The Wrong Guy

Meanwhile the McKinney police were working furiously to build a case against him, interviewing his friends, family and co-workers, trying to gather as much information as they could to secure an arrest warrant. At 10:30 p.m. on May 17, McKinney Detective Ida Wei contacted Randy Patterson, asking him to describe his friend. "I told her he could be kind and generous but could also get aggravated, going from one extreme to another," Patterson recalls. "I also said that he had bought two guns, and I used 9-11 as a reference point for when he made the purchases."

The language incorporated into the arrest affidavit, however, had Patterson describing his friend "as an extremist" who, after September 11, "began purchasing firearms." The affidavit also stated that James Simmons had informed police that Wooley "had been stockpiling food and guns," even though Simmons, when later deposed, said he had no idea whether Wooley possessed weapons; he had never even been to his home. Even if he had, a bag of dry beans and bottled water scarcely qualified as "stockpiling."

"I never said Paul was an extremist," says Patterson, who complained bitterly about the characterization both to the police and the press. "They were trying to paint him as some kind of violent gun nut who could randomly harm large numbers of people. Paul wasn't even a political person. I was just talking about personality extremes."

Around 10 a.m. on May 18, Schmucker met with McKinney detectives and wanted them to know "Paul did not do this." Wooley had phoned him on the day of the murder, just before the evening news. Wooley was just outside Oklahoma City and had apparently changed his direction: He was now heading to Alaska. Yes, Wooley was high-strung, but he was also a "teddy bear" who would never hurt anyone, Schmucker told the police. And yes, he had purchased a handgun and rifle a few weeks after 9-11, but he wasn't obsessed with guns--wasn't even a particularly good shot, judging from their few trips to the gun range. "On the early news they had a couple of theories about a man hiding in the trees and running across a field," he says. "I told the police there was no way in hell that was Paul. He was no marksman, had no scope on his rifle, and he was too out of shape [bad back and weak heart] to run across any field."

Despite his desire to help, Schmucker provided police with at least one statement it would use against Wooley in his arrest affidavit: "When Schmucker asked if Wooley had heard of the shooting in McKinney, Wooley reportedly stated something to the effect of, 'They don't think I did it, do they? If they do, I'll turn myself in at the nearest police station.'" The police interpreted his spontaneous response as a guilty one. What Detective VanDertuin omitted when he drew up his affidavit was the context of the conversation: that Patterson had already told him about the shooting as well as Xtera's reaction to it. Wooley would later maintain that when he responded he was just connecting the dots. "Since something was going on, and it was happening in my direction--that is why I said what I said."

Schmucker faults the police for distorting the truth. "They weren't looking for objective information. They were looking for information they could pick and choose among, twist it any way they want to go and then turn it over to the press."

The arrest affidavit painted a picture of a man on the edge: a suicidal, bipolar, gun-crazed extremist who snapped when he quit his job and became "irate, screaming profanities," and was threatening to "do something rash [not radical, as Simmons had said]."

What police sorely lacked was evidence, something--anything--that might connect Wooley to the murder. They knew a blue truck was spotted at the scene as much as 10 minutes after the shooting, and Wooley drove a blue pickup. They knew Wooley was traveling with a .223-caliber rifle and that bullet fragments found at the crime scene came from a high-velocity weapon. These tenuous facts were among a "myriad of circumstantial evidence" that police Chief Doug Kowalski would later claim justified Wooley's arrest.

But McKinney detectives were faced with a fluid situation: The Amarillo police had no cause to hold him (his mental commitment was voluntary, and he wanted out), and the McKinney police viewed him as a "flight risk," an armed traveler who was about to take himself and his rifle, which might be evidence, to parts unknown. Most frustrating of all: Wooley refused to cooperate with the police. Upon advice of his Dallas attorney, Ed King, Wooley refused to speak to the police; he even invoked his right against self-incrimination when detectives asked if he wanted dessert. "Mr. Wooley was charged with the crime because of his basic failure to cooperate with us," Kowalski frankly stated in his deposition.