When Salem Police Detectives Mike Quakenbush and Craig Stoelk took Jesse Johnson into custody on March 27, 1998 – a week after Harriet Laverne Thompson’s murder — the evidence they had against him was slim.
The police account hinged on the word of a drug dealer, Datrick Swafford, who told the detectives he had seen Johnson inside Thompson’s apartment in the days before the murder. And investigators leaned on eyewitness testimony from a U.S. National Guard helicopter pilot who told police he spotted a Black man in the vicinity of Thompson’s apartment roughly 90 minutes after her death.
Neither of those witnesses could say whether Johnson was involved in the murder.
Two days later, on March 29, 1998, Salem detectives got what they believed was a promising lead: the words of a 6-foot-8 foot man known around town as Donald “Shorty” Blocker. In a police report, Det. Alan Graham relayed a fourth-hand rumor from other drug users that Shorty potentially had relevant information about the murder.
“Wayne (Vaughn) said Don (Miller) asked Shorty who Jesse was and Shorty told him he was the one who killed the black girl,” Graham wrote.
A few days later, Graham recorded an interview with Wayne Vaughn, trying to chase down if the rumor was true. But Vaughn gave far less definitive information and told Graham he was “kinda loaded then and I wasn’t paying that close of attention” when Shorty was around.
“You heard Shorty talking about this jewelry and stuff. Can you tell me about that and about when that was?” Graham asked Vaughn as they sat inside the detective’s police cruiser.
“Actually, I didn’t hear that much of what Shorty did, ‘cause I didn’t like the guy. I didn’t like being around him ‘cause he was scandalous and that’s about it,” Vaughn replied.
Still, the detectives pushed forward with their interest in Shorty based on this rumor.
On April 3, 1998, Stoelk and Quakenbush picked him up in Vancouver, Washington, on an outstanding warrant in Oregon.
Shorty would go on to give the following interview to the detectives, in which he said Johnson told him he “offed the bitch” to steal her jewelry, referring to Thompson.
The detectives considered Shorty’s interview as Johnson’s confession to the murder. And while Shorty’s comments were critical to Johnson’s eventual conviction – and remain a piece of critical evidence, according to the Marion County District Attorney’s office – he recanted the statement entirely eight months later.
On Dec. 4, 1998, in a tape-recorded interview with defense investigator Jack Yarborough, Shorty alleged that Salem police detectives promised to not bring charges against him if he said Johnson was involved in Thompson’s murder.
“Did [Johnson] ever say anything about a homicide or being involved in a homicide or committing a homicide?” Yarborough asked Shorty.
“No, he did not,” Shorty said.
Shorty told the investigator that during his interview in Vancouver with the Salem detectives, Quakenbush pressured him to implicate Johnson.
“If I answered them the way (Quakenbush) wanted me to answer them, then he would make sure no criminal charges were filed against me,” Shorty told Yarborough. “He said they already had the guy in custody and wanted to put him away.”
The investigator pressed Shorty about the “offed the bitch” story.
“I said what came out of Quakenbush’s mouth,” Shorty answered.
On Feb. 20, 2004, less than a month before Johnson’s original trial, Quakenbush had police bring Shorty to the Salem Police Department, so he could ask why he had recanted his statement. Quakenbush, in a report, wrote Shorty “did not have a reason.”
Despite his original interview with detectives, and his recanting of that interview, Shorty’s involvement in the Johnson case was not over. By Johnson’s 2004 trial, Marion County prosecutors put him on the stand as their key witness. Once again, Shorty asserted that Johnson said he “offed the bitch.”
When the defense team attempted to play a recording of Yarborough’s interview that proved Shorty recanted that story, the tape failed; someone had recorded country music over it. A correct version of the recorded interview was eventually given to the jury to review on their own during deliberations, but it is unknown if the jury played that tape before convicting Johnson.
Johnson’s current defense team points to this interaction with Shorty as a sign that police and prosecutors pursued questionable information as a way to bolster the allegations against Johnson.
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