The Wrong Guy

At 5 o'clock that same afternoon, Wingfield went to his wife's grave, intending to kill himself, he would later say, because of his grief. Concern over his two small children caused him to change his mind. As he drove away from the cemetery--or so he claimed--a man in a gray SUV fired two shots at him, shattering the windshield of his pickup and sending him careening into a ditch. Apart from some superficial face wounds, he wasn't hurt. He flagged down a passing motorist who brought him to the Celina Police Department. He had no idea who might want to harm him, he told the police, but thought it might somehow be connected to his wife's slaying.

Collin County sheriff's investigator Mitch Selman just wasn't buying Wingfield's story after he brought him back to the sheriff's office for further questioning. According to police records, "Inv. Selman found it significant that there were no glass fragments...on his [Wingfield's] clothing, skin, hair or shoes." The cuts across his face also appeared to be self-inflicted. Selman accused Wingfield of staging the shooting to take the focus of the homicide investigation away from him. At first, Wingfield denied the accusation, but then without saying why, he admitted he had shot his truck.

A team of McKinney detectives continued the interrogation, which lasted more than six hours. But Wingfield remained adamant: He did not murder his wife. Detective Marco Robles, searching for a less resistant path, turned his attention to Alisa Stewart. Repeatedly, he asked Wingfield whether shooting Stewart was intentional or just an accident. Wingfield finally broke down, claiming he shot her accidentally--and he never intended to shoot his wife either. It might seem premeditated--renting a Ford Explorer on the day of the shooting so he wouldn't be recognized. But he just meant to scare her by firing above her head. It was his way of taking her mind off their financial problems. He aimed to miss. Only somehow he didn't.

His motive for the crime seemed as obscure as it was absurd. A husband had executed his wife, a loving mother of two, because he wanted her to stop worrying about their bills? He had maimed her close friend, permanently disabling her, by accident? The confession guaranteed that Raymond Wingfield would be sentenced to at least 60 years in the penitentiary. But it offered little solace to anyone except Wooley. He was released from custody 30 minutes after it was signed.

---

1410 Meadowbrook Drive, McKinney, May 23, 2002, noon

Wooley appeared quite corporate in his blue suit and blue tie, a far stretch from his portrayal by the media as a homicidal maniac just two days earlier. Standing in his front yard, he stared directly into the TV camera, looking calm and comfortable. "They came into my cell and said, 'Go home, we've got him,'" he recalled. "I didn't even know there was another him until then."

"What did you think?" asked the reporter.

"Yippee." He laughed loudly, half-apologizing. "I still haven't slept in a week..."

The reporter said that when Wooley was told earlier that the police had arrested the victim's husband, Wooley just rolled his eyes. "How is it that they could make a mistake of that magnitude?" asked the reporter.

"I still haven't figured all that out yet," said Wooley, although he was contemplating litigation to find out. For now, though, he just wanted to clear his head and find a job.

Wooley had no luck finding work. Even if the telecom industry hadn't tanked, he felt as though his name had been stained by the false murder charge. His bouts of depression lingered longer and deeper, and his civil lawyer sent him to therapy, partly to help his client, partly to document his emotional damage. Psychiatrist Lisa Clayton began treating him in August 2002 and believed he was suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome brought on by what she described as the "public humiliation" of his arrest and what he described as the barbaric conditions of his incarceration.

In the Collin County jail, Wooley was placed on a "suicide watch," purportedly for his own protection. Immediately following his release, he claimed he was subjected to psychological torture aimed at breaking him down to coerce his confession. Placed in solitary confinement, he was stripped of his clothes and forced to wear what he described as a "Velcro wrap." Between the music he said was constantly being piped into his cell, the thin plastic mat he was forced to sleep on and the drafty 60-degree temperature, Wooley contended that he was deprived of sleep and taunted by guards and nurses who threatened him with the death penalty if he didn't confess.

In discussing its "suicide watch" policy, the Collin County Sheriff's Office noted "that certain inmates would only be allowed to have a suicide gown, a suicide blanket and a mat." A department spokesman also added that temperatures in the facility were kept, according to "state jail standards," "between 65-85 degrees" and it's "against policy and we do not" engage in taunts, humiliation or sleep deprivation.