Mother of slain Savannah officer in ‘hell’ as case against his convicted murderer lingers

For mother, anguish is aftermath of son’s killing

COLUMBUS, Ga. — A cigarette smolders in Anneliese MacPhail’s ashtray, and she looks at it mournfully. Although she’s tried to quit smoking so many times since her son was shot dead this day 20 years ago, she lights up again with every twist in the case against his convicted killer.

“My nerves are shot,” she says Wednesday, sitting in the kitchen where she watched her son grow up. “I can’t believe it was 20 years ago today. I’ve been reliving every minute of it. I just keep seeing his face.”

Mark MacPhail, a Savannah police officer, was shot to death in 1989 while working off-duty after he rushed to the aid of a homeless man who had been attacked. A jury sentenced Troy Davis to die for the murder two years later, but the case has been in the legal world’s version of purgatory since then.

Anneliese MacPhail, meanwhile, says she’s been someplace worse.

“It’s hell,” she says, taking a long drag from a new cigarette.

The case has become a national flashpoint for death penalty critics who argue Davis is the victim of mistaken identity. His attorneys have managed to delay his execution three times, and this week the Supreme Court ordered a new hearing that gives Davis the chance to present evidence his lawyers say could exonerate him.

They say they’ll show that several witnesses at Davis’ trial have since recanted, and others who did not testify have said another man confessed to the killing.

“Our witnesses are strong,” says Jason Ewart, one of Davis’ attorneys. “They’ll come to court and tell their story.”

Davis has been buoyed by appeals from high-profile officials to stop his execution. Among them: former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI and a group of 27 former federal prosecutors and judges that includes former FBI Director William Sessions.

Prosecutors insist the case is closed and they stand by the verdict. And U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a sharply worded dissent to the court’s ruling, noted that federal and state courts have vetted the case and repeatedly thrown out Davis’ appeal.

Scalia called Davis’ appeal a “sure loser.” And Anneliese MacPhail, frustrated by the litany of delays, is quick to agree.

“Angry is not even the word. Disgusted is not even the word,” she said. “The jury convicted him. I have no doubt it was Troy Davis.”

She still lives in the tidy brick ranch on the outskirts of Columbus where she moved after her husband, a career soldier, died of a heart attack at the age of 43. She was left to raise Mark and his four siblings — all 18 or younger — on her own.

Mark was the clown of the family, she says, but he was also the child who wasn’t afraid to challenge his father, a stern and sometimes intimidating bear of a man.

She remembers once when her husband went to pick something up, and Mark whizzed by him, slapping his dad’s back in the process. The family sat stunned for a second before everyone burst into laughter. “No one else would dare do that,” she says now.

Mark joined the Army Rangers, but after he got married, he decided he wanted a more stable lifestyle. He moved to Savannah and joined the police force, but would often make the cross-state journey to spend time with his mother.

One visit stands out in her memory: It was the summer of 1989. Mark, growing serious, asked if she thought his father would be proud of him, even though he left the military. Of course, came Anneliese’s response. That was the last time she ever saw him.

She thinks, too, about how close he was to his older brother Bill, who, at 13 months his senior, deliberately flunked the first grade so he could take it again with Mark. The long line of girls who were always at the door when he was in high school. The pride in his voice after his son and daughter were born.

And then her mind flits forward to the 1991 trial and the frustrating delays that followed. Each one feels like an attack on her family — an attack on Mark’s memory — and she takes it personally.

“He should have been dead two years ago,” she says, her voice trembling. “Every delay is awful for us every time. I’m not saying Davis’ family isn’t suffering either. But Davis had a choice. Mark didn’t.”

She was spending the day trying to take her mind off the case, visiting with neighbors, catching up with her family. But there was little chance of that happening.

Everywhere she looked, there was a reminder of Mark — pictures of him as a lanky teen and then a mustachioed 20-something on her walls, a card on her kitchen table honoring her son’s service, newspaper clippings about the case from as far afield as Germany in her scrapbooks.

So she sat at her kitchen table, smoking cigarettes and lobbing a hope — no, a wish — to the heavens for the 21st anniversary of her son’s death next year.

“I want it to be over,” taking another long puff.

“It hurts like hell, But I just want it over. I want it over so bad.”

(This version CORRECTS Corrects 10th graf to say Davis’ appeal sted MacPhail’s.)