Roger
Harris interview with John Kevin Walker, August 6, 1993 re: Kevin Walker’s
testimony in Frank Gable’s trial for murder of Michael Francke.
RH: Roger Harris. I’m an investigator, uh, working on behalf of Karen Gable. Today
is August 6th, I
believe, and I’m talking to, uh, John Kevin Walker at his house
near Salem, and, uh, Kevin, you
want to introduce yourself and just say if there’s
any coercion or anything going on
here?
JKW: Yeah, my name is John Kevin Walker. There is no coercion going on. I’m not
being promised any money. I’m giving this statement freely, um…
RH: Ok.
JKW: …and I’m ready to begin.
RH: Alright.
Me, too. What we’re gonna do is
go through the points, in, uh, the
transcript of your testimony in
court, um, in Frank Gable’s trial, and just, uh,
discuss, uh, the vario…various
points, uh, in your testimony, and I’ll just sort of
skim through here to find a first
topic. Said you were residing in Salem
uh…um,
first personally met Frank at a
friend’s house; Russ Eastep. Could you
discuss
that?
JKW: I was selling, um, crank to Russ for resale
to, um…I was…I wa…I met Frank
through Russ, because I was selling
crank to Russ for resale by Russ to Frank.
Russ got tired of being the
middleman, and um, introduced me to Frank because
he said, ‘Well, Frank’s just got
out of the joint, too, and, you know, he doesn’t
have any problems meeting you if
you want to meet him,’ and I told Russ that’d
be alright.
RH: Do you remember where that was?
JKW: Um, on…the apartment on Hawthorne.
RH: Ok, was that Frank’s apartment or Russ’s?
JKW: No, it was…it was at Russ’s apartment.
RH: And about when was that?
JKW: Somewhere in ‘88. The beginning of ‘88.
RH: Ok.
And, let’s see, in your testimony here it says, uh, Frank was, uh,
living around
the corner, or Russ was living
around the corner from where Frank was living.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
2
JKW: Russ was living in the second building…as
you pull into the apartment complex,
there were three buildings; two of
them running perpendicular to Hawthorne, the
third building running parallel to
Hawthorne. Russ lived in the second
perpen-
dicular building to Hawthorne and
Frank lived in the parallel building to
Hawthorne.
RH: Ok.
And who was living with Frank?
JKW: Uh, Janyne…Janyne and, uh, Jessica.
RH: Ok.
In the testimony it says, uh, let’s see, the question was, ‘How was it
that Russ
Eastep introduced you to
Frank?’ You said you were selling some
crank to Russ.
Ok, this is probably what you just
explained. Um, Russ would run over to
Frank’s
and sell it. Russ got tired of being the third man. Ok.
Frank was in the kitchen
and, uh…
JKW: Well, it, uh, actually got to the point
where Frank would see my car pull in, and
immediately after that, like within
ten, fifteen minutes, Russ would be knocking
on Frank’s door saying, ‘I got the
stuff that you want,’ and it got to the point
where Frank would recognize the car
pulling in, and then asked him if he could
m…could meet me, and I said…and
that’s when Russ said, ’Well, he wants to
meet you, you want to meet him, and
I’m tired of being third…the middleman,’
so…
RH: Yeah.
Ok the testimony says that, uh…uh, you’d both been in the [Oregon State]
Penitentiary and you thought you
knew him from the Penitentiary, or knew of him.
Do you…do you remember meeting
Frank at all in the Pen?
JKW: No.
RH: Did you ever see him there, or were you
there at the same time, do you know?
JKW: Nope.
According to, uh, prison records, uh, I don’t believe that Frank was
ever in
the Penitentiary at all, the
same time that I was.
RH: Mkay.
JKW: We were talking about Gary Davis and how,
uh, yeah, I knew Gary Davis and how
Frank knew Gary Davis and, um,
that’s pretty much how we even had the, uh,
discussion…you know, when you meet
somebody…when you meet somebody on
the streets that was in the Pen,
you have a tendency to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
3
you; you remember this dude,
here?’, and that way, if you know the…the people
and you know how the Penitentiary
is set up, then you can make it so that it’s not,
um, a set-up, you know what I mean?
RH: Yeah. Ok.
And in the transcript it says that was probably around May of ’88 you
guys met. Um, also that it was at nighttime. Do you recollect that, or does that
sound right?
JKW: It…you know the truth of the matter, it
could have been daytime, it could have
been nighttime.
RH: Mkay.
JKW: It was probably nighttime or
evening-time because, um, I lived in Corvallis, worked
in Albany and drove to Salem every
night. So it had to have been after…it
would
had to have been after 6:00.
RH: Ok.
Worked in Corvallis, lived in Albany…
JKW: No.
Lived…
RH: Other way around…sorry.
JKW: Lived in Corvallis, worked in Albany…
RH: Ok.
JKW: That’s exactly what they had me saying
there, too. Um, I lived in Corvallis,
at
1160 NW 16th Street with
my mother and my brother, Mickey [phonetic], and my
brother Jerry [phonetic], and my
brother Kelly [phonetic], and, um, shortly after I
moved in, approximately three or
four months after I moved into my mom’s house,
Mickey moved to Colorado, where he
still resides. Um, I worked in Albany
at, uh,
1600 SW 9th Street, I
think, at Cub QP, which is a quick printing place, and I
would drive from there to Salem and
deal drugs, pick up cash, do whatever it was I
was doing in Salem, and then go
back to Corvallis, where I did, maybe, or maybe
not, get some sleep or rest,
and then did the whole thing, ah, the next day.
RH: Ok.
You had a regular route that you drove…
JKW: A regular route.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
4
RH: …each evening after work.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: Alright.
And you explain that in the testimony.
Left work in Albany, drove down
I5, stopped at houses along the
way. Ok. And after you met Frank, you had a
continuing relationship with him.
JKW: Yeah, Frank was a pretty good guy. I like Frank. I still like Frank.
Though he
feels that way about me, I don’t
know.
RH: Ok.
JKW: Those are two dogs playing.
RH: [laughs]
The noise in the background…
JKW: Yeah.
RH: …yeah.
Ok. I’m in a quiet part
here. I’m just reading, uh, to myself
the, uh,
transcript so that I can get to the
points that are important to what we’re doing.
Um, you had continued to go to
Russ’s apartment and you would meet Frank
there. Frank would see your car, and he’d come over to talk to you.
JKW: Yeah, a lot of times, after I…after I met
Frank and started selling to him directly,
lots of times, I’d just pull in,
and, um, go directly to Frank’s apartment, sell him
whatever it was I wanted…you
know…he wanted to buy, or go up there and do…
do s…crank with him, um, or you
know, smoke pot with him, and then I’d go over
Russ, or Russ’s would, you know,
Russ would go over to Frank’s apartment, it
was…you know…in a…in a small
apartment complex, it turns out to be pretty, uh,
close-knit. You see one person pulling in that’s a
friend of yours, you can go over
to their house and visit them as a
friend.
RH:
Yeah. Ok. You apparently didn’t know Dan Walsh, is
that right, from
testimony here?
JKW: Uh, doesn’t sound familiar.
RH: And, uh…
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
5
JKW: Richard Dav…uh, Richard David Welch,
also known as “Dallas”.
RH: Hm.
JKW: I know him.
RH: Yeah.
I think that’s a different guy.
JKW: Yeah.
RH: Mark Gesner you had known for several
years.
JKW: Yeah, I know him. He was the la…mhm…I was with him the last time I got
busted.
RH: Ok.
JKW: We’d just gotten some pot from his brother,
who lived on Lancaster at the time.
We were followed there, and Mark
made a U-turn in the State Police , uh, complex
when it was there on Airport Road
and State Street…
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: …and, at that particular time, it was
raining, and I had just crushed my hand, um,
on…after working on my truck, and
we got busted for pot.
RH: Did you introduce Frank and Mark?
JKW: Um…yes, I believe I did.
RH: Ok. Yeah, you describe in
here being followed by some police.
Mark made a
U-turn, got busted.
JKW: That’s in there?
RH: Yeah.
JKW: Oh.
Hmm.
RH: You said, ‘After that, I hadn’t seen him
for about a year or so, and then I saw him
again at the AM PM.’
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
6
JKW: Well, ‘cause Mark got busted in Senora,
California, for supposedly bringing up
33 pounds of pot, and my
observations of 33 pounds of pot’s a federal offence.
Well, Mark didn’t do any federal
time at that time. So…
RH: 33 pounds is a pretty good amount.
JKW: Of skunk bud? Yeah.
RH: Hmm.
JKW: This is the kind of pot that you could have
an ounce inside of a house, anywhere
inside of a house, and walk in the
house and smell it.
RH: Hmm.
Ok, then, uh, Mark met you over at Russ’s house after you had bumped
into
each other, I guess, at the AM PM.
JKW: Actually, what happened was, I pulled into
the AM PM there on Portland Road
right by where the new State Police
Headquarters is, and as I was leaving, Mark
said , ’’Ey,’ and I said, ’Hey,’
and I told Russ, I said, ’Hey, man, uh, I’m gonna
meet you back at the
apartment. I’m gonna go take care of
some business.’ And
that’s when I got hooked up with
Mark gettin’ large amounts of crank, instead of
having to go to Portland, which is
where I was getting it. Now, I’d just
go
basically across the street and get
it. Kept all my traffic in town instead
of having
to go once a week to Portland,
which was a long drive, and, you know, I mean, if
you know where Corvallis is, and
Albany, and Salem, and, um, Vernonia, which is
ou…up…up towards, uh, Astoria…
RH: Yeah.
JKW: …that’s a lot of driving in a
week. And I pretty much cut my Portland
connection
off, and started dealing with Mark,
and that’s, uh…huh…when all my troubles
began again.
RH: Ok.
And it’s right here that, uh…
JKW: Mark dropped me off over there, because
that’s where my car was at.
RH: Yeah.
’Mark ran me over Russ’s house to drop a…drop a car off, and Frank came
out, and that’s how I introduced
Frank and Mark.’
JKW: Mhmm.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
7
RH: And it was just like one of those things;
‘Hi, this is Mark, this is Frank, you know.’
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: ‘We’re taking off.’ And then the question, ok. ‘So during this five or six period…
six year period that you have known
Mr. Gesner, is that kind of the nature of the
relationship you’ve had with him
over those years?’ ‘Yes.’ Ok.
And then you
anticipated a question. ’And at one point did you introduce
them--Mr. Gesner to
Mr. Gable?’ ’Yes, I did.’ So I guess the question there that you anticipated is if
you introduced Frank and Mark.
JKW: Correct.
RH: Ok.
Did you know that question was gonna be asked?
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: And, uh, how did you know that? Uh, just describe the background of that.
JKW: Um…before I testified in court, I was
downstairs with…uh…Tom Bostwick and
Sara Moore, and we were talking
about the type of questions that would be
asked…um…and…uh…the responses; not
the responses that I should give, but the
responses that I would…um…be…uh…not
required to answer, but, th…th…th…
the answers that I were
[sic] to give were to be consistent with…the…results of
the polygraph and the, uh,
subsequent…State Police…questions.
RH: Ok.
We discussed a little bit before, the last time we talked, uh, the
polygraphs. I
think you said you had three
polygraphs? Is that right?
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: Um…
JKW: The first one, I told…I told the truth,
and Fox, I guess his name is, he left and said,
‘Ok, just a minute,’ and he
came…left out, he left the room; about five minutes
later, came back in, and said,
‘Well, Mr. Walker, I don’t believe you’ve been truth-
ful with me.’ It’s like, I’m going, ‘Man, I’ve totally
told you all the truth that I
know.’ And that’s when he made statements like, ‘Well, you don’t seem to
see…
realize how serious this is and,
um, if you don’t start cooperating, uh, you’re
going to be standing on the curb
with Frank.’ Er…n…’Get on the bus now;
or
stand on the curb with Frank, and
you can go down with him,’ and it was not
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
8
stated as such, but it was implied
to me, or understood by me, that that statement
meant that they were going to
charge me with an accomplice after the fact,
accessory after the fact, namely
because they told me the entire thing even started
when they came to my house in
Corvallis and said that, ’Frank said he was with
you the night of the
murder.’ It’s like, huh, ’Bullshit!’ Sorry, I don’t mean to put
that on tape, but it’s like, ‘No
way!’ I know where I was…I
don’t know where I
was at the night of the murder, but
I do know that I wasn’t committing any murder
and I wasn’t helping anybody
commit any murder. I mean, uh, you can
ask Frank
this, or you can ask anybody else
who’s been…wired out on crank for days and
days at a time, that,
um…huh…it…i…i…it’s called a ‘tweaker’s day’.
‘I’ll be over
there tomorrow,’ or, ‘I’ll be over
there the next day.’ Well, is that a
tweaker’s day,
or is that a real day? Well, a tweaker’s day might be four or five
days later, you
know what I me…all, one d…one day
is one day.
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: If you don’t sleep, it’s all one day. Um…so that was how I got involved in this
entire case.
RH: Who was it that first approached you, in
Corvallis?
JKW: Um, it was, I believe, Dean Perske, and at
the time, I wasn’t home, and Dean left
a…a…business card with my brother,
Kelly, stating that, ’Well, we’re here
investigating the Francke murder
and what Ke…er, what Mr. Walker’s involve-
ment is in it and we’d appreciate
it if you’d give him…have him give me a call at
this 800 number at the State Police
headquarters in Salem.’ Well, I got
home
and, needless to say, I was on the
phone in about two seconds. Um, you
know, I
didn’t know anything about it, and
here I’m being questioned about it?
RH: Ok.
So, the police approached you with the, uh…uh, suggestion by them that
Frank had told them that he was
with you…
JKW: Allegedly told them, yeah. I found out that the police went around
telling every-
body that Frank said that
they were with him that night.
RH: Hmm.
JKW: And from my understanding, through Frank, is
that…he didn’t know where he was
at, at…at the particular time that
this happened. So he was, you know,
the…the
cops might have just been sayin,
‘Well, Frank said this…,’ and it’s like, ‘Well,
what’s your…what’s your reaction
going to be to this?’
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
9
RH: Your reaction was, as you said,
‘Bullshit,’ because you didn’t have anything to do
with it.
JKW: I didn’t have anything to do with the
murder.
RH: Ok.
JKW: There are three things I will never do, and
that’s rape, robbery or murder.
Guaranteed I will never do.
RH: Yeah.
The…the implication, though, is that, um…they’re saying, ‘Frank said
he’s
with you,’ and therefore
you’re…you may be guilty as an accomplice…
JKW: Correct.
RH: …where actually…
JKW: Whereas Frank’s testimony would be against me! I didn’t know, I mean, we were
all strung out on crank. I didn’t know what the hell was going
on.
RH: But if Frank actually was with you,
it means that Frank was not involved in the
murder.
JKW: Correct, because I wasn’t involved in
the murder.
RH: But they approached it in a way,
apparently, as I’m reading it, approached it in a
way that, uh, would get a reaction
from you of, ’Bullshit, because I had nothing to
do with the murder, therefore I
must not…’
JKW: Correct.
RH: ’…therefore, I wasn’t with him.’
JKW: Mhmm.
Yeah, that’s exactly right.
That’s a very good way of putting it.
RH: Hmm.
Ok. We’re straying away a little
bit from, uh, the, uh, transcript, but that’s
fine. Co…continue and explain a little bit about additional contacts
with the police
or with, uh…uh, the prosecutors.
JKW: Well, oh, I didn’t have any con…c…contacts
with the prosecutors until after I was,
uh, except for the…the grand jury
indictment. [snaps fingers, aside to
dog] Go
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
10
’way. Um, my next con…or my contact…initial contact with Dean Perske
was…
not, because he wasn’t there
at the office. It ended up where we
got…got in touch
with each other, and he said,
’Well, can you come in and talk to me?’ and I said,
‘Well, y…I suppose,’ and he said,
‘Well, I know you have, um, several outstanding
warrants for your arrest.’ One of ‘em was for burglary in the first
degree, one of
‘em was for menacing, and one of
‘em was for failure to appear on, uh, sentencing
for possession of a controlled
substance, to wit--methamphetamines.
Um, at that
time I said, ‘Well, I know I have these
things ta…you know, but I’m trying to get
‘em taken care of.’ I knew I failed to appear on the sentencing
for the crank
charge, but my mom had a heart
attack at the time. She went…underwent
triple
bypass surgery, she was in
intensive care for two weeks, um, she was in th…the
hospital for an en…an entire stay
of over a month. At that time, I was
staying
home, taking care of my mom; going
to the store, picking up her insulin, her
insulin needles, her medications,
cooking food for her, being basically a live-in
nurse for my mom. So I had a few more important things to do
than go for
sentencing, which I knew I
was gonna get probation for anyway.
Since it was
already plea-bargained out, they’re
not gonna charge me with anything else except
failure to appear. Well, um…I went in and talked to Dean. I s…I said, ‘Well,
Dean, if I…if…’--at the time, it
was Mr. Perske…Officer Perske. I sa…’If…
if I have your word that you will
not arrest me, I’ll come in and talk to you,’ and
he goes, ‘You have my word.’ I said, ‘Ok, I’m gonna hold you to it,’ and
he goes
‘Ok.’ And I’ll tell you what, through this entire case Dean
Perske never once lied
to me. He never once, um, led me astray, he never once did
anything other to…
other than to…proceed with the
investigation at his end. I went and
talked t…
talked to him. The entire…the entire primary, uh, interview
probably lasted
forty-five minutes or an hour. Um, he said, ‘You’re free to go, but I would
li…I
would like to remind you that you
need to get these things taken care of,’ and I
said , ‘I will.’ And all the way out the door, man,
I’m thinking’, ‘He’s gonna slap
those ‘cuffs on me,’ and he never
did. And throughout this entire
investigation,
he’s the only person that I would
willingly talk to. In fact, I called
him after I was
assaulted. I had him called, and sa…and he wasn’t even
on the case anymore, but
he came down and talked to me. And I…have a great deal of respect for that
man.
Whether he may have screwed
somebody over, or not, he never screwed me over.
RH: [inaudible]
JKW: Bill Pierce, on the other hand…he did
nothing but lie and connive, and cheat, ‘n’
steal ‘n’ rob ‘n’ everything he
could of…nah, he didn’t steal ‘n’ cheat ‘n’ rob, I’m
sure of that, but…huh…he did
everything he could to get me arrested and confined
where, uh, my uh, my access
was…readily available to the State Police.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
11
RH: Go ahead and talk about that. At…at some point, apparently Bill Pierce
took over
from Dean Perske?
JKW: Yeah, ‘cause Dean Perske was off the
case. He was only on…on it for a
certain
amount of time. And then, I was sittin’ at home one night,
and got a phone call,
and said, ‘Hello, is, uh, John Walker there?’ and as
soon as they asked for John
Walker, I knew it wasn’t a
friend. Nobody asks for me by ’John’
except the law,
or an attorney, or somebody
collecting money or something. So, I
said, ’Well, let
me check. Oh, ok.’ An’ I mean, I
held it so he could hear it, and it was like, ‘Is
Kevin here? Oh, ok, he left a
little while ago. Ok, he’ll be
back…ok. Uh, no, he’s
not here,’ and he goes, ’Heh, heh,
heh, I didn’t think so. Ok, if
you’ll just tell him
Officer’, you know, ’Pierce called,
uh, I’d appreciate it, and blah, blah, blah,’ and
I went, ’Ok, I’ll do that,’
and…prob’ly..hour…maybe two hours later, um, the…
cops came and arrested me, at the
house.
RH: Hmm.
JKW: And it was like at 11:00 at night, or 10:30,
somewhere around there, at night,
an’ soon as I heard the knock on
the door, I knew it was cops. I took my
pit bull
out back, let him out in the back
yard, and there was two cops commin’ up behind
the fence, and I didn’t know who
they were, I didn’t…they had flashlights.
That’s
all I saw. I didn’t know they were cops at the
time. And he goes, th…the lady
said, uh, ’Mr. Walker?’ I said, ’Who is that?’ and she goes, ’Mr.
Walker?’ and I
said, ‘Who wants to know?’ and she
goes, ‘Are you Mr. Walker?’ I said,
’If you don’t tell me who you are,
I’m gonna turn this dog loose,’ and she goes,
’Well, we’re the police, and we
wanna know if you’re John Kevin Walker,’ and I
said, ’Well, yes I am.’ ’Well, we’ll…we’re…we’re here to arre…’…um
they
didn’t say that, ’We’re here to
arrest you,’ but, um, they said, ’Would you please
put the dog up?’ and I took the dog
inside the house, and at the time I got inside
the house, the other two officers
were in the house, ’cause my mom let ’em in,
and…um…at that time, uh, I was
placed under arrest, and from then on out, and it
was February 6th, I
believe, because it was snowing outside, and from that time
forward , um…I was
incarcerated. I was not…I was not
released. Even though
the charges that were brought
against me were not so severe that I could not have
been released. I mean, a menacing charge is…is not that big
of a deal. A burglary
one, um, was a residence of my
ex-girlfriend’s house, who, all I was doing was
getting my stuff out of the
house, and she called the cops, and by the time the cops
got there, I was gone, but because
she told me to leave, technically, by law, I had
to leave, otherwise I was
committing burglary. And the possession
of a controlled
substance, that I had already
plea-bargained on, was, uh, just awaiting sentencing.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
12
RH: How long were you incarcerated, then?
JKW: Um, well from February 6th, until…February
6th, 19...90 until…October 31st, 1991.
RH: Ok.
So that’s, um…
JKW: Well, no, let me see…it was,
uh…1990...’91. Ok, it was ni…February 6th,
1990
to October 31st, 1990,
and I was released…on parole…to California, even though,
at the time, the State law required
I be returned back to the county of or…origin.
The county that the crime occurred
in was Benton County for the initial charge of
menacing, and at that time, the
State law required that I be returned back to that
county, and they tried to release
me back onto Tony Starr’s doorstep, in Eugene,
which, needless to say, uh,
bothered me greatly, and, um…I said, ’Well, no,’ and
then I ended up in California,
maintaining weekly contact with the Distr…District
Attorney’s office, actually, Jerry
Frazier, and, um…that’s it.
RH: Mkay.
Let’s go back to the, uh, transcript, and continue on through that. Um…
let’s see; you’re recalling here in
your testimony about, uh, Frank and Mark.
You
introduced them…
JKW: [inaudible]
RH: …you’d gone over there t…to drop your car
off, apparently.
JKW: Yeah, well, th…in there, there also says
that, um, I…sold…Mark and I went and
sold a quarter-pound of crank to
Robert Cornett and Chris Warilla, um, in the alley
behind the Coca Cola plant, and at
the time, I stated that Frank Gable was there in
the house, and, Frank wasn’t
in the house. Frank was…I don’t even know
where
the hell Frank was at the time
tha…tha…that drug transaction took place.
RH: Ok, is that a d…um, that something that
you testified to in here, that’s uh, is that a
specific date that you recalled,
or…
JKW: Um, actually I don’t know if that was
actually testified to in the, uh, in court, in
open court, but I do know that that
is in my, um, supposedly accurate, uh,
investigation.
RH: Ok.
So during that drug deal you said that Frank was in the house, but he
was not
in the house? Is that right?
JKW: Ah, nah…I don’t know where the heck he was
at.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
13
RH: What’s the significance of that, and
why…did someone want you to say he was in
the house, or…?
JKW: Well, because…well because we were talking
about how, um, I’ve seen Frank
slam a sixteenth, you know, shoot;
intravenously shoot, uh, a sixteenth of crank
at a time, and it was at the particular
time that Mark and I sold Chris and Robert,
um, a quarter-pound of crank. Well…I believe…a person could, if
they had a
needle big enough, inject
themselves with a sixteenth of an ounce of crank, if
they’d been up on an extended…an
extended high. In other words, like,
three…
four…five…six…seven…eight…nine….ten
days with no sleep at all, your body
requires that drug to maintain
its…suppressed level of awakeness. Um,
if you
co…if you could fit a sixteenth
into a standard U-100...that would be awful thick
syrup. That would be awful thick, and, um, he would have to have been up
for
days before that kind of
drug would not have killed ’im…that amount of drug. A
sixteenth, i…i…if you were to shoot
a half a gram…if you or I, right now, were
to shoot half a gram of crank, we’d
O.D. We would go into ventricular
fibrillation
and we’d die, and, um, so the
significance of w…w…what I just told you is the
fact that I told them that Frank…I
sho…I saw Frank shoot up a sixteenth of a…
of a, uh, ounce of crank. Now, I used to sell dope, and I used to do
an awful lot
of it, and…to the best of my…experience,
a person could not survive a sixteenth
of an ounce of methamphetamines
injected into them.
RH: So…why…then what was the situation in
which you told them that you had seen
Frank do the sixteenth?
JKW: [aside to dog] That’s ‘nough! At the particular time I told ‘em this, I
was
fillin’ ‘em so full o’ shit that
you’d have to change the diaper every five minutes.
Um, they got me…they changed…they
made me change…n…they didn’t make
me…ok, I don’t want to say
that. They didn’t make me change
my initial testi-
mony for the lie detector
test. What they did was, they
structured it so that…if
I did not answer the
questions that were asked me…to the best of my ability,
whether that be lying… [end of tape]
RH: …turned the tape over, and we’ll continue
where we left off.
JKW: …they were gonna charge me with accessory
after the fact. I’d never been inver…
involved in a murder
investigation. I didn’t know what the
heck was goin’ on.
The most I’d ever been involved
with up at that time…up until that point, was…
granted, it was a Class A
felony, but it was a burglary. And all
the burglaries I
ever did, I commi…I confessed
to. We never went to trial over ‘em.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
14
RH: So you were in a position that, if someone
wanted to intimidate you with, uh, what
could be done to you, and…
JKW: Oh, I was in a position to be
intimidated. We’re looking’ at…we’re
looking’ at a
murder of a State Corrections
officer, the largest invest…the largest, most
important murder in Oregon’s
history, as far as, um, as far as single people go.
We’re not talkin’ about, um, you
know, rapes and murders and stuff like that, but
we’re talkin’ about a cop,
or a State Prison official, or anything along those lines
that holds an immense amount of
power, um, yeah, I was definitely in a position to
be intimidated.
RH: At the…
JKW: And I was intimidated.
RH: At the point that the police involved you
in the investigation, Frank was already the
suspect…
JKW: He was a suspect, yes. Actually, I believe he…at…at…at that
time, he was the
primary suspect. Overlooking the fact that Johnnie Crouse
commi…confessed to
the, uh, murder.
RH: Ok.
So aside from Johnnie Crouse, Frank, at that time, was the suspect, or
the
primary suspect.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: Now, incidentally, on a tangent; do you
know Johnnie Crouse?
JKW: If he were to walk down the driveway right
now, I probably would recognize his
face and not be able to place a
name with it.
RH: Hmm.
Ok.
JKW: A lot to times, when you’re dealing dope,
you meet a lot of people, and you see a
face, and you can recognize a
face. I can always place where I’ve
seen a face, but
I might not be able to place a
name.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
15
RH: Ok.
Um…since Frank was already a suspect when you were contacted, obviously,
their inquiry towards you was, uh…
JKW: Frank-oriented, yes.
RH: Yeah, Frank-oriented. Um, and you’ve said that you felt
intimidated…by them, by
the possibility that they could do
something to you.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: What I read from that, and I don’t want to
put words in your mouth, but, uh, the
implication is that, uh, you, then,
wanted to say things that, uh…
JKW: To get my ass out of the fire, basically.
RH: Mkay…which would lead you, possibly, to
say things to please them.
JKW: No, not ‘possibly’ at all. It would le…it led me to say things
that were untrue
about Frank, about Frank’s and my
relationship, about the relationship that I know
Frank had with other people. Um, all I was tryin’ to do was save my own
butt.
RH: Ok, and those things, then, that, uh, you
said that weren’t true, we’ll continue
through the transcript, and I
imagine we’ll bump into those things.
Are there
any that are sticking out in your
mind right now that you want to talk about?
JKW: Um…oh, the .357 Magnum. Um, I don’t recall ever selling Frank Gable
a .357
Magnum. Um, the .357
Magnum that is in question, I sold to somebody else
totally different. Um, Frank never pointed a gun at me,
he never, excuse me,
he never threatened me with
a gun, he never put a knife to my throat, he never did
anything to threaten my
well-being, or my family’s well-being.
The only time I
ever heard him p…pointing a gun at anybody,
it was second-hand, and that was
the fact that he supposedly
pointed a gut at Paul Farm.
RH: But you didn’t witness that, or you…?
JKW: No, I didn’t witness it. That’s second-hand. That’s…for all I know, that’s as big
a lie as I’ve told in this
entire…the entire case that took place.
Not what I’m
telling you now, but what I
told the police and the courts before.
RH: Yeah.
Ok. Let’s g…
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
16
JKW: Oh, there were all sorts of cheers and pats
on the back when I was done testifying.
’Oh, you were the most credible
witness we had,’ ah…blah, blah, blah.
’You did
a really good job, Kevin.’ By this time, the State cops were calling me
’Kevin’,
not , ’Mr. Walker’, or, ’John’.
RH: Hmm.
Ok, let’s, uh, go back to the transcript and continue on with the
points, uh,
point by point here. Um, you said you were still associating with
Frank in late ’88
and early ’89.
JKW: Yeah, because I was working at ABC Printing
at the time, and I would front dope
from Frank, or I would front dope to Frank, and
um, if I…if he ever fronted me
dope, um, he would be at my work
trying to collect the money because he was
being pressured, and um, that’s…pretty
much…I met him a couple o’ times when
I picked him up when he was walkin’
down the road on…on, uh North River Road
one time, and he tried to get me to
go, uh, rob a house that didn’t have anybody
living in it, but was growing pot,
on Capitol Street. Well, I didn’t
really want to do
it because I didn’t trust the
situation, and, lo and behold, that house got busted, so,
which also led me to believe that
Frank is the one who ratted on me and Mark.
Now, whether he did, or whether he
didn’t, that’s all in the past, and I really don’t
care one way or the other if he did
or didn’t.
RH: Hmm.
Ok.
JKW: I’m just gland all that crap’s behind me.
RH: Let’s see. I’m on page 8160 of the transcript, and , uh, you’re talking here
about,
uh, you’ve seen Frank inject met
amphetamine, and, uh, you discuss the, uh, the
sixteenth.
JKW: Mkay, I have never physically, with my
own eyes, seen Frank inject crank.
I know
he did it, ’cause I know he
had the outfits to do it with. But I
have never
personally seen Frank inject
methamphetamines.
RH: Ok, well, that is in direct contradiction
to what’s in the transcript here. It
says, ’I
have seen him inject it…I have
never seen him do it any other way.’
Um, but you
have…you’ve actually never seen him
inject it?
JKW: No, and the reason I said that was to paint
Frank as being a worse character than
he really is.
RH: Mkay.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
17
JKW: That’s the whole idea behind, huh, this
in…behind Mark Gesner’s and Michael
Keerins’, um, investigation. Both of those guys, Michael Owen
Keerins, and
Mark McLain Gesner, both
told me they lied. Both of them flat
out told me
they lied.
RH: After the trial they told you that, or
after their testimony, you mean?
JKW: Um…
RH: What…what…what time?
JKW: No, uh, before the trial, Michael Keerins
told me--this is when I was in Marion
County Jail with him. He told me, ’Yeah, oh, that’s a bunch o’
bullshit, you know,
I don’t think he really did it, and
blah, blah, blah. Oh, I’m just tryin’
to get myself
some easy treatment. You know, they brought me over from Idaho
State
Penitentiary, and blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah.’ Well, Mark, after the
fact, after…
huhm…don’t ask me how he ever found
out where I worked, but he called up one
day and s…at my work, and said, ‘I
wanna get some printing done,’ and I said,
’Well, uh, this is the way we can
do it,’ and he said, ’Kevin?’, you know, which
leads me to believe either he found
out that I worked there--it wasn’t a fluke
chance, I don’t think--but, anyway,
after him and I got hooked up again, um,
which, believe me, uh, we’re not
hooked up now--it just happened to be for a
printing thing--um…t…he told
me he lied.
RH: Hmm.
JKW: He was expectin’ to get better treatment and
get time off…of his sentence, ’cause
at the time, he was doing federal
time.
RH: At the time o’ your testimony, you were no
longer incarcerated, is that correct?
JKW: Correct.
I’d be…I’d been…
RH: So…
JKW: …brought up from California.
RH: Was there anything hanging over your head
at that point?
JKW: Um, parole, and probation.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
18
RH: Were you threatened with any o’ that?
JKW: No, but by the same token, if…if I
were to go in there, into court, and say, ’Well, I
refuse to answer on the grounds
that it may incriminate me,’ or ’I just don’t feel
like it,’ well, um, how hard is it
for a district attorney to tell a P.O., say, ’Hey,
man, yank this dude.’
He doesn’t need any reason to yank me; because I m…I
miss an appointment for a report,
or, um, I have a dirty U.A., or, someone says
they saw me doing something that I
didn’t do…um, I have lost a tremendous
amount of respect for law
enforcement after this trial. I mean,
cops have a job to
do, and there are some good cops,
but I, in my own personal opinion, I believe that
most cops are pigs, and are out to
make a bust and pin it on somebody, whether,
um, it’s valid or not. If they’ve got a primary suspect and it
seems like a lot of
evidence is pointing that way, then
they’ll make the evidence fit.
So, no, I was
never threatened with revocation or
anything like that, but by the same token, I’d
already been assaulted once; had my
orbital--my left orbital--fractured, and my
zygoma--which is my
cheekbone--fractured in two places, um, I’d been in the
paper numerous times, um,
with false quotes by Steven Jackson, and, all I needed
to do was go back to the
penitentiary, and, hmh, you know, I might as well just
slice my own throat.
RH: Ok.
JKW: So, no, I did not want to go back,
and, yes, I wanted to lie, and cheat, and steal,
and do anything I could to keep
from goin’ back.
RH: Ok.
Um, you discuss in here what a…a sixteenth is, and the significance, and
things like that. I think you’ve pretty well covered that point. Um, describe for
the jury, uh, building up a
tolerance to drugs, um…ok, ‘Have you ever observed,
in late ‘88 or early ‘89, did you
ever personally observe Mr. Gable carry any
knives?’ ‘Yes.’
JKW: Well, Frank always carried knives.
RH: Mkay.
JKW: Just like some people carry guns. I always carried a .357 s…short barrel
pistol
with me. Or my .45.
RH: Ok.
‘The majority of knives I ever saw Frank Gable with were butterfly
knives.’
JKW: Mhmm.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
19
RH: Ok, and that’s…?
JKW: Just a standard knife. I mean, you could go down to any…any…any knife
store
and buy a butterfly knife.
RH: Ok.
So that part is true. And, uh…
JKW: Sorry.
[laughs]
RH: Hey, you don’t have to be sorry for the
truth.
JKW: No.
RH: [laughs]
JKW: I know.
[laughs]
RH: [laughs]
Ok. Um, ‘January, ‘89, were you
still seeing Mr. Gable?’ ‘Yes.’
‘…nature of your relationship?’ ‘Selling dope.’ Um…’and would Mr. Gable
get some of the dope he used from
you?’ ‘Yes. I believe he was pretty much
cutting off of me, because, being
out and about , it puts you in touch with other
people.’
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: ‘It’s called, “chasing the bag.”’
JKW: If I…if I’m…
RH: Ok.
[inaudible]
JKW: …b…if I’m buying…let’s just say, for
instance, hypothetically, I’m buying dope
from you, and I’m over at your
house all the time, and your supplier is coming to
you, well, sooner or later, I’m
going to either be introduced to your dealer, or I’m
going to become familiar enough
with him that I can just start up a conversation,
and not feel intimidated by the
fact that he is your supplier…
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: …and say, ‘Well,’ you know, ‘if, uh,’ you
know, ‘is i…is it cool if I give you a
call?’, ‘Well, no, I’d rather you’d go through my…through my guy here,’
or,
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
20
‘Well, yeah, that’s fine with me; I
don’t care.’ Y…y…you’re going to
get
involved with other people dealing
dope.
RH: Mkay.
And that was the case with Frank at that point; by early ‘89 he had met
other people for his supply, or…
JKW: Well, yeah, plus he was getting in contact
with his…with old, uh, penitentiary
buddies, and, I mean…you
know…just…when you’re not working, you have a
tendency to have a lot of free time
on your hands.
RH: Mkay.
All right. Next you discuss, uh,
your job with, uh, Cub Quick Printing…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …and, uh, your schedule there…the job
duties…
JKW: If you asked me today what time I started, I
could tell ya’ I think I started at 8:00
or 8:30. If you asked me what time I got off, I think I got off at
5:00 or 5:30. I
have no idea at this
point. That’s like…h…it was years
ago. It’s not something
that I choose to focus on.
RH: Mhmm.
Did you remember at the time of the trial?
JKW: What time I got off, or what time I didn’t? No.
RH: Yeah.
JKW: They’d just tell me that I had a phone call
from Frank at…what…5:22 or 4:28 or
some’n like that, and, um, said,
’You must have talked to him,’ but the entire
conversation lasted only a
minute? Well, if I dial up your…if I
dial up your
house, and you say, ’Hello?’ and I
say, ’Is Roger there?’…’Uh, no he’s not,’…
’Ok, thanks, tell him Kevin called,
bye,’ you’re registered on the phone bill as
one minute.
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: Even if you dial the wrong number,
it’s still a one minute charge.
RH: Ok.
So even at this time when they told you that you had telephone
conversations,
uh, with Frank’s phone number, on
that date, January the 17th…
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
21
JKW: I could have had conversations with God
for all I know. I don’t know. I mean…
phone rings, I answer it.
RH: Ok.
JKW: If I’m too busy, I don’t answer it.
RH: And at that point in your job, you were
able to make long distance calls and then
you just paid the employer back at
the end of the month.
JKW: Yeah.
I always paid Gordon back.
RH: Mkay.
Ok. So it wasn’t unusual that
you did have long distance calls, um…
JKW: Placed or received. No, it was not…
RH: Ok…
JKW: …unusual.
RH: Ok.
We come to the, uh, date of your brother’s birthday, January 17th.
JKW: Oh, a key factor, huh?
RH: Yeah, talk about that a little bit.
JKW: Well, the fact that I told the State Police
that I was at my brother’s birthday party
on January 17th, 1989,
uh, the time of…Mr. Francke’s murder, um, at that time, my
brother, Mickey, lived in Colorado. He’d already lived there for six months, or
so.
And if State Police bothered to
check alibis, they would have found out that I was
not at any birthday party because
they would have found out Mickey was in
Cor…in Colorado, at the time. Um, I think that’s a…just a…just a minor
point in
my testimony, ya’ know?
RH: Ok, [laughs] you’re being sarcastic here.
JKW: I’m being really sarcastic,
Roger. I’m sorry, but this whole case
has just…just
pissed me off. I…I have t…I have to tell this
because…I feel like I’m totally
responsible for putting Frank Gable
in prison. Whether I’m…whether I am or
whether I’m not, um, whether it’s a
drawback or whether it’s not a drawback, I
was th…as far as the ’drug crowd’
that they had testify, or investigated, I’m the
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
22
most articulate, the most
well-educated, um the smartest of ’em, but, I feel bad
about sayin’ that about Frank,
because none of it was true. Now,
whatever Frank
did to me, you know, as far as
owing me money for dope that I fronted to him, or,
um, allegedly, imaginatively
being responsible for the bust at 714 Pine Street, all
that stuff aside, doesn’t
deserve a murder conviction. And I
told the cops, I said,
’Well, whether he was g…whether
he…whether he busted me or not, um, I don’t
care, I would just rather put his
name on the street; “Frank’s a rat.”
Let the street
take care of him. Forget the cops. The only thing cops can do is put him in jail.’
But I feel bad, I feel totally
responsible for Frank being in prison.
[dog barks in
background]
RH: Ok.
Car’s coming down the driveway.
Shall we turn the recorder off and…is this
somebody you need to talk to, or…?
JKW: Oh, this is Ken, my roommate.
RH: Oh, ok.
[sound of vehicle approaching in background]
JKW: But, yeah, I’d…probably…but…oh…we can go
ahead with this a little bit.
RH: Ok.. Just the point here where you said,
uh, ’Frank called u…called me up earlier
in the day, and I returned his
call’…
JKW: [inaudible]
If you’d excuse me real quick…I’d just rather if we…when we start
talking about this more after
Fra…after Ken goes in the house, I’d rather move up,
so Ken doesn’t…
RH: [inaudible]
JKW: Ken’s not…
RH: [inaudible]
JKW: Hardly any of my friends are aware of what
happened.
RH: Alright.
JKW: They just, um, are aware that I was involved
in a case.
RH: Oh.
I’ll turn the recorder off now for a minute.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker inteview
August
6, 1993
Page
23
JKW:
Ok. Well, it’s a good time to go to the
bathroom, then. [tape turned off]
RH: Alright, the re…recorder’s back on, we
just took a, uh, bathroom break, and, uh,
we were talking about, uh, page
8165. Um, ’Frank called, wanted to know
if I was
comin’ into town that night. I said, “Yes, it’s gonna be a little…not
gonna be until
later”…wanted me to come earlier,
but,’ uh, let’s see, ’wanted m…wanted to have
me come in early, I told him, I
said, “I can’t; I have a prior engagement tonight. I
won’t be in until 8:00 or
9:00.”’ Could…do you…
JKW: This is a lie.
RH: …recall that? Is that…that’s a…
JKW: That was…that was to cover my lie to the,
um, effect of stating that I was at my
brother’s birthday party.
RH: Ok.
And the brother who actually had a birthday on January 17th,
is that right…?
JKW: Michael Lewis [phonetic] Walker…
RH: …is Mic…
JKW: …my brother…
RH: …Mickey, ok.
JKW: …Mickey.
RH: And he had moved to Colorado previously,
so the…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …whole birthday party thing just…it wasn’t
just that you weren’t there; it didn’t
exist in…
JKW: Hm-m.
[negative response]
RH: …Oregon, at least.
JKW: Sure di’n’t.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
24
RH: Ok.
Um…
JKW: Another thing I…they…the police, uh…consistently,
every single time I would
say, ‘No, n…not to the best of my
knowledge’…oh, oh boy, don’t ever say that to
a cop…’to the best of my knowledge’. They don’t like that.
RH: Why is that?
JKW: Because, by that statement, you’re obviously
covering something up, or you’re
telling the truth, and since they
weren’t interested in the truth,
they were interested
in…in wanting to know what it was I
covered up. ’What?’ ’To the best of my
knowledge, the Man i…on the Moon
does exist.’
RH: [laughs]
JKW: I mean, I don’t know. I’ve never been to the moon to talk to
him. [inaudible]
RH: Mkay.
Uh, page 8166 at the bottom, it says, ’Did you, in fact, go to Salem the
night of January 17th…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: 1989...[inaudible]?
JKW: I went to Salem every night.
RH: Ok, and you delivered drugs to your
contacts on…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …that date. Mkay.
JKW: There were four main people that I stopped
at…a…all the time, and it was a
circular route. I’d go down I5, jump off I5, hit Waller
Street, go from Waller to,
uh, State Street, go from State
Street to Hyacinth, go from Hyacinth, to, uh,
Independence, and from
Independence, go home.
RH: Mkay.
JKW: Every single night.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
25
RH: Alright, uh, the details here, ‘What, if
anything, do you recall about the night…
that night, January 17th,
‘89, when you were in Salem?’ Your
response is, ’I left
a friend’s house over on Waller
Street. As I was leaving, I had my
scanner,’ and
you had a Base Scanner in your car…
JKW: I had a Realistic Base Scanner, and a
Bearcat Scanner…
RH: Ok.
JKW: …with a police chip in it. Plus, I also had a hand-held 200-Channel
programmable police scanner.
RH: Ok.
‘As I was driving, I heard some stuff go down over by the State Hospital
grounds. I figured it was a riot, so I said, “Cool, I’ve never seen a
riot,” so I was
going to drive past. As I was driving down Center Street, there’s
the State
Hospital on this side of the
street, and there’s all the cop cars on that side of the
street, and that’s not the same
side of the street that the S…the Hospital’s on, so
something else is going on, so I
went over to Paul’s house on Hyacinth and
Portland…’
JKW: Farm.
RH: …Road.’
Ok, Paul Farm’s house.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: Ok.
Did you have any idea what was going on, now, when you saw that,
apparently, it wasn’t a riot at the
Hospital?
JKW: Hm-m.
[negative response]
RH: Didn’t know what it was?
JKW: Sure wasn’t. I didn’t know what it was, but, I mean, they kept switchin’ back,
‘tack one, tack two, please switch
channels, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’
Obviously
all that is on their tapes, on
their, uh, dispatch tapes, so…
RH: Ok.
The next part is, uh, you explain what a scanner is; that’s technical
stuff,
that…doesn’t matter so much to us.
JKW: It’s a one-way communication device,
basically.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
26
RH: Yeah.
Um…after you drove by the State Hospital that night, you went over to
Paul Farm’s house, and what did you
do at Paul’s house?
JKW: Plugged in my Bearcat Scanner, and brought
my Base Scanner up…
RH: Mkay.
JKW: …and listened to it. And at the time, Gerald Ross was there. Garald [exaggerated
for pronunciation]…I’m sorry, Garald
[exaggerated for pronunciation] Ross.
Spelled the same; G-e-r-a-l-d. And Paul Farm, Michelle [phonetic] Graham…I
believe that was it, other than myself, over at his house
that night, at that time.
Now, I don’t remember if it was
that night, or if it was the next night, or a couple
of nights after that, that Neil
[phonetic], a guy who lived across the way from
Paul, um, came in and said, ‘Oh,
yeah, man, I’…no, it had to have been…had to
have been the next night, or the
night after that, because he said that he…he was
drinking vodka, and he was
shit-faced, and he pulled his Volvo over on the side of
the road to get out and take a pee,
and when he got out to take a pee, uh, he lost
his car, and he tried to find it,
and went through these people’s back yards…now
I mean, how, when y…when you’re
totally drunk, it’s easy to step outside your
front door to take a pee, and loose
your house.
RH: [laughs]
JKW: I mean when you’re that drunk. And he said, well, he went through these
people’s
back yards, and as he was goin’
through the back yard, they…there was a dog
barkin’, and he took off runnin’
across the back yard, and he jumped over the
fence, and he fell down and, lo and
behold, there were five hundred cop cars. And
I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember
drivin’ past there and all that stuff was goin’ on.’
And that’s after that, and we all
knew that it was the murder that took place, or,
the ‘discovery of the body’,
I should say.
RH: Mhmm.
You say here, ‘I got over there’--this is Farm’s house…Paul Farm’s
house--’between 12:35, probably,
and 12:50, and left at, uh, probably about 3:00
or 3:30, and drove home.’
JKW: Mhmm, ‘cause I always made sure I got home
in time to take a shower, feed my
dog…get some kind of
rest, and…go to work.
RH: Ok.
The next question is, ‘Did you ever see Mr. Gable that night?’ Your answer
is, ‘Not that I recall.’ Do you recall any difference, now, or is
that correct?
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
27
JKW: Um, yeah, that was the night that, um…I was
over at Frank’s house…his apart-
ment…and in there, in his room, was
Robert Cornett, and I’d brought Mark
Gesner in, and, lo and
behold, I found out at the time that I brought Mark Gesner
in there, Robert Cornett had ripped
Mark Gesner off for eight hundred bucks,
and…at that time, I was going to
show Frank…a pistol…I don’t remember what it
was, it was my three-fifty-se…uh,
it was my .357. It was
a…h-u-u-h…made in
Brazil…a Llama? No…begins with a ‘D’, I think. It’s either a Llama or it begins
with a ‘D’. It was a .357 Magnum, um, with
a…police…deerskin holster, and…
I reached into my jacket to pull it
out, and…Robert Cornett was standing against
the far wall, against the bedroom
window, and as I reached into my jacket, Robert
reached into his jacket, to
pull out his .44, and Frank said, ‘No…no,’ [indicates
softly spoken] you know, it was
like, ‘It’s cool,’ you know, ‘don’t worry about it;
he’s not gonna pull a gun out
here,’ even though Robert knew he ripped Mark off,
and even though Mark…even
though I knew Mark knew that Robert ripped him
off, he was gonna reach in his
jacket, ‘cause he thought I…maybe…maybe Robert
thought that I was going to pull
the same scam on him right there and say, you
know, ‘Give me your money,’ or
whatever. And Robert wasn’t gonna stand
for
that. Well, if you knew Robert…huh…huh…he wouldn’t stand for his
mom
getting…havin’ lunch…lunch money
taken. He’s a schizophrenic,
paranoid dude.
That’s my own layman’s, uh,
diagnosis of him…huh…
RH: Hmm.
JKW: Um, and I showed Frank my .357, and he says,
‘Oh, cool,’ and blah, blah, blah,
and, um, that was pretty much the
extent of that, uh, incident.
RH: What time was that…any idea?
JKW: Oh, it had to have been after work and
before 11:00...
RH: Ok.
JKW: …because, um…let’s see…to tell you the
honest truth, I don’t know what time it
was. I know it was after I got off work, and I know it was before I
heard all the
stuff go down on the scanner.
RH: And you heard the stuff on the scanner…
JKW: Mmm…11:45...11:30...12:00, somewhere around
there.
RH: Yeah.
Close to midnight.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
28
JKW: Close to the time the body was discovered. ’Cause I had left…
RH: Ok…
JKW: …hmm…I do not know whose house it was I
left, but it was one of two people’s;
it was either the McCades’s
[phonetic], who live on the corner of 23rd…twenty…
24th?…23rd
and State, (they’re the owners of the Duck Inn) or Jimmy Flemming’s
house on Waller Street. It was one or the other two people’s houses,
’cause that
was the only two people hou…two
people’s house at that end of town that I ever
stopped at. [snaps fingers] Fog: No! That’s my dog.
RH: That’s um…so you know you were at one of
those houses prior to hearing the
scanner, um, so that makes the…
JKW: That means that I was at Frank’s house at…I
don’t know…6:30...7:00...7:30,
somewhere around there, left, went
to….um…my people’s houses over there in
that end of town, and then left…
RH: How l…
JKW: …and…
RH: …how long were you at Frank’s house, or
apartment, at that time…that night?
JKW: Mmm…minimum of a half-an-hour, but in the
apartment complex, more like,
probably an hour or an hour…or an
hour-and-a-half, because Frank’s apartment
was right next to, uh, Russ’s,
basically. Relatively speaking…
RH: Ok, this…
JKW: …it was the same.
RH: …this puts you…with Frank, somewhere,
probably, uh, within an hour or maybe
even at the time, but sometime
between, what…say…6:30 and 10:00, or…
JKW: [inaudible]
RH: …11:00 in the evening…
JKW: Mhmm.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
29
RH: …and the murder was somewhere between 6:30
and 7:00...
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …at least it…somewhere during the course
of that evening, you were at Frank’s
apartment, and Frank was there, as
were…
JKW: In [inaudible]’s house…
RH: …a couple of other people…
JKW: …along with Robert Cornett and Mark Gesner.
RH: Did you ever tell the police that?
JKW: No, I didn’t remember that. An’ all of a sudden, it just came to
me. I’m sittin’
there, I’m g…oh…and this is like aft…after the trial had
taken place, and stuff. I
mean, you know, when you’re going
through a trial like this, you have a tendency
to go over in your mind, you
know, what’s…where you were at, or where you
weren’t at.
RH: How do you tie that to be the same
evening, and how do you know that that, uh,
event was the same evening as
January 17th?
JKW: Well, let’s see, this is August 6th,
1993. I’d say, oh, I’ve prob’ly had two
years to
think about it, every single
night.
RH: Have you discussed it with, uh, uh, the
other people who were there at that time?
JKW: No.
RH: Ok.
JKW: I don’t know where Robert Cornett is, and…if
he was dead right now, it
wouldn’…really wouldn’t hurt my
feelings at all.
RH: Ok, and Mark Gesner, you said you don’t
have much contact with…
JKW: Mark Gesner is a flake.
RH: Who else was at the apartment? Was Janyne there?
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
30
JKW: Janyne was there. She’s always there.
[tape ends]
RH: I’m turning the, uh, recorder on
again. This is the second tape, first
side of tape
two. Um, again, this is Roger Harris with, uh, Kevin Walker, and we
were just
talkin’ about, uh, the events of,
uh, January 17th, 1989, and that evening. Ok,
let’s see, was there more that you
were able to say about the evening, now you
did see Frank that evening at his
apartment. Is there more that you can
say about
that? Pin down a time, or p…other people, or other things you did?
JKW: No, those ar…that’s the only…
RH: Ok.
JKW: I…I know that…I know that, uh, Frank and
Robert and Mark were all in the
apartment. I know we were in the bedroom. That’s where all the, uh, all ’deals’
took place. No deals took place in front of Jessica.
RH: Ok.
And you had a revolver that you were showin’ Frank.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: Mkay.
What did you ultimately do with that revolver?
JKW: I sold it to, uh Paul’s step-dad.
RH: Ok.
Um, the following day you were at work, January 18th. In your testimony you
say, ‘Frank called me, I think, a
couple times that day.’ Um, they asked,
‘What
was his attitude?’ ‘At the time, I just thought it was like a
real tweaked agitation,
“tweaked” meaning he had been up on
crank too long; you really need another fix,
and you’re so edgy and jittery and
just on edge.’ And you indicated to him
that
you were coming that night. Can you discuss that a little bit? Is that accurate? Is
that what you recall now, or…?
JKW: The only…the only reason that I said that he
prob’ly called me a couple of times
was because they said they had, uh,
records…you know, phone records. Ok, he
may have called me. I don’t know. And, far as being jittery and edgy, um…when
you’re…when you’re wired on…or on
an extended wire, and (that’s a term for
being high on crank) um…somebody
who may or may not be on crank, or may be
strung out on crank, or what may
sound jittery to you. I don’t
know; I was
working. I mean…
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
31
RH: Mkay.
JKW: I don’t know.
RH: They ask specifically, then, if you…saw
Frank the evening, the night of January
18th, and if you recall
that. You said, ‘yes,’ you did, at
Frank’s apartment, prob’ly
about 8:00 or 9:00, um, each house
is pretty much a general stop, and you’d stay
there a certain amount of
time. By the time you reach the other
end of town, it’s
pretty much a general time. So that’s apparently how you narrowed it
down to
8:00 or 9:00. And they ask what occurred at Frank’s
apartment that night. ‘Frank
opened the door, took me into the
bedroom, which is where all the dope deals and
stuff were done.’ Um…let’s see…I’m skipping, I’m on to page 8173. ‘Who-all
was in the bedroom?’, ‘Uh, just
myself,’ so, just you and Frank, I guess.
‘And
what happened when the two of you
got in the bedroom?’ ‘Frank asked me if
I’d
heard the news, and I said, “What
news?”’…
JKW: Lie.
RH: …’He s’…Ok, go ahead, just talk about
that.
JKW: Hm-m [negative response]…wasn’t…Frank never
asked me any questions about,
‘’D you hear the news?’ He never said, um, ‘Well, I did it…I did
Dude Man’, um,
he never talked about doin’ a job
on the Corrections Department, he never talked
about robbing, um, you know, trying
to get some computer discs, or a briefcase or
anything like this. Um, at the time, I know Frank was involved
in car burglaries
because, um, at the time,
um, I didn’t believe Frank was responsible for m…ripping
my mom’s car off, you know; the
stuff inside my mom’s car, but, later, I believed
he was responsible for it, because
too many things just were strange about it, and
then I later found out Kevin Dockin
[sic] was the one who ripped off the stuff out
of my mom’s car, to wit my, uh,
Hitachi boom box and my Sears and Roebuck
leather jacket. It was a biker jacket.
RH: Ok.
So where you s…testified that, uh, let’s see, ‘I said, “Yeah he got
shot, or
something,” and he said, (meaning
Frank) said, “Well, that’s not exactly what
happened, but it’s close
enough. I stuck him.”’
JKW: That’s a lie. Frank never said anything about that at all.
RH: He never said, ‘I stuck him’?
JKW: Hm-m [negative response].
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
32
RH: …never said anything about…
JKW: …never said a…never said, ‘Did you hear the
news?’ Look a…look a…l…if I
was gonna…if I killed somebody,
number one, why would I tell anybody that I
killed somebody? The only…good witness is a dead
witness. Dead men can’t
talk, ok? Why would I tell somebody, why…if I…if I killed somebody,
why
would I tell you I killed
‘em? Plus, if I didn’t kill that
person, why would I tell
you I killed that person? I mean, just think about it, I mean, tweaked
out, or not
tweaked out, strung out on dope, or
not strung out on dope, why would you tell
somebody you killed somebody if you
didn’t? And why would you tell
somebody
you killed somebody if you did? Now, granted, Frank and I were good friends
and
stuff, but, uh…huh…I don’t know any friend that’s a good
enough friend that I
would tell ‘em that I killed
somebody, if I did, or didn’t do it.
RH: Ok.
Was there any discussion of, uh, the Michael Francke murder at this
time?
JKW: You’re prob’ly not gonna like this either,
but, not to the best of my recollection.
It
was just some dude that ended up
getting’ killed. Prison official. Big deal…
people get killed every day of the
week.
RH: Hmm.
JKW: That’s the way I looked at it. I mean, somebody got killed. I feel sorry for his
family, and that’s a very
unfortunate incident, but, if I didn’t kill him and no one
I knew killed him, then it really
doesn’t affect me one way or the other.
RH: So how ‘bout this continuing discussion
here, the testimony, about his attitude,
about, ‘It’s a real bad drag,’ a
remorseful-type tone in his voice, um, and then he
ended up saying, uh, let’s see…wait
a second, then, ‘The .357 that I had sold him
prob’ly two weeks before that, he
had it in his hands, and he said, “Don’t tell on
me, Kevin, or I’ll have to kill you
and kill your family.”’ What…what of
that?
JKW: Well, Frank being as he is, being Frank
Gable, he’s not ‘the mafioso’, he is
not, uh,
omerta,
he doesn’t have the authority or the ability to kill a witness and
his
entire family. I mean, we’re not talking about The
Godfather here. We’re
talkin’ about some guy who’s
s…strung out on dope, who is supposed to have
said, ’Well, if you say…if you tell
on me, Kevin, I’ll kill you and kill your family.’
Gi’me a break.
RH: Did he ever say anything like that?
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
33
JKW: No.
He never even had…he never had a gun, that I sold him. I never sold Frank a
gun. But I will say this much--if, uh, I told, if…i…i…i…if
Frank told me that,
and I were to have gone and
told somebody, the first person, I wouldn’t even…
wouldn’t even question it, I
would never say, ’Well, if you tell on me, Kevin, I’m
gonna kill you and kill your
family,’ because, now you’re telling me that you’re
gonna kill me if I tell on you, so
my next move is to kill you.
That’s my next
move. That’s to cover my butt.
You see what I’m sayin’?
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: I mean, if you’re g…if you’re gonna do
something to somebody, you sure as hell
don’t tell ’em you’re gonna do it,
and let them get prepared.
RH: This is really strong testimony against
Frank, thought. What…what prompted you
to say something that is so
incriminating…for Frank?
JKW: Oh, gee, how about the second
polygraph, which is inadmissible in court.
RH: Tell me about that.
JKW: The first polygraph that I…that I took, I
told the truth. They came back, said,
’No
you’re not tellin’ the
truth.’ So they said, ’Well, we’ll
just, we’ll…we’ll, ya
know…just think about it Kevin,
relax, it’s no big deal, ya know, when you’re
workin’ with us, we’ll work with
you,’ and lo and behold, then, the next time I
come down for the next polygraph,
after interviews with Dean…or, with, uh,
Bill Pierce, I come down and take
the second polygraph, and, lo and behold, well, I
might be telling a little
bit more truth in there, but, I’m still ’leading them astray,’
I’m still giving them, uh, what was
it…uh…’untruthful statements’. Uh, they
don’t say, uh, you lie; they say
you’re telling untruthful statements.
Well, what
the hell is that? I mean, uh, i…i…i…if you’re not being
truthful with me, what
are you doing? You’re lying to me; you’re lying to
me. Well, so then, lo and
behold, about the s…the s…the s…at
the end of the second one, they say, ’Well,
you’re not being completely honest
with us, you know; we really need to have
the truth, because this is gettin’ really
serious, now, Kevin.’ Ok. So they take
me back to Corvallis, which is
where I was housed at the time, and, uh, then they,
uh, bring me down a s…the third
time, for the last polygraph, and they say, ’Well,
we’re gonna ask you these
questions, and there…we’re gonna ask ’em this way,
and we want you to be completely
honest with us.’ Well, I don’t think
they really
even know what honesty is. So, anyway, I told them a fabricated
statement,
because, if my first one, my first polygraph was the
truth and they said I lied, and
the second one was partial lies and
partial truth, and they still say I lie, well, I figure
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
34
if I…I lie, then the
polygraph’s gonna say I’m tellin’ the truth.
Ya see what I’m
sayin’? Ya see how I’m…ya know?
RH: How many times were you interviewed by the
police regarding this case?
JKW: One…two…huh…I don’t know.
RH:
Three times you had polygraphs, and…
JKW: Mo…mo…mo…more than four times and less than
a hundred.
RH: Ok.
JKW: I really couldn’t tell ya. I mean, I can tell ya that if you were to go
to Benton
County Jail, and Marion County
Jail, they can tell you every time that I was taken
out of there, because, in fact, uh,
s…Teeter [phonetic], one of the guards at the
Benton County Jail was quite
shocked at the fact that Bill Pierce took me out of
the jail without any handcuffs on.
RH: Hmm.
JKW: And Bill’s just goin’, ‘Well, don’t worry
about it. Um, he’s in…he’s in my
custody now.’
RH: Continuing in your testimony, you
describe, uh, you open the bedroom door,
there’s a table, um, where people
sat; ‘the tweak table’, then you talk about, uh,
let’s see, there weren’t any chairs
in the room at the time.
JKW: There was one chair that Frank sat in.
RH: Ok.
JKW: People sat on the mat…on the bed, ‘cause the
bed didn’t have a frame. It just sat
on the floor.
RH: Um, and describing the gun. When he opened the door to let you in the
apartment,
di…he didn’…didn’t have the gun in
his hands, but then later, he did when he
was…
JKW: It magically appeared.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
35
RH: Yeah.
JKW: He waved his little tweaker wand and it just
showed up [snaps fingers].
RH: You describe some things to…the gun,
though. It had a black New York
Police-style holster, you said…
JKW: No, it was a de…it was a deerskin. They had…it had black Pachmayr
grips…
RH: Ok.
JKW: …which are foam rubber.
RH: So the gun really…there is such a gun, but
i…but what about it? I mean, it…
JKW: There was such a gun. I sold it to Paul Farm’s step-dad.
RH: Ok.
Do you know if that was ever in Frank’s possession?
JKW: No.
Oh, wa…ok, I take that back. It was
in Frank’s possession long enough to
look at it and say, ’Oh this is
pretty nice. I like it.’
RH: When you showed it to him?
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: And then he gave it back to you?
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: Ok.
So you are…when you describe this, you were describing a gun that
actually
existed…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …just…you had sold it to someone other
than to Frank, and…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …and on, let’s see, we’re talkin’ about
Januaary 18th, aren’t we, that evening when
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
36
you had this supposed discussion
with Frank? There were no threats? Is that
correct?
JKW: No.
RH: There was no discussion of Michael
Francke?
JKW: No.
RH: There was no gun involved?
JKW: No.
RH: No confession that he had ‘stuck’…
JKW: No.
RH: …Michael Francke?
JKW: No.
RH: And all of this, then, is just fabricated?
JKW: Mhmm.
Pretty good imagination, huh?
RH: Yeah, I have to say, ‘Wow!’ Um…
JKW: I was covering my butt. ‘Cause at the time I still felt Frank was responsible
for me
and Mark getting busted, and at the
time I really didn’t care about Frank, and,
whatever…whatever he did at the
time was his own business, but, my business
was keepin’ my ass out of jail, for
a murder I didn’t commit, or an accessory after
the fact of a murder I didn’t
commit, or had no knowledge of.
Pretty much, from
this point on, anything to do with
what Frank told me in the bedroom is…fabrica-
tion.
RH: Ok, you…you described in your testimony
how Frank, uh, had the gun in his hand.
He cocked the hammer back partway
and then he could spin the cylinder.
Um…
‘He was just sitting there spinning
it. He was just talking.’
JKW: A lie.
Frank never had a gun, so anything that I said that has to do with Frank
having a gun in his possession at
that time is a lie.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
37
RH: Ok.
So, ‘He realized what he had said…this is after he said, “I stuck him”…
realized what he had said, and just
goes, you know, kind of in a sad way, “I’m
sorry, you know; if you tell on me,
I’m going to have to kill you”’…
JKW: A lie.
RH: …’”and kill your family.”’ All right.
JKW: I said, Frank’s not The Godfather. He couldn’t even be the godfather if he
dreamed it. He was just a regular cranker who did time
in the same Penitentiary I
did.
RH: Ok.
JKW: I mean, if you…if…anoth…another important
part of my, uh, testimony is the fact
that I said that I wa…I met Frank
in prison. If you take a look at prison
records,
I was never in th…I was never
in the Penitentiary at the same time Frank was. So
there’s no way I could have met
him in the Penitentiary.
RH: Ok.
All right, then, uh, the testimony continues about how you were
concerned
about these threats later, uh, I
guess I can…just turn pages, because it, uh…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …that just follows up with what you said
is just all a lie.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: This is all nonsense at this point.
JKW: Yeah.
So you can look at it and say, ‘Page 8177’s a lie, and page…ok…page
8167 is a lie, page 8177’s a lie…
RH: Yeah.
JKW: Mmm.
RH: Ok.
JKW: Page 8178 has got truth because
that…mmm…that’s all truth.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
38
RH: That’s…ok, where the police contacted you
originally at your mother’s house.
JKW: Mhmm.
Except where it says on line 19, ‘I know where I was at the time,
and the only reason I know where I
was at that night was because that was
January 17th. That was my brother’s birthday.’ Um, that’s true, um, except
for the fact that, um, I was not at
my brother’s birthday, because he didn’t even
live in Oregon.
RH: Ok.
8179, uh, ‘What were you afraid of?
“One, the people that Frank was
hanging around with,”’ it’s…the
fact of the ‘rat jacket’…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …that gets attached to you any time you
talk to the police about anything.
JKW: Or you have lying, scum-sucking crap-bags
like Steven Jackson, who puts
misquotes into the newspaper
and structures it to make it seem more goody-
goody for him, so he can get
all his writing awards, and to hell with anybody
he writes about…basically. There’s another gentleman I have no respect
for at all.
RH: Ok.
‘Why did you finally tell the State Police about these conversations
that
Mr. Gable told you about the murder of Michael Francke? “Because I was in jail
at the time and had no way of…of
being in my mom’s house to protect her.”’
JKW: Which is…a lie. Oh…which…which…
RH: You were in jail, but…it…
JKW: …is true actually. I was…I was in jail and there was no way I had to protect her,
but it was nothin’ about Frank.
RH: Did you feel your mother needed
protection, um, was there some threat there?
JKW: Technically? Um, no. Sure didn’t.
RH: Mkay.
Then it goes on to discuss what you’ve been convicted of. The topic of the
‘rat label’ and the horseshoe up
‘side the head.
JKW: Mhmm, the assault. Oh, they sure didn’t give me anything, according to line 15,
16, 17, 18 on page 8182.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
39
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: Yeah, they never gave me anything. I mean, the District Attorney wrote on my
behalf, uh, a letter, an’ I’ve got
a copy of that letter, and basically it says,
‘Mr. Walker eats and breathes and
sleeps. Please give him consideration
in the
fact that he does these
things.’ Huh, no deals; nothin’. No consideration, no
promises of a reward, no promises
of leniency in a sentence, um, in fact they made
sure that I had got my sentence…I
was sentenced before the trial.
RH: Ok.
So there’s a lot of discussion here of how they didn’t, uh, promise you
any-
thing, they didn’t promise you a
light sentence or get you off from anything, or…
[inaudible]
JKW: Oh, no, they sure didn’t do that.
RH: Ok.
JKW: That was another reason that I testified,
was because I figured, well, hey, man, I’m
testifying for the cops in a
crime that I have no knowledge about in the first place.
I figured, well, I’ll be able to
get out, at least be able to help take care of my mom.
I wouldn’t end up going to
prison.
RH: Mkay.
Um, I’m flipping through the pages, now, of, uh, cross-examination, of
Bob Abel.
JKW: Bob Abel defending Frank Gable. There’s a lot of weird coincidences
in that case.
Michael Francke [emphasis
JKW’s] was allegedly killed by Frank E [emphasis
JKW’s] Gable, who was defended by
Bob Abel [emphasis JKW’s]. The
murder
took place on the 17th
of January. It took 17 days for the
prosecution to rest its
case. Lot of weird ironi…ironies there, isn’t there?
RH: Ok.
I’m looking through these pages.
This seems to be mostly discussion of your
address and where you lived and
things like that.
JKW: Mmm.
And my finances because they wanted to know how much money I
made,
and if I reported it to the, uh,
IRS and…
RH: Ok.
JKW: ’List your occupation.’ ’Drug dealer.’ Yeah, ok, huh, you’re gonna report that to
the IRS.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
40
RH: Ok, and discussing your business and what
methamphetamine is, uh, m…moving
through this pretty quickly. I’m not sure what I need to ask you about
this. It
talks about the scanner.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: Um…
JKW: We can go to Radio Shack right now and buy a
scanner if you want. Same exact
scanner I had.
RH: ‘Who do you li…who did you live
with on Rural Street?’ ‘Tom Coopman’
[phon-
etic]. Uh, I’m not familiar enough without reading it in detail. Is there any
significance in this or is this
just some [inaudible]…
JKW: Probably where I initially met Mark Gesner
at.
RH: Ok.
Ok. Alright, he asks you about,
uh, relaxing and…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …you say that…go into a dark room, force
yourself to relax, and…this is mostly,
just, I guess, the effect of drugs
and your lifestyle things…
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: …your income. Um, Frank Gable with the ‘snitch jacket.’ I don’t know that
there’s anything I need to ask you,
on any…any of that. Um…redirect
examination. Again, that’s talking, uh…
JKW: About the bust on…on Pine Street.
RH: Yeah.
JKW: Where Frank came in and, um, [to
dog] Fog [snaps fingers], two minutes after
Frank came in, the house got kicked
in, and as soon as I saw Frank in the house,
whether it was intuition, or
whether it was the fact that Frank actually brought
the…the air or the presence,
the aura of the police in with him, or what, but as
soon as Frank came in, Mark looks
at me and says, ‘What’s goin’ on here?’, and
I looked at Mark and I said, ‘We’re
gonna get busted.’ Sure enough,
man, two
minutes later, the door got kicked
in. Actually, the door didn’t
get kicked in. The
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
41
door got pounded on. They couldn’t kick the door in. Mark had to go unlock the
door for ‘em.
RH: Hmm.
JKW: And Mark told me to flush the dope down the
toilet, and, I’m sittin’ there goin’,
‘No, man, what if this is a joke,
what if this is a joke, what if this is a joke?’ Here
I got $2,000.00 in cash in Mark’s
hand, I got my TEC-9. That’s another
thing that
they threatened with, was my
TEC-9. It’s an Intratec 9 millimeter.
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: [to dog] Fog: No!
RH: Go ahead and talk about that.
JKW: Oh, just…that was probably, oh, yeah,
actually, that was probably about the
second, uh, polygraph, they said,
‘Well, we know about the TEC, and we haven’t
done anything about it up to this
point.’
RH: And what could they do about it? You were an ex-con, is that correct, or you
were
on parole at that time, so you
weren’t allowed to own [inaudible]…
JKW: Not an ex-con in possession…a felon, I’m
sorry, a felon in possession of a firearm,
which would have been illegal, and…
RH: Ok.
So that’s something they could hold over your head?
JKW: All they could do was…but, see, that’s the
thing, is that they did the exact same
thing to Frank. He had no charges against him as far
as federal charges, or the
gun charges…until this
investigation started taking place.
RH: Mhmm.
JKW: And then they charged him with things
that they discovered, which, personally, in
my opinion, is totally unfair, but
who said life is fair? I mean, they
should be
investigating the murder,
not what he did or what he didn’t do.
RH: Ok.
Were you ever charged with anything related to the TEC-9?
JKW: No.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
42
RH: Did you feel, at the time, uh, during the
testimony, or during the police interviews,
that, if you didn’t cooperate with
them, that that was going to be used against you?
JKW: Yeah, they were just gonna slap another
charge on me, make my life more
difficult. Throw a consecutive sentence on it, instead
of a concurrent.
RH: How did they know about the TEC-9?
JKW: Um…one of prob’ly four or five different
ways. It was in the apartment when
the door got k…when the door…when we got busted. Um, it was in the bath-
room. They may have pulled my fingerprints off of the magazine
that I threw
into the closet of the bedroom,
‘cause when…I’m standin’ in the bathroom, ok.
Bathroom door is here…bedroom door
is here, the little kitchen area is here, the
living room’s out here, and…I was
standing in the bathroom, had the TEC-9 on
the bathroom counter. Mkay, the doors are here. The TEC-9 was right here, and
this right back here is the toilet
and the shower/bathtub. I’m standin’
back there
with the…the dope in, uh, my hand,
and sittin‘ there lookin’ at the damn toilet…
‘My god, ah…ah.’ So what I ended up doin’ was puttin’ it in
my shirt pocket,
grabbed the clip, which was in my
back pocket…actually, let me see.
Grabbed
my clip out of my back pocket,
walked out the ba…ou…out the bathroom door,
into the bedroom, stepped about two
steps into the bedroom, tossed it into the
closet, turned around like this…PSHHH…window
got shattered. ‘P-o-l-i-c-e…
d-o-n-’-t m-o-v-e.’ They’re shakin’, man, it is…it was kind of
amusing, except
when they’re shakin’ like that, you
don’t flick ’em any crap.
RH: [laughs]
JKW: And, so, I got down on the floor, on top o’
all this glass, an’ that’s when good ol’
Dwayne Hosselbacher [phonetic] came
in there and put his knee in my back,
’cuffed me, and, um, took me out
into the living…out into the dining room, where
I sat, and Janyne had a cast on her
arm, and Frank was sitting…he was standing
up, and immediately after the…after
the bedroom got cleared, they took Frank into
the bedroom, or Mark Gesner into
the bedroom, I don’t remember which one, but
Frank, being cocky as he is, he had
a…he had a live .50 caliber round in his back
pocket, and they said, ’Oh, you got
the gun that goes with this?’ and Frank goes,
‘Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.’ And, so, they may have pulled my
fingerprints off of
the, uh, magazine. However, Mark knew it was mine; Frank knew
it was mine;
Janyne knew it was mine; uh, a guy
named, uh, Floyd…he was an…in during…
he was in the bust, Floyd knew that
the gun was mine, um, and…I think that was
it--in that house. So any one of ’em could have told ’em that
it was mine. Or
during their investigation they
could have asked several other people, ’Well, do
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
43
you know about…do you know about
any guns that Mr. Walker had?’ ‘Well,
yeah, he had…he had, uh, an M-16,
he had an AR-14, uh, or an AR-15, he had a
.45 caliber semi-automatic pistol,
he had two .357 Magnums, um, he had a
TEC-9,’ um…
RH: Hmm.
Ok. Um, do you have any more
comments that you wanna make? I’m out
of questions at this point. Is there anything else you think of that you
wanted to
discuss that I haven’t [inaudible]…
JKW: The only thing I really have to say is that
I’ve lived with the lie that I told about
Frank for too long now, and…Frank,
being all the things that he is, or all the things
that he was, he is still my
friend, I still like Frank, and he has no reason to be put
through something that is not
his responsibility.
RH: Has he ever given you any reason to think
that he killed Michael Francke?
JKW: No.
None. None.
RH: Mkay.
Um, if I think of some more specific questions, can I contact you again?
JKW: Mhmm, you can call me or…
RH: Alright.
JKW: …we can go for another interview or
somethin’ like that; I don’t care.
RH: Ok.
Well, I will shut off the tape recorder here in a second. Today is
August 6th, 1993. It must be about, what, 7:15...does that…?
JKW: H…no, try, uh, 8:05.
RH: 8:05? Ok.
JKW: Mhmm.
RH: W…I didn’…I never mentioned what time we
started talking so I…I don’t know.
JKW: Mmm.
RH: It must have been around 6:00.
Roger
Harris/John Kevin Walker interview
August
6, 1993
Page
44
JKW: It was prob’ly around 6:00, because, uh,
yeah, it was around 6:00.
RH: I don’t wear a watch, and, so, I don’t…I
don’t know exactly, and I don’t know that
that’s significant, but…
JKW: How are you supposed to meet your contacts,
then?
RH: [laughs] I have a clock in the car.
JKW: [laughs]
RH: Ok.
I’ll turn the tape off.
JKW: You mean they didn’t steal that? [tape turned off]