The “Corroboration” That Wasn’t
When the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Daniel’s convictions in 2019, it said the State had provided “extensive corroborating evidence”: records of his movements, and witnesses who backed up every woman whose testimony led to a conviction. The court didn’t name a single record or witness. This page goes through them. The records show where Daniel stopped. None shows a sexual act, and for two convicted counts they contradict the woman’s account. And several of the friends and relatives the State called to say a woman had told them about it described no sexual act to the jury.
One sentence, with no names attached.
Daniel’s lawyers argued on appeal that the DNA in the Gardner counts was the only independent evidence
for any of the charges. The court answered in a single sentence: The State provided extensive corroborating evidence, in the form of records of Appellant’s movements and locations while on duty on the days the crimes occurred; witnesses also corroborated each victim whose testimony supported a conviction, regarding their words and actions subsequent to the crimes.
Holtzclaw v. State, 2019 OK CR 17, ¶45. The opinion doesn’t say which records corroborated which count, and it doesn’t name a witness.
Elsewhere the same opinion describes how the records were used. Officers went through Daniel’s warrant checks, dispatch records and the automatic vehicle locator (AVL) in his patrol car to identify women with whom Appellant had contact, and to confirm the time frame and locations of the crimes.
Holtzclaw v. State, 2019 OK CR 17, ¶2. It also says the defense had asked the jury to accept all the information that victims gave about the stops that was amply supported by police records and documents
: that the stops happened was never the dispute. Holtzclaw v. State, 2019 OK CR 17, ¶5. In rejecting a separate claim about trying all the charges together, the court said the women’s testimony was in fact supported by police department records of Appellant’s movements during the times in question,
and pointed to the acquittals as proof that jurors weighed each count separately. Holtzclaw v. State, 2019 OK CR 17, ¶22.
The reasoning was circular. Lt. Timothy Muzny had the warrant-check unit pull every woman Daniel had run, and he was specifically looking for women who had either a drug history and or a history of prostitution.
Scott Adams 00269. Another officer built a spreadsheet of every time Daniel’s car had been near the abandoned school on NE 18th, in an attempt to locate further victims.
Scott Adams 00533. Every woman found that way already had a stop in Daniel’s records. That a record later “matched” her stop was built into how she was found. What stands out is that some allegations didn’t match the records anyway.
Detective Davis swore she never gave the women their dates. Several got their dates from investigators or prosecutors.
At trial Davis testified: I never gave the ladies the dates
and when I interviewed them I never told them where the stops were.
Tr. 3494:24–3495:4. Two of her own interviews, Bowen’s and Copeland’s, don’t bear that out. Other women got their dates from other investigators or from prosecutors. In a 2019 civil deposition, Davis was asked whether Terri Morris’s May 8 date came from the AVL rather than from Morris herself. Her answer: Yeah. There weren’t any girls that could say what day they were assaulted.
Davis Dep. 58:18–23 (Jan. 29, 2019).
Syrita Bowen first told Davis it happened in July. At trial, she said: No, they gave me the date. They told me when.
Davis conceded she might have known the May warrant-check date before the interview: I might have. Yes.
Scott Adams 00863; Tr. 3412:13, 3490:19–25. Carla Raines said she learned her date from the district attorney’s office: Yeah, because I didn’t remember.
Tr. 2184:6–10. Tabitha Barnes couldn’t date her first stop. Gregory’s report says this was later noted as February 27, 2014, in the midnight hour. Scott Adams 00985. At trial, the prosecutor said we decided
on the date because of some records you’ve seen.
Tr. 1871:15–17. For Terri Morris, Gregory agreed he was the one who went and found this 5/8/2014 date.
Tr. 3284:14–16. And in Regina Copeland’s recorded interview the detectives supplied the date, the time and the place, as the next section shows.
The records built her account, and then contradicted the part she was surest of.
Copeland couldn’t give a date, a time or the place where she said the rape happened. The detectives supplied all three from Daniel’s radio traffic and GPS. When she worried about the times, Davis told her: You don’t worry about that. That’s our job.
Copeland OCPD interview, Oct. 13, 2014, at 24; Scott Adams 03332–33. At trial the State presented those details as hers.
The GPS ruled out the one thing she was sure of—that he had driven down 24th Street and pulled up beside her car. Davis: his car never goes on 24th Street.
On cross, about that part of her account: None of that is true.
Correct.
Because the AVL doesn’t show anything like that, does it?
No.
Tr. 2925:8–20, 2934:1–8. The jury convicted. The full account is on the Copeland page.
The GPS rules out the stop she described at the school. The jury convicted anyway.
Ellis said Daniel took her from Highland Drive to the abandoned school and raped her there, and that it lasted about five or ten minutes.
Tr. 3007:23–25. A stopped patrol car leaves a zero-speed point on the GPS every five minutes. Tr. 3445:7–9; Scott Adams 00800. The record has none at the school. Davis agreed there were several speeds noted but there are no zero speeds noted at this point in time.
Tr. 3118:6–9. Then: If it lasted five to ten minutes, yes, we would have a zero stop.
Asked whether Ellis’s ten minutes was untrue: By AVL, yes, correct.
Tr. 3129:17–24, 3134:2–3. On redirect the prosecutor offered an answer: gaps in the five-second readings meant the car had stopped moving. He conceded the limit in the same breath: Now he didn’t stop for longer than five minutes or there would’ve been a zero.
Correct.
Tr. 3135:9–18. The GPS leaves room for a stop of under five minutes. It doesn’t leave room for the five to ten minutes Ellis described. Nevertheless, the jury convicted on the rape count.
There are no movement records for the Ligons stop.
Daniel had finished his shift and logged off his car computer, which shuts off the GPS. Davis told the jury that detectives had eliminated the other officers by their GPS except they couldn’t eliminate Mr. Holtzclaw because his AVL was not on.
Tr. 842:2–5, 432:19–21. He didn’t radio the stop. Daniel told detectives about it himself that afternoon. A security camera on the Surety building recorded it, but the OSBI found the footage inconclusive
because the patrol car’s lights washed out the picture. Scott Adams 00070, 00127. For these two counts, the “records of Appellant’s movements” the court relied on don’t exist.
For the other convictions, the records show a stop. None shows a sexual act.
For Carla Johnson, Syrita Bowen, Adaira Gardner, Tabitha Barnes and Rosetta Grate, Daniel’s records fit what the women said about where they were and roughly how long the car stopped. Johnson and Bowen described their locations before Davis pulled the GPS. Scott Adams 05847, 05859; Tr. 3435:3–4, 3447:7–9. That is real, and it isn’t in dispute. The records place a patrol car on a street for a number of minutes. They say nothing about what happened inside it.
Many of these records are Daniel’s own. He called in the stops, ran the women for warrants over the radio, and announced transports with the destination and his mileage. He logged a protective sweep at Barnes’s house. Tr. 2003:5–2004:3, 2019:5–2020:8, 2741:10–14, 2748:12–13, 3560:12–15.
The jury acquitted where the GPS matched and convicted where it didn’t.
Kala Lyles said Daniel took her to the same abandoned school. His GPS shows zero-speed points on the street next to it at 1:41 and 1:46 a.m., and Davis told the jury it just matched her story.
Tr. 3708:23–3709:23. The jury acquitted Daniel of all four Lyles counts. Records also placed Daniel at the stops Terri Morris and Carla Raines described, after Morris’s date was chosen from the records and Raines got hers from the DA. Both were acquitted. Tr. 3237:20–22, 2206:13–20.
Ellis’s account failed the GPS test and Copeland’s failed it on the point she was surest of. The jury convicted on both. A records match didn’t secure a conviction for Lyles, Morris or Raines, and a records conflict didn’t prevent one for Ellis or Copeland.
Except for Ligons, nothing from the night itself records what any woman said.
The second half of the court’s sentence says witnesses corroborated each victim
whose testimony led to a conviction. Only Jannie Ligons left a record from the night of the alleged crime. She flagged down police officers at about 3:40 a.m. to report it, and she had a sexual-assault examination that morning. Scott Adams 00055, 00058. For the other seven, the record has no police report, no exam, no text, no email, no saved voicemail and no note from that night saying anything about a sexual assault.
For Sherry Ellis and Syrita Bowen, the evidence of what they said that night is testimony from the men they lived with, given at trial in November 2015, a year and a half later. Ellis’s partner testified that she told him I just got raped by a policeman
and that She said she thought he was black.
She didn’t go to a hospital or to the police. Tr. 3037:23–3038:3, 3039:10–12, 3049:9–10, 3040:19–24. Bowen’s boyfriend testified that she said a cop had made her give him some head and tail.
Tr. 3424:4–9. Daniel’s lawyer objected to both as hearsay and improper bolstering; the judge let the partner’s account in as an excited utterance.
Tr. 3036:12–25, 3040:7–13, 3420. Testimony like this shows only what someone close to a woman says, a year and a half later, that she told him. It doesn’t prove she said it that night, let alone that the act happened or who the officer was.
Here is everything the State offered, or the record shows, for each of the eight women whose counts ended in convictions.
| Accuser | Witness | When she supposedly told them | What the witness said | Anything recorded at the time? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jannie Ligons | Her daughter, her fiancé and her cousin (all testified) | Within hours, that night | That a police officer forced oral sex. The cousin said he made her Take off all her clothes; Ligons testified she pulled her pants down to my knees. Tr. 628:10–20, 593:21–594:9, 673:9–16, 502:15–16; Scott Adams 00055, 00058. | Yes. She reported it to police at about 3:40 a.m. and had an exam that morning. |
| Sherry Ellis | Her live-in partner (testified, November 2015) | That night | I just got raped by a policeman. She said she thought he was black.She went to neither a hospital nor the police. Police first contacted him in September 2014. Tr. 3039:10–12, 3049:9–14, 3040:19–24. | None |
| Syrita Bowen | Her boyfriend (testified); her mother (told Davis in October 2014; didn’t testify) | Boyfriend: that night. Mother: this past summer | Boyfriend: a cop had made her give him some head and tail.Mother: The officer made her have oral sex with him.Nothing about a rape. Davis had already told the mother her daughter was a victim of an assault by a police officer.Tr. 3424:4–9; Scott Adams 00860. | None |
| Carla Johnson | Her roommate (testified) | That night, by voicemail | At trial, only that it was about a police officerand she sounded very upset. Panicky-like.He couldn’t actually understandthe message and deleted it. To police he said she said the officer felt all over her, and that he heard it the following day.Tr. 3536:15–17, 3537:2–23; Scott Adams 05857–58. | Phone records of four calls. They show that she called, not what she said or why. |
| Adaira Gardner | Her mother (testified) | That evening | At trial: she said a officer brought her home, and nothing inappropriate. In a recorded police interview: she had met this really hot cop, they exchanged phone numbersand were going to go out.Tr. 3876:6–8, 3887:4–14, 3948:7–13; Scott Adams 00226. | None |
| Regina Copeland | Her sister-in-law (testified); her two brothers (told police; didn’t testify) | Sister-in-law: months later. Brothers: a rape only after Davis called in October 2014 | Sister-in-law: this officer who had put his hands on her.Copeland herself said she only asked her brother whether an officer could make her pull her clothes down. Tr. 2887:20–2888:1, 2835:7–18; Scott Adams 00526, 00528. | None |
| Rosetta Grate | The man who owned the house (testified); her father (testified; told police in August 2014) | Owner: that night. Father: about three months later | Owner: he thought she had Brought someone into the house.Father, to the jury: it involved a police officer and she was crying. Father, to police: a cop took her somewhereand forced oral sex. Nothing about a rape, or her bedroom. Tr. 2625:11–24, 2616:18–2617:2; Scott Adams 00551. | None |
| Tabitha Barnes | Her boyfriend, her mother and her daughter, then eleven (all testified) | Undated | Boyfriend: he just made her raise her dress up; he didn’t recall about the touching part.Mother: She told me he was harassing her.Daughter: her mother came in upset, was cryingand said he touched her body part. Tr. 2147:16–20, 1850:18–20, 1838:19–23; Scott Adams 00993. | None |
Two of these accounts describe less than the woman testified to. Bowen’s mother and Grate’s father each told police the woman had described being forced into oral sex, with no mention of a rape. Both women testified that they were raped as well. (The jury acquitted Daniel of the Grate rape count and convicted on the oral-sodomy count.) Scott Adams 00860, 00551.
The verdicts don’t track this testimony either. Shardayreon Hill’s mother described a detailed sexual disclosure, and Kala Lyles’s boyfriend described a crying phone call right after her stop. The jury acquitted on every count involving both women. Tr. 1502:16–1503:1, 3669:4–3670:25.
Records of stops, and witnesses who claimed the complainants told them.
The first half of the court’s sentence describes something real: Daniel stopped these women, and his own records show it. For the second half, some of the women produced friends or family members who said they were told soon afterward, but apart from Ligons none could point to anything from the time, such as a text, an email or a police report. Neither half proves that a sexual act took place. For Copeland and Ellis the records contradict the account, for Ligons there are none, and for Gardner the State’s own witness had told police about a flirtation. The opinion treated all of it as one body of corroboration. Count by count, it doesn’t hold together. More on what detectives never checked.