15 years after the trial, the defense attorneys for Romell Broom, who were then handling his post-conviction, discovered potentially exculpatory material, in the form of reports made by the East Cleveland Police Department.

These documents prove that in 1984 the detectives from East Cleveland had serious doubts about the veracity of the two eyewitnesses and their report about the abduction of Tryna Middleton. These doubts were based on interviews the detectives from East Cleveland conducted with classmates of Tryna.

The classmates testified that Tryna and her friends, the later eyewitnesses of the alleged abduction, were smoking marijuana during the football game and were all high. In addition, a few schoolmates expressed their belief that all three friends had gotten into the car of the so-called abductor free-willingly and that two of them left while Tryna stayed, also free-willingly, to "party".

These interviews documented in the East Cleveland Police reports put into serious question that the necessary death penalty specifications of kidnapping and rape ever happened.

The East Cleveland Police reports were not disclosed to either Romell Broom's defense or the members of the jury during the course of or prior to the trial in October 1985.

Did the prosecution have knowledge of these police reports and hide their content from the defense in order to get the death penalty?