Florida Today from Cocoa, Florida • Page 10A

10A TODAY, Sunday, October I 1174 His Sentence: 14 Years of Darkness. By PETE CALUGHER TODAY SMtt If you listen real hard down a dusty dirt road off the main drag, through country. Green Cove Springs you'll just barely be able to hear it' most times during the day. The sweet, crooning sounds of "Oh Lonesome Me" and Jesus, you'll think someone 'has really learned to pick guitar. Sometimes It might be a real slow Rocky Top or maybe Just run after whispering run of the down home blues.

Folks around this St. Johns River edge town up in North East Florida will tell you it's Jesse playing those songs, ever so softly, ever so calm. Jesse Daniels. Folks'll tell you Jesse and his ma, Pearl, just rolled into town one day, moved into a trailer out there off the dirt road (turn right at the first culvert) and there just aren't many who know much about em except Jesse's a little strange and his ma mentioned he'd been in jail. That's all.

Now, it's well known that Pearl can sew some beautiful quilts and her heart's so big she even takes care of an elderly patient for a nurse in town. Jesse, he's really just a boy even though he's a grown man and he stutters a lot but he's gentle and polite. Refal polite. Quiet is what Green Cove Springs is all about. Quiet and good fishing and talking about the love bugs hitting town Aug.

24. Peaceful, loo. That's probably the main thing. And peace is sweet freedom for Jesse Daniels and his mother, Pearl Eisentrager, a freedom to be savored not by facing the cool St. Johns shore breezes or strolling among the azaleas in the park.

For a man who suffered more anguish than God ever Intended any mortal, freedom is a remembrance to be ignored by Jesse Daniels in the chain smoke of his clgarets, in the frets of his guitar, in the leapings of his heart when he rides his bicycle just a little bit faster than he dares. For a mother wjio grew wrinkly old and couldn't stop losing everything she had, freedom is a word for nighttime prayers, a subject to be forgotten by keeping busy sewing and canning more vegetables than all the trailers on the dirt road will ever need. Florida historians wiTI probably record Jesse Daniels as the most wronged person in our history. Because of bizarre and a tainted system of justice, he spent 14 years without sunlight, locked up in the criminal ward of Florida's insane asylum In Chattahoochee for a crime he did not commit. Slightly mentally retarded from re peated bouts with rheumatic fever, Jesse grew from a 19 year old backwoods boy 'to a confused 33 year old man among the agonizing sounds, horrible harassments and tortured individuals who inhabit the top security section of the asylum.

It's been nearly two years since Jesse was released from Chattahoochee after years of litigation involving every level'1 of the state and federal court system and "I'm still not adjusted to society. I don't guess I ever will adjust. Something always seems missing in my life," says Jesse, now 36 with high cheekbones, deep set staring eyes and a balding head. "I thought I'd never get out that I was put there for the rest of my life. I don't like to think about free 'cause it reminds me of bein' locked up.

"I can't ever forgive Jor what's happened. It cost me 14 long years and destroyed my teenage life." Because of a Florida statute, numbered 917.01, Jesse Daniels was, for 14 years, denied the right to enter his plea of not guilty and have a trial by jury on a criminal charge that was carefully planned to keep him languishing in the criminal section of the Florida State Hospital for the rest of his natural life. Already, Florida's Legislature has pronounced Jesse the state's most wronged individual they voted only last session to award Jiim some $73,000 compensation 'for time spent most unlawfully behind bars in a place worse than Death Row, "worser" as Jesse says, "than death." Of the state's largest compensation claim paymenrfor false Imprisonment in Jesse will realize some $375 per month for life, mostly interest and a smattering of the principal, and lose the food sumps and medical disability checks he received before. The Legislature also killed (but may reconsider) portions of the bill which have awarded $8,000 to Pearl Eisentrager, who lost husbands, her home (by fire). and spent fHousands of dollars on, lawyers and bus trips In her.

tlreleS efforts to free the son she KNEW was sleeping peace fully, at home the night a wealthy Lake County matron was raped. THE evening of Dec. 16, 1937, Lloyd Harrison jumped in his pickup truck, turned up the road about 200 yards and honked his horn at the Daniels' bouse. The night was clear and if a person hadn't lived there all his life like the Daniels and Harrisons, well, the smell of those Lake County orange blossoms would knock a fella right off his feet. Especially here, a few chaw spats south of Leesburg, in Oka humpka, a town of winding country roads, dirt poor unskilled laborers and two or three mansions Inhabited by the grove and cattle people who own all the land.

At the sound of Lloyd's horn, young Jesse Daniels came running out of the house. Recently turned 19, Jesse was the gangly, skinny, timid, mentally retarded son of the' Charles Daniels the only one of seven Daniels' children to live past birth. Two bouts with rheumatic fever had slowed Jesse's learning process and caused him to stutter constantly, often uncontrollably when nervous or upset. "I always described him as a kid he had the mind of a child," says Harrison, who now lives in Webster. "He was mild mannered and polite and always called everyone sir." Harrison wheeled his pickup toward rural Rt.

470 and parked west of town. He had picked up Jesse for company while hunting skunks, possums, coons or anything Harrison, an independent could sell. On this particular night the pair was to catch a skunk one of the most important skunks in Lake County history for sure. When Lloyd Harrison got In the way of the skunk's odorous spray and became temporarily bliaded, Jesse helped Lloyd cajBjhe smelly animal, also managing to come into contact with the stinking "musk," which clung to each blade of grass and tree limb near the clearing where the two men finally sacked their prey and returned home. According to Harrison, the smell was so bad that it often took weeks to remove the traces from his body.

According to Jesse, "I smelled so bad 1 couldn't hardly stand it." According to Pearl, "I made Jesse take most of his clothes off before I let him in the house." After cleaning as much as possible, Jesse, still stinking by his own and his mother's accounts, watched the Jack Paar show with his parents and sometime around 1 a.m., the morning of Dec. 17, 1937, went to sleep in his father's room. Charles Daniels was over 70 years old, some 30 years his wife's senior arid suffered from a number of old age maladies, not the least of which was his inability to sleep longer than two hours at a time. "Charles was old and he was sick and he had to get up every hour that's why 1 slept in the next room it was the only way I could get a good night's sleep," Pearl remembers. Nothing unusual happened that night in the Daniels'home and Charles Daniels went to his grave three years later swearing his son never left the house on that evening.

His death, of old age in the Bay Pines VA Hospital, silenced the only true alibi witness Jesse had only it didn't matter. Jesse Daniels was never given his day in court. WHILE THE Daniels family was sleeping, about a quarter of a mile to the north a disturbance was occurring in the bedroom of Okahumpka's most prominent citizen. With her husband in Tampa for the night, a wealthy society matron was awakened from her sleep when she felt a hand come overher and realized it was a naked man, a stranger trying to get into her bed. It was a black man, she later told Lake County law enforcement officials.

The time was approximately 2 a.m. According to a statement given to Lake County State Atttyney Gordon Oldham, the victim said the naked man bragged he had been paid $5,000 to kill her, but going to because he'd seen too much killing in the war. The stranger refused to tell her who was paying the money and asked her "not to get sly with him." He then committed forcible sexual intercourse (verified by her doctor) and threatened to "blow up the whore camp" if she mentioned the Incident to anyone. Gathering her clothes, the victim said, the rapist looked, around for something on 'the floor and left the room, falling down a flight of stairs. The Immediately calted her lawyer, W.S.

Robin Him The Saga Of Jesse Daniels 'The high sheriff of Lake County Willis McCall he held a pistol to my head and said I better sign my name or he was gonna pull the trigger. He said he'd blow my brains Jesse. Daniels BBBBBBBBBBBB: "BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB jiBBBBBBjk JIBiBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBj Hh. yTBta4 XI BBBBBBBBBK 13j BBk nfYAyAyAwAwAyfl JSml YBmri ilrBBBBBH 1K' BBBBBBa 1 STlm? HBBBBBwBwBwBwBI PBBBBBKrBpK' tOF wLibbbbbbbH PBVbBBbVbbv7'' I ABBB bvMBAbbvm flm 'BvAfl bTbTbTbI rBrJBBBBa'VBTA '(BrBrBrBrBrJ bbbS bbbbbbh bbbbI bbV va 'bbbH 'Mbbbbh BFBI BBBBVI vBM Bk tfiBBBB Bl BBBBB i i Ball BBi BBBBBBBBm RBB1 vBTBBTBB WW nmLmitffr ym 111 B) "BBj 'IP i NT rfiitWPtm 4 I j0j lm IT BJB V1P4BBB' il 1 1111 Bbcf ktlLtr t1! i f4t I i ik aft feViiJaLsBH JBBBx jBBBbS BB, 1 BM jB A BHvBBw.pMiP9JBBBB)BjfBBBBBBjBMBSBHVi4l BHvBBvBHvBhI TODAY llofl PHoi kv Rt4 MwtM Daniels With Life Magazine Article About Willis McCalland Mother, Pearl son, and informed him of the rape. The lawyer called the.

Lake County Sheriff's Department where investigating deputy LeRoy Yates was dispatched to the rape scene "She told me she had been raped by a Negro," said Yates. "A Negro with bushy hair A search around the house revealed a soiled pair of men's undershorts size 34. A posselike search was Immediately begun and the hounds led deputies to the Negro quarters where in the next few days some 29 black males were rounded up and stashed in the Lake County jail. "They woke me up at 2 a.m. and told me would get the electric Chair If they (Lake County deputies) didn't kill me before hand," said Isadore Johnson, one.

of the blacks jailed. State Attorney Oldham was quoted in papers all over Florida that law enforcement ifficers were searching for a Negro. The Tampa Tribune criticized Lake County Sheriff Willis McCall for his "gestapo tactics" in rounding up black males. It is known that at least' one black man confessed to the crime. Mrs.

Margaret Hickman, a notary public in Tavares at the time, was Instructed by sheriff's deputies to record a 'confession. "It was a black man whose confession I took," she said. "I'm a personal friend of the victim' would not get this crime confused." Mrs. Hickman recalled how the black man sneered at her as she read the intimate details of the and described him as "a dark brown man who slouched in a chair while two. Lake County deputies hovered by." Mrs.

Hickman did not notice any stuttering on the part of the black man whose confession she. recorded: Two "days later, deputies arrested a 20 year old black man who weighed 190 pounds. Melvin Hawkins, also from Okahumpka and an employe of the raped woman's husband, was soon namedfahe prime suspect. Hawkins was a neph ew of Virgil Hawkins, a Florida civil right pioneer who was making headlines at time by trying to gain admission to the University oj, Florida law "school. When word seeped around the state about the masswe hauling in of blacks and the ensuing terror among the black citizens of Lake County, Gov.

LeRoy Collins wired Shenff McCall ordering the inhumane roundup to cease. On Dec. 24, Christmas Eve, 1957, prime suspect Hawkins and another Okahumpka black, Sam Wiley were released. The evening before, Dec. 23, the entire course of the investigation had changed.

"Deputies Yates and Campbell came by the house and said they wanted to question Jesse. He still stunk with polecat musk so I was sort of embarrassed but they insisted," remembers Pearl. "They said there were some questions about the rape. They said they'd bring him right back but they took Jesse down to the jail to threaten him. "Everybody in town knew they were looking for a big husky Negro.

I couldn't understand what they wanted with a 130 pound white boy." When Jesse Daniels left his home in Okahumpka that night, he was not to return to his mother for 14 years. "I PACKED all of his. Christmas presents and went to the jail but they wouldn't let me in," remembers Pearl. "The whole time he was there wegot to see him twice once when they opened the door on him sitting on the commode and another time when he looked so sad that I reached my arm through the bars and said, 'Son, I' hate to see you in here so bad' and right away McCall grabbed my arm and jerked me back and said 'That's And that was it." After five days and four nights In solitary confinemeifL Lake County officials An nounced on Dec. 29, 1957 that Jesse Daniels had confessed to the celebrated rape, he had been charged with the day before.

"I don't think we've left many stones unturned," said McCall. Jesse's confession, taken at 2 am in the Lake County jail, was "taken in a manner which is shocking to the sense of decency and conscience of all lawful citizens," says Daytona Beach attorney Richard Graham, the lawyer who finally freed Jesse Daniels in 1971. "Jesse Daniels was forced to confess, with no lawyer present and without having been read his rights. He was forced to confess at gunpoint." Today Jesse Daniels cannot talk about that horrifying night without taking a long drag from his ever present cigaret. "I couldn't read what it said, but I knew what they wanted me Jo say.

The high sheriff, of Lake County Willis McCall he held a pistol to my head and said I better sign my name or he was gonna pull the trigger," stutters Jesse. "He said he'd blow my brains' out. I didn't want to but I signed my name where he said." McCall has denied forcing Jesse to confess, but refuses to comment on the situation today. Suspended from office in 1971 by Gov. Askew for his Involvement In the kicking death of a Lake County prisoner, and defeated in the 1972 election after 28 years as McCall is retired and lives in Umatilla, enjoying a healthy yearly pension from the state.

Oldham says he wasn't present at Jesse's confession either. "I've never talked to Jesse Daniels in my life other than to say hello in the courtroom. I don't talk to defendants," he says'. "Confessions are the job of the law enforcement agencies, no' the state attorney," Jesse's, confession tjid not match up well with the statement of the victim. Jesse signed his name to a statement which said nothing more than he introduced himself by his proper name and told the victim he was going to rape her and if she didn't consent he would kill her.

After the rape, the statement concludes, Jesse asked about his per formance Fapd left. State Attorney Oldham has admitted at least one portion of the confession is false. "He didn't identify himself to the victim. She didn't say that." The confession of Jesse Daniels, with all its confusions, discrepancies and doubts, and a dirty pair of size 34 shorts (Jesse has always worn size 28) comprised the only known evidence supporting the state's charge against him. "That was the only evidence they could have shown the grand jury (which indicted Jesse on Jan.

9, 1958)," said Richard Graham, Jesse's present, attorney. "A forced confession that violates every principle of fair justice and a pair of shorts that looked like they were used to polish a car. "In fact." Willis McCall identified them as Jesse's undershorts because he said they were dirty and that was. the kind of clothes' he had seen hanging on the Daniels' clothesline whenever he drove past! "With this kind of evidence a man spent 14 years in hell." THE SMALL" community of Okahumpka reeled with the shock waves when word traveled the winding grove highways that polite Jesse Daniels, who had never been in trouble (he has no police, or juvenile record to this day) had admitted to the most publicized rape then (and now). in Lake County history.

Immediately State Attorney Oldham, who had been quoted as pointing his finger at a "Negro" as chief suspect, claimed he had been misquoted. "I don't believe1 1 ever.said tlut, (about deputies seeking a husky Negro with bushy hair) to anyone," Oldham said. "I was misquoted. It. was dark in the room and the victim's basic identification was on the voice.

She described it as being either Ignorant country or Negro." The victim, who at ill resides In Lake never mentioned any stuttering from her rapist In the original statement given police. Any number of witnesses can be found in Lake County today who will swear to Jesse's constant stuttering, which often renders him Incoherent when nervous. He stutters to this day. In her statement, the victim, whose husband has served as a mayor of the Central Florida city where they now reside, never mentioned any peculiar smell. It has been part of Jesse Dan ids' defense from the very first that if he had even neared someone, much less engaged in sexual Intercourse, the skunk "musk" smell would have been the most poignant thing to recall about the evening.

The victim, still a wealthy society matron, has never told her story on a witness stand, nor been subpoenaed before any grand jury or court hearing. "Oldham wouldn't allow it," said attorney Richard Graham. "He said that 'she was still suffering from that night that it would be too much for her emotionally. Her original statement has always sufficed." According to Graham, when the victim's husband was queried by lawyers he swore that he and his wife had not discussed the case in the 16 years since it happened. The state of Florida has recently decided that Jesse Daniels did not commit the crime of rape.

Why, of all people, was a mentally defective teenager chosen to take the blame? For'years the folks in Lake County have figured that a white person was charged with the crime so that the disgusting stigma of being raped by a black person would be dispelled. "They figured Jesse to be a patsy because of his lack of education," says his mother. "They figured he could just be placed out of the way for life and the real stcry would never come out." There are those living in Lake County right now who know what really happened the morning of Dec. 17, 1957, and others who have a pretty good idea. Few will speak out the fear of reprisal is too great.

"Thfs has been a very hot issue up here in this county anii you do not cross people in this county," said one unnamed source. "Much less the former sheriff or the state attorney One source who refuses to be identified for fear of his life is 'absolutely sure "it was a frame up." According to this source, the victim's husband was in Tampa on the night of the rape. This fact has been confirmed by the Florida Dept. of Criminal Law Enforcement (FDCLE). Upon hearing of the tape, the husband immediately returned home and a meeting was held on a desolate section of U.S.

301, says the source. "This fact also has been confirmed with the FDCLE. The meeting was called by the so called "power structure" to decide what would be best for the county and, of course, best for the power structure. At the meeting, the source says, it was decided that a black man should not be convicted of the crime, because of the stigma attached to a black raping a white woman in Lake County. The source also confirmed that all mention of the $3,000 murder cojuract wast)cdered quashed and no trial ever be A rape Uiaf, the source explained, would demand that the victim testify and chances were that a lot of dirty Lake County laundry would be brought out in the courtroom.

The source also confirmed that influence was brought to bear upon Lake County officials and it was at this time that the name of Jesse Daniels arose. According to the source, it was Sheriff McCall who originally balked at the idea of charging white Jesse with the crime since he and his deputies were reasonably sure they had the "nigger" who had done it. But the "power structure," composed of wealthy businessmen and certain unnamed legal officials, soon convinced McCall otherwise, the source said. A case agent for the Florida Dept. of Criminal Law Enforcement confirmed the source's statements.

Investigations by the FDCLE had produced very similar accounts. The source admitted being called by a grand jury which looked into the Daniels' case in 1972, but, according to attorney Richard Graham, the source admitted not telling the same story to grand jurors who ended some eight months of investigation In 1972 with no Indictments. This information upholds the conclusion that the rape' was to be disposed of by the IncarcVation of Daniels for the rest of his life in Chattahoochee, with neither an Inquiry Into the crime he was charged with nor a determination of his guilt. Information about the alleged $3,000 murder contract, the secret meeting and Jesse Daniels stayed Junder wraps for 14 years. IT WASNT easy, this railroading of Jesse Daniels.

Even after his arrest, charge and indictment for rape, he still had a trial coming to him. The wheeling and dealing that occurred from this point on is boggling. The judge assigned to Jesse's case withdrew Immediately. A personal friend of Jesse and Pearl today. Judge Troy Hall would have no part in the case.

"He knew Jesse was innocent," says Pearl. Hall was replaced by Judge Truman Futch, who appointed a lawyer to aid the poverty stricken Daniels family. The role of special public4 defender was a new one to A.P. Buie of Ocala he was used to the other side of the table and had served for years as the Fifth District State Attorney before Gordon Oldham, his good friend, replaced him. According to Jesse.

Buie's conversation with him was the following: "Why'd you do it, boy?" "I didn't "Well, you must have done it, you have to be guilty you confessed, didn't you?" Buie immediately claimed his defendant was insane and unable to assist in his defense: Jesse was transported to Chattachoochee, where three doctors were to examine him. On Feb. 4, 1958, Buie sent a letter to Drs. J.T. Benbow, J.B.

O'Connor and C.H. Cron ick in which he don't see how Ije can assist me in preparing his defense to that extent I feel he is insane. While this boy denies being the guilty party, there is no question in my mind but that he is the man." On the same day, Sheriff McCall phoned O'Connor, the director of the state hospital, informing O'Connor that Daniels was the guilty party and mentally defective, even though he would deny it. On Feb. 17, 1958, Buie wrote the doctors again, stating that Daniels, in his opinion, "was not even a high type moron." On Feb.

20, Oldham sent Jesse's confession to the doctors. On Feb. 24, Oldham personally visited Chattahoochee. On March 3, 1958, Oldham sent the doctors a copy of the victim's statement with instructions not to let anyone else see it. (The transcript was mysteriously removed from hospital files and was never found.) Finally, on March 14, 1958, Jesse Daniels was officially committed to the criminal ward of Chattahoochee.

At a 10 minute hearing in Tavares, court appointed attorney Buie waived the appearance of the doctors and made no attempt to establish the competence of the doctors or the tests they performed on Jesse to decide his sanity. When Judge Futch slammed down the gavel, a tearful mother ran screaming toward her silent, timid son. Pearl attempted to hug her son, "but McCall jerked my arm back. He told me flat out, 'You'll never see your son alive remembers Pearl. They took Jesse Daniels away.

The rape case was closed. THUS BEGAN 14 years of hell for Jesse Daniels, most of which were spent in a cell shaded from all sunlight. Residents under criminal Indictment at Chattahoochee are not allowed any outside activities and it wasn't until Gov. Askew rfcvamped the hospital staff in 1971 that Daniels was allowed to step outside. New director Milton Hirshberg" received anonymous telephone calls both threatening him and criticizing him for switching Jesse to another ward aid providing him with a few freedoms.

"It was terrible in there. tveryooay was crazy people screamed all night. There were terrible fights. I got in four or five real terrible ones myself," says Jesse. "Sometimes they kept us in handcuffs and the guards would take towels and try to choke us just out of pure meanness.

"They made me crawl on my knees and clean the commodes and do sorts of things to earn tokens to pay them so I could sleep on my bed. Otherwise we slept on the floor. "I still have nightmares about that place. I dream about it all the time. There wasn't a dav.wjnt by that 1 Continued on Page 11 A.