• Publication: The Athens Observer (Athens, Georgia)
• Author: Elton Manzione
• Original Publication Date: Thursday, May 23, 1996

In the latest chapter regarding the Jennifer Stone murder files, police have issued a response to a request for document production which seeks to cast doubt on the very existence of material purportedly tying Michael Gaines to the investigation.

As part of his preparation for a defamation suit brought by former Schools Superintendent Carol Purvis, local attorney Scott McLarty sought several items reported to be in the Stone files which link Gaines, the son of Superior Court Judge Joseph Gaines, to the murder investigation. Joseph Gaines was the presiding judge at Purvis’ 1992 racketeering trial and conviction. That conviction was later overturned by an appellate court.

McLarty said the information was needed to offset any possible defense by the defendants—the Clarke County Board of Education and various school officials—based on the argument that Purvis’ conviction had already blotted his character beyond damage.

McLarty sought records similar to those sought, and apparently obtained, by attorney Ed Tolley when he represented Michael Gaines in a 1992 divorce proceeding which occurred nearly simultaneously to the Purvis trial. Tolley was the chief state’s witness against Purvis and played a key role prior to indictment in the racketeering prosecution.

In a ruling last week, Gwinnett State Court Judge David Fuller ruled Tolley did not have to bring the documents or be questioned by McLarty. Fuller also ruled Clarke County Police Detective W.J. Smith, the chief investigator in the Stone homicide, would not have to testify or produce documents in the matter.

Fuller allowed Davis Burch, who represented Tolley, and Ellen Whitaker, who represented Smith, to write their own protective orders.

Coinciding with the requests to Smith and Tolley, McLarty issued a request to produce the documents to then Police Chief Ronny Chandler. McLarty’s request was a verbatim copy of Tolley’s 1992 request to Chandler.

Both requests sought “a tape recording of a conversation between Fontaine Gaines and officer W.J. Smith wherein certain allegations were made by her against Michael Gaines,” as well as “an anonymous letter, mailed from Tennessee, to the Athens-Clarke County Police Department averring Mr. Gaines committed certain offenses.” No answer was filed against Tolley’s request, but the departments’ answer to McLarty appears designed to cloud the existence of the tape and letter.

In an affidavit by Assistant Chief Mark Wallace, “based upon personal knowledge of the affiant,” Wallace states “to the extent that such materials exist…(they) are part of an ongoing criminal investigation.”

Assistant County Attorney Ellen Whitaker, in the formal response to McLarty’s request, carries the question a step further:

“In regard to the tape recording requested … assuming said tape recording exists, said tape recording is privileged as part of an ongoing criminal investigation” (emphasis added).

The anonymous letter from Tennessee gets the same treatment in the May 13 answer to McLarty’s request: “Assuming such a document exists, the letter requested … is privileged as part of an ongoing investigation.”

A third item “any notes, reports or transcripts of a conversation between Ed Walker of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Fontaine Gaines,” is also responded to with the qualifying “assuming they exist.”

The Athens Observer has confirmed at least four persons reported to authorities, over a period of two years following the murder, that Michael Gaines had been seen with Stone shortly before her death. One, a former county employee, reported she was fired shortly after making the statement. A second, a former journalism student, said she was told by authorities there was “nothing to that rumor.” Fontaine Gaines, Michael’s former wife, said Smith questioned her regarding Gaines’ whereabouts on that night as well as about statements made by other informants, and that “Tolley then used statements I gave to the police in confidence against me in my divorce.”