KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — A St. Joseph County man exonerated on a perjury charge linked to the murder of a 10-year-old girl is asking a federal jury for $12 million in damages.
The jury began deliberating late Tuesday morning in the case filed by Ray McCann Jr. in U.S. District Court in Kalamazoo. McCann claims Michigan State Police cold case detective, Sgt. Bryan Fuller, wrongfully targeted him, believing he had sexually assaulted and killed Jodi Parrack in 2007 in Constantine.
"We're not asking for sympathy; we're asking what the law demands," McCann's attorney, Russell Ainsworth, told the jury in his closing argument Tuesday after a weeklong trial. "You need to hold him (Fuller) accountable.
"What Fuller was doing was not an investigation; that was a persecution of Ray McCann."
Fuller, who still works for the state police, is being represented by the Michigan Attorney General's Office. Assistant AG Mark E. Donnelly argued that the detective and other investigators "followed the process" in charging McCann with perjury and did not violate his constitutional rights.
The St. Joseph County prosecutor "wanted to charge Ray McCann with murder, but was talked down by the Michigan State Police," the defense attorney said.
"He (Fuller) didn't want to railroad Ray," the assistant AG argued. "He didn't know Ray. What he wanted to do was solve the crime."
McCann was a reserve Constantine police officer who was trying to help search for the missing girl in the small town. His son and the girl were friends. McCann became a suspect after he suggested checking the cemetery, where her body was later found. For a time, police suspected that McCann's 11-year-old son had killed Jodi and that McCann had helped cover it up.
Seven years after the death, a cold case team led by Sgt. Fuller reopened the investigation. When Fuller couldn't get enough evidence in the murder case, he targeted McCann for perjury, McCann's attorney said.
McCann was still serving his 20-month prison sentence for perjury when the real killer, Daniel Furlong, was arrested and confessed to Jodi's murder.
The Michigan Innocence Clinic took up his case and exonerated McCann after Target 8 exposed how detectives lied to McCann repeatedly during 20 interrogations. Among the lies: that police had found McCann's DNA on Jodi's body. During those interrogations, McCann denied any involvement in the killing 86 times.
McCann's perjury conviction was set aside in August 2018 and he later got $40,000 in compensation from the state.
One of the keys to the original perjury case was surveillance video that police say proved McCann had lied about his whereabouts on the night Jodi disappeared. McCann told police he had parked near a path leading to a dam during the search. The video, police said, showed he was never there.
McCann's attorney argued Fuller misled the prosecutor about the video, leading to the perjury charge and McCann's no contest plea. The Michigan Innocence Clinic discovered the video wasn't aimed toward that path, leading to the exoneration.
