By Greg Garland
The Baltimore Sun
BALTIMORE, Md. — The fatal stabbing of correctional officer David W. McGuinn at the Maryland House of Correction on July 25, 2006, marked what would turn out to be one of the last chapters in the bloody history of the antiquated Jessup prison.
But nearly 18 months after the death of McGuinn — and almost a year after the prison was closed — questions have emerged about the mishandling of potentially key evidence and the impact it could have on the prosecution of the two inmates accused in his killing.
Specifically, a homemade knife that investigators believe might have been used in the killing mysteriously disappeared within the prison, only to reappear under suspicious circumstances two days later.
The Sun obtained internal state police and corrections department reports that provide for the first time a glimpse into the chaotic scene at the House of Correction in the hours after McGuinn’s death, as well as insight into the culture of violence that made the prison infamous.
The reports describe crime scene technicians working in a darkened, blood-soaked corridor while trying to stay out of reach of inmates; of inmates “flushing their toilets like mad” to dispose of hidden contraband; and of correctional staff using flashlights to navigate unlit utility tunnels.
The incident involving the missing knife — an 8 1/2 -inch, flat piece of metal with a sharpened point, distinctive marks and a “reddish stain” — started with a simple accident. A crime scene investigator accidentally kicked the “shank” off a narrow catwalk in a utility area with plumbing lines behind the cells.
The knife tumbled down four floors into the darkness of a locked utility tunnel. It was located 20 minutes later and photographed, then left in what was believed to be a secure area. But it was gone when crime scene investigators returned 11 hours later to retrieve it, according to a report by state police homicide Sgt. Michael Grant, the investigator who knocked it from the tier.
The knife resurfaced two days later, tagged as having been taken from an inmate who was severely beaten by five guards the afternoon after McGuinn was killed.
A spokeswoman for the Anne Arundel County state’s attorney’s office declined to comment when asked about the handling of the knife and its significance.
“This is a homicide case, and we’re not going to discuss evidentiary matters prior to motions hearings and ultimately the trial,” said Kristen Riggin, the agency’s spokeswoman.
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the case against the two inmates charged with killing McGuinn. Both are serving life sentences for murder in unrelated cases. No trial date has been set, but it is expected to be at least a year away.
Defense lawyers for those inmates also declined to comment, but one recently filed court papers seeking more information about the handling of the knife and the five officers, who are charged with assault. The state is seeking to shield that data.
A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services declined to comment, noting the pending trial.
Authorities have said the two inmates accused of killing McGuinn were able to bypass faulty locks on their cell doors to get out and trap the officer in a narrow corridor.
They said a day after his death that McGuinn, a by-the-book officer known by the nickname “Homeland Security,” had been the subject of inmate death threats and that he had been assigned to duties out of contact with prisoners until just before his death.
To be sure, dozens of hidden shanks were found during cell searches in the days after the killing, and it is not clear whether the one that fell from the catwalk — possibly made from a piece of bed frame — was used in the attack.
But its potential significance to the murder case was evident in a 75-page report, dated April 3, that was written by Grant.
In the report, he refers to the knife being found “in close proximity to the McGuinn murder crime scene.”
“It concerns us that this weapon could possibly have been involved ... in McGuinn’s murder,” Grant pointedly told Division of Correction Lt. Manuel Williams, according to a transcript of an Aug. 1, 2006, interview.
Williams was the supervisor of the five officers, who are charged with second-degree assault in the beating of 25-year-old inmate Bradford Matthews on the afternoon of July 26, 2006.
At the time, the officers were employed in an adjacent Jessup prison, the Jessup Correctional Institution, and had been called to assist at the House. Each has denied any wrongdoing; none was disciplined administratively and all remain on the job. Their trials are scheduled for March.
The misdemeanor assault charges were filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court in July, nearly a year after McGuinn was killed, records show. Criminal charges are rarely brought against correctional officers in cases that involve alleged assaults on inmates, prison system officials say.
“If the reader develops an opinion that certain correctional officers falsely linked this knife to inmate Bradford Matthews,” Grant wrote, “the most plausible explanation would seem to be that Matthews was beaten severely enough that at least one of the correctional officers felt the need to justify the severity of the beating on the basis that Matthews had a weapon.”
In the report, Grant wrote that he was assigned to photograph inmates on West Wing, Tier E4, when corrections staff called his attention to a knife on the catwalk of a utility tunnel behind the cells.
Grant was aware from investigating other crimes at the House of Correction that “inmates could discard shanks and contraband by slipping items through the holes/crevices in the rear walls of their cells,” his report states.
Grant said he took photographs of the knife on the 18-inch-wide catwalk at 5:25 a.m. July 26, about six hours after the attack on McGuinn. While standing on his toes to photograph an opening that an inmate could have used to ditch the knife, he lost his balance.
“I back-pedaled to avoid falling off the catwalk,” Grant wrote. “In that instant, my foot hit the knife and knocked it off the catwalk. I heard it `clinking’ all the way down as it fell to the bottom of the tunnel.”
After locating and photographing the knife on the ground floor, Grant wrote, he instructed a corrections department lieutenant to “spread the word that the plumbing tunnel would be off limits until the police investigation is completed.”
What happened next remains a mystery.
Grant said a search team that went into the tunnel at 4 p.m. was not able to find that knife or two other shanks Grant had noticed on the ground floor. Neither were the weapons found in a contraband “drop box” and evidence locker with other knives collected that day.
The knife that Grant knocked off the catwalk resurfaced two days later, on July 28, 2006.
Internal public safety department investigators told Grant it had been turned in by correctional officers as evidence in the case of an inmate’s beating on July 26, the afternoon after the death of McGuinn, according to Grant’s written account.
The inmate, Bradford Matthews, had been taken into a prison chapel to be strip-searched, according to what guards told an internal public safety department investigator. He took a swing at an officer and a struggle broke out.
Matthews denied having had a knife, and he passed a lie detector test; the officer who reported taking it from him, Antoine Fordham, insisted that Matthews had a knife but refused to take a polygraph test, according to the internal investigators’ written account.
An attorney for Fordham, citing the pending criminal case against his client, declined to comment.
Fordham was the officer who reported recovering the weapon from Matthews and who signed it into evidence. He said it was sheathed in a black-and-white piece of cloth with the word “DEADMAN” written in bold letters -- the name of a prison gang.
Fordham told the internal investigator that Matthews had pulled it from his shorts during the struggle.
The other officers charged in the assault gave differing accounts to the investigator. Some of the guards said they saw only the black-and-white cloth or that they heard Matthews had a knife but never actually saw it.
Grant said the cloth, actually a wristband, was too small and had no opening in which the 8 1/2 -inch shank could have been concealed.
In their sworn, written reports, the officers described Matthews as suffering minor abrasions and swelling from landing face-down in the chapel during the struggle.
Matthews’ mother, Susan Nelson of Baltimore, said another inmate who saw her son shortly after the incident reported that his face was so battered and swollen that he looked like the “Elephant Man.”
An inmate witness in the chapel told the internal investigator he saw several correctional officers “kicking, stomping, and beating” Matthews while he was on the floor in handcuffs.
After reviewing photos of the injured inmate, Grant wrote that “Matthews had suffered obvious and significant trauma.”
In his Aug. 1, 2006, questioning of Lieutenant Williams, Grant pleaded with him to persuade the officers under his supervision to tell the truth about where they got the weapon.
“The credibility of the correctional staff is crucial to the successful prosecution of the persons responsible for the brutal murder of David McGuinn,” Grant reminded Williams, according to a transcript. “Bottom line is this, Lieutenant: None of this is going to remain a secret.”
None of the five officers was disciplined for allegedly beating Matthews and all remain actively employed as correctional officers.
Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the agency only had 30 days after the incident to take disciplinary action, and the investigation extended beyond that window.
Should the officers be convicted of assault, he said, action could be taken.
Copyright 2007 The Baltimore Sun