Investigators also questioned Witness 140 about the route she took out of the complex, which looks navigable on a map, but in reality is blocked by a concrete street barrier. Witness 140 responded that she is not good with directions, and was unsure the route she took. Since the shooting incident, she has acquired both a GPS and a mobile phone.
Witness 140 stated that she went immediately home and told no one about what she witnessed except her ex-husband. However, when SLCPD detectives attempted to verify this, Witness 140's ex-husband reported that Witness 140 has a tendency to lie. Witness 140's response was that her ex-husband was distrustful that the detectives were who they claimed to be. Nonetheless, Witness 140 acknowledged that she suffers from bouts of mania because she does not take her medicine for bipolar disorder and she suffered traumatic brain injury from a car crash several years ago.
Witness 140 also admitted to federal prosecutors that although she told no one about what she had witnessed, she posted comments on websites and Facebook about the shooting. Her comments were blatantly profane and racist. Furthermore, she was involved in developing a fundraising organization for first responders, and had a picture of a "thin blue line" as her Facebook profile picture.
During her testimony before the county grand jury, Witness 140 admitted that she did not get lost on Canfield Drive while en route to visit a high school friend, but rather she purposely went to Canfield Drive that day because she fears black people and was attempting to conquer her fears. However, in an effort to bolster he testimony, Witness 140 provided county prosecutors with a daily journal she claimed to keep, with one entry that documented the events of August 9. While that entry was detailed, all of the other entries were generic and sporadic.
Witness 140 was twice convicted of passing bad checks, felonies that are crimes of dishonesty and likely admissible in federal court as impeachment evidence. Although Witness 140's account of this incident is consistent with physical and forensic evidence and with credible witness accounts, large parts of her narrative have been admittedly fabricated from media accounts, and her bias in favor of Wilson is readily apparent. Accordingly, while her account likely is largely accurate, federal prosecutors determined that the account as a whole was not reliable and therefore did not consider it when making a prosecutive decision.
Witness 139 is 50-year-old black female. She made two statements, including her county grand jury testimony. As detailed below, Witness 139's initial account was riddled with inconsistencies from one sentence to the next. She was unable to provide a coherent narrative, and when she was asked to clarify, Witness 139 would respond with "you know what I mean," answer with a non sequitur, or break down in sobs. The details that she did provide were largely inconsistent with the physical evidence. Witness 139 was similarly incoherent and inconsistent when she testified before the county grand jury, unable to provide any sort of linear narrative.
Witness 139 reluctantly came to the NAACP office in St. Louis to meet with SLCPD detectives, FBI agents, and federal prosecutors. Through hysterical tears, she expressed fear in
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