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March 2, 2009

Framed by the FBI: A dozen reasons the “ Omaha Two” deserve a new trial

By Michael Richardson

On August 17, 1970, an Omaha, Nebraska policeman, Larry Minard, was murdered in an ambush bombing at a vacant house. Two men, Edward Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice), are serving life sentences at the Nebraska State Penitentiary for his killing. The pair were leaders of Omaha's chapter of the Black Panther Party. Most people assume justice was done in the case and little effort has been made by the news media to dig into the hidden aspects of the crime.

Poindexter has a new trial request pending before the Nebraska Supreme Court and an examination of the record, much of it still hidden by Federal Bureau of Investigation censors, reveals a dozen reasons to question the outcome of the trial.

1. The 911 call that lured police into a lethal trap

It was a hot summer night when the call came in. A deep male voice said a woman was screaming at a vacant house on Ohio Street. The police dispatcher sent several two-man cars to investigate. As eight officers fanned out to search the house and yard, one of them stooped to check out a suitcase near a doorway. The blast killed 29-year-old Larry Minard instantly.

While an intense investigation ensued, the single-most important piece of evidence was the 911 recording of the killer's voice that lured police into the lethal trap. The FBI immediately offered to analyze the tape recording to attempt an identification of the killer by comparison of voice samples—under certain conditions. Neither the FBI nor Assistant Chief of Police Glen W. Gates wanted the results made public.

The Omaha World-Herald quoted, in a front-page story “Voiceprint in Bombing to FBI Lab,” acting Chief of Police Walter J. Devere that the recording would be a good investigative tool. What Devere didn't know or was withholding from the public was the truth of the matter—the recording was not to be used to find the killer.

The very day of the bombing, the recording was sent to Washington, D.C. for analysis at the FBI Crime Laboratory. However, a request was made from Omaha to issue no lab report on the results. When FBI Crime Laboratory director Ivan Willard Conrad got the unusual request he talked with J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, and was told to withhold a report on the recording. Conrad scrawled on the memo, “Dir advised telephonically & said OK to do.” Conrad then initialed and dated the memo entry, two days after Minard's death. The clandestine memo ended the search for truth in the case.

On October 13, 1970, the Omaha FBI office updated Hoover on the status of the deception. “Asst. COP GLENN GATES, Omaha PD, advised that he feels that any uses of this call might be prejudicial to the police murder trial against two accomplices of PEAK and, therefore, has advised that he wishes no use of this tape until after the murder trials of Peak and the two accomplices has been completed.”

The FBI memo continued, “[N]o further efforts are being made at this time to secure additional tape recordings of the original telephone call.”

The jury that would later convict Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa never knew of Hoover's secret order to withhold evidence and never got to hear the recording of the killer's voice. Officials destroyed the recording after the trial.

If it wasn't the two Panther leaders on the recording, whose voice was it?

2. The confessions and recantations of 15-year-old Duane Peak

Duane Peak, a 15-year-old, confessed to planting the bomb that killed Minard and also said he made the phone call as well. Peak actually gave a half dozen statements to police, both denying his involvement and implicating others. While being questioned in custody by assistant county prosecutor Arthur O'Leary, the youth was told the truth did not matter.

“As a practical matter, it doesn't make any difference what the truth is concerning you at all.”

“You realize now that it doesn't make any difference whether you did or didn't. That doesn't really make one bit of difference at all at this stage of the game.”

Peak, under threat of the electric chair, finally told interrogators what they wanted to hear, that he had been put up to the crime by Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa. A preliminary hearing was scheduled.

However, Peak didn't follow the script and refused to name the two Panther leaders in court. A recess was called for several hours. When Peak returned to the stand he was wearing sunglasses and was noticeably trembling. Defense attorney David Herzog asked Peak about his sudden change of demeanor.

ATTORNEY: “What happened to make you shake and bring your nervous condition about now?”

PEAK: “I don't know.”

ATTORNEY: “You had a conversation between the time you were placed on the witness stand this morning and the present time now, isn't that correct?”

PEAK: “Yes.”

ATTORNEY: “And there were some things that the police officers told you about what would happen to you, like sitting in the electric chair, isn't that correct?”

PEAK: “I didn't have a chance.”

ATTORNEY: “You didn't have a chance, did you?”

PEAK: “No.”

ATTORNEY: You are doing what they want you to do, aren't you?”

PEAK: “Yes.”

After implicating Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, in the solitude of his jail cell, the young killer would express remorse in a letter, known to the prosecution but withheld from the defense.

“The Lord knows I tried, but something happened which forced me to realize I had no alternative but to say what I said. No matter what anyone says from now on, I refuse to call myself a man, or anything close to a man, because I did what I did. Even though there was no other way, because they already had enough evidence to convict those other two bloods.”

“I not only turned against those two bloods, but I turned against myself and my own people. I could have denied everything and all three of us would have gone up to the chair. And then again if I denied everything, one of those other bloods would have gave them a story and sent me and the other dude up.”

Peak ended up with a deal and was sentenced as a juvenile serving 33 months of detention before his release while the 'Omaha Two' remain in prison.

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