Woman seeks money for helping free two

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Anne Danaher is largely responsible for freeing two Omaha, Neb., men wrongly convicted in a 1977 murder and now seeking $100 million from the police officers they claim framed them for the crime.

She wonders why she's never been compensated for years of work on their behalf.

Danaher, now of Kansas City, Mo., hopes Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee will remember she pursued their freedom for nine years after they had exhausted appeals and attorneys had given up. If not, a lawsuit she's filed could force at least one of them to pay Danaher for her efforts. The trial began Nov. 1.

"That's what this is all about," she said. "They do not want to pay me."

Danaher was 37 and a prison barber at the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison in 1993 when she met members of Harrington's family. That meeting and discussions with Harrington during 15-minute haircuts convinced her he was innocent in the killing of a former Council Bluffs, Iowa, police officer.

Harrington insisted he wasn't involved in the shotgun murder of former police Capt. John Schweer, who was killed in July 1977 while working as a security guard in Council Bluffs.

Harringon asked Danaher for help in 1994. She had no law degree and no background in criminal investigation, but she was determined to understand how Harrington could have been convicted without physical evidence and on the testimony of scared teenagers.

Danaher, 55, said Harrington agreed if he ever were freed, she would be paid for her help. Harrington wrote and signed a promise to share with her 20 percent of anything he might receive for a wrongful conviction.

Danaher quit her prison job to devote time the case. In 1999, she stumbled upon evidence that would free Harrington and McGhee. She obtained complete Council Bluffs police files in the murder case and uncovered police reports that had not been provided to the attorneys defending the men.

The reports describe a white man who had been seen by witnesses nearby with a shotgun, and that Schweer had confronted the man days before he was shot. The reports indicated that police had considered the man a suspect, but stopped pursuing him after they began focusing on Harrington and McGhee, two black teenagers from neighboring Omaha.

Mary Kennedy, a lawyer from Waterloo, Iowa, said Danaher's commitment and belief in Harrington cannot be overstated.

"It was many, many years of just dead end after dead end after dead end," Kennedy said. "She drove everywhere and did everything. She slept in her car. She drove five times a month for 10 years to the prison."

Although two decades had passed since the original murder trial, Danaher found key witnesses who said they had been threatened and coerced to lie by investigators and prosecutors.

The Supreme Court reversed Harrington's conviction. It took a few more legal maneuvers, but by October 2003 both men were released after spending 25 of their 43 years in prison.

In 2005 they sued the prosecutors, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, the investigating police officers and the city of Council Bluffs.

A federal judge found that the prosecutors violated the men's constitutional right to due process. Appeals in the case ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2009 the court heard arguments but before it could rule, the county settled the case in January 2010 by offering Harrington $7 million and McGhee nearly $5 million.

Danaher sought to be paid but has received no money from either man.