Dying on death row, he goes to court---Inmate Frederick A. Thomas, who
has a terminal liver disease, contends that he did not commit a 1993 killing.
Philadelphia Inquirer

Death-row inmate Frederick A. Thomas finally got his day in court
yesterday to try to prove that he was not involved in the 1993 slaying of
a FedEx courier, and the 1st witness backed him up, testifying that the
killer was a local drug dealer named "Little Man."

Thomas, 56, who is dying of liver disease, was convicted and sentenced to
death in 1995 for the December 1993 shooting death of the courier,
William "Skip" Moyer Jr. of Delaware County.

Yesterday was the start of what is expected to be a weeklong hearing on
the defense effort to try to persuade Philadelphia Common Pleas Court
Judge Willis W. Berry Jr. that Thomas deserves a new trial.

The new defense witness, James H. Wilkerson, testified that he saw two
neighborhood men near the FedEx vehicle at Ninth and Clearfield Streets
in North Philadelphia, and watched as "Little Man" shot the driver. He
said the 3 then fled in a brown Toyota hatchback.

Wilkerson testified that he did not come forward until last fall because
he was fearful of "Little Man" and the 2 other local men who he said were
involved. He said he also was fearful of the Philadelphia police.

"So you saw a killing, but you never said nothing?" Berry asked Wilkerson.

"I was scared," replied Wilkerson, who said he did not know the shooter's
real name but heard recently that the man was deported to Ecuador.

It may all be of little consequence. A doctor has concluded that Thomas'
condition appears to be terminal, and his family and lawyers say he has
been trying to live long enough to have his day in court.

Prosecutors are opposing the defense effort; they have said the evidence
points to Thomas, who has been convicted in the past of robbery,
burglary, manslaughter and assault.

It was a contentious day, with the lawyers sparring over photocopies of
photographs and a flap over the homicide file in the case, and the judge
stepping in at times with questions of his own for the witnesses.

Under questioning by federal public defender James Moreno, Wilkerson
testified that he was standing on the steps of his mother's house the
morning of Dec. 21, 1993, putting up Christmas decorations, when he saw
the shooting.

"Is this man, Fred Thomas, the man who shot the FedEx driver?" Moreno asked.

"No," Wilkerson replied.

Wilkerson testified that his "life wasn't together" and that he was
"really scared" at the time of the killing, but that he had since
straightened out his life and decided to come forward at the behest of
one of Thomas' nephews.

During cross-examination, Assistant District Attorney Hugh Colihan
challenged Wilkerson's credibility by questioning him about several
arrests and noting that he knew a number of Thomas' relatives from the
neighborhood.

Colihan also questioned Wilkerson about a visit from two men with badges
nine days ago. Wilkerson testified that the two men took him to a police
station at Front and Westmoreland Streets, put him in a room, and left
him there for more than 9 hours.

"Did they arrest you?" Berry asked.

"No," replied Wilkerson, who said he eventually left and told his lawyer,
who wrote a letter complaining about the incident.

Under later questioning, Moreno asked Wilkerson if anyone had forced him
to come forward. "No," he replied.

"Are you telling the truth?" Moreno asked.

"Yes," Wilkerson replied.

Outside the courtroom, Christopher Diviny, who heads the unit in the
District Attorney's Office that is handling the Thomas case, said he was
trying to determine what - if anything - had happened at the station. He
said there was no police record of Wilkerson's having been brought to the
police station.

Also testifying yesterday was Mitchell Fielding, who said that his late
wife, Maria, had told him she saw three young black men take part in the
killing. He said she told police that Thomas was not involved.

Fielding testified that Officer James Ryan threatened his wife, telling
her that if she testified for Thomas he would see that the couple's
children were taken away from them. Ryan later pleaded guilty in a
corruption scandal and is no longer with the department.

(source: Philadelphia Inquirer)

Fred Thomas' friends and attorneys are frantically trying to save the dying
man from death row, claiming he’s an innocent victim of a bad cop and a shoddy investigation.

                                    The neighborhood around Ninth and Clearfield, in
                                    that part of North Philly sometimes called the
                                    Badlands, was settling down from its morning
                                    routine shortly after 9 a.m. on the rainy morning
                                    of Dec. 21, 1993. Mothers had already walked
                                    their children to school, and the usual drinkers
                                    had taken up their posts on the northeast
                                    corner. Federal Express driver William Moyer, Jr.
            was parked near the southwest corner — not far from where a local man known
            to some as "Crazy Fred" was standing, waiting for a store to open — and was
            preparing to make a delivery.

            Moyer never delivered the package. The men on the northeast corner, Willie
            "Greenie" Green and Charles "Countrie" Rowe, heard a bang, and from where
            they were sitting, Rowe could see Moyer’s feet next to one of the truck tires.
            But they decided not to get involved, and they left to run an errand.

            Police arriving at the scene found that Moyer, a 37-year-old father of four, had
            been shot in the face at close range. The bullet entered his left cheek and
            traveled back and upward, injuring his brain stem and killing him instantly. The
            first cop on the scene, Officer Michael Trask, would note later that there was a
            trail of blood "about four house lengths" from Moyer to the gutter. The rain
            washed some of the blood away, but there was still plenty — enough to raise
            splatter issues at the trial for Moyer’s murder and call into account the credibility
            of witness statements.

            The police found Moyer’s wallet, still on him, and $61 in his left pants pocket.
            They also found an opened package containing newspapers in the Federal
            Express truck.

            By the time Rowe and Green returned, a small crowd of neighborhood residents
            had gathered. A homicide detective arrived within an hour and directed the
            mobile crime unit, which took black-and-white photographs and produced a
            sketch of the crime scene.

            Rowe and Green returned to the corner, but avoided police and were not
            questioned until a cop who had no official reason to be interested in the case
            brought them in a day or so later. They said Frederick A. Thomas, 56, the man
            waiting for the corner store to open, had run around the truck after the
            gunshot and disappeared down an alley; Rowe said that Thomas had "seemed
            like he had something under his coat." He and Green became the prosecution’s
            star witnesses.

            Their statements would become the key for an arrest and conviction. Nothing
            else connected "Crazy Fred" Thomas to the murder of William Moyer.
 

            Two years later, Thomas, a man with a history of
            run-ins with the law that includes convictions for
            manslaughter and aggravated assault, was
            convicted of Moyer’s murder and sentenced to
            death. He was tried twice; the first ended in a
            hung jury. No physical evidence was presented
            at either trial linking Thomas to the shooting.

            Today, defense attorneys with the Capital
            Habeas Unit of the Federal Defender Association
            of Philadelphia contend that Thomas, known for
            his volatile temper and alcoholism, was the fall guy for a crooked cop and a
            band of drug dealers, as well as the victim of an ineffective initial defense effort.
            They are working tirelessly to have his conviction overturned. Recently, they’ve
            been given some encouragement: A Philadelphia judge has granted Thomas a
            hearing. On Feb. 25, Common Pleas Court Judge Willis Berry Jr., will hear the
            merits of his case.

            Thomas doesn’t have time to spare; he is suffering from liver failure and a host
            of other ailments. Defense attorney Kica Matos says, "All [Thomas] wants
            before he dies is to have his innocence proven. He wants his day in court."

            Last week, death-penalty opponents and supporters of Thomas attended a
            rally led by Pennsylvania Abolitionists United Against the Death Penalty, during
            which protesters chanted the names of Andrew Gibson, the assistant district
            attorney on the case, and Christopher Diviny, the chief of Gibson’s unit. They
            were called upon "to let justice prevail" and to stop fighting a reopening of the
            case.

            Diviny says, however, that prosecutors are "confident that Fred Thomas is the
            killer."

            The father of the murder victim, William Moyer, Sr. says, "I sat through two
            trials; with what I saw, I’m convinced he was given a fair trial."
 

                                    Records show that a male caller phoned police
                                    three days after the murder to say that he
                                    worked for Federal Express and "had heard that
                                    Moyer had been opening packages that he was
                                    to deliver" and "that whenever Moyer delivered
                                    to a certain address in North Philly, he knew
                                    drugs were being sent to the address because it
                                    was always the same address." The caller
                                    alleged that Moyer "had taken some weed and
                                    recently ‘ripped off’ a kilo of cocaine."

                                    According to the coroner’s report, Moyer had
            cocaine and methamphetamine in his system at the time of the killing.

            The sender of the open package on the truck — the package Moyer apparently
            was preparing to deliver — was listed as Colecciones Biblicas International Inc.,
            from Santurce, Puerto Rico. Although the only contents by the time the police
            arrived were a few newspapers, the package was insured for $100. Perhaps
            more interesting, the package was addressed to Roberto Perez, a man the
            police never located. People living at the address, on the 3000 block of North
            Ninth Street, have since told defense investigators they do not know a Roberto
            Perez and that such packages were left on the porch frequently and would
            eventually disappear.

            Matos has worked on Thomas’ appeal effort since it began. (She’s recently
            moved to Connecticut and is no longer with the Defender Association.) She says
            there were problems with most of the prosecution’s witnesses.

            A UPS driver testified that Thomas had stalked him on deliveries, roughly
            between June 1992 and December 1992. Thomas, however, was serving a
            sentence for a parole violation between December 1991 and October 1992.

            Matos also says the defense investigation wasn’t thorough enough. For
            example, Jeffrey Fooks, a nephew of Thomas, says he was on the corner when
            the shot fired, and the details he provides coincide with much of what Rowe
            says. He says his uncle was already on his way down an alley when the murder
            occurred. The police have never questioned Fooks, but according to him, they
            did break his door down looking for Thomas. He signed an affidavit in March
            2000 stating that he saw another man exit the truck "with a package in [his]
            hands." Original defense attorney Jay Gottlieb says he interviewed Fooks "up
            and down" at the time of trial, and Fooks didn’t give him that information.
 

            Ryan was one of the state’s witnesses himself; he testified at the first trial
            regarding his role in the investigation. By the time of the second trial, Ryan was
            under investigation for criminal conduct and did not testify, though, according to
            several people in attendance at the second trial, Ryan was a fixture there.
            Mildred Thomas, Fred’s younger sister, says he "sat in the first row throughout
            the trial with the other police officers."

            During the first trial, Mildred Thomas says, Ryan stayed close to the police and
            the victim’s family. She says Ryan "was always with the [Moyer] family." Mildred
            recalls "a confrontation" with Ryan, following a heated exchange between her
            daughter and someone she believes to be Moyer’s sister: "After, [Moyer’s
            sister] went into the anteroom by the courtroom, and Ryan came out. He
            started talking about putting his foot in people’s butts. I said, ‘Come on. I’m
            waiting.’ … He started walking toward me and his partner stopped him."

            Mildred says she remembers her nephew Carl Fooks (brother of Jeffrey)
            approaching Ryan outside the courtroom. "He said, ‘Watch me make him mad.’
            Then Carl told him the dealers had paid their people the day before, and he
            wouldn’t get his envelope. Ryan said, ‘If they mess with me, I’ll put my fucking
            boot up their ass.’" Carl Fooks has provided a signed statement about that
            alleged encounter.

            Attempts to reach Ryan were not successful. Calls to his attorney were not
            returned by press time.
 

                                    Assistant D.A. Chris Diviny says that Ryan’s
                                    involvement begins and ends with that visit and
                                    ride to Homicide. "On the same day of the
                                    shooting," says Diviny, Ryan and another officer
                                    "brought Willie Green in. That’s the end of
                                    [Ryan’s] involvement."

                                    Though Rowe says in his statement that Ryan
                                    escorted him to Homicide to be interviewed,
                                    Diviny says that assertion is inconsistent with
                                    police records.

            In a United States District Court deposition for a different case in 1996,
            however, Ryan takes credit for "outstanding arrests" that include that of Fred
            Thomas. He also says in the deposition, "Myself and my partner went out and
            found two witnesses, and this led to the arrest."

            In May 1995, Ryan pleaded guilty to charges stemming from the infamous 39th
            District scandal, including entering and searching premises without probable
            cause; conducting armed illegal detentions; stealing money and property;
            falsifying police reports, affidavits of probable cause for arrest warrants and
            search warrants; and engaging in illegal stops and searches outside of his
            district, which were never documented in the official police paperwork. He
            served 42 months in federal prison.

            Diviny maintains that Ryan was minimally involved and didn’t taint the case.
            "You’re able to see what he did. Ryan didn’t take any statements. Rowe and
            Green testified at both trials, and after trial, as [the defense attorney] pointed
            out himself, they were interrogated by Internal Affairs and said they were not
            coerced."

            Diviny says the original testimonies of Green and Rowe are what’s material.
            "They didn’t overreach.… They’re not saying they saw the actual shooting;
            they’re saying things that have the ring of truth because they’re appropriately
            limited by their position on the corner and what they were able to see."
 
 

            In the eight years since Moyer died, people on the street at the time of the
            killing, as well as their relatives, have been prodded by investigators, attorneys
            and journalists. Joe Thornton, an investigator for the Defender Association’s
            Capital Habeas Unit, says, "The thing about many capital cases is that they
            have such long tails." The twists and turns, the crucial people disappearing or
            dying, are not peculiar to Fred Thomas’ case, he explains. Still, he says, "There
            is an inordinate number in Fred’s case."

            Thornton knows the Badlands, in some ways probably as well as the people
            who live there. The bands of drug dealers on the corners, the crack houses and
            the worn faces of junkies, ex-junkies and people with secrets have grown
            familiar. He says there’s more to the place than meets the eye.

            "The people who are struggling out of their addictions have a resiliency that
            only that barren a neighborhood can allow them to have," he explains.
            Something else you see, he says, is that the men don’t survive the ravages of
            drugs and poverty into old age. "There is an absence of African-American males
            over 40 there.… [But] I still see [Rowe] down there from time to time. There are
            half a dozen old guys who remind me of lions who are standing on their last
            legs, yet are still able to survive in that neighborhood."

            He says Thomas, who suffered from childhood abuse, brain damage and
            alcoholism, is one of those lions. "The striking thing about Fred Thomas is,
            through it all, he survived."

            A few years ago, Thornton tracked Rowe and Green down. Green was the first
            to be reached, and after several conversations, Thornton says, "I got details
            out of him."

            Rowe and Green both would eventually recant, claiming that police intimidated
            them into implicating Thomas, but of the two, Green was "more remorseful
            [regarding] what he perceived to be his lack of courage at the time [he gave his
            original account to police]," Thornton says. "He felt coerced into saying stuff
            that wasn’t true. He felt bad — it was obvious."

            Rowe signed an affidavit, but Green died of cancer before Thornton could return
            to have him sign a statement.

            Green and Rowe’s inconsistent statements are just the beginning of the
            problems with the conviction, according to the defense team. This past October,
            a man named James Wilkerson signed an affidavit stating that he saw someone
            known as "Little Man" shoot the driver.

            And then there’s Maria Fielding. Defense attorneys past and present speak of
            her with a sigh.

            Police reports indicate that Fielding, an area resident who frequented the
            corner, gave a statement to police the day after the shooting. She said three
            men were involved in the shooting. She identified one as "Tony," and the
            defense team argues today that her description matches that of a
            neighborhood man named Antonio Stokley, whose record includes drug sales
            and possession charges. He is reputed to have been an associate of Alberto
            "Little Man" Arroyo, a man described by a former girlfriend as a "crack addict
            and gunslinger" in an affidavit signed in December.

            In another affidavit, a neighbor describes Arroyo walking by the crime scene,
            acting suspiciously ("I remember he never looked up Ninth Street at the man
            [lying] on the sidewalk") and, shortly after, changing his clothes. She states
            that she told police about Arroyo’s suspicious behavior. Arroyo was
            subsequently interviewed by police, but though he has a criminal record that
            includes arrests for drug sales, robbery, assault and weapons possession, his
            explanation for changing his clothes — "It was cold" — was apparently
            acceptable enough to police that they wrote him off as a suspect.

            They and prosecutors also apparently ignored the fact that Stokley is a nephew
            of Rowe, one of the star witnesses.

            Kenny Miller of the State Correctional Institute at Greensburg (near Harrisburg),
            where Stokley is serving time for an unrelated conviction, relayed a comment
            from Stokley, who says he "knows nothing about" the murder. Arroyo was
            deported to Ecuador sometime in the past few years and couldn’t be reached
            for comment.

            "Maria Fielding gave very graphic descriptions," Thornton says of the witness
            whose account poked holes in Rowe’s and Green’s. "Wilkerson was available.
            These [witnesses] were available the day of the homicide and the Philadelphia
            Police didn’t do anything with it. That may be the biggest tragedy."
 
 

            Mitchell Fielding lives with his five children in a two-story brick house he proudly
            calls "kiddy city." A gallery of stuffed animals line the top of a sofa in the living
            room, and an array of plastic dollhouses are set on another. The kids’ bedrooms
            are stacked with toys and neatly folded piles of laundry. When his wife Maria
            died of cancer in 1999 at age 33, the kids ranged in age from 7 to 3, and since
            then he’s done his best to give them routine and warmth. A photo of Maria is
            set on the wall next to the door. Though she was a handful and had a drug
            problem, he says, she "always came home," and he likes to remember her
            smiling and content. The Moyer murder investigation brings up painful memories
            for him. "I like to forget it," he says.

            Before Maria died, she spoke to him, he says, about how sorry she was that
            Fred Thomas had been convicted for Moyer’s murder, how sorry she was not to
            have been able "to tell what she observed." It’s not clear whether she knew
            Fred at all.

            In an affidavit, Mitchell Fielding contends that two police officers visited the
            Fielding residence shortly after the shooting and that Maria told them, in his
            presence, that Thomas "was not among those whom she had observed running
            from the scene." Mitchell later identified Ryan, from a selection of photographs
            brought to him by Thornton, as one of the officers who visited the house.

            Mitchell recalls Maria coming home from court in tears the day she was to testify
            as a defense witness, having fled because one of the officers approached her
            again and told her to "take a hike" and said she’d lose her kids if she testified
            — an account supported by Carl Fooks, who says he heard the exchange.

            Jay Gottlieb, Thomas’ attorney for the first two trials, says Maria Fielding was
            "absolutely vital" to Thomas’ defense argument. "She names three
            [perpetrators], not Fred," he says. "And one is the nephew of one of the
            [prosecution’s] eyewitnesses."

            A few days before the first trial began, however, Fielding called Gottlieb and
            said she was sick, and "a man who said he was her husband got on the phone
            and just said, ‘She’s not coming in.’"

            Mitchell Fielding insists, however, that Maria was preparing to testify and that
            he dropped her off at the courthouse himself; seven years later, he’s not sure
            which trial it was. At least four people City Paper spoke to described her in the
            courtroom or outside of it, and there are signed affidavits to that effect that
            include accounts of Ryan allegedly intimidating Fielding.

            Thornton says he believes that Fielding actually showed up at the second trial
            after having "a crisis of conscience." Regardless, Fielding is still the heartbreak
            for this case, in Gottlieb’s opinion.

            After Fielding phoned to say she wouldn’t testify, Gottlieb says, he approached
            the court for a continuance so she could be found and brought in. "We had a
            conference, in chambers. [Prosecutor Roger King] said, ‘How important is she?
            She’s just a street junkie.’" Gottlieb says he pointed out that the prosecution’s
            witnesses, Rowe and Green, both had criminal records and were no angels. The
            judge agreed with the prosecution and denied a continuance. Gottlieb says, "I
            told the judge that Fielding was as vital a witness as there ever was,
            anywhere." The judge, Justice Juanita Kidd Stout, issued a bench warrant for
            Fielding, but she was never picked up.

            Gottlieb doesn’t know if she appeared intending to testify; he never met her in
            person. Just as closing arguments were to begin in the first trial, relatives of
            Thomas approached him and said Fielding was in the building, in another
            courtroom. Gottlieb asked the judge for time to locate her, and ran out of the
            courtroom with one of the people who saw her. He didn’t find her. "I needed
            her desperately," he admits.

            The late Fielding wasn’t the only witness that got away. Brenda Gregory gave a
            statement to police the day of the murder, mostly to do with sounds outside
            her window. "Brenda Gregory heard the footsteps of multiple individuals and
            out of her window sees two guys [running] south of her house," Gottlieb says.

            Gregory never showed either, according to Gottlieb. She has since suffered a
            stroke.

            In a motion to dismiss , Assistant D.A. Andrew Gibson dismisses Fielding’s
            account, based on her description of "watching the gunman fire two shots at
            the victim," because "the police never recovered any physical evidence showing
            that a second shot had been fired…"

            Gibson argues that "the account of the killing described by Mrs. Fielding was
            completely at odds with the physical evidence found at the crime scene." The
            prosecutors hold that blood spatters found inside the truck and the upward
            trajectory of the bullet show that Moyer was standing inside the truck when he
            was shot, not on the ground as Fielding described.

            But in Fielding’s statement, she describes hearing "Pow! Pow!" — not seeing
            the shooting.

            Defense attorney Anne Saunders contends Fielding wasn’t an expert on
            ammunition sounds. "When a shot is fired, there can be reverb," she says.

            Saunders and her team recently added Albert Harper, a forensics expert and
            director of the Henry C. Lee Institute of Forensic Science at the University of
            New Haven, to its list of witnesses.

            Harper, who has examined crime-scene photos, police-investigation materials,
            trial exhibits and the coroner’s report, refutes the prosecution’s account of the
            shooting. "It is clear that at the time he was shot, Mr. Moyer’s feet were on the
            ground outside of his truck," Harper writes in an affidavit. He also concludes the
            testimony of the police expert regarding "the placement of Mr. Moyer and his
            assailants was inaccurate and not consistent with the evidence."

            According to Harper, one of the problems is that the Philadelphia Police, at the
            time of Moyer’s murder, did not use color film to take crime-scene photographs.
            In an affidavit signed Jan. 3, he states, "It is very difficult, if not… impossible, to
            render a reliable opinion concerning the interpretation of blood spatter from
            black-and-white photographs."

            There are other possible holes in the prosecutors’ case against granting
            Thomas an appeal.

            Prosecutor Andrew Gibson argues that "Mrs. Fielding’s description of having
            seen ‘Tony,’ one of the assailants, flee through a specific alleyway was also
            proved false, because the police investigation … revealed that both ends of the
            alley were secured by locked gates." Defense attorney Anne Saunders says
            prosecutor Roger King asserted this at trial, but presented no evidence or
            testimony.

            (This past August, a woman on North Ninth Street signed an affidavit stating
            that "there was no fence blocking the alley" when she moved on to the street
            in question in 1999.)
 
 

            "I thought [we] got screwed," Gottlieb recalls. "I always thought that
            something was going on that was evil, wrong." He says he felt "powerless."
            When asked to be more specific, he says, "I felt there was police corruption and
            coercion in this case. My gut instinct — hell, [Thomas] was no angel. But this
            guy had no reason to shoot this driver." Gottlieb echoes current attorney Kica
            Matos’ contention regarding Thomas’ profile, saying that his previous arrests,
            including his conviction for shooting a man in 1991, involved barroom brawls
            and disputes over women, not strong-arm robbery.

            "The FedEx murder," Matos says, "does not fit his m.o. for getting into trouble."

            Assistant D.A. Chris Diviny insists Thomas’ past is consistent with the guilty
            verdict in his case: "He’s been convicted on manslaughter [charges]. He shot
            someone a block away from [where the murder of Moyer took place], and was
            convicted of aggravated assault for that."

            Matos says in response, "We have never alleged that he was a poster boy.
            We’ve alleged that he didn’t commit this murder."

            Moyer’s father, William Sr., isn’t sorry Thomas was convicted.

            "After killing one person, shooting another, a rap sheet 27 pages long, he’ll get
            to die on clean sheets," Moyer says, "while my son died in a gutter in the rain."

            But Thomas’ family and attorneys are trying to prevent what they believe would
            be an equally unjust death.

            At the rally a week ago, the same day a court date was sent for an evidentiary
            hearing on the Thomas case, three dozen people gathered, listening to a
            heated appeal for "justice." Defense attorney Kica Matos, confessing to little
            sleep, stood off to the side and watched.

            "We’re not giving up," she said.

http://citypaper.net/articles/011702/cs.cover.shtml

Like many of the 244 people on Pennsylvania's death row, Frederick A. Thomas says he didn't do
it.

He contends that a crooked Philadelphia police officer framed him, that a key witness against him
has recanted, and that a new witness has come forward to clear him in the killing of a Federal
Express driver in December 1993.

But Thomas' request for a new day in court is unusual in one way: He is dying.

His lawyers want a speedy hearing. They say Thomas, 56, who has hepatitis and other illnesses, may
soon die of liver failure.

"He hopes he lives long enough to see his claims litigated and to hear the witnesses come in and
exonerate him," said James Moreno, one of four public defenders pressing the appeal.

Prosecutors say Thomas has "utterly failed to demonstrate any miscarriage of justice."

Some facts in Thomas' case go to the heart of the national debate about the fairness of the death
penalty: No DNA, fingerprints, gun or other physical evidence tie him to the killing. Two witnesses
testified of hearing a shot, and of having seen Thomas flee the scene tucking an object into his pants.

In May, one of the witnesses signed an affidavit for defense lawyers saying that Thomas was not
involved. The other witness has died.

Thomas contends that the state's case was tainted by the officer who found the key witnesses: James
Ryan, who was caught up in the 39th District police scandal of the 1990s, and who served 42
months in federal prison after admitting that he had faked evidence against drug suspects and robbed
them.

The lawyers contend that Ryan may have wanted to protect a drug dealer from being implicated in
the killing. Prosecutors reject that notion.

Thomas has a record: convictions for robbery in 1969, burglary in 1974, manslaughter in 1982 for
stabbing a man in a drunken fight, and assault for shooting a man in a 1991 argument over a woman.
He is serving a 71/2- to 15-year sentence for that.

His execution date has not been set. He was recently transferred to the infirmary at the state prison in
Graterford so his family can visit him.

An alcoholic, he has diabetes and internal bleeding. A doctor determined that his condition "appears
terminal."

Thomas' relatives and an anti-death penalty group held a news conference on Friday. His sister
Mildred said she regretted causing fresh pain for the victim's family, but that if her brother got a
hearing, perhaps he could die in peace.

"There's no more time for Fred," she said.
 
 

The killing of William "Skip" Moyer, 37, a father of four, stunned the city, and a parade of FedEx
trucks rode in his funeral procession.

A FedEx driver for a decade, Moyer was shot in the face about 9:30 a.m. on Dec. 21, 1993, as he
delivered a parcel near Ninth and Clearfield Streets in North Philadelphia, an area known as the
Badlands because of drug activity. He was the first FedEx courier killed on duty.

Police said robbery appeared to be the motive, though nothing was taken from Moyer or his truck.
At first they believed two assailants were involved, but they later concluded that Thomas had acted
alone.

Thomas, then 48, turned himself in just before midnight on Christmas Eve, accompanied by relatives.
Thomas said that night that police had the wrong man. "I didn't do it," he told reporters.

Two years later, he repeated that after his sentencing: "They found the wrong man guilty."

His lawyers have raised a number of issues, including these:

A man named James Wilkerson gave them a statement on Oct. 12 saying that he saw the killing, and
that the shooter was not Thomas, but a resident of the area known as "Little Man."

The role of Ryan, who pleaded guilty in 1995 to corruption charges. His admissions and those of
another 39th District officer that they faked statements resulted in dismissals of a string of drug cases.
Ryan has sworn that his work in the murder case, when he was in the highway patrol unit, was
proper.

Maria Fielding, who died in 1999, told police years ago that she saw the crime - and that the
assailants were three men she recognized, all much younger than Thomas. The defense subpoenaed
her in Thomas' trial, but she failed to appear.

Fielding's husband, Mitchell Fielding, gave the lawyers a statement last year saying Ryan had warned
his wife that she could lose custody of her children if she testified for Thomas.

Thomas testified that he had walked near the scene that morning on his way to his nephew's home,
where he drank and played cards for hours.

The nephew and another man testified that Thomas was with them until about 1 p.m.

Thomas' first trial ended with a hung jury. Ryan was one of the state's witnesses. The retrial, in which
Ryan did not testify, ended with Thomas' conviction on Feb. 27, 1995. The jury sentenced him to
death.

State courts have upheld his conviction, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal in
1999. Thomas is bringing new challenges in local and federal court.

In court papers filed in May, Assistant District Attorney Andrew Gibson said Thomas' conviction
"was entirely proper, based upon highly compelling evidence of his guilt."

Gibson questioned Maria Fielding's credibility, saying her account did not square with the crime
scene. He also said she had used four aliases, and was arrested during the trial on an unrelated
charge.

Christopher Diviny, chief of Gibson's unit, said the District Attorney's Office was investigating the
account of Wilkerson, the witness who said Thomas was not the shooter. Diviny also said Ryan
played only a bit part in the case.

During a 1996 deposition in an unrelated lawsuit, Ryan called Thomas' arrest an "outstanding"
achievement.

"There was no homicide leads, no nothing," he said. "Myself and my partner went out and found two
witnesses, and this led to the arrest."

Ryan declined to comment last week. His lawyer, Brian McMonagle, said Ryan "feels very strongly
that justice was done."

The witnesses against Thomas, Charles Rowe and Willie Green, were standing on a corner that
morning in 1993. Both testified that they saw Thomas near the FedEx truck, heard a shot, and saw
him stuff something in his pants as he fled.

In his statement to the lawyers this year, Rowe said he saw Thomas walk in front of the truck, heard
a bang, and three to five minutes later saw Thomas walk by and wave to him and Green.

The next day, Rowe said in the statement, Ryan and another officer took him in for questioning by a
detective.

"I told him that I had not observed Fred Thomas do anything," Rowe stated.

He also said that authorities seemed sure of Thomas' guilt "no matter what I answered." He said the
detective "told me that we were suspects and that our testimony could clear us."

Rowe stated: "I did not know what to do and just went along with it. . . . I saw him [Thomas] do
nothing that morning except walk near the truck."

Thomas' appeal also includes a statement from defense investigator Joseph Thornton, saying that he
talked to the other witness, Green, in March 2000 before Green's death from cancer.

In that interview, Thornton asserted, Green also told of having seen Thomas walk past the truck
some five minutes before the shooting and again five minutes after, and waving.

The investigator also quoted Green as saying that Ryan, "in highway patrol boots, forced his way into
[Green's] house that evening," and took him in for a night of questioning.

Thornton said Green admitted that his testimony had been wrong: He never saw Thomas run or
conceal an object. Green felt "that his observations were twisted," the investigator wrote.

Diviny says the defense's new accounts are dubious at best. He said Rowe's account of who brought
him in and questioned him that night was full of errors.

Thomas' lawyers contend that the murder may have been drug-related. They point to the city
medical examiner's finding of cocaine traces in Moyer's body - and to Wilkerson's recent claims
about Moyer.

"I know that Fred Thomas had not shot the FedEx driver," Wilkerson said in his Oct. 12 statement.
"I saw 'Little Man' shoot the driver. It was known in the neighborhood that Moyer was dealing
drugs."

Moreno declines to say more about Wilkerson - except that he wants to put him on the witness
stand.

The lawyers contend that Ryan was known for shaking down dealers in the area - though Ryan was
never charged with that.

One of the men Maria Fielding identified to police was a drug dealer, the lawyers contend. They
argue that if he had been arrested in the killing, that "would have created the very real possibility" of
his exposing corrupt acts by Ryan.

Diviny called that a predictable effort to smear the victim.

Moyer's father, William Sr., has no sympathy for Thomas. He said Thomas will likely die "in a
hospital on clean sheets, and that's more than my son got."

 http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/12/16/front_page/FRED16.htm
 

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