By CHRISTOPHER BAUGHMAN
and TOM GUARISCO
Advocate staff writers

Five-year-old Charles "Bo" Burrell didn't see the deputies handcuff his dad and take him to jail. "Charles was asleep when I was arrested," said Albert Burrell, a mildly retarded shade tree mechanic who wound up on Death Row for a double murder.

A tip from the young boy's mother, Janet, led authorities to charge Albert Burrell -- her ex-husband -- with killing an elderly Union Parish couple, Delton and Callie Frost.

Albert Burrell denied the charges, just as he has ever since that night in 1986. He claimed his ex-wife made up a story about him so she could get custody of Charles.

"She always lied. I just know she was wrong for what she did," Albert Burrell said recently. "She was scared they'd take her kids away from her."

Charles was separated from his father instead. Within a year, Albert Burrell was convicted and sentenced to die at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Charles did not see his dad for 13 years, only speaking to him once on the phone during that time.

Michael Graham's life also became a nightmare after the Frost murders.

Graham was in the Union Parish jail for check forgery when the local authorities charged him in the same murders. Like Burrell, he was convicted and sent to Death Row.

Graham's Virginia family could not afford to visit him at Angola. His only visitors were lawyers, and his view of the world was a window high on a wall outside his small cell.

Graham now struggles to fit into a changed world.

"I'm just trying to be ordinary," Graham said.

The Frost murders changed the lives of Albert Burrell and Michael Graham, who were freed three months ago after prosecutors dropped the charges against them.

But the two men aren't the only people still coping with the baffling case.

The state Attorney General's Office, which now has the case, faces the task of prosecuting a double murder with aging, tainted testimony and almost no physical evidence.

Families of the victims are frustrated no one is behind bars for killing their elderly relatives, and disagree over who they think did it.

'I'd try the case again'

The man who put Burrell and Graham on Death Row is Dan Grady, the Union Parish prosecutor who tried them. Grady now is retired and living in Colfax, but was a career prosecutor when he got the case in 1986. Graham and Burrell are the only people Grady sent to Death Row.

Ironically, Grady did something years later that helped get them released.

Defense attorneys visited Grady in 1995 to ask him about the case. They left that day with a crucial document. In it, Grady said that after the arrests of Graham and Burrell, he had recommended against prosecuting the cases because the evidence was too weak.

Grady said in his affidavit that he moved the cases along because his boss at the time, then-District Attorney Tommy Adkins, directed him "to present the cases to the grand jury and try them to avoid embarrassment" to Larry Averitt, who was sheriff at the time.

In a recent interview, Grady said there was no political pressure to proceed with the case. Adkins simply didn't want to undermine Averitt's credibility as a relatively new sheriff who found himself under great public pressure to solve the murders.

"He said, 'If it's going to be dropped, let the grand jury drop it. We're not going to drop it and embarrass the sheriff,'" Grady said.

But Adkins doesn't remember it that way.

"I categorically deny that," Adkins recently said. "I know what I had in my mind, and it was not to worry about anybody's political future, not even my own."

Grady also said in his affidavit that the emergence of Olan Wayne Brantley, an inmate who claimed Graham confessed to him, propelled the case to trial and played a major role in both convictions.

State District Judge Cynthia Woodard ruled last year that Graham deserved a new trial, which ended up helping Burrell. The judge criticized the way Grady handled the cases, including how he used Brantley as a witness. But Grady still stands behind his prosecutions.

"I have no apologies for having done my duty in this case," said Grady, adding that he "certainly doesn't relish the thought of wrongfully convicting anyone."

"But if I was still a prosecutor up there and the judge said they need a new trial, I'd try the case again," Grady said.

The case is no longer under the authority of the Union Parish District Attorney's Office. Current District Attorney Bob Levy removed himself from the case because one of his assistants had represented Graham as a court-appointed defense lawyer.

It will be up to state Attorney General Richard Ieyoub's office, which took over after Levy's recusal, to present the case if it goes to trial again.

Can they get a witness?

Bringing the case will be anything but easy.

The small house where the Frosts lived is gone, replaced by a trailer home. Memories of witnesses and investigators have faded with time, and there is not much evidence from the crime scene on which to build a case.

"There's no weapon to test, there's no physical evidence," said Ellison Travis, an assistant with the Attorney General's Office. "We're stuck with the testimony."

In the absence of physical evidence, the original prosecutors relied on testimony to build cases against Burrell and Graham. But much of the testimony is either tainted or recanted and could be easily attacked in court.

Brantley was the star witness at trial. He turned out to be a con artist who, unknown to the defense, had his own charges reduced before testifying, and who had been found not guilty by reason of insanity in a previous case.

He has a staggering rap sheet, which is still growing.

In January, as Graham and Burrell were spending their first few days as free men, police near Birmingham, Ala., found themselves sifting through the pieces of yet another scam Brantley is accused of pulling.

Police charged Brantley with posing as a contractor and leaving town before making promised renovations to a Days Inn motel. Brantley also is charged with stiffing a lounge out of a staggering $10,000 food and booze tab, plus bilking another local business out of $10,000.

But Brantley is not the only witness from the Burrell and Graham trials whose credibility is shot.

Janet Burrell, Albert Burrell's ex-wife, testified Albert had a wallet of one of the victims on the night of the murders and blood on his boots. But she later recanted, then took back her recantation, only to recant once more.

She wrote letters to both men on Death Row and said she was sorry for her role in their convictions.

Janet Burrell refused to be interviewed about the case. But in a phone interview, her father, James "Popeye" Evans, said Albert Burrell's eyesight is so bad he couldn't have shot the Frosts.

"Ronnie couldn't see good enough for that, man," Evans said. "You put his glasses on and they'd pull your eyeballs out, man."

A third key witness also recanted what she said at the trials, and the judge considered that a crucial factor in granting Graham a new trial.

Amy Opal was a teen-ager when she gave incriminating testimony about Michael Graham. Opal later said that was a lie. She told defense attorneys that some family friends, the St. Clairs, put pressure on her to divert suspicion from Kenneth St. Clair.

St. Clair moved away from Union Parish after the trials, and could not be found for comment.

The witnesses who lied in court are not likely to face penalties for perjury, said Travis, the assistant attorney general. The legal time limit for taking action against them has long since passed.

Lying witnesses and other problems all add up to a very difficult case to put back together, said Union Parish Sheriff Bob Buckley.

"I don't know where we can go with it," Buckley said.

He said he takes that job personally since the Frosts were friends of his, and feels an obligation to John "Buck" Frost to find his brother's killer.

"It will fall principally on our shoulders," he said.

Buckley said the original investigation was poorly done, including the examination of the crime scene.

Former Sheriff Larry Averitt, who now lives in Baton Rouge, declined to comment for this story.

Monty Forbess, now a sales manager at a Monroe car dealership and who headed up the Frost murder investigation, also refused to be interviewed.

But Buckley said investigators did their best to solve the crimes at the time.

"A cop has one thirtieth of a second to make a decision that somebody else has 20 years to look at," Buckley said.

Buckley has assigned one of his office's top investigators to look into the crimes.

Whodunnit?

The release of Burrell and Graham from Death Row re-opened the case, and has forced people to again ask, Who shot the Frosts?

One of the early suspects was Michael Rogers of Marion, the nephew of Delton and Callie Frost. He was one of the last people to see them alive.

Investigators grilled Rogers after the shootings, but he and his girlfriend said that when they left the night of the killings, the Frosts were alive.

In a recent interview, Rogers acknowledged the possibility of becoming a suspect again as authorities re-examine the case. He said that disappoints him because he loved the Frosts. He said he had lived with them and helped repair the porch of their home, but moved out shortly before the shootings.

"I loved my uncle to death," Rogers said. "I know I didn't do it."

Even though a judge and the state Attorney General's Office found insufficient evidence to hold Burrell and Graham, there is an outside chance the pair could be charged again in the crimes if new information surfaces.

Their attorneys are aware of that possibility and have instructed the two not to talk about the case. But both men deny any involvement, just as they have all along.

A family divided

Delton and Callie Frost's family members don't all agree about the release of Burrell and Graham from Death Row. Some are outraged, while others think two innocent people were spared the ultimate sentence.

John "Buck" Frost said he was angered when authorities released the men he still believes killed his brother and sister-in-law. He remains convinced Burrell and Graham are guilty.

"They were there. You can believe that or not," Frost said.

He said Woodard's ruling to throw out Graham's conviction showed poor judgment.

"A woman shouldn't be a judge," Frost said.

And as far as Amy Opal's recantation, Frost said he doesn't believe it.

Some of the Frosts' relatives see things differently. Dennis and Grace Cruse were glad to see Burrell and Graham set free.

"I never thought for the first minute they did it," said Dennis Cruse, Callie Frost's nephew. "I still feel that way."

On a recent visit to the cemetery where the couple is buried, Dennis and Grace Cruse fondly recalled their aunt and uncle.

A breeze rustled like rain through tall pines at the foot of the grassy hill near the graves. The spot is just a few hundred yards from where the Frosts lived and died.

"Nobody is ever going to be convicted of these two murders," Dennus Cruse said. "It was too sloppy, the police work, and too much time has passed."

The deaths still hurt, Grace Cruse said, wiping away tears.

"They never done anybody any harm," she said.

The price of justice

In the end, Louisiana taxpayers may also pay a price. Graham and Burrell's lawyers say the state Legislature should set aside money to pay the men for taking away their freedom.

Chuck Lloyd is a Minneapolis lawyer who helped represent Albert Burrell. Lloyd and his colleague Steven Pincus at the Lindquist & Vennum firm worked Burrell's case free of charge.

Lloyd said putting a price on the two men's suffering won't be easy.

"You get to sit in a 6-by-9 foot room, don't touch anyone inside prison, eat meals in eight minutes, and all the time you may get an order that says, 'On X day, we're going to kill you,'" Lloyd said. "How much a day would you have to pay somebody to take that job? Could you get someone to take that job for $1,000 a day? No."

Nick Trenticosta, a New Orleans attorney who helped represent the men, lays the blame for Burrell and Graham's ordeal at the state's feet.

"It's not a mistake, it's not a case that went through the cracks. This is a case where government officials -- state employees -- manufactured evidence to convict two innocent people," Trenticosta said. "The government and the citizens owe these two people large amounts of money for taking their freedom away."

Even if they get paid for what happened to them, Burrell and Graham have lost some things that cannot be replaced.

Burrell, who suffers from schizophrenia and is mildly mentally retarded, found himself alone and confused about what was happening to him at Angola.

Burrell said his fellow Death Row inmates didn't care much for the song he made up about his innocence. Burrell, a slight man who speaks softly, was safe from physical harm, but some inmates taunted him during the hour a day he was allowed outside his cell.

"They'd be picking on me all the time," Burrell said.

Burrell's despairing mother died a few days after a judge denied one of her son's many appeals. And she didn't get to see the dramatic day in January when authorities finally released her son, by then 45, from Death Row.

He now lives with his sister, Estelle Branch, on her cattle ranch in northeast Texas. Branch arranged for Burrell and his son, Charles, to meet in Shreveport.

Charles lept from the car and ran to his dad to hug him, Branch recalls.

"That was my most exciting day, seeing him and his son meet after all these years," Branch said.

A local couple has volunteered to tutor Burrell in reading and help him prepare for an oral exam to get a Texas driver's license. Burrell said he doesn't know what he'll do after that.

"I haven't decided on that yet -- I'll wait until I get some money," he said. "I'll buy me a house and land, you know."

'I'd have been dead'

For Graham, the Frost murder case turned a one-month Louisiana vacation into Death Row hell. He came to Louisiana with the St. Clair family, whom he met while they were working in Virginia.

He was here less than a month when he was jailed in Union Parish for forging checks. Then authorities charged him in the Frost murders.

The worst day at Angola was the first, Graham said. Guards assigned him to an empty cell. The rust-stained mattress soaked up water presumably left over after the cell was washed out, and Graham said he awoke screaming on his first night because he thought the dampness was blood.

The tedious days that followed were not much better. Typically, he awoke at 5 a.m. for breakfast, which had to wolf down in eight minutes, like all Death Row meals.

"They'd let me out to shower for an hour, then I'd go back, read, listen to the radio or watch TV," Graham said. "I read my Bible, I read commentaries, autobiographies like Henry Ford. And I like Dean Koontz books."

Then he'd go back to sleep or meditate.

"I used that time for thinking," Graham said.

Facing the death penalty for a crime he has always denied doing was demoralizing, Graham said, but the hardest liberty to live without was privacy.

"Everything was an open book pretty much to everyone," Graham said. "You couldn't go to the bathroom without people knowing, and the guards would search your things."

Especially difficult were the times when a Death Row inmate was executed.

"Everything basically gets quiet, and it usually lasts for a few days," Graham said. "A lot of times we'd fast. We'd stop eating. I had my own religious reasons for that. I felt that the food I didn't eat, it would take the strength and give it to the person that was getting killed."

While Graham was on Death Row, the state of Louisiana executed six men in the electric chair and another six by lethal injection.

Graham said he never gave up hope that one day he would be freed.

"I knew I had a good lawyer, I had good issues, and I put my faith in God," he said.

His best day came last December when he learned he'd soon be getting out. He was showering when a guard told him he had a phone call.

On the line was New Orleans attorney John Holdridge, one of the men who for more than a decade whittled away at the case against Graham.

"He said, 'You got a new trial,'" Graham recalled. "He was crying."

Just after Christmas in 2000, Graham walked away from Angola. He hopped a Greyhound bus for the 24-hour trip home to his family in Roanoke, Virginia.

It's taken a while to break habits such as asking permission for simple things, like going to the restroom, he said.

In February, Graham testified at the Virginia state legislature against a law that gives convicts facing the death penalty only 21 days to submit new evidence to prove their innocence. Graham told the lawmakers that if the law were in place in Louisiana, he would no longer be living.

"In Louisiana, if they had that law, I'd have been dead," Graham said. "I put a face on the issue."

Graham plans to return to work framing and roofing houses, which is what he did before his arrest in 1986. He met a woman on his visit to the legislature and has been corresponding with her.

As Graham adjusts to his newfound freedom in Virginia, he wants to ensure what happened to him and Burrell prompts the people of Louisiana to think hard about capital punishment.

"I'd like people to get more educated on the death penalty," Graham said. "People should make an educated decision."

Why should anyone care?

Because it is in the name of the people of Louisiana that the state tried to end the lives of Michael Graham and Albert Burrell.

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