Retired Reporter Aims to Fix 'Miscarriage of Justice'

Bill Proctor devotes himself to 19-year-old murder case
By Luke Roney,  Newser Staff
Posted Dec 27, 2015 3:30 PM CST
Retired Reporter Aims to Fix 'Miscarriage of Justice'
   (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

When Bill Proctor retired two years ago, he set out on a mission of "attempted vindication." A former Detroit broadcast journalist with 30 years' experience, Proctor believes the wrong man was imprisoned for the 1996 murder of a Christina Brown, a 12-year-old drug dealer bludgeoned to death with a toilet tank lid. Proctor covered the story for an ABC affiliate and saw a man named LaMarr Monson get 30 to 50 years for the killing, the the BBC reports. But then a woman called Proctor, saying her then-boyfriend Robert (last name withheld) went to buy drugs one night and came back saying, "I think I killed her"—"her" being Christina Brown. After investigating on his own for two years, Proctor is convinced of Monson's innocence and Robert's guilt. His evidence:

  • Homicide inspector Joan Ghougoian was later implicated in several potential coerced confessions.
  • Monson's confession says he stabbed Brown in the neck and left her to bleed to death. The medical examiner testified that stab wounds were superficial and the cause of death was a fractured skull.
  • A thumbprint on the toilet tank lid determined to be the murder weapon matches Robert's.
"I want to fix this," Proctor tells the Detroit News. "I was part of portraying the unfair pack of lies from the police department." This isn't Proctor's only case, either: He formed a non-profit called Proving Innocence to investigate possible wrongful convictions. (More Detroit stories.)

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