On August 19, 1989 at 4:14 a.m., just a few hours after the shooting, Dorothy Ferrell told the police that she “was coming down the stairs at the Thunderbird Inn and that’s when I saw the fellow [Young] that had the blood on him running from the Greyhound Bus Station adn [sic] the one policeman was walking across the parking lot real fast . . .” The Thunderbird Inn is located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Oglethorpe Avenue and Fahm Street. The Burger King parking lot where the shooting took place is located on the northeast corner of the intersection of Oglethorpe Avenue and Fahm Street. The distance from the set of stairs at Thunderbird Inn that are closest to the area where Officer MacPhail’s body was found is just shy of 200 feet.
A couple days later, when Detective Wilson was canvassing the neighborhoods in an effort to see who knew Davis, he showed Ferrell this photo of Davis. On August 29th Ferrell selected this photo of Davis from the photo array.
At trial she altered her vantage point claiming instead to have witnessed the event from the edge of the hotel parking lot, near a palm tree, where she remained for the duration. T. 1058. The distance from the edge of Thunderbird Inn parking lot near the small palm tree to the area where Officer MacPhail’s body was found is approximately 160 feet.
Here is what the face of a black man would have looked like from a distance of 160’ in broad daylight. It is preposterous that Ferrell could make an identification of a complete stranger after briefly viewing the man at night from a distance of over 160 feet. See Geoffrey Loftus, & E.M. Harley, Why Is It Easier to Identify Someone Close Than Far Away, 12 Psychonomic Bull. & Rev. 43 (2005). In 2005, a scientific study found that, at distances greater than twenty five feet, face perception diminishes. Id. At distances of approximately 150 feet, accurate face identification for people with normal vision drops to zero. Id. As a matter of undisputed science, it was humanly impossible for Dorothy Ferrell to later recognize the shooter. Ferrell's identification and her trial testimony pointing to Davis was patently false. And she admitted as much just hours after testifying.
Later that night, Ferrell – or her friend pretending to be Ferrell – telephoned defense counsel and admitted she committed perjury when she testified earlier that day. Davis’ lawyers informed the court:
Yesterday evening, about quarter to ten last night, my co-counsel Mr. Robert Barker’s wife received a telephone call, at which time a lady identified herself as Dorothy Ferrell. She even spelled the name and wanted to know if this was the same Mr. Barker of Barker and Edenfield who was also representing the Defendant Troy Davis.
Mrs. Barker replied that it was, and she [Ferrell] wanted to speak to Mr. Barker. By that time, I think he had already gone to bed, and she [Mrs. Barker] said, well, he wasn’t available, but she [Ferrell] said she’d try to get in touch with Mr. Falligant, or – well, more properly she said, well, I tried to get in touch with them. She said, [“]I’m Dorothy Ferrell. I testified in the Troy Davis case, and I want to state that last year, I had gotten in some trouble[.” A]nd she stated something to the effect that either the district attorney or someone from the district attorney’s office had come to he . . . while I think she said she was in jail, and said that if she would assist them and testify in the Davis case, that they would help her. She further stated that everything that she said from the stand was a lie, that she had made it up, it wasn’t the truth, and she wanted us to know that.
Trial transcript pp. 1476-77.
The next day a warrant was issued for her arrest and she was brought back to court for a hearing on the matter.
Ironically, the caller's veracity was confirmed by the prosecutor and by the existence of a letter, that up until then had been kept from defense. In reaction – and only in reaction – to Ferrell’s public disclosure of this information, ADA David Lock advised defense counsel and the court, for the first time in the history of the case, that one year earlier Ferrell had written to D.A. Lawton from jail requesting his assistance. Defense then demanded a copy of that letter.
The contents of the letter were completely unknown to the defense lawyers or their family members at the time the phone call was received – the district attorney had not gotten around to sharing a document that he had in his possession for 17 months. Yet, the contents of the letter were entirely consistent with the statements made during that call. Ferrell had been in jail a year ago. She did seek the assistance of Lawton to get her out. Even Lawton confirmed the substance of the Ferrell’s telephone confession. “I had at least one conversation, maybe more with her attorney” Sage Brown upon receiving the letter. TR 1479.
At the hearing, Ferrell’s lawyer advised her that she would serve up to 10 years if she changed her testimony. She opted for freedom over the truth. And Davis’ trial proceeded without any investigation into the perjury and without the jurors knowledge of these critical facts.