On the evening of April 10, 1950, 46-year-old Robert Snead Williams, Jr. was driving through Washington, D.C. on his way home from work when he was pulled over near American University by a police officer on a motorcycle. The officer told Williams that there was an issue with his car registration, and he needed to come to the station. Upon arriving at the station, Williams noticed two girls looking him up and down and speaking with the officers. One of the girls looked at him and nodded to police.

Williams learned that the two girls had been walking near American University that evening when a man darted out from a parked car, exposed himself to them, then drove away. The girls, who were both 14 years old, had quickly flagged down a passing police officer and given a description of the car. The officer had then taken off on his motorcycle in search of the car. He spotted Williams’s car, which fit the description, prompting him to bring Williams to the station for a show-up identification. The girls identified Williams as the perpetrator.

Williams was a widower who lived with his 18-year-old daughter, Evangeline. He had no criminal record, and was a native of the city with strong community ties and an excellent reputation. He would later say he was angry and shocked by the way police had mistreated him, not allowing him to contact his family for many hours after his arrest.

Just a week after his arrest, Williams’s trial for indecent exposure began in the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia, with Judge Aubrey P. Fennell presiding. Defense attorney Paul Connolly represented Williams and Assistant Corporation Counsel Clark F. King prosecuted the case. Reporters were initially barred from the courtroom during the trial, so limited details of the trial are known. Both victims testified and identified Williams. Williams called character witnesses including Williams’s pastor and a friend who was also a municipal judge. Nonetheless, Judge Fennell announced there was “no reasonable doubt” of Williams’s guilt and found him guilty of indecent exposure on April 21, 1950. Judge Fennell delayed sentencing, saying he thought medical care for Williams, rather than a fine or imprisonment, would do the most good. Williams remained free on bond pending sentencing.

Almost two months later, two anonymous letters arrived at the office of prosecutor King. The writer claimed he was the perpetrator of the indecent exposure for which Williams had been convicted. A person then called King several times, saying he wrote the letters and was the true perpetrator. King promised the caller immunity if he came forward in person for questioning, but the person stopped calling.

Police handwriting expert Ira Gullickson examined the letters and determined they had been written by Williams’s daughter Evangeline. Evangeline denied any involvement in the letters and calls to King. Two additional handwriting experts, including Charles Appel, Jr. – the former director of the FBI’s handwriting analysis laboratory – were brought in, and both determined Evangeline could not have written the letters. With these new developments, Williams’s attorney filed a motion for a new trial. After hearing arguments on this motion, Judge Fennell ordered a new trial on June 21, 1950.

Shortly after the new trial was granted, the anonymous caller phoned King again. This time, he agreed to meet with King in person. After King met with the man, he said the man knew details of the crime that had not been publicly disclosed, and King believed he was the real culprit. He said the man was a married father who lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and had confessed to committing 50 indecent exposures in and around Washington, D.C.

When the two victims viewed this man, they said he was not the man who had exposed himself to them. Both Williams and the man were given “truth serum” tests with sodium amytal. (In the 1950s, this barbiturate was believed to make people speak truthfully.) The man submitted handwriting samples that King believed matched the notes sent to his office.

King agreed to keep his word on immunity and to keep the man’s identity confidential, provided the man receive psychiatric treatment. King said, “I feel it is as much my duty to vindicate the innocent as to prosecute the guilty.” He added that the first had turned out to be more difficult than the second. The charge against Williams was dismissed on October 12, 1950.

After his release, Williams spoke to reporters about his ordeal. He said that if this had happened to him 15 years earlier, he would have had to plead guilty because he would not have had the money for his defense. Paying for handwriting experts and a private detective had required him to use the money he had saved for his daughter’s first year of college. “Things like this just don’t happen, I thought,” he said. “But they do.”

- Meghan Barrett Cousino

Posting Date: 10-14-2025

Last Update Date: 10-14-2025