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: What the Judge Ate for Breakfast

Tracking the ghost of an ?eye witness?

By Ron Sylvester

Bruce Elliott remains one of most perplexing parts in the murder conviction of Ronnie Rhodes.

Elliott, then 40, was the eye-witness who police claimed could identify Rhodes as the killer of Cleother Burrell, but who never really did. Not to the police. Not in court (video link). Yet he was the prosecution’s star witness and one of the key elements in convicting Rhodes of murder in 1981.

Since receiving copies of court and police records, I’ve spent a lot of time in the Eagle’s old library, which reporters used to refer to as “the morgue.”

It’s the place where old research material and clips were kept away in the days before Google and digital files.

Bruce Elliott is nowhere to be found. Not in the 1980 or 1981 City Directory, which lists residents and businesses in the city. He’s also not in the cross-directory of telephone listings. Web searches of the social security number he gave police have not turned up anyone named Bruce Elliott.

Also, court files show that Elliott had a misdemeanor theft conviction in Wichita Municipal Court. But a search of old Municipal Court records did not turn up his name.

Elliott literally had blood on his hands the night police interviewed him. He had blood on his shirt, his shoes and his coat the night Burrell was stabbed 20 times. Burrell had been staying with Elliott in Apt. 14 at 630 N. Topeka.

We’ve obtained copies of transcripts of police interviews with Elliott. In the first interview, Elliott said he got blood on himself in his work at Trinity Marketing Service, then located at 2340 N. Broadway. Elliott said he got blood on him, because he helped grind up cattle bones for dog food.

Police never tested his clothes, or took samples from the blood on his hands to see if it was cattle blood or human blood.

In court, on cross examination from Rhodes’ lawyer, Elliott also admitted he lied to police about the blood. He then changed his story to say he’d gotten blood on himself after he took sheets off his bed, which were drenched in Burrell’s blood.

Elliott, 40, at the time, also testified that after police told him they considered him the killer, he suddenly said he’d seen the stabbing and identified a picture of Rhodes as the killer.

On the stand, Elliott admitted being drunk in court. He was also drunk the night police interviewed him.

That identification took place between taped interviews. The lineup process was never recorded and the line-up pictures were never shown to the jury.

In court, Elliott repeatedly denied that Rhodes was the man he saw stab Burrell. But Detective Mike Jones later told the jury Elliott had identified the picture of Rhodes as the killer. Jones testified he wasn’t present when other detectives showed Elliott the lineup.

After a day’s deliberations, jurors came back with a verdict of “guilty.”

Full post as published by What the Judge Ate for Breakfast on January 18, 2011 (boomark / email).