FLINT, MI – John Reed was sitting on his porch on farmland in Louisiana on a January morning in 2023 when U.S. Marshals arrested him for allegedly raping a woman in 1976.
Reed, who maintained his innocence, cooperated with police while he was extradited to Flint, Mich., a place he hadn’t been to since 1972.
Prosecutors believed Reed was responsible for raping a woman at knifepoint more than 40 years ago.
The woman first picked out a photo of a man named George Obgurn while reviewing 3,000 photos in a lineup.
She said the man who raped her looked like the same person who attempted to rob her at an activity center in Flint where she worked.
Days after the incident, the victim returned to the police department and alleged she saw the man at a corner store.
Police then gave her another 500 photos to review, which included a photo of Reed that she selected.
Reed was arrested in Flint in 1972 for being in a car with a concealed weapon, a charge that was later dropped. That’s how police had Reed’s booking photo.
The additional 500 photos were taken from a drawer of people who’d been dismissed.
Nobody knocked on Reed’s door. Or Obgurn’s. But the prosecutor’s office issued a warrant for Reed’s arrest.
When the victim was raped, she went to Hurley Hospital, where a sexual assault forensic evidence exam was conducted. Police collected spermatozoa, which contains DNA, during the exam.
The warrant sat dormant until 2023, when a Michigan State Police trooper began working the cold case. He found Reed on Facebook.
Reed was picked up by U.S. Marshals and jailed on Jan. 23, 2023, during which time police conducted a DNA swab. He was then extradited to Flint.
The Michigan State Police trooper testified during a court hearing that the physical evidence in this case had been destroyed.
Reed’s attorney, David Campbell, never learned how or where it was destroyed, but that was the last they had heard of it.
Campbell, an assistant public defender with Genesee County’s Public Defender’s Office, said the victim once again selected Reed’s photo from a new lineup of six photos in 2023.
Reed’s photograph stood out from the pack, since it was the same photo that was used in 1976. It was clearly different than the other five, and the victim selected it again.
“And the question becomes – is she just reconfirming the misidentification back in 1976?” Campbell asked.
The MSP trooper was asked if police looked for a photo of Obgurn, the other man she identified. The trooper said he could not find one, Campbell said.
All the while, Reed, 76, was being held at the Genesee County Jail.
Campbell worked to secure a bond so Reed could stay at New Paths, an addiction treatment center located in Genesee County.
Reed had no other place to go in Flint.
He lived in the Vehicle City with a daughter, who died at 52, before he moved back to Louisiana in 1972.
As Campbell crafted Reed’s defense strategy, he asked his investigator to make a Freedom of Information Act request to the City of Flint Police Department for Obgurn’s booking photo, with the intention to point towards him in any possible trial.
The investigator found multiple photos of Obgurn, including other information which showed he had a violent history against women. The man was also arrested for armed robbery approximately a month before the 1976 incident, which lined up with the victim’s allegations that the person tried to rob her at her workplace.
That led Campbell to investigate further.
Now the question turned to the DNA evidence – and what exactly happened to it.
“There’s a legal argument there that could be made that if there was bad faith in the destruction of the evidence, the case could be kicked,” Campbell said.
Genesee County Assistant Prosecutor Lori Selvidge asked the MSP trooper to go back and see if he could find any more information about the physical evidence, including the spermatozoa.
The same physical evidence the trooper testified was destroyed was actually sitting in a Flint Police Department evidence locker, Campbell said.
They immediately sent it to the Michigan State Police Crime Lab for testing, along with Reed’s DNA swab, to find out if there was a match.
Reed was excluded as a suspect in the lab report. His DNA swab did not match the DNA from the spermatozoa.
Reed described the news as “more than a relief.”
Without the support of the legal team, “I would’ve been doomed,” he told MLive-The Flint Journal.
While Reed was incarcerated, he missed his mother’s funeral. A judge denied his request to visit her one last time.
His wife, Shirley Ann Reed, had been in Louisiana without him since the arrest.
Once the prosecutor’s office found out the DNA excluded Reed, they voluntarily dismissed the case without Campbell even having to file a motion.
Based on eyewitness testimony, Reed was in jeopardy of spending the rest of his life in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
“If you think you’re going to hold me to plea for something I didn’t do, that’s not going to happen,” Reed said. “Because I know it’ll be a lie. And if I tell you one lie, I’ll tell another one.”
Without the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission and the Genesee County Public Defender’s office, Reed might have never been freed, Campbell said.
“I don’t know how your story would have ended up,” Campbell told Reed.
For the justice system to really work, each player has to play their part, Campbell said, and Reed’s story is an example of that.
Campbell commended the prosecutor’s office for voluntarily dismissing the case.
“That takes a prosecutor operating from a place of strength and not weakness – somebody who understands that their position is to seek justice and not just seek a conviction,” Campbell said.
It’s rare that public defender cases end in an outright victory like an exoneration, Campbell said.
“I didn’t want to put John in jeopardy of spending the rest of his life in prison unless we looked under every stone, and didn’t leave anything unturned, and that’s when we found the DNA evidence,” Campbell said. “… I do have some satisfaction in getting John back home, and I’ve just apologized to him that it took two years in order to get that done. Justice delayed is justice denied.”
Finding his way home
Extradition, oftentimes, is a one-way ticket.
It has been approximately two years since Reed was arrested in Clayton, Louisiana.
Now cleared from his criminal charges, Reed had no way to get home.
The man had become fond of his New Paths community, who allowed Reed, who struggles with mobility, to stay comfortably while his case was processed.
“I’ll be thinking about these people at New Paths for a long time, because I ain’t never been treated that good before in my life,” Reed said.
The staff at New Paths was impressed by how easily Reed was able to keep a positive attitude while he was being tried for a crime that he knew he did not commit.
“First of all, I got respect for myself,” Reed said. “If I’ve got respect for myself, I’d give anybody else some. Bottom line.”
Reed relied on his faith in God to stay strong, he said.
He has no plans to sue the prosecutor’s office either, Reed said, because he doesn’t want anything for free.
“If I get something from you and I’m at your house, I’ll cut your yard before I do it for nothing,” Reed said.
He reminisced about his time on the farm, driving heavy equipment, picking cotton and cutting beans.
At just eight years old, Reed started working to remove stumps.
He looked forward to returning home to eat some of his wife’s cooking — specifically banana pudding and apple pie.
New Paths Executive Director Jim Hudgens, Social Service worker Mark Kalandyk and Campbell each pitched in to buy Reed a plane ticket to fly back to Louisiana.
Reed departed on April 11, one day after his New Paths family threw him a going away party.
New Paths had a cake made with the following quote: “Back to the Bayou; we are going to miss you.”
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