Eddie Joe Lloyd

The Crime

At 6:45 a.m. on Jan. 24, 1984, 16-year-old Michelle Jackson left her aunt’s home on Wildemere Street in Detroit to walk two blocks for the bus to Murray-Wright High School. She was staying with her aunt temporarily and planned to move into a new home with her mother in five days.

Later that afternoon, when Michelle did not come home, family members filed a missing person’s report and began searching the neighborhood. The following day, they discovered her body in an abandoned garage about two blocks from the bus stop. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

The Investigation

The crime was part of a string of approximately 50 rapes targeting Detroit schoolgirls over the past year, prompting police to call a summit to catch the perpetrators and prevent further attacks.

Months later, the case remained unsolved. Eddie Lloyd, a 36-year-old involuntary patient at the Detroit Psychiatric Institute being treated for mental illness, began writing letters to the police department with suggestions on how to solve various murders, including that of Michelle Jackson.

Sometimes, the department received up to three letters a day from Mr. Lloyd. In October 1984, police believed one of the letters contained information only the perpetrator would know, prompting them to visit Mr. Lloyd.

Over the course of three interrogations, police officers allowed Mr. Lloyd to believe that, by confessing and getting arrested, he would help them “smoke out” the real perpetrator. They fed him details of the crime that he could not have known, including the location of the body, and the type of jeans and earrings the victim wore.

Mr. Lloyd was arrested on Oct. 26, 1984, and charged with first-degree murder after he signed a written confession and gave a tape-recorded statement. 

The Trial

Mr. Lloyd’s appointed attorney, Charles Lusby, received $150 for pre-trial preparation, but did not investigate his client’s mental state or confession. Eight days before the scheduled trial, Mr. Lusby fell ill. He was replaced by attorney Stanford Rubach, but the trial was not postponed, leaving little time for preparation. 

The trial began on May 1, 1985, in Detroit Recorder’s Court.

The prosecution played the recorded confession and contended that Mr. Lloyd had killed Ms. Jackson because he had raped her and did not want to be identified. Forensic reports confirmed the presence of semen at the crime scene.

Mr. Rubach, who had not met with Mr. Lloyd before the trial, did not cross-examine the police officer most directly involved in the coerced confession. He called no defense witnesses and gave a five-minute closing argument. 

On May 2, after about 30 minutes of deliberation, the jury convicted Mr. Lloyd of first-degree murder.

Mr. Rubach later claimed that Mr. Lloyd would not permit an insanity defense, saying, “With a psychiatric plea, we might have had a chance. If he’s not goofy, there’s not a dog in Texas.” 

At the sentencing hearing on May 21, 1985, Mr. Lloyd insisted that he was innocent. When asked if he had anything to say, Mr. Lloyd answered, “Into each life tears must fall. That means on both sides. [Michelle] had a right to live, as we all do … She said goodbye … and disappeared in the darkness never to be seen again alive. One day later she was found in a vacant garage. Cold, alone, and lifeless … Eddie Lloyd was focused on as a suspect while he was a mental patient and somewhere along the line he was charged and convicted of the crime, a heinous crime, brutal. What I want to say to the court is that, to the family, M.J., to the city of Detroit, to everybody who was involved with the case, I did not kill M.J. I never killed anybody in my life and I wouldn’t.”

Judge Leonard Townsend complained that the crime deserved the death penalty instead of the mandatory sentence of life in prison. He said that “termination by extreme constriction” — hanging — was the “only justifiable sentence.”

Judge Townsend appointed attorney Robert Slameka to handle Mr. Lloyd’s appeal. However, Mr. Slameka refused to communicate with his client, except through sending photocopies of notes on a legal pad — eventually prompting Mr. Lloyd to file a complaint with the Attorney Grievance Commission. Mr. Slameka, who would be disbarred years later based on an array of misconduct, replied to the Commission with a one-page reply, which at one point stated: “This is a sick individual who kidnapped, raped, and strangled a young woman … His claim of my wrongdoing is frivolous, just as is his existence. Both should be terminated.”

Mr. Lloyd’s appeal was unsuccessful.

The Exoneration

Mr. Lloyd contacted the Innocence Project in 1995, seeking assistance in obtaining DNA testing. For years, Innocence Project interns tried locating the evidence. After seven years, with the assistance of the Wayne County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, the evidence was finally found. 

In 2002, DNA testing conducted by California DNA laboratory Forensic Science Associates, as well as testing performed by the Michigan State Crime Lab, found the same male DNA profile on a broken glass bottle, a piece of paper, and underwear found at the crime scene. Mr. Lloyd was excluded as the source of the biological evidence.

On Aug. 26, 2002, Innocence Project attorney Barry Scheck and local counsel Saul Green, along with the agreement of Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Duggan, presented a motion to vacate the charges and dismiss the case.

Mr. Lloyd was released after serving 17 years in prison.

Two years later, on September 22, 2004, Mr. Lloyd died of a heart attack. Ultimately, his family settled a lawsuit for nearly $4 million.

In October 2019, 72-year-old Kennith Dupree was charged with the rape and murder after the DNA profile in the evidence was identified as his. In 2020, after pleading guilty to second-degree murder, Mr. Dupree was sentenced to 50 to 100 years in prison.