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Judge: Clearwater detective crossed the line in coercing confession in Pinellas Trail death

 
“You lied to him about everything. You lied to him about the witnesses. You lied to him about all sorts of things,” Pinellas Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley told Clearwater Detective Thomas Dawe. [SCOTT KEELER  |  Times] 
“You lied to him about everything. You lied to him about the witnesses. You lied to him about all sorts of things,” Pinellas Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley told Clearwater Detective Thomas Dawe. [SCOTT KEELER | Times] 
Published Aug. 26, 2016

LARGO — After she threw out a Clearwater man's murder confession last week, Pinellas Circuit Judge Nancy Moate Ley had harsh words for the detective who questioned him, according to court records obtained Thursday by the Tampa Bay Times.

Ley told Thomas Dawe, a Clearwater homicide detective, that he was "absolutely intimidating off the charts" in his 2014 interview with Dewayne Jones, now 20, the man accused of killing a woman on the Pinellas Trail two years ago.

Ley deemed the evidence that stemmed from Jones' interview "simply unusable" because his confession was not "free and voluntary." She said Dawe intimidated Jones to the point of confession by repeatedly telling him he was lying about what happened.

"You called him, you know, a murderer, a pervert. … You called him a psycho," Ley said. "You lied to him about everything. You lied to him about the witnesses. You lied to him about all sorts of things."

Clearwater police Chief Dan Slaughter previously said in a statement that his detectives did not commit an "egregious error." He said the detectives did not coerce Jones by threatening him with physical force.

"We're looking at what lessons we can learn from this decision to improve our questioning and the nature of some of our questioning," Slaughter said Thursday.

Jones said he found 41-year-old Lydia Ann Tross' wallet on Aug. 10, 2014, along the Pinellas Trail and took it. The next day, he went to the Pinellas sheriff's north county station to return the wallet and told Clearwater police detectives he found it inside a purse on the trail. Jones went home after that first interview.

The next day, Dawe and a fellow homicide detective, William Hodgson, picked Jones up from his home and brought him to the crime scene, then to police headquarters, where they questioned him for more than nine hours. Jones was not read his Miranda rights until an hour and 20 minutes into the interview.

Ley said Jones, who court records show has an IQ of 75, was trying to keep the detectives happy throughout the interview, so he remained polite and eventually agreed to each of their allegations.

If he couldn't identify a piece of evidence, the detectives would suggest details until Jones' story matched theirs. When Jones would return to his original story, the detectives reminded him of details to draw him back to their time line.

Slaughter said the department is in the middle of an evaluation regarding questioning. Dawe has not seen repercussions from this case.

"I think you truly believe Mr. Jones did it," Ley told Dawe. "There isn't much evidence against him, but I believe you believed that he did it, and you just kept talking him through things and you weren't going to give."

Jones was released last Friday from the Pinellas County Jail, where he had spent two years awaiting trial.

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Ley said there were circumstances where the detectives' tactics would have been reasonable, "but they sure weren't here."

Dawe was trying to "psychologically pummel" Jones, Ley said, telling him that if he didn't admit to what the detectives believed to be the truth, he would be arrested for murder.

"And that might seem to make sense to you, and we all know what we think the truth is," Ley said, "but that isn't the law."

Contact Hannah Jeffrey at hjeffrey@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8450. Follow @hannahjeffrey34.