Renton Woman Gets Bad Rap -- Nursing-Home Resident Was Semi- Comatose At Time Of Crime

Pamela McCullum is black and has a rap sheet. When a robbery victim identified her from a photo montage, Renton police charged her with the crime, issued a warrant for her arrest, and her picture was broadcast on a "most wanted" TV program.

But there was only one problem: She was semi-comatose when the crime occurred.

Had police done even minimal legwork, they would have quickly discovered that McCullum could not possibly have been the woman they said teamed up with her brother to rob and beat the brother's ex-girlfriend. McCullum was - and still is - in a convalescent home, unable to walk, talk or feed herself.

Not only that, McCullum and the alleged accomplice are not brother and sister. They are complete strangers.

"I'm aware that injustices happen - this kind of drove it home," said Annabelle King, who served on a jury in the recent robbery trial of Sherrell McCullum, the supposed brother and alleged accomplice. That case ended in a mistrial after jurors deadlocked 11-1 to acquit him of the charges.

"Personally, if by some chance I'm ever accused of a crime, I'm going to hire my own detective to do the research," the juror said. "I felt it was a gross miscarriage of justice."

The case began in April. A 20-year-old Renton woman, Cynthia Barber, had briefly dated Sherrell McCullum, 19, and wanted some cassette tapes back from him.

According to court records, Barber gave this account of events that night:

She met Sherrell McCullum behind the Renton Village Cinemas to retrieve the tapes. When she arrived close to 8 p.m., he was there in a minivan. He asked for a hug. She refused; he pulled her from her car.

Barber struggled, and McCullum allegedly punched her in the eye and hit her in the back of the head. At that point, a woman got out of the van, began hitting and kicking Barber, and screamed, "This is what you get for leaving my brother."

According to police, the woman also robbed Barber of some jewelry before the two assailants drove off in the van. Barber ran screaming for help to the front of the cinemas, where a woman in the box office called police.

Barber was taken to Valley Medical Center and treated for head abrasions and sore ribs. Two weeks later, Renton police asked Barber to look at two photo montages, or lineups, to identify her assailants. She immediately picked out Sherrell McCullum and Pamela McCullum.

At the time, it appeared like a lucky break for police. Officers there had included Pamela McCullum in the photo montage because they thought they were looking for Sherrell McCullum's sister and, after running a check, found Pamela McCullum's name. It was the same spelling, she had a criminal record and, like Sherrell, is African American.

What police didn't know then - and didn't act on for months once they were informed - was that Pamela McCullum, 33, was and had been semi-comatose when the crime occurred. There was no way she could have participated in the robbery and assault. On top of that, she is not Sherrell McCullum's sister. He doesn't have a sister.

In building their case, Renton police did not contact Pamela McCullum, Sherrell McCullum or their families for their sides of the story.

Instead, they arrested Sherrell McCullum and forwarded Pamela McCullum's name to the King County prosecutor's office. In June, she was summoned to appear for arraignment.

Her mother, Virginia Lousteau, received the notice. She said she called the prosecutor's office to say there was a serious mistake: Pamela had been in a nursing home for two years. But nothing was done. Instead, when McCullum failed to appear, a warrant was issued for her arrest and bail set at $25,000.

"The next thing we know, they have Pam's picture on (`Western Washington's) Most Wanted,' " Lousteau said. "My grandson, Pamela's son, saw her picture, too. He was very upset.

"We called the station (KCPQ-TV, Channel 13) to find out what's going on, and they said they received the information from the warrants office. So I called them, but I never heard back - no apology, no retraction."

The Seattle/King County Crime Stoppers program, which had supplied Channel 13 with the fugitive information, canceled McCullum's name the next day, July 26. But police did not apologize to McCullum's family.

"We've had things like this before, but the bottom line is, indeed she had a warrant," King County Police Detective Diana Russell said.

And, McCullum did have a criminal record. In 1991 she was convicted of a felony residential burglary and had prior convictions for prostitution. She was, her mother freely admits, in trouble with the law and used crack cocaine. In fact, Pamela McCullum had a seizure in the King County Jail in October 1993 after ingesting drugs. She was taken to Harborview Medical Center but could not be revived; she has been in a vegetative state since.

"Because Pam has been in trouble before, they assumed it had to be her," Lousteau said of police.

Race was also a factor, said Ken Kopicki, Sherrell McCullum's attorney. "If Ms. McCullum were middle class and white," he said, "they would have taken steps to contact her. If it was Bill Gates Jr., do you think they'd just charge him, or would they call him up and say, `Hey, do you want to come in and talk about this?' "

Police defend their work. "Race had nothing to do with it," Renton Deputy Chief Don Persson said. He said the case was based on Barber's positive identification of Pamela McCullum. He also said the department tried to contact Sherrell McCullum, Pamela, and their families about the accusations and subsequent charges "but weren't able to get hold of them."

"It's not to our advantage to not get hold of them," he added. "The gal was real transient with her address."

Not true, said Lousteau, noting that her daughter's address has been the same for years and is included in her criminal records. In fact, it's included in Renton police reports.

Lousteau also questioned why police and the prosecutor's office took so long to dismiss charges against her daughter.

Lousteau said she notified the prosecutor's office in June; the office says it doesn't have a record of that contact. But it did receive a letter about her condition in August from Kopicki.

"Their response was basically, `So what?' " he said. "They wanted me to prove to them that the woman in a convalescence home was her. They didn't want to send an officer out."

Dan Donohoe, chief spokesman for the prosecutor's office, said Kopicki's August letter prompted a call to Renton Detective Jim Foust, telling him to "check it out."

Did he?

Donohoe is not sure, saying only, "Eventually it was discovered and that led to our asking the court to dismiss charges."

That happened, but not until October - two months after the office received Kopicki's letter. There has been no formal apology to McCullum's family since then, although Donohoe did say last week that the office "regretted" Pamela McCullum had been charged.

In addition, the office has decided not to pursue a second trial against Sherrell McCullum, citing the 11-1 hung jury in favor of acquittal.

Barber's incorrect identification of Pamela McCullum hurt the prosecution's case against Sherrell McCullum.

"I mistrusted the rest of the data presented by the prosecution," said King, the juror. "As the trial progressed, we felt it was a waste of taxpayers' money."

"I've always thought that if a person goes to court, if you had an accusation against you, somewhere along the line there had to be hard evidence, too," another juror said. "This is something we didn't see. It actually got to trial with no investigation even attempted."

Lousteau, who visits her daughter daily, is considering a civil suit against King County because she thinks the investigation was sloppy and unjust.

"Pam could have been railroaded into jail," she said. "It's really scary. What if Pam was not sick? What if she was walking around? She would probably be in jail right now trying to prove her innocence."