 LaVone Hill released (Photo: Dustin Johnson via Associated Press)
Luchie died of five bullet wounds. Craft died after being shot four times. Police recovered a bullet fragment and four shell casings.
Two days later, police arrested Andre Meridith in the neighborhood of the shooting on drug charges. Meridith, who was on probation, signed a statement prepared by Detroit police Sergeant Walter Bates that implicated 24-year-old LaVone Hill as one of two gunmen who shot the victims. According to the statement, Meridith said he saw Hill firing a handgun.
On October 17, 2001, Hill was arrested on two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Meridith subsequently affirmed his initial statement during a transcribed interview with a prosecutor. He was a reluctant witness, however, and was jailed for seven days prior to testifying at a preliminary hearing. At the hearing, Meridith repeated his statement.
However, when Hill went to trial in September 2002 in Wayne County Circuit Court, Meridith recanted his statements. He testified while wearing an ankle monitor, which had been attached to assure his presence in court. Meridith said that Sergeant Bates had threatened to lock him up unless he implicated Hill. Meridith testified that Bates fed him the information and he went along with it because he feared being imprisoned.
Asked why he picked Hill as the gunman, Meridith replied, “I didn’t pick LaVone Hill. Sergeant Bates picked LaVone Hill. I didn’t even know his last name was Hill. I didn’t even know his name was LaVone. We just called him LV….I don’t know who shot who. I didn’t see nobody kill nobody.”
When asked why he was recanting his testimony, Meridith testified, “Cause I know I want to do the right thing by my heart. I can’t just sit here and just point the finger at somebody who I didn’t see do it, [who] is facing a lot of jail time, you know. I didn’t see him do it and I don’t want the wrong person to get locked up, and somebody else still out there…shoot someone else…I want to do what’s right by me and what’s right by God.”
The prosecutor, Patrick Muscat, pointed out that in his statements, Meridith has said that he saw Hill firing a handgun.
Sergeant Bates testified and denied that he had threatened Meridith. Bates said that Meridith brought up Hill’s name after he was arrested on the drug charge. Bates denied that he coerced Meridith.
An evidence technician testified that four spent shell casings and a bullet fragment were recovered at the scene. The prosecution and defense stipulated that a firearms analyst had examined the casings and identified them as 5.65 millimeter casings.
An assistant medical examiner testified that Luchie died of five gunshot wounds and that Clark died from four bullet wounds.
Dechelle Reed testified for the defense that on the night of the shooting, she and Hill were asleep in their apartment with their daughter. She said that about 2:30 a.m., Hill’s mother called because she had heard there was a shooting and was concerned about Hill’s safety.
Hill’s mother, Cynthia, testified that she got a call from a family member about the shooting and was concerned, so she called Hill to make sure he was safe.
On September 6, 2002, the jury convicted Hill of two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony. At his sentencing hearing, Hill said, “I was totally framed. I’m innocent. I’m claiming my innocence in this case. I don’t feel that justice was served.”
Judge Patricia Fresard then sentenced Hill to life in prison without parole.
In May 2004, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld the conviction.
In 2005, Hill filed a federal petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The petition was denied in June of 2006.
In 2016, the Michigan Innocence Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School began re-investigating the case. In 2008, Luchie’s son, Dushawn Luchie Jr., signed an affidavit saying that Deandre Murray had confessed to killing Luchie. In his statement, Luchie Jr. said he believed Murray, whom he considered “like an uncle.” Luchie Jr. also said he believed that Hill was innocent.
Two eyewitnesses, Sherman Wagner and Cordell Powell, said that they were present at the shooting, and that Hill was not involved. Wagner and Powell said they saw Murray grab a rifle and began shooting at everyone, killing Luchie Sr. and Craft.
Wagner said that Hill was not present, and that he would not have been present because twin brothers named Travick were there. One of the twins had previously shot Hill and seriously wounded him. Another witness, Markesha Allen, signed an affidavit saying that the Travick twins were present at the dice game.
Dr. Stephen Batzer, a forensic expert, examined the shell casings and said that the casings were improperly referred to at the trial as being 5.65 millimeter casings. In fact, Dr. Batzer said they were 5.56 millimeter casings, which were fired from a rifle, not a pistol as Meridith’s initial statement said.
By then, Sergeant Bates had been convicted and sentenced to prison for conspiring with his brother and others to commit numerous bank robberies before, during, and after Hill’s trial. In fact, Bates was on suspension at the time he testified at Hill’s trial, but the prosecution did not disclose it to the defense.
According to federal prosecutors, Bates was heavily in debt, mostly due to gambling losses. He and his brother Albert Bates, along with a third man began robbing banks. Walter Bates identified banks in low traffic areas near highways and police district lines. As a police officer, he knew the time it took for information to be relayed across district lines, causing longer response times. Albert Bates drove the getaway car and the third man, Kevin Foster-Bey, would enter the banks and hold up the tellers.
Ultimately, the Bates brothers and others, including Foster-Bey, were convicted of various charges relating to 15 bank robberies. Walter Bates was sentenced to 70 months in prison.
In 2023, the Innocence Clinic asked the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) to re-investigate Hill’s case. On October 23, 2024, Valerie Newman and Joseph Kurily of the CIU, and Jenna Cobb and Imran Syed of the Innocence Clinic, filed an agreed order to vacate Hill’s convictions and to dismiss the case.
The order said that Bates “was suspended several times during the pendency of the case. He was suspended at the time he offered testimony in this case.” The order noted that one of the bank robberies occurred on the same day that Bates testified in Hill’s trial.
“The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office and Mr. Hill stipulate that there is reason to believe that if the jury knew this information about Bates, it is likely it would not have convicted Mr. Hill in this case.”
Judge Fresard granted the motion and Hill was released. He had spent more than 22 years in prison since his conviction.
Afterward, Hill said, "For almost 23 years, I’ve had to live with the reality of the nightmare that I may die in prison, an innocent man, based on misconduct and corruption in the Detroit Police Department, namely Sergeant Walter Bates.” He added, “I am happy today to be a free man, but so sad for all of the innocent men I am leaving in prison behind me. I am also very sad that the families of the victims lost their loved ones and were lied to about me being the guy who killed them."
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said in a statement that none of the participants in Hill’s trial, including the judge, the prosecutor, and the defense attorney were aware of Bates’s criminal behavior.
"It is clear that Mr. Hill did not receive a fair trial,” Worthy said in the statement. “He will not be retried because there is no way in the world that this office would put Walter Bates on any witness stand," Worthy said. "Not much shocks me anymore, but this did. I have never seen anything like this in all of my decades of being a judge or a prosecutor."
– Maurice Possley
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