Every truth has two sides;
it is well to look at both,
before we commit ourselves to either.
-Aesop
Between Mariet Ford's conviction and his sentencing, someone wrote him an urgent letter.
A mailman delivered the letter to the Sacramento County Jail. It would delay Mariet Ford’s sentencing, if not set him free. But before Mariet knew it arrived, a corrections officer at the Sacramento County Jail intercepted the letter.
The corrections officer recognized the letter’s significance and hand delivered it to the Sacramento County District Attorney’s office and gave it to Deputy District Attorney Mark Curry.
The district attorney could not suppress the evidence, but he appreciated the jump on the defense. He dispatched an investigator to be the first to track down the letter’s author.
The letter writer’s return address was the Sierra Conservation Center – jail. The man’s name was Rockland Riggs.
Riggs had a rap sheet. Police had nabbed him for stealing from Kmart and Sam’s Club. Plus – get this – he’d robbed his own mother not once but on multiple occasions. She’d told the police he had a drug problem. In Riggs family, that wouldn’t be anything new. Riggs claimed his two brothers had died of overdoses.
Riggs’ most recent crime … or was it the one before that? Anyway, he had been popped so often, it was hard to keep his bungled robberies straight.
A jury had recently convicted him of going to the El Dorado Country Club and stealing a bag and set of clubs while the golfer was inside the pro shop. That same day, he had taken the clubs to Play It Again Sports in Folsom and Sacramento where he sold the clubs using his own driver’s license.
The cops had tracked him down a few weeks later. His defense was that no one – not even he – was stupid enough to sell stolen goods using his own ID.
He had testified that a friend had given him the clubs.
What was the name of this friend?
Uhhh… Mmmmm… Rob, Riggs said.
Did Rob have a last name?
Riggs told the investigators he didn’t know Rob that well.
Hearing about Riggs’ letter, Detective Elaine Detective Elaine Stevenson – homicide for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department who made the case against Mariet – said she thought Riggs was just a desperate man begging for attention. The small-time burglar wasn’t saying anything he couldn’t have read in the papers or seen on TV.
But for Mariet and his attorney, Riggs represented hope. If Riggs could give even a few details of the crime that no one else would know, if he could tell anything that might cast a shadow of a doubt on Mariet’s guilt, the father could clear his name of the massacre of his three-year-old son Mariet Junior, his eight-month-pregnant wife Tess and their unborn son Marcellus.
The judge delayed Mariet’s sentencing so both sides – the prosecution and the defense – could explore these new leads.
Riggs had a few visitors in jail. Private Investigators Richard Wood and Robert Austin of Sacramento made the drive to interview Mariet. The prosecution’s investigator was there, too.
The district attorney’s office read Riggs his rights. That basically told Riggs that anything he said can and would be used against him in the court of law.
Riggs said he wanted to clear another man’s name, not save himself, but he didn’t want to hurt himself in the process. He wanted protection, immunity.
The district attorney’s office wasn’t making any deals.
After three delays, it was finally time for Ford’s sentencing. Riggs was being brought in to testify. It still looked like it could go either way depending on what Riggs would say or if – advised of his rights – he would say anything at all.
