$11 Million Settlement for Exonerated Michigan Prisoner
by David M. Reutter
On October 17, 2023, Michigan State Police (MSP) paid $11 million to settle claims by former state prisoner Ray McCann, Jr., 57, after a jury awarded him $14.5 million for his wrongful conviction on a perjury charge related to the investigation into the sexual assault and murder of 11-year-old Jodi Parrack.
MSP was under pressure to solve the murder of the child on November 11, 2007. After her mother reported her missing, law enforcement failed to conduct a systematic search. McCann then participated in a haphazard search organized by residents in the town of Constantine, asking the second day if anyone had searched the cemetery. When Parrack’s body was found there, MSP first suspected McCann’s 11-year-old son, a friend of the dead girl, before turning their attention to McCann, searching his home and truck and subjecting him to a lengthy interrogation. Over its 22 hours, though, McCann steadfastly maintained his innocence.
He continued to do so over the next five years, as the crime remained unsolved and MSP Det. Sgt. Bryan Fuller took over the cold case investigation in early 2011. He also focused on McCann, though his DNA did not match that of an unknown male found on Parrack’s body. Fuller and fellow Det. Shane Criger arranged for McCann to testify under oath about his whereabouts during the search. They then used surveillance video to prove McCann was not at a trailhead as he testified and charged him with five counts of perjury in 2014. They also lied to McCann that his DNA matched the killer’s. McCann subsequently pled nolo contendere to one of the counts and was sentenced to prison for a term of 20 months in 2015.
While McCann was in prison, a 10-year-old was lured by Daniel Furlong into his garage and attacked. When she escaped and led cops back to him, Furlong was arrested. His DNA was matched to that found on Parrack’s body, and he confessed to her murder, copping a plea to second-degree murder in exchange for a 30-year sentence that the now-73-year-old is serving. But by that time McCann had been paroled. Attorneys and students with the Michigan Innocence Clinic then got involved and proved that Fuller provided false testimony—the video did not point to the trailhead where McCann claimed to be; like other evidence Fuller and fellow detectives shared with McCann, it was fabricated and manipulated to entrap him because they were already certain that he was Parrack’s killer. In December 2017, McCann’s perjury conviction was vacated, and in May 2019 the state paid him $40,000 from its wrongful imprisonment fund for the 20 months he was unjustly incarcerated.
McCann then sued Fuller in December 2019, and on September 23, 2023, a jury in federal court for the Western District of Michigan agreed that his rights were violated, awarding $12 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages. The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement, under which McCann was paid $10 million, with another $1 million in costs and fees paid to his attorneys with Lovey & Loevy in Chicago. See: McCann v. Fuller, USDC (W.D. Mich.), Case No. 1:19-cv-01032.
The exoneration came too late to save McCann’s marriage and job, he said, and he can’t imagine returning to the hometown where everyone else thinks of him as a child molester. A LinkedIn page for Bryan Fuller says that he is still employed by MSP.
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