Gunnarsson Alive?

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JUSTICE DENIED!


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Gunnarsson Alive?

Two witnesses who were never called to testify on my behalf said they saw Gunnarsson alive on December 4, 1993.

On May 17, 1994, June 8, 1994 and again on June 14, 1994, Clara Sowers and her daughter, Mary Ann Sowers, told Special Agent Don Gale of the S.B.I. that they saw Gunnarsson in a Brown Jeep Cherokee or Isuzu Trooper with a man Clara Sowers knew as Wolfgang Nailing. Clara Sowers told Agent Gale that she personally knew Gunnarsson because he was a customer at a store where she worked.

“I pulled out and went North (NC #8),” Clara Sowers told Gale. “I saw a vehicle coming up behind me. I was going about 15 miles an hour. The vehicle started to pass me. I saw two guys in it. The guy on the passenger side didn’t have a shirt on. He turned up a liquor bottle and waved. I thought to myself, ‘I know that man.’ Then I thought ‘the Swede.’” Gunnarsson was known around Salisbury as “the Swede”.

Sowers said as she continued driving she saw the car had pulled to the right side of the road and the driver was waving for her to stop.

“I thought, ‘Wolfgang’” she said. She gave a description of the man she knew as Wolfgang to Agent Don Gale as being:

	white male
	5’9” to 5’10” tall
	short brown hair, military cut
	clean shaven
	average build
	late 30’s to early 40’s
	wearing green camouflage pants
	green army coat with patches
	pot belly
	pissed off facial expression

“I stopped and he looked in my car and said ‘Is anything wrong? You were driving so slow.’ I told him I was driving slow because of the ice. He said ‘Lady, the roads are fine. I have been to Charlotte-Douglas Airport via Salisbury and we are on our way to the mountains.’ I thought in my mind that he was lying. This man had on camo pants and an army green coat with patches. I wondered what happened to the Swede, Gunnarsson, as the man was alone.”

Sowers told Gale that as she drove away she saw blood, tape and a gun in the passenger seat of the vehicle.

That same day, a woman named Shannon Tedders who lived near the Parkway told police she saw a white male come out of the wooded area where Gunnarsson’s body was later found. She told police that in the four years she lived near the Parkway, she had never seen anyone come out of that wooded area except State Department of Transportation workers and members of the U.S. Forest Service. Tedders described this person as being:

	White male
	5’8” to 5’9” tall
	Tad overweight
	Chubby red cheeks
	No facial hair or glasses
	Hateful look on his face
	Approximately in his 50’s
	Wearing a green army coat

Tedders said the man was wearing a green army coat, a fact that was never made public by the police. On February 15, 1994, Tedders could not identify me in a police line-up as the man she observed coming out of the wooded area where Gunnarsson was later found dead.

Tedders told everything to my defense attorney, Bruce Kaplan, but she was never called to testify in my defense (Exhibit E, Interview of Shannon Tedders). Tedders was never called to testify in my defense even after Kaplan had told the court and the jury that she would be called as a defense witness (TPP. 1253-1254). The victim was found by Jeff Winkler, an employee of the State Department of Transportation (TPP. 1187-1189).

After investigators found and located the residence of Shannon Tedders near the Blue Ridge Parkway in Deep Gap, North Carolina, Ms. Tedders told investigators that she lived in the only house near the wooded area where Gunnarsson’s body was found. After informing investigators of what she had seen, of the person coming out of the wooded area where Gunnarsson’s body was discovered, investigators attempted to prove that the person Ms. Tedders saw coming out of the wooded area near her home on December 4, 1993 was me.

Based only on Ms. Tedders observation and description of the man she saw coming out of the remote wooded area where Gunnarsson was later found dead, the police applied for and received a Non-testimonial Identification Order to force me to participate in a standing line-up. On February 15, 1994, Ms. Tedders was transported to Salisbury, North Carolina where she viewed the line-up. Ms. Tedders failed to identify me as the person she observed on the morning of December 4, 1993, coming out of the remote wooded area near her residence.

Ms. Tedders told police that she observed this man on December 4, 1993 for over two minutes and that she would be able to identify this man if she saw him again.

During opening arguments, Defense Counsel Chester Whittle told the jury that they intended to call a person who was an eyewitness who had observed a person coming out of the wooded area at the approximate time the state claimed Gunnarsson was killed (TP. 1117).

Defense Counsel Bruce Kaplan informed the trial judge that he intended to call Shannon Tedders as a witness (TP. 1253-1254). The trial judge informed Defense Counsel that when he called Ms. Tedders as a witness, he would rule on the admissibility of her testimony (TP. 1253-1254).

The state contended that Ms. Tedders was not a reliable witness because she did not remember the date in December of 1993 that she observed this man coming out of the wooded area (TP. 1245-1248).

But facts existed that were known to Defense Counsel that disputed the District Attorney’s statement to the court that Ms. Tedders did not remember the day in December, 1993 that she observed the man coming out of the wooded area near her home.

It has always been the state’s theory that Gunnarsson was in fact kidnapped and killed on December 4, 1993. This has consistently been the state’s theory. The indictment alleges that on or about December 4, 1993, was in fact the day Viktor Gunnarsson was killed. This is a fact the state can not dispute.

Since investigators used statements from Tedders for the purpose of establishing probable cause for the line-up, that locked the state into her statements being credible.

If it had been any other day but December 4, 1993 that Ms. Tedders observed this man coming out of the remote wooded area where Gunnarsson was found, and if she was not sure of the date in December 1993 that she observed this person coming out of the remote area where Gunnarsson’s was found as the state claimed at trial, then investigators should have never based their probable cause for a non-testimonial identification order for a line-up solely on what Ms. Tedders observed.

Unfortunately, this witness was not called on my behalf even after defense counsel told the jury and the court they would do so.

Defense attorneys never presented evidence to the jury:

	That Clara and Mary Ann Sowers had never seen or spoken to Shannon Tedders. Yet, Mary Ann and Clara Sowers and Ms. Tedders gave identical descriptions of the man they saw on December 4, 1993. Clara and Mary Ann Sowers described the man they observed with Gunnarsson on that day. Ms. Tedders described the man she saw coming out of the wooded area in the exact spot where Gunnarsson’s body was found on the same day the state claimed Gunnarsson was killed.
	That Clara and Mary Ann Sowers told police, and so did Ms. Tedders, that the suspect was wearing a green army coat, a fact that was never made known to the public by police.
	That all of these women’s statements are consistent as to what they observed on December 4, 1993.
	That Clara Sowers knew me and Gunnarsson and she had told police that the man she observed with Gunnarsson on December 4, 1993, the day of the murder was not me.
	That Clara Sowers told police that the man she observed with Gunnarsson on December 4, 1993 told her that they were on their way to the mountains. Gunnarsson was found dead in the mountains.
	That Clara Sowers saw the victim with no shirt on inside the vehicle he was riding in and Gunnarsson was found nude with no clothes on.
	That Gunnarsson was taped up and shot and Clara Sowers and her daughter, Mary Ann, saw tape and a gun inside the suspect’s vehicle on the day of the murder, and there was blood inside the vehicle.
	That trial evidence showed that on the day of the murder, Gunnarsson had in fact been to the Charlotte, North Carolina airport.
	That Gunnarsson had been bound and gagged with ½” black electrical tape and Clara and Mary Ann Sowers observed ½” black electrical tape along with a gun in the vehicle where Gunnarsson was seen.

There are too many similarities for all of these facts to be mere coincidences. Yet, the jury never heard any of this evidence because my defense counsel never called any of these witnesses to testify on my behalf, even though they were on the defense witness list (Exhibit T, Defense Witness List).

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