LOCAL EXCLUSIVE: Channel 9 sits down with Concord man wrongly convicted of rape

DURHAM, N.C. — Four days have passed since Ronnie Long was released from prison, and he’s already settling into life in 2020.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable,” Long told Channel 9′s Susanna Black. “There was one time where I couldn’t even see this far, I couldn’t see this far. Knowing what I had to work with, I knew it was going to be a struggle. But as long as you have belief, that faith that you believe one day a change gonna come.”

Long’s been staring at state prison walls for the past 44 years. Now, he said he’s adjusting to life on the outside and getting caught up on everything he’s missed since 1976.

“They gave me a cellphone and I’m thinking that the cellphone I got to bend like this to talk on it. I’m thinking this is the only way they can hear me. They kept saying, “Ronnie, why are you bent over? Just lean back and say what you’re gonna say!’ That’s how much technology has changed from 1976 to now.”

While brushing up on his smartphone skills, Long said he’s also discovered he can ask Siri to play his favorite music, which is something he really enjoys.

“That’s pretty cool, isn’t it? You just name the artist and there it is. You don’t even need an 8-track!” he said.

Long is also experiencing somethings for the first time. Long said he recently tried Champagne for the first time and went to a baby shower for his great-grandchild who will be born soon. He said it’s the little things he’s been looking forward to the most, things he said he will never take for granted, such as lying in bed beside his wife.

“I’m going on 65,” Long said. “You don’t ever know when your last second, your last minute, your last day is going to come upon you, just like that, so you’re going to cherish every second. I’ve got to live life to the fullest right now. I’m not talking about running buck wild, just whatever you do make sure you’re happy doing it.”

Ronnie Long's first meal after spending 44 years in prison

The Road to Freedom

Long, 64, was convicted on Oct. 1, 1976, of burglary and the rape of a prominent widow in Concord, who died in 2015 at the age of 93.

He told Channel 9 he believes he was framed for the attack simply because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. On the morning of May 10, 1976, Long was in a Cabarrus County courtroom for a first appearance hearing for a trespassing charge. Long said he’d jumped his backyard fence to walk through a park. A judge immediately dismissed the charge and Long said he believed everything was taken care of. Little did he know, the rape victim, who was sitting in the second row of the courtroom in a disguise had pointed him out as the man she believed raped her.

Court records confirm detectives asked the victim to accompany them to the Cabarrus County Courthouse as they “had reason to believe that there might be somebody in the courthouse … somebody there that (she) could recognize,” documents state.

The victim wore a red wig and glasses and observed court proceedings for 60 to 90 minutes before she spotted Long, who was called to the front of the courtroom. She identified him as her attacker before ever hearing him speak despite telling police she knew the assailant by his voice, which she described as “a Black voice.”

“Now keep in mind, a wealthy influential white female just said that little young negro raped me,” Long explained. “I get up and walk out of the courtroom, get in the car, go home, go to bed and went to sleep. Stayed asleep for two hours. Then my mama woke me up and said the police are back out there. Go out and see what they want and get them out in front of my house.”

Ronnie Long said he recognized the two detectives from being in the courtroom earlier that morning. He said they told him he needed to go to the police station to sign some papers related to the trespassing charge and could either ride with them or drive.

“My mama said, ‘Do he need anybody with him?’ They said, ’No, Mrs. Long. He’ll only be gone about 15 to 20 minutes.”

Long never returned home.

Court records now show investigators had taken the victim to the police station earlier in the day where she was shown another photo array with Long’s photo included.

“Of note, (Long) was the only person in the photos wearing a leather coat, which was the type of clothing (the victim) initially identified her assailant as wearing,” the records state. The woman picked Long out of the array and told detectives she had “no doubt whatsoever” that he was her attacker.

“They locked me up,” Long said. “I’m thinking, ‘How serious is this? They’re building a case against me.’”

Long went to jail. He said a few months later he was approached by a prosecutor, who offered him a plea deal.

“My father was with him,” Long explained. “He said, ’Ronnie, the DA is willing to give you seven years for a guilty plea and you’ll be back home in three. I looked at my dad and he said, ‘Ronnie, listen, I didn’t raise y’all to say that you did something when you didn’t do it.’ Keep in mind, I’m facing a death sentence for this. I still told the man I couldn’t do it.”

Long’s trial began in September 1976. Evidence presented during the trial included his jacket, a toboggan found in his car and some matches, which were also confiscated from his car as it sat in the police station parking lot. No evidence of the crime was found on Long’s clothing, and the matches taken from his car did not match the burned matches found inside the victim’s home the night of the attack.

Long also had an alibi.

According to defense witnesses, Long had attended a class reunion planning meeting the night of the rape and later hung out with friends. During the time frame of the assault, Long’s mother testified that he was home with her and participated in a group phone call with her, his toddler son and the mother of his son, court records show. Testimony at trial indicated the entire call lasted about 45 minutes.

Long’s mother testified that after the phone call, she could hear Long playing music in his bedroom until his father came home around 10:25 p.m. with the family car, which Long then borrowed to meet friends at a party in Charlotte.

Friends who saw Long in Charlotte that night also testified on his behalf. They recalled the clothing he wore that night, which contradicted what the rape victim said about her assailant’s clothing.

Long also had no scratches or marks visible on his body that would have indicated a violent struggle.

During the victims’ testimony, Long said she made a statement that he thought would seal his freedom.

“The judge asked that woman, ‘Did the detective ask you to choose Ronnie Long?’ She said, ‘They could have.’”

In closing arguments, prosecutors argued that the physical evidence was consistent with the victim’s testimony. The defense disagreed, arguing, “There is no evidence that (the victim), who testified that she scratched and fought for her life . . . No evidence (of) any skin, hair or anything the state can connect with Ronnie Wallace Long.”

“None of that was brought here and if it exist(s), we don’t know about it and maybe it wouldn’t fit this man if it exist(s).”

Long was convicted and sentenced to two concurrent life sentences.

Over the years, Long’s appellate lawyers have argued several points. They alleged that the victim’s identification of their client was improper because the procedures used by police were “impermissibly suggestive.” They argued that the search of Long’s car was illegal because it was done without his consent. Ten years after he was sent to prison in 1986, they argued that the makeup of the all-white jury demonstrated a “systematic exclusion of Blacks.”

The state courts denied each of his petitions for relief.

Long’s luck in federal court also ran against him until April 2005 when the North Carolina Center for Actual Innocence filed a motion demanding the location and preservation of evidence in the case. The motion also demanded that the state to provide the defense with all test results on the physical evidence.

Those reports showed inconsistencies and lies by law enforcement officials at Long’s trial. They also showed that none of the evidence placed Long at the scene of the crime.

“Officers lied repeatedly during his trial,” Long’s attorney Jamie Lau told Channel 9. “Evidence that would have undercut the arguments made by the state was hidden from Long during the course of his trial, and that evidence also pointed toward someone else as the assailant.”

Tests showed that hair belonging to the attacker failed to match hair samples taken from Long for comparison, the court records show.

Once that evidence came to light, Long’s attorneys filed a motion seeking to locate and preserve evidence from the victim’s hospital treatment following the rape. In April 2007, the hospital reported that no medical records or other evidence existed in the victim’s name. Lau said the victim’s rape kit vanished after the hospital turned it over to Concord police detectives.

Long filed an appeal claiming that prosecutors and police suppressed evidence in the case, but his appeal was denied. When that claim was appealed to the state Supreme Court, the vote was 3-3, which procedurally meant the lower court’s decision was affirmed.

The next move was Long’s 2016 federal habeas petition, which offered yet another bundle of withheld evidence, including 43 latent fingerprints had been lifted from the crime scene and tested.

“An independent expert analyzed the prints and excluded petitioner as the source of the prints,” the federal Appeals Court states in its ruling this week.

In Long’s latest appeal, he argued actual innocence of the crime based on the evidence that had been withheld.

The appeals court ruled that Long’s case should be remanded back to the district court and urged the court to “act with dispatch” considering Long’s age and the number of years he has been behind bars.

“Without a doubt, no reasonable jury could find Mr. Long guilty based on the undeniable facts before us today: Suppressed physical evidence failing to link Mr. Long to the crime scene, the perjured testimony of investigating officers, missing key biological evidence and an eyewitness identification obtained through means now illegal in North Carolina,” the ruling stated. “So, while I am in full accord with the majority that Mr. Long would be entitled to additional discovery if it were necessary, I believe there to be no need for it. Rather, justice demands that we immediately grant Mr. Long the relief he has pursued for 44 years.”

Getting Out

Long said taking the first steps out of prison was indescribable.

“I told myself, ’Man you just walked out those prison gates. It’s over. It’s over. I’m back. I mean, I’m speechless. I’m talking about (the dictionary) don’t have the words to describe the way I was feeling. They haven’t even come up with that yet. I’m elated to the point to where it’s unreal, it’s unreal.”

He’s been spending a lot of time on the road between his home in Durham and his family, many of whom still live in Concord. He’s attended church with his brother, had dinner with friends and even attended a baby shower for his soon-to-be-born great grandchild. However, one person won’t be able to see is his mother. She passed away at 89 years old four weeks before he was released.

“I missed my mama by one month,” Long explained. “My sister said my mama said, ‘Is Ronnie home?’ She said, ‘Nah, mom he ain’t here yet.’ She said she closed her eyes and didn’t wake back up. That’s how life goes, you know what I mean? I would have liked for my mama to be there, just to see her face, when I walk through the door.”

While a piece of his heart is missing, another large piece can be found sitting right beside him. His wife, Ashleigh Long, has been his constant companion since they were married seven years ago, as well as his fiercest advocate. She said having him home still feels unreal.

“The whole seven years, anytime I’d do something like go to the grocery store I’d think, ’Oh, it’d be so cool to do this with Ronnie,” she explained. “When I’m driving to see him, I’d think, ‘It’d be so cool to have Ronnie as my backseat driver.’ And now it’s like, ’Oh, he’s with me! We’re doing everything I’ve imagined.”

When asked if he’d like to work one day, Long said he would, but his wife quickly stepped in to set things straight.

“He wants to, but I told him the only job Ronnie Long has is to wake up and do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, with whoever he wants, because this man survived for 44 years in prison for somebody else’s crime. So, he should never have to lift a finger or break a sweat in his life unless he wants to,” Ashleigh Long said.

Moving on

Now, Long says he’s looking forward to what the future will hold.

“I want to live comfortably,” Long explained. “I don’t want to live an exorbitant life. I don’t want to lead an excessive life. The only thing I want to do is enjoy what I have, my marriage, my relationships and really, I feel that there are people still in the penitentiary that need help. You know they say, ‘Each one, teach one.’ If you reach one of them and give them the knowledge they need, hopefully he can cultivate them and keep it going.”

Long’s attorney, Jamie Lau, told Channel 9 he is in the process of helping Long get monetary relief from the state of North Carolina. Long could soon be eligible to receive up to $750,000.

‘Never give up’: After 44 years, Ronnie Long released from prison after court says rights were violated

Cox Media Group