police Department to look for the civilian witnesses. The witnesses could not be found. It was suggested that the witnesses did not cooperate because the offense was part of a drug deal gone bad."

But that's entirely untrue, according to the two witnesses. CityBeat easily located both Lawrence Ulmer and McKinley Boone, the prosecution's missing witnesses. Both say they were available to testify, contrary to what police and prosecutors stated in court, but they were never contacted again. CityBeat found Boone in Florida. He lived in Cincinnati until the mid-1990s. Ulmer is in the local phone book.

Ulmer says he was still working at the Clark station during the spring of 1989, when Clardy was scheduled for trial.

"If they wanted to contact me, they could have," he says. "I am easy to find. I am always listed in the phone book. I have a library card, gas and electric bills, phone bills. Mail can be forwarded. They could have contacted the store owner. He would have let me know."

On May 18, 1989, police told the court they couldn't locate Boone because he'd quit his employment at the Clark Oil station and moved. He just couldn't be found.

Campbell visited his sister five days before his arrest in 1988.

"Apparently the officer had no luck," the prosecutor said.

Boone told CityBeat he quit his job to have surgery but remained in Cincinnati.

Hearing of Reif's statement for the first time, Ulmer was furious.

"I don't deal drugs," he says. "I have to dispute that. It is a very strong untruth. I don't even have a black mark on my record. This is outrageous. I am highly upset that a public servant can say anything against an upstanding citizen because everyone is going to believe the public servant as opposed to the private citizen. I served on the grand jury about six years ago because I am an upstanding citizen. If a public servant is going to lie about a private citizen, that's an outrageous thing to do and it needs to be investigated."

What possible reason could police and prosecutors have for letting Clardy escape prosecution?

A March 17, 1989 report by Officer Lawson could explain it.

"Clardy is holding back some information because he wants some kind of deal, so we are gonna put him in touch with the prosecutor's office and let them talk to him and see what kind of arrangements they wanna make with him," Lawson wrote.

On May 18,1989, Judge Nurre imposed the death sentence on Campbell. That same day, Clardy walked out of jail.

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