Nolan got both of those details right).  On Christmas Eve, Edward Williams was one of a kind.  He was the only black man that night who asked to use the telephone at the Kentucky Fried Chicken, so that he could call the police.  He was as identifiable as a unicorn.

Eagan tried to refute the Nolans' testimony in his final closing argument at trial.  He told the jury; "There is no evidence at all that the black man seen trying to use the telephone after the Kentucky Fried Chicken was closed was Edward Williams."

Eagan was incorrect.  J.D. Nolan did accurately, if briefly, describe Williams at trial.  In his direct testimony, Nolan said that the man who asked to use the phone was a black man age fifty to fifty-five, weighing about 160 pounds.  Ed Nolan, in his deposition, said that he was a "squatty man, not too tall, about 160 pounds."

Eagan continued during his closing argument: "Edward Williams was there earlier.  the place was open when he was there.  There were other customers there.  That's when he met the friend that took him to his next place, ultimately to Mary Stewart's."

No evidence was ever produced, at the trial or in deposition, that showed that the restaurant was open when Edward Williams appeared there.  Two of the state's witnesses—Williams and the clerk John Grimes—could have testified on the point at trial, but Eagan never asked them.

More important, no evidence ever suggested that two different black men tried to use the restaurant telephone to call the police on Christmas Eve.

John Grimes, who was there all day, described only one such incident.  Ed Nolan, who was there all evening, saw only one such man. Furthermore, Ed Nolan saw the same man meet a young woman outside, which describes the meeting between Williams and Rogenia Thomas.  The waitress who stayed past 9:00 P.M. told Gene Annan that only one man asked to use the telephone, and that was after closing.  The waitress who left at 9:00 P.M. told Annan that she never witnessed any such incident.

The fact is, if the Nolans saw a man asking to use the telephone at the Kentucky Fried Chicken, that man could only have been Edward Williams.

So the Nolans could not have been mistaken about what they saw. They could not have been mistaken about when they saw it.  The only possible rebuttal is that they were lying, and the state never attempted to show that they were anything but independent, disinterested, and truthful.

I cannot find another piece of important evidence in this case which is as clear, as unequivocal, as indisputable as the Nolans' testimony.  It is not colored by personal interest, nor is it subject to debate.  Its implications are so great, and its' significance is so obvious, that is goes straight to the heart of the argument about what happened on Christmas Eve.