Ep 285: The Wrong Man: The Ray McCann Story (Part 3)
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Daniel Furlong was a quiet, unassuming middle-aged man who often had his grandchildren over playing in his trailer. His criminal record was clean. He wasn't hiding. He was out in plain sight. He was a youth sports umpire in town. He had been married for 42 years. But in reality, Daniel was somebody sinister and evil. He was a predator of young children.

He had tried to abduct a 10-year-old girl in 2015, and when he was caught, it was discovered that he had murdered and sexually assaulted 11-year-old Jodi Parrick in 2007. Police also suspected he might be tied to a third child's disappearance from 1997, although he was never charged with that crime.

After Jodi Parrick's death, it took eight years for police to catch Daniel Furlong. And in those eight years, Ray McCann took the blame. Ray was a very public suspect. His name appeared on the TV news and in the newspapers, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. He was a local volunteer police officer who had helped join the search for Jodi on the night she went missing.

The police and local residents, even some of Ray's own family, believed he was involved in Jody's death. It ruined his reputation. His son, who spoke with police, ended up turning against him. He lost his job, got divorced, and filed for bankruptcy. Suddenly, he couldn't be around kids and wasn't allowed to coach anymore.

Even though there wasn't enough evidence to charge him with Jody's murder, he was still charged with a crime, perjury, or lying to the police during the murder investigation. Jody's death had appeared on the cover of People magazine and in the national media. Ray was a pariah in his hometown. He didn't believe he would get a fair trial and the stakes were high.

If he was convicted of those perjury charges, he could have been sentenced to life in prison. So he took a plea deal and pleaded no contest to one perjury count while the other four perjury charges were dismissed. The perjury charge he pleaded no contest to centered around the Tumble Dam. The Tumble Dam was a ruined dam on the Kalamazoo River near Constantine, where kids often hung out.

Ray told police he drove out to the Temple Dam to search for Jodi the night she went missing. Police said he was lying to them. They also said video evidence showed he never went out there. And that's how Ray was sentenced to 20 months in prison. But he remained locked up, even after Daniel Furlong emerged as Jodi's killer.

Daniel confessed to killing her and said he had done it alone. His DNA was a match. All of this caught journalist Ken Kolker's attention. I'm looking through, you know, some of the stories we have on file and I see, wait a minute, they arrested a guy a few years back and he's still in prison.

How can this guy still be in prison if Daniel Furlong did this and this other guy didn't? It made no sense that Ray McCann would be in prison after they arrested the real killer. So that's what got me interested in working on the story. That's when I started working on it. The Ray McCann story is definitely one of the most memorable because, for one thing, it's the one that there are certain stories that piss you off.

Cases that do that piss you off. And this was one of them. This was like, this guy should not have been in prison. And especially after Furlong was arrested, why is he still in prison? So it definitely got under my skin. In today's episode, we'll conclude this three-part series and let you know how it all ends.

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Ken Kolker is an anomaly of sorts. In a media industry where layoffs and burnout are common, Ken has been at his post for 45 years, nearly a half century. He's a watchdog. Sometimes he is literally the only journalist in the courtroom.

His career started at the Grand Rapids Press and then transitioned into television at Wood TV 8, the NBC affiliate for West Michigan. He began reporting on the case against Ray McCann. I saw that this guy is still in prison. You know, clearly he had nothing to do with this. Even Furlong said he worked alone. There's no connection between Ray McCann and Daniel Furlong.

So, you know, I'm like, why is it that Ray McCann's still in prison? He trusted the system. I mean, because he was part of that system. And, you know, so he never got an attorney. Ken's investigation, called Making of a Monster, aired in 2016. His story raised questions about the tactics investigators had used and their laser focus on Ray. I foiled...

All the interrogation, the taped interviews with Ray McCann, and I'm like, oh my, this guy denied it like 86 times. They told him lie after lie after lie, trying to set a trap for him to see if he would step into it. They lied. They lied more than he did, and I don't think he ever lied. I just think he got confused.

They just went after him over and over and kept calling him back in and kept, you know, feeding him lies like, you know, we have scientific evidence that you touched her body. And we have evidence that you were within seven meters of her body before her body was found. Her mom found her body. And none of that was true. And so he's trying to come up with some, like,

Well, maybe my DNA is on Jody because maybe I hugged her mom, you know, at the scene when the body was found and it transferred. And Jody's mom was like, we never hugged. So that was one of the lies he was charged with. Clearly, the cops thought Ray McCann did it.

I mean, their focus was on Ray McCann, and they just wanted to catch him. I mean, they're just hoping. I mean, they're feeding them all kinds of different stories. You know, maybe you just dumped her body there. Maybe you just found her body there. Maybe you dumped her there covering up for someone else. They actually suspected for a while that his 11-year-old son had murdered Jody Parrott, and he was covering for his son.

So they clearly thought he had some kind of involvement in this, if not the killer himself. Poor Ray, he's married, he's got a couple of kids. And the cops, you know, told his wife, he's a dangerous man. We think he killed Jody Parrick. I mean, his wife divorced him. I mean, he lost his family because of this. Jody's mom was convinced that Ray McCann did it. And that's because the police told her that Ray McCann did it.

That's the only reason she thought he did it, is because the cops had told her that they're certain that he's the killer. So she's out there, she's out there, you know, on TV and in the newspapers, you know, telling Ray to confess. Even after Daniel Furlong was arrested, it seemed that the police were defiant and that they still believed Ray was involved.

24-hour News 8's Ken Kolker has the new twist in this case and the missteps made according to another former police officer. But no apologies due to Ray McCann then? No, there's nothing to apologize for. Sir, he's not in prison for her murder. Okay. There's no reason to apologize to him. And you can...

I'd be very happy if you put that on the news. It was Jim Bedell who came out of retirement in 2009 to solve the murder of 11-year-old Jody Parrick, whose body was found in a Constantine cemetery. He retired in 2014 after Raymond McCann, a reserve police officer, was charged with perjury. He is serving a 20-month prison sentence. Bedell acknowledged that McCann, who had no criminal record, was the focus of the investigation. Do you believe he's involved somehow?

I believe he knows something about that case that he wouldn't reveal to us for an unknown reason. If he wasn't involved, why not give it to us? Meanwhile, Ray continued to serve out the rest of his sentence. He finally walked out of prison in December 2015. He was thinner, scarred.

The first thing he wanted was some real food, so they stopped at McDonald's. He met his grandchildren and saw his family. Ray McCann was what they call a free man now, only he wasn't free. Newly out of prison, Ray McCann was terrified about doing something wrong, something that would violate his parole and send him back behind bars. That thought hung over his head constantly.

The town where he grew up and became a high school sports star, and later raised his own family, had turned against him, so he moved away. He couldn't rent an apartment because of his record. Sometimes he slept in his car. He battled depression and had nightmares. Seeing a police car made him paranoid, like this nightmare could happen again. It's never going to go away, Ray later said.

Meanwhile, Ken Kolker's reporting would help Ray clear his name. The investigative journalist contacted Northwestern University's Center for Wrongful Convictions to review Ray's police interviews. Also getting involved was the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan, where attorney David Moran, who you heard speak in part two of this series, was the co-director.

David's UM students made a shocking discovery about the Tumble Dam video. It was a smoking gun, the evidence that broke the perjury case wide open. So when we got involved, we were very interested. We wanted to see this video from the Tumble Dam. So the first thing we did was we called, the students called, the law students' attorneys on the case called Ray's attorney, Mr. Mequio,

And Mr. Mequio told us that he had never seen the video, that he just assumed that the video showed what Detective Fuller said it showed. Detective Fuller actually testified at Ray's preliminary exam that he had watched the video and the video confirmed that Ray never been to the tumble dam that night. But Mr. Mequio never got the video, never saw it himself. So we subpoenaed the video.

or FOIA for it. And we got the video and we played it and it immediately became clear that Fuller's testimony was a pack of lies. That there was no possible way that anybody could watch that video and determine who had or had not been to the tumble dam. The video was pitch black because the time period in question was well after dark. And

All you could see were headlights and taillights in the distance coming and going from the surveillance video, which was attached to a factory, the creamery in Constantine near the river. And so at that point, we filed a motion for relief and judgment in the trial court seeking to withdraw the plea because the factual basis for the plea was

Since Ray pled no contest, he never admitted that he hadn't been in the tumble dam. So the prosecution relied on Fuller's testimony from the prelim to establish that Ray hadn't been in the tumble dam. But that factual basis was itself perjury on the part of Detective Fuller. So we filed a motion for release from judgment to undo Ray's plea. And the prosecution filed a response

to that, saying that, no, no, you can see. And somehow, you know, mysterious means the prosecution was claiming that Detective Fuller could somehow in that video detect what these cars were. So while we were preparing for the to hold a hearing in St. Joseph County,

One of the students came to me, Valerie Stacy came to me and said she'd been staring at the video and she recognized that the video did not even show the area of the Temple Dam at all because there were a few structures you could see in the foreground of the video. And using Google Maps and Google Earth or Google Street View,

she was able to establish that actually the camera was on the other side of the creamery facing an entirely different street than the street where the tumble dam trailhead was. So that's one of those just about fall out of your chair moments when you realize not only could you not actually tell whether Ray had been there that night, this surveillance video did not even, it's not even taken in the right direction to make that determination. So we amended our motion and,

in the trial court to bring out this new information. And this got another response from Prosecutor McDonough, to which he attached another affidavit, this one from Fuller, in which Fuller claimed that it actually did face the right direction. And you could tell that because if you just looked at the part of the video that was taken during daylight, you could see that.

So that was a surprise to us. We didn't realize that any of the video was in daylight. So then we demanded the whole video, and we got the whole video, which starts in daylight. And it's completely clear, clear as day then, that Valerie Stacey was right. The video was facing the wrong direction. The camera was facing the wrong direction. We could identify the houses that were visible in that video, and they were on the other side.

So I called up McDonough and said, you got to watch the video and you will see that this is a lie. And finally, finally, McDonough gave in. And and so on December, I believe it was December 7th, 2017, we went to court and McDonough gave in and the Ray's conviction was overturned. We talked to Ray, who spoke about the importance of his attorneys who backed him.

Every case is different, but oh my God, when you know you're locked up and you didn't do nothing, it's mind boggling. Uh, it's gotta be for the family. You know, my daughter went through some crazy stuff. You gotta have faith. You gotta hang in there. You gotta trust your attorneys, you know, and hopefully, uh, those are wrongfully, and you know, there's wrongfully people in prison right now. And hopefully they got some wonderful attorneys like I got, you know, and, uh,

The attorneys I had, you know, you get some attorneys, you know, they're just going through the process. These attorneys really care. You can just feel it. The state of Michigan paid Ray $40,000 for the time he served in prison under a law that compensates the wrongfully convicted.

Former prosecutor John McDonough defended Detective Brian Fuller and took issue at the Michigan Innocence Clinic claiming victory when he spoke to us. What Brian Fuller noticed was that there was a reflection of a truck from one of the cameras showing that there is potentially headlights turning on the road near the dam. And we couldn't say for sure if that was right or not. And

It was at the state police's request that we just dismiss the charges and move along. You know, we had already gotten the guy who did it. And, you know, we were trying to do Ray a favor. We weren't saying that he didn't lie. We weren't saying anything like that. And if the Innocence Project is trying to take responsibility for

for doing something good, they're full of shit. And you can quote me on that. We decided to just give Ray the benefit of the doubt and move on. And they turned it into something that, you know, we wrongfully prosecuted him and all this other stuff. I don't believe that. We tried to do the right thing, the proper thing, the kind thing. And

They tried to make a mockery out of how kind we were. With the Innocence Project, with what, I don't know. We did them a favor. The court would have ruled in our favor, but we chose to do the right thing because we couldn't definitively say after Brian looked at all the videos that Ray definitely wasn't on the videos.

And more than likely, he wasn't. And he lied. I mean, Ray got to choose what he pledged to, what comp he pledged to, what thing he lied about. He chose that. And he pled guilty to it. The fact that it even got to a civil hearing is disgusting in my mind. Do you have any regrets about the perjury charges you pursued against Ray or not? No. My assistant prosecutor, Aaron Harrington,

did a phenomenal job going through everything. And he did lie. That's the bottom line. He lied. And he wasn't ever charged with murder, but he lied. And because he pled to one specific count and Brian Fuller is the only one who noticed, not Ray, not his attorneys, not us, that there was a little glimmer of reflection off of a,

truck in the parking lot where the camera was that there could have been something there and for people to say anything negative about him or his abilities or what he did is absolutely wrong because he brought that up to us he didn't have to say anything

And he brought that up to us. He brought me into my office the morning or morning, afternoon, whatever the hearing was. And we looked at stuff and that's why we just dismissed the charges.

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In 2023, Ray McCann once again came face-to-face with Detective Brian Fuller, the lead investigator for the Michigan State Police. This time, however, it was on his terms in civil court. Ray filed a federal lawsuit in 2019, suing multiple officials and law enforcement agencies. The only defendant allowed to proceed to trial was Detective Fuller.

The trial began on Ray's 56th birthday in September 2023 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. For a long time, I knew the day was coming that I'd be back in court. And in my mind, it scared me. And I kept, well, hopefully they put it off for a little bit longer. You know, I was afraid to walk into that courtroom. I think one reason I didn't want to see...

you know, Brian Fuller again, but I knew the day had to come. And now, you know, when it came, actually it was on the day of my birthday. It was, you know, first thing in court, I'm going, wow. It's like, what a birthday. Yeah. You know, after all that time, it was, um, believe me, it was nerve wracking. I mean, I'm in and out of court during when it happened. And, but it was my time, you know, to get justice. Uh, you know, I waited for a long time. What they did to me was wrong. Um,

So it was nervous, but yeah, it was my time to, you know, tell my story, my part of it, you know. So it was a big relief to Detective Brian Fuller. I never wanted to see that man again. And that was really hard to see him walk into that courtroom, to see him up on stand and

admitting basically what he did to me. And that was the hardest thing, trying to comprehend why, why did you do this to me? I still have a struggle with that. I still don't understand it. With Ray when he spoke with us was his attorney, Rachel Brady, civil rights attorney at Loewe & Loewe. We worked on this case for four years before I went to trial. There are tricky spots, as most wrongful conviction cases have.

But we always believed in this case and we believed in Ray and we believed in doing what it would take to rectify the injustice that he experienced. And so when we went to trial, we went in optimistic that the jury would see the injustice and they would see the misconduct and hopefully try to make it right. Brian Fuller tried his very best to convince the jury that

This was just a misunderstanding. He was really trying to solve the case and he got it wrong. And, you know, oops, that's the cost of doing business. Since this was a civil trial, to win, all Ray needed to do was to prove his case by a preponderance of evidence, a far lower threshold than a criminal trial. While on the stand, Ray described how he was living modestly after his exoneration and trying to rebuild his life.

He worked maintenance and cooked camp grub at a YMCA camp in northern Michigan. He found it a place where he could escape into nature. He said he liked hearing kids' laughter. It made him happy, at least for a moment. He acknowledged he still dealt with depression. He had taken years to connect with his son again, who had turned against him during the investigation. In the movies,

Somebody is wrongfully convicted and then exonerated and then life is all roses and rainbows after that. The reality is often different and never more starkly than in Ray's case. On the stand, Ray's attorney asked him a series of questions. Did he have anything to do with Jodi's death? Did he put her body in the cemetery? Did Ray find her body before the rest of the search party did?

Did he lie under oath during his investigative subpoena? No, no, no, and no. Ray denied it all emphatically. Ray, why did you bring this lawsuit? Ray's attorney asked him. I want some justice, Ray said. I want some closure to this. Ken Kolker was the only journalist covering Ray's civil trial as the clash between Ray and Detective Fuller went on in the Kalamazoo courtroom.

Ken told us what he observed about Ray's testimony. He was tearful at times, you know, clearly frustrated. Just talked about everything he had lost. It was kind of hard to watch, actually. We asked Ken what the most compelling testimony at trial was. Oh, Ray's testimony. You know, what it put him through and, you know, how he lost his family and, you know, was no longer welcome in his own town.

you know, what it put him through. And then the opposite with Brian Fuller, who was like, seemed almost cavalier. Detective Brian Fuller got on the stand one day after Ray. He was almost the same age as Ray, 54. Detective Fuller had worked for the Michigan State Police for more than 29 years. Before that, he was a military police officer in the United States Army. He had never been disciplined for misconduct.

Jody Parrick's case had been his first and only cold case he had ever worked on. And despite his long career in law enforcement, he admitted he had never written a probable cause affidavit for an arrest before. In 2016, he had been promoted to detective sergeant at the Michigan State Police Wayland Post. He acknowledged he learned hard lessons from the Jody Parrick case that helped him later on in his career.

At Ray's civil trial, the testimony of Detective Fuller was quite revealing. The jury got a glimpse into his thinking as he tried to solve Jody's murder that at one point seemed unsolvable. The jurors learned how Ray dominated Detective Fuller's investigation. Detective Fuller was represented by the Michigan Attorney General's office. At times, the testimony got tense.

Ray's attorney was quick to point out that Detective Fuller was a prolific writer. He had documented hundreds and hundreds of pages of police reports and wrote one report nearly 20 pages long on just Ray's lies. That's how deep Detective Fuller's tunnel vision was, Ray's attorney said. Detective Fuller was so convinced Ray was the killer, he was chasing an innocent man and ignored Ray's alibi and the lack of physical evidence.

Even in 2023, Detective Fuller seemed to still cling to the idea that Ray might be involved in Jody's death. At this point, you agree that Daniel Furlong alone killed the victim, right? Ray's attorney, Russell Ainsworth, asked him. That's what he has confessed to, Detective Fuller said. I agree that's probably the truth. To pin him down, Ainsworth asked, is it probably the truth or is it the truth?

Detective Fuller replied, I believe it's probably the truth. Ainsworth said, All right, sir. So you believe that Daniel Furlong killed Jodi Perrick, right? Absolutely, Detective Fuller said. And you don't think that Ray helped Daniel Furlong in any way, right? Today, no, I do not. Ainsworth asked, And you don't believe that Ray had anything to do with Jodi Perrick's murder, correct? Correct, Detective Fuller responded.

Later in court, Ainsworth asked, you're still calling him a liar, right? And he was convicted of perjury, right? Detective Fuller responded, he was. He pled to it. Ainsworth continued, and you're accusing him of being a liar to this day? Detective Fuller said, I was asked if I believed he lied, and the answer is yes.

Back in 2011, Detective Fuller said one of his theories was that Ray's 11-year-old son somehow killed Jody and that Ray tried to cover it up. He said he confided to Jody's mom that that's what he thought happened. Detective Fuller testified that he also told Ray's sister that the evidence proved Ray was the one who put Jody's body in the cemetery. He insinuated GPS phone data placed Ray there.

But that wasn't true. No such GPS evidence existed. Detective Fuller was asked about his interrogation tactics. Police could lie, although they typically don't lie to get information. He said this cold case was particularly challenging because they had so little information to go on. We knew very little as to the dynamics of this homicide, other than an 11-year-old girl was killed, Detective Fuller testified.

He said any male in town could be a suspect. What was your law enforcement purpose for lying to Ray's sister about Ray's culpability in Jody's murder? Ainsworth asked. Detective Fuller answered, We didn't know who all may have had information within his circle of people and family that would have been relevant had our theory about his involvement been true.

Ray's attorney continued, You told Ray's wife that she needed to be safe, and you knew without a doubt that he was in the cemetery 22 minutes before Jody's body was found. Is that right? Detective Fuller said, I don't remember that. Ray's team played a clip of the interview to trigger his memory. You were willing to do whatever you thought was necessary in order to solve this case, right? Ainsworth asked. I wanted to solve this case, Detective Fuller answered.

And you would even do things that might not be proper to solve the case, right? Detective Fuller said no. Ainsworth pointed to more of his techniques. While interviewing Ray's son, Detective Fuller called Jodi a tramp and insinuated Ray's son and Jodi must have had sex. Here's a clip of Detective Fuller interviewing Ray's son in 2012. By then, Ray's son was a teenager. But she had sex.

Terrible up. Her parents didn't care about her. Her parents just cared about getting high. We had this discussion. She was exposed to sexual stuff that she never should have been exposed to. Jodi Perrick basically, for all intents and purposes, was a tramp at age 11. She came on to you. She wanted you. This had nothing to do with bad things by you. This was her.

If all of that stuff happened, you're the victim. It was like, you ever see the movie Indecent Proposal or Fatal Attraction or anything like that? I'm telling you what, she wouldn't stop at no, even, probably. That's how strongly she liked you. She probably, on occasion, has come on to you so strong that you didn't know what to do, based on what I've seen.

I believe that Jodi put the person responsible for her death in a situation that they couldn't even control. I believe that it was a game. I believe it was in fun. I believe maybe, maybe she just had to be quiet. I believe maybe she overreacted to a situation.

Back at trial, Attorney Ainsworth asked Detective Fuller, Do you think that was proper to tell the kid who was 11 years old at the time of the crime that the victim in the case was a tramp and that she came on to him and that he was a victim? Detective Fuller said, I didn't like it. I don't like it today, but I did it. Was it proper? I don't think it was improper, Detective Fuller said.

Ainsworth responded, We only have so much time, so I'm not going to debate you each time you do that. But is it in some sort of ethereal world between proper and improper? I mean, which side of the coin are you on? Detective Fuller argued that Ray's legal team was taking his words out of context from the entire interview with Ray's son. We were operating under the theory that there may have been some involvement by Ray McCann's son, and we were exploring that, he testified.

One of the reasons for that is that there was a strong attraction, and one of the tactics that are used at times is to blame the victim. Like I said, I am not saying that that is the best thing to do, looking back, but it's what we did, and it didn't get us any further. He acknowledged that no DNA evidence tied Ray's son to the crime. Ainsworth moved on.

Under pressure to explain how Jodi's DNA could have gotten on him, Ray had said maybe it came from hugging Jodi's mom in the cemetery that night.

But Ray was trying to rationalize a lie. Detective Fuller was lying to Ray because police had no DNA evidence against him tying him to Jody. The original 2007 police report did not mention either Ray's or Jody's mom's statements about any hug. So in 2011, four years later, it was the first time police had asked Jody's mom about it.

Jody's mom said she couldn't remember Ray hugging her and all the chaos and trauma. Ainsworth asked Detective Fuller, so you credited Joe's statement over Ray's, right? I reported that. I reported that that's what he said and that she said something different, Detective Fuller answered. Ainsworth continued, you said that Ray was lying about it, and part of your proof was that Joe said it didn't happen, right? Correct, Detective Fuller replied.

Ainsworth argued that Jodi's mom had been so traumatized in the cemetery, she lost touch with reality. She didn't know where she was or who was there with her, not even her husband. She almost threw up. How could she remember if Ray hugged her? Ray's attorney then asked a seemingly rhetorical question.

Do you think that would be a good thing to tell the prosecutor? That their witness in a criminal perjury case that would lead to, you know, potentially life sentence in prison, was somebody who didn't even know that her husband was present at the scene of where the hug occurred? It didn't happen, was all Detective Fuller said.

In that probable cause affidavit, where police outlined why Ray should be charged with perjury, Detective Fuller did not write perhaps the single most important fact in the entire case, that DNA evidence excluded Ray and his son in Jody's murder. Detective Fuller also neglected to include in the probable cause affidavit that Ray had an alibi. He spent the afternoon and evening with his children and wife.

Ainsworth accused Detective Fuller of a long list of missteps in his police investigation. He pointed out that Detective Fuller wrote his police reports with loaded language. He wrote that Ray's son and stepson denied going to the dollar store when they were interviewed in 2011. Ainsworth argued that in reality, he should have written that the boys couldn't remember what happened four years ago.

Ainsworth said that Detective Fuller also ignored the proof from the UPC code given by the Dollar General corporate store, which proved that someone from Constantine had purchased two laser guns that day. He argued that even though there was no physical evidence against Ray, Detective Fuller seemed obsessed with little trivial facts that he thought were suspicious.

For instance, Ray mixed up the Dollar General store and called it General Dollar instead. That got mentioned in Detective Fuller's report. Hadn't Ray lived in Constantine his whole life? How could he mix that up? Detective Fuller wondered as he cast doubt on whether Ray had really visited the place like he said he did. And Ray had built a fire in his fireplace on November 7th.

Detective Fuller wrote that it was an unseasonably warm day, but in reality, the high temperature was 45 degrees. A fire in the fireplace in the heat of the day seems out of order. One could speculate that this was Ray's excuse for not being in his children's company at a critical time relating to this case, Detective Fuller wrote.

Detective Fuller also did not record his interview with Constantine police officer Marcus Donker, whose interview was key in Ray's perjury charge over the Tumble Dam. It's fair to say that people's recollection of things or memory fades over time. Certainly, I don't remember everything that happened that long ago, Detective Fuller testified.

But Ray's legal team argued that Detective Fuller always believed everyone else, like Jody's mom or Officer Donker, over Ray. Ainsworth asked him, Can you name a single statement from Ray McCann that contradicted somebody else's where you credited Ray's account over theirs? Not off the top of my head, no, Detective Fuller responded.

That surveillance video from a creamery near the tumble dam was another contested point at Ray's civil trial. Detective Fuller admitted on the stand, There is a distance where if he got behind the intersection, you wouldn't be able to see him park there, yes. It would be outside the scope of the camera. He said he didn't ask for anyone on the police force to help him analyze the grainy nighttime footage either.

From what I could view by watching it, no, I didn't ask anybody. I could see it with my own eyes, he testified. But Detective Fuller was adamant he hadn't lied about the video's contents to Prosecutor McDonough's office, as the prosecutor then charged Ray with perjury. You're asking me if I lied about the video of the tumble dam path and Ray being in it to the prosecutor? Detective Fuller asked. Absolutely not. That's absurd.

The video became an exhibit at Ray's civil trial. Were you investigating a murder, or were you investigating Mr. McCann? Ainsworth asked. Detective Fuller said, The two coincided from time to time. But sometimes you were just investigating Mr. McCann? Yes, Detective Fuller replied.

Detective Fuller also admitted on the stand that his boss, a sergeant, had encouraged him to be objective and focus on angles other than Ray McCann. The other two detectives working the cold case were skeptical that Ray was the killer. Both Detective Moore and Detective Carlyle told you, I don't think Ray McCann had anything to do with this crime, right? Ainsworth asked.

We had conversations about that over the course of our investigation that would ebb and flow, Detective Fuller replied. There would be times where they would think that he would be involved or was potentially involved. There were conversations where they thought that he wasn't, or based on an interview that he did pretty good. Sir, you yourself independently realized that you were experiencing tunnel vision with regard to Ray McCann, right? Detective Fuller said he was focused on solving this case.

He then said, "'It was recognized as tunnel vision by my supervisor, who brought it to my attention. I believe that all of the inconsistencies regarding his statements meant something.'" Ainsworth said, "'One of the problems with tunnel vision is that you focus on the wrong person and you let the guilty person go free, right?' Detective Fuller added, "'The problem with tunnel vision is that you don't remain objective.'"

Listening to the testimony, there was no doubt Detective Fuller desperately wanted to solve a twisting, complicated case that had stumped law enforcement and kept leading to dead ends.

There were a whole lot of things that happened in this case that are things I've never experienced before, he testified. We had false confessions of a homicide. We had a lot of things that happened that we had to work through. It was a very complex, convoluted investigation. It was hard work, Ainsworth asked. What was the only thing standing in your way of charging Ray with murder? Well, I don't charge people with crimes. The prosecutor's office does, Detective Fuller answered.

But to answer your question, I had a supervisor that certainly was not supportive of going down any road of charging anyone with homicide until the DNA was figured out. That was first and foremost. We just didn't have enough pieces of the puzzle to pursue that, in my opinion.

Although I believed, I believed at the time that the issues with Mr. McCann meant something. They had to mean something as it related to her death. And that, as we have said here today, I have told you is not true. It's wrong. In one document he sent to his sergeant, Detective Fuller wrote, "...the only thing fucking this whole thing up, it's apparently not his DNA."

Other things also didn't add up with Detective Fuller's theory. If Ray had killed Jody, why would he be so eager for everyone to search the cemetery? The killer doesn't usually then tell people to go find the body at the place where it's dumped, right? Ainsworth asked. They want the body to be hidden so they have more time to cover their tracks, right? Detective Fuller agreed. Yes, that seemed true. He explained his thought process.

I believe that Ray was directing people there to find the body, but the potential existed that he was involved and he was trying to get people there to find the body. Officer Donker was about to have an Amber Alert issued. There was going to be a whole lot more attention, and the possibility existed that without that body being found, it may be more problematic for him. That was a theory of mine.

One of the final exchanges between Ray's attorney and Detective Fuller seemed particularly memorable. Detective Fuller said he had not apologized to Ray McCann for what happened to him. Do you wish to? Ainsworth asked. Yes, Detective Fuller replied. I'm sorry, Ray, for what happened. I truly am. Did Detective Fuller feel any remorse for his actions during the police investigation?

That's a difficult question, Detective Fuller said. I believe that I was acting in the best interests of this homicide investigation, and I believe that I was doing my due diligence to try to get to the bottom of that. If I would have known, can I finish, please?

If I would have known what we learned in 2014 or 15 or whenever we identified Mr. Furlong as the murderer and that he had no connection whatsoever to Mr. McCann, that would have been a way better outcome. I am remorseful that we didn't expand the canvas another block and a half to get that DNA much sooner to avoid Mr. McCann going through what he went through, to avoid another child being nearly abducted and potentially killed,

Yes, I have remorse. Yes, I am very disappointed that we didn't get to where we needed to get to sooner, and for the sacrifices he made that were the cause of our investigation and my doing. I had no malice. I had no ill intent towards this man. I believe that we had developed somewhat of a decent rapport over time. Sure, some of that was intentional. Sure, it was. But I am sorry to you, sir.

When asked if he had to do it all over again, but not knowing that Daniel Furlong was the murderer, would he have done everything the same way? Detective Fuller said, Absolutely not. This profession isn't super easy. This is a whole lot of information. This was the largest case I have ever worked on. This was an enormous amount of data to try to retain.

There was, like I said, the situation changed from being on a high one day thinking we're on the right track to then falling flat. Over the course of these investigations, you definitely learn things. You definitely can look back and reflect on how you can improve for the next time. And I assure you, that has happened. I know he apologized in court. I don't, hopefully he was sincere, but he had 16 years to apologize and he didn't.

So I still think he did it because it was a court thing. Because he had 16 years. He could have found me. I think he was hoping maybe I knew something. And, you know, hoping that if I did know something, I would come forward with it, you know, a scare tactic or something. You know, and the end results, you know, finally we ended up in court. But, yeah.

It's still mind-boggling. It really is today. You know, even today, it's still, I don't understand his thought pattern. You know, it just seems so unreal. In addition to Ray and Detective Fuller, there were others who testified too. There were a number of other witnesses who kind of helped us tell the story. And Ray's testimony was

I don't know if that comes across in the transcript, but he spoke candidly and it was raw and kind of heart wrenching to listen to. And you could see it on the jury's faces that it was it was hard to listen to Ray's story.

But it was the other people, the other witnesses as well, who helped tell the story of the misconduct. I think, you know, from the DNA analyst who talked about the DNA that was found in the victim's body, fully exculpating Ray, to

You know, the other members of the cold case team. And as you mentioned earlier, you know, they all said we thought Brian Fuller was unfairly fixated on Ray. We had eliminated Ray as a suspect to, you know, Fuller's own supervisor saying, I told him to I told me in television, I told him to leave Ray alone and he just didn't. And I think that it was a combination of all of that testimony that really helped tell the story.

In their closing arguments, Detective Fuller's attorney told the jury, In hindsight, when you know the answers, it's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback. Back in 2012, when the investigative subpoena occurred, they didn't have all of the answers. They didn't know who the killer was at the time. And that is what is on all of these detectives' minds. Ray's attorneys asked the jury for not a penny less than $12 million.

Not only did the jury side with Ray, they awarded him $14.5 million. When the attorneys asked for $12 million, and four hours later they come up with $14.5 million, clearly the jury wanted to send a message. Ray's supporters, like David Moran, could not have been happier for him.

But those who supported Detective Brian Fuller and the Michigan State Police cold case team were furious. Brian is one of the most professional, most incredible investigators I've ever worked with. They're fine, fine detectives, and we were extremely lucky to have them. And the outcome of the civil trial was ridiculous, in my idea. I just thought it was ridiculous.

The Michigan State Police declined to comment for this series. It's going to be a healing process for me probably the rest of my life. I was telling Rachel, it's just, you know, when I was in court, I told the jury, you know, no matter what the outcome was, win or lose,

I'm not, it's not over for me. I got to continue, you know, and I go through depression because I still in my mind try to figure out what happened. Ray told us he still has horrible dreams at night. A lot of it's, it varies. Most of it's being interrogated constantly in my dreams. And it seems like it just never stops.

Sometimes I have dreams like I'm wearing my police uniform and I'm walking into a station and everybody's looking like, what are you doing in your police uniform? It's weird things like that, but a lot of it's just being interrogated by Brian Fuller in my dreams. He's literally in your dreams? Yeah. Oh, my gosh.

That's one thing I, that's why I prayed that I'd never see this man again, but obviously going to court, I knew I was going to. And I think that was my biggest fear, just to see that face-to-face with him again after what he did to me. Put me through your mind. What was it like when you heard what the jury was going to award you for damages? What was going through your mind when they said the number?

You know, honestly, at first, I didn't comprehend it. I actually, when we got out of that room and into another room, I had to ask because I guess it was just overwhelming that I won. I guess at the time, it just didn't mean anything. It didn't, you know, I remember putting my head on my shoulder and it was just, oh, my God, it was such a relief. I knew I won. I just couldn't comprehend it right.

Ray has since repaired his relationship with his son, who Ray said suffered emotionally from all that happened. And he now has four grandkids. Ray, who always loved sports and remembers his glory athletic days playing for Constantine, finds delight in going to his grandkids' games. His granddaughter starts cheerleading next year. He will be there for that, too. He also has new love in his life.

His new wife, Chrissy. Me and Chrissy, she was a hairdresser, 20-some years, big clientele. And I worked at a camp, YMCA camp. And the lady, the guy that ran the camp, his wife, me and her started working together in the kitchen. And she, because, you know, I'm by myself, you know, and she wanted, she goes, well, I got a friend maybe I can introduce you to.

For their first date, they went to a Jelly Roll concert. You know, I really didn't know much about Jelly Roll, but it was an awesome concert, and he got some good songs, you know, and now I sing some of his music now, too. But yeah, Jelly Roll concert, and then we ended up getting an English bulldog, big old fat bulldog, and we call him Jelly Roll now.

One of Ray's all-time favorite musicians was always Elvis Presley. So when Ray and Chrissy got married, they surprised everyone at their wedding reception. Ray wore his Elvis jumpsuit, his hair dyed jet black, and his Elvis glasses. I come out there in that jumpsuit and everybody was screaming. It was cool. It was so exciting for me to do that. And

I sung, you know, different songs and I can't help falling in love with you. I brought her out, sat her in a chair and just sang to her. Yeah, it was a beautiful wedding. It was just awesome. After winning his multi-million dollar court case, Ray reflected on how his life has changed.

I first get out, you know, trying to apply for an apartment. They seen that on my record, got denied jobs. You couldn't get the best, you know, good job that you wanted. You had to settle for something else. I didn't have a car at first, walking to work. My daughter gave me rides. Living with them, my daughter, you know, thank God I did have somewhere to go for a while. And then when I got up north, I was actually a little bit homeless for a while, for about, I don't know, it was

I can't remember how long it was, six months or so. I stayed and lived in my truck for a little bit, lived on camp. You know, I was fortunate the camp director there let me stay in one of the cabins for a while. So, yeah, it hasn't been easy, for sure. Ray recently bought a house for his daughter so she can live closer to him in northern Michigan, where he lives now. He has trips planned, like Disney World with his family and going on a cruise next year.

I love Disney. I act like I go there, just take the stress off me, act like a little kid, just enjoy it all. I've waited, I don't know, 17 years for this, you know, so it's like I have a little enjoyment now, you know. I still don't comprehend the money, you know what I mean? I still live like a poor guy somewhat because I've always tried to make my dollar stretch. I've always...

It's funny to say, when I grocery shop, buy the, you know, cheaper. That's just me. You know, I bought a few nice things, but I try to keep it, you know, level down. You know, I know some people get crazy and, you know, then it's all gone. And I still got to live the rest of my life out, you know, and help my grandkids out, my daughter, my kids. And, you know, I want to leave something behind. My situation, I don't really...

Bring you happiness because I still go through that depression. People think, well, now you've got the money. You can do anything you want. Yeah, in a way you can. But you know what? I still go through everything I go through. Nothing has changed. You know, money don't, the word I guess they're saying, it doesn't buy you happiness. It helps, but I still have the problems I have. Like I said, it's always going to be there, though. It's always going to be there.

Normally, whenever Ray drives south now, he bypasses Constantine. But occasionally, he has stopped back in his old hometown and has even gone to the cemetery where Jody's body was found, where everything began, because that's where Ray's parents are buried, too. It's hard to...

And that's all for this episode. I want to thank Gabrielle Rusin, who researched and wrote this three-part series. I think she did an excellent job telling the story of not only Jodi Perrick and her horrible death, but also the fact that she was a woman.

but also the court cases surrounding it, including the tragic incarceration of someone who did nothing wrong. You can follow Gabrielle on Twitter or X at Gabrielle Rusan. I'll include that in the show notes.

I want to thank Ray McCann for sharing his story with us. And I'd also like to thank his attorney, Rachel Brady with Loewe & Loewe, David Moran, journalist Ken Kolker, and former prosecutor John McDonough for their perspectives and help with this case. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Join the conversation on Instagram at Court Junkie, or you can email me at podcast at courtjunkie.com.

To hear these episodes without the ads and hear additional Court Junkie bonus episodes, you can check out courtjunkie.com/support to see my Patreon options. And if you have a case you'd like for us to cover, please email podcast@courtjunkie.com and put listener request in the subject line. I do have an influx of listener requests at the moment and I'm trying to get back to everyone, but it's taking me a little bit of time.

But I am noting your requests and adding them to my research list to see if they would make more potential episodes. Anyway, thanks again for listening. Until next time.