Anthony McKinney “wasn’t even there”
Editor’s note:
The following is a partial transcript of a videotaped interview with former Harvey, IL resident Dennis White. The interview was conducted by Medill student-reporters at White’s home in Columbus, Ohio on January 29, 2006.
The eleven minute interview began after White was shown the videotape of Anthony Drake’s admission that he was present for the1978 Harvey murder of security guard Donald Lundahl. White reacted on camera by saying he knew Drake’s damning statements were “pretty much…true” -- because White was in a Harvey park when Drake and another childhood friend, Michael Lane, confessed the crime shortly after it happened.
White also said the two men identified Roger McGruder (a/k/a “Magooda” or “Big Magooda”) as the shooter in an armed robbery that “went bad.” McGruder, Drake and Lane have been named as the perpetrators in other interviews by the Medill Team.
Drake and Lane said that Anthony McKinney, who by this time had been arrested for the crime, “wasn’t even there,” according to White. McKinney was convicted and is serving a life sentence for the armed robbery and murder of Lundahl.
White’s reason for not coming forward before this: “Why they going to listen to us?”
The Dennis White videotape was one of several recordings sent to Cook County prosecutors this week. The recordings had already been published on the Medill Innocence Project’s Web site, shown to McKinney’s lawyers or given directly to the State. But prosecutors complained they had not seen them, so lawyers for the Project provided additional copies to the State’s Attorney’s Office. The Project steadfastly refuses to comply with subpoenas for unpublished tapes, notes, grades, e-mail or other information that is privileged under the Illinois shield law and federal privacy law.
In a court filing by prosecutors, Drake and Lane allegedly said they were offered money to get them to admit their involvement in the crime, a claim the Medill Team has denied. Although prosecutors were informed in 2008 about White’s knowledge of the crime in an innocence petition filed by McKinney lawyers, no one has suggested he was paid for his interview, and White himself declared on camera that he had not received anything from the student-reporters. Nor has any similar allegation been made by any of the Medill Team’s numerous sources -- besides Drake and Lane, two career criminals and alternative suspects in Lundahl’s murder.
The Dennis White interview can be viewed in its entirety by clicking here.
--David Protess
March 5, 2010
Dennis White interviewed by Medill
student-journalists on January 29, 2006.
Q: We watched the Tony Drake video and can you tell us what you thought of the video?
"Pretty much what he said was true. ' Cause they did pretty much what he said. That's the way they said it back in the day."
Q: And what did they tell you back in the day what happened?
A: “They told me there was a stick up and it went bad. And they said they shot him. But I heard Tony [McKinney] wasn't there, though.”
Q: Now, who…who was there?
A: “They said Magooda, Tony Drakes, uh, who was that? Michael…Michael Lane. Who else? And one more person.”
Q: Was it maybe…we talked earlier about Robert Anderson or Little Magooda.
A: “Robert Anderson? You talking about Bird?”
Q: Yeah.
A: “I think Bird…was it Bird? Bird probably…he got killed right after that.”
Q: Right.
A: “Um, let me think. I don't remember if they said it was Bird there.”
Q: Okay. But you remember those three people?
A: “I remember them three [Drake, Lane and ‘Magooda.’] Them three, yeah, they said was there.”
Q: And when was it they told you about it?
A: “They told us about it after it happened. 'Cause they came… you know, Michael Lane’s mother lived right across the street from the park….So all of us [were] there. You know, that where everybody went everyday.”
Q: So… [phone rings]
A: “Everybody get off work, or whatever, that's where we all go, to the park. And then we all sit there and talk about different things. So they just happened to come up there and get out the car and Tony [Drake] and all them told us that, um, that somebody had got shot. They didn't tell us it was the security guard but we heard it on the news. And then we find out, they said after that…it was Tony McKinnley [sic] the one done it. But then we come to find out he wasn't even there.”
Q: Tony McKinney was not there?
A: “That's what they said. That's what Tony Drakes and them told me. They said he wasn't even there.”
Q: So Tony Drake told you about it and Michael Lane also told you about it?
A: “Yeah. They…they were the two. They hung…man, you see one, you see the other.”
Q: And it doesn't surprise you at all that they would be involved in…
A: “Yeah.”
Q: …in a crime like that?
A: “That's what they did. Everybody know. That's they thing.”
Q: That's what we heard.
A: “That was they thing. Sticking up, robbing...”
Q: Did anyone say anything about who pulled the trigger?
A: “Well…What I heard, as far as that, they said…what I know…well, they said Magooda was there. Now, I know him. You now, now I know he do too 'cause now he ain't scared of… I believe ' cause Tony [Drake] or Mike…Michael Lane - they ain't gonna kill nothing. So if Magouda were there - that's who done it. 'Cause Tony [Drake] and Michael Lane is not going to pull no trigger. They too scared. Man, they scared of they own shadows. I'm being honest about it. I growed up with all of them. We all went to school together - Magooda, all of them. And the only one every really I know did…would do a hard crime was Big Magooda and …they said he was there.”
Q: Dennis, has anyone paid you at all or told you to make certain statements you made on camera?
A: “No. I didn't even know what y'all wanted.”
Editor’s note: After the student-reporters finished the interview, thanked him and started to say goodbye, White spontaneously said:
"But as far as that murder, that been so long. That's why I can't really remember, but I remember [inaudible] when you all brought it back to me. It was a security guard. And what make it so bad, they rob him outside right by the car that he was in.” [Editor’s note: Donald Lundahl was in fact a security guard who was murdered as he sat in his car outside the Masonic temple in Harvey.]
Q: Were they…do you know were they trying to kill him or just rob him?
A: "No. They was trying to rob him but he resisted. When he resisted that's when they said: ‘Magooda shot him.’ ….And Tony and Michael Lane, them all…they all broke and ran. And then next thing you know, two days, two days later, they say that … they got Tony for it.”
Q: Tony McKinney?
A: “Yeah. They got Tony McKinnley [sic] for it, man. And then, but they never mentioned his name about he was there or nothing. And then when it came down to it, he wasn't even there, man. He wasn't there….
"It was like a couple of days later it was on the news. Back then they said he there. But then all us, all us that heard about it - we knew he didn't do it 'cause we knew he wasn't even there. yeah, we knew the people that was there. And …but we couldn't say nothing about 'cause, why they going to listen to us? They’d look at us like, yeah, well."