TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/091691/0916103.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 5.8 KB | 124 lines

                                                                                NATION, Page 30

FUGITIVES

An Act of Forgiveness


A murder went unsolved for 45 years -- but with the mystery
cleared up, the time for punishment had passed

By NANCY GIBBS -- Reported by Cathy Booth/Miami and Tom Curry/
New York


    And, behold, the angel of the Lord came upon him, and a
light shined in the prison . . . And his chains fell off from
his hands.

    -- Acts 12: 7



    It was no secret that Leroy ("Fats") Strachan killed
Officer John Milledge. Witnesses saw some boys trying to sneak
into Dorsey Park to watch a football game, saw Officer Milledge
try to stop them, saw Strachan waving a rifle around, heard the
shot, saw Milledge fall with a bullet in his throat. And when
Leroy bolted, people in the Overtown ghetto knew where he went:
to New York City, where his father lived, and where the Miami
police might not bother to follow.

    More than 40 years later, they followed. One day in
February 1990, Strachan left the building where he worked as an
elevator operator. He knew that the police would be waiting. His
relatives in Miami had called to warn him that detectives had
come around asking about his whereabouts, after they got a tip
that Milledge's killer was alive and living in New York. "He was
a perfect gentleman," recalls Detective George Cadavid, who
helped make the arrest, "but that doesn't excuse him from the
fact that he killed a policeman." Police took Strachan to the
Manhattan jail that is known as the Tombs. The nickname is an
understatement. If he survived the jail's daily brawls and
stabbings, and was extradited to Florida on charges of
first-degree murder, he could face the electric chair.

    The news of his arrest shocked neighbors on 120th Street
in Harlem. It surprised employees at 200 Varick Street, where
Strachan had worked for 20 years. It stunned the choir at the
Greater Refuge Temple, where he sang bass-baritone. "We said,
`That's not the Leroy Strachan we know -- he wouldn't hurt a
fly,' " says elder Charles Wright. "He's not the sneaky, runaway
kind of guy." Then there were Leroy's children, who had no idea
that for 45 years, their father had lived with a secret that
finally caught up with him. Perhaps it was poetic justice that
one of his three sons works as a prison guard.

    The irony is that in 1946, when the crime occurred, it was
not investigated quite so vigorously. Miami was a different
town back then. John Milledge was one of the first black
officers on the police force, but he was only allowed to patrol
in black areas, could only question and arrest black suspects.
When he was shot, the rest of the police force searched the
neighborhood, asked questions, but eventually the trail went
cold. Some people say that for all these years, most folks over
a certain age in Overtown knew where Strachan was. But the
police never found out.

    The silence was broken two years ago, when the police got
a tip from a caller who had been watching the television show
Crime Stoppers. She said that on the night of the shooting, she
saw Leroy run by her house with a rifle. Her boyfriend, later
to become her husband, was a friend of Leroy's and made her
swear never to tell. After he died, she had a change of heart.
Perhaps it was her guilty conscience at remaining silent for so
long. Perhaps it was the $1,000 reward. In any event, her
information thawed out the Milledge file, and in six months
detectives from the cold-cases squad tracked Leroy down. He
wasn't exactly hiding; he hadn't even changed his name.

    Most people who followed the case were not eager to see a
63-year-old man, with a loving family and an aura of grace about
him, spend his last days in jail. Though Strachan confessed to
the shooting after his arrest, Florida prosecutors were willing
to work out a deal that would have allowed him to go free. Even
one of Milledge's surviving relatives, a great-great-grandniece,
said he should not be imprisoned. "He lived a Christian, decent
life," says Pauline Brown. "He sent money to his family. He made
something out of himself. He didn't get into any trouble after
all these years." All she wanted, she said, was "to shake his
hand and hear him say he's sorry."

    But this time, Miami police were not about to let the case
go. In a city of devouring violence, where policing is so
lethal a job, the idea that a cop killer should escape
punishment angered the force. A new police chief, Calvin Ross,
pressed for extradition, saying that to let Strachan go would
"send the wrong message." It didn't matter that it might have
been hard to prove manslaughter, much less murder, in a case
that was nearly a half-century old.

    The extradition negotiations dragged on for more than a
year. During that time, Strachan was the oldest inmate in the
Tombs. He used his $5 weekly earnings to buy Spanish newspapers
for other inmates, who called him "Pops." Strachan's lawyers,
William Kunstler and Ron Kuby, fought the case through the
courts. "We took the position that in light of the fact that 45
years had gone by, during which Leroy lived openly and publicly,
he wasn't a fugitive," says Kuby. Finally last week, Florida
officials agreed to a deal: Strachan would plead down to
manslaughter, in exchange for a one-year prison term and
probation. The 19 months he spent in jail in New York mean that
he has already served his time.

    In the end, the courts realized that even if Leroy was
once a killer, he had become what he pretended to be his whole
adult life: a model citizen. He paid his debt to society without
society ever even presenting the bill. And so, this week, he
will walk out of jail for the first time in two years and be a
free man for the first time since a November night 45 years ago.