Two very different men named John Willis turn up when people search this name. One is a Chicago man who spent more than eight years in prison for rapes he did not commit and was exonerated by DNA testing in 1999. The other is a white man from Dorchester, Massachusetts, nicknamed “Bac Guai John,” or “White Devil John,” who rose through a Chinese organized crime circle in Boston’s Chinatown and was sentenced in 2013 to 20 years in federal prison for drug trafficking and money laundering. Both cases are covered below.
The Chicago John Willis: Wrongful Conviction and 1999 Exoneration
John Willis was convicted in the early 1990s for two armed robberies and sexual assaults committed on the far south side of Chicago in 1990. The crimes were part of a string of five attacks on beauty shops in 1989 and 1990. Victims and other eyewitnesses identified him as the attacker. He was convicted at a jury trial in February 1992 and again at a second trial in November 1993, and sentenced to a combined 100 years in prison.1Innocence Project. John Willis
He was released on February 24, 1999, and officially exonerated on March 15, 1999, after DNA testing identified someone else as the attacker.2Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern. John Willis
The Evidence That Should Have Cleared Him
Willis’s conviction rested on eyewitness identifications from the victims and nine additional witnesses. Forensic evidence available before his first trial pointed the other way. Conventional serological testing on a toilet paper wrapper containing the assailant’s semen, recovered from a victim, excluded Willis as a contributor. His blood type is B. The assailant had type A.2Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern. John Willis
Chicago police lab technician Pamela Fish testified that the test results were “inconclusive.” Her own handwritten notes recorded the exculpatory finding, but those notes were never turned over to the defense despite specific requests.3Chicago Tribune. $2.5 Million Deal in Rape Case Suit According to the Northwestern Center on Wrongful Convictions, prosecutors also failed to disclose the blood-type report before the second trial in 1993.2Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern. John Willis
The 1993 trial judge also barred Willis from presenting evidence about an alternative suspect, Dennis McGruder, who had been arrested in April 1992 for a strikingly similar series of beauty shop robberies and sexual assaults committed while Willis was already in custody. The judge further prohibited Willis from testifying about a jailhouse conversation in which McGruder allegedly confessed to the very crimes for which Willis was on trial. An appeal based on McGruder’s arrest was denied.1Innocence Project. John Willis
How DNA Finally Freed Him
In late 1996, assistant Cook County public defender Greg O’Reilly took the case and filed a petition for DNA testing. After Illinois enacted a new forensic testing law in 1997, a judge ordered DNA testing in Willis’s case on August 13, 1997.4Chicago Tribune. Prisoner to Go Free as DNA Clears Him in Beauty Shop Rape
Getting the evidence tested proved difficult. Twenty items, including rape kits, fibers, and slides, were initially reported missing by the police crime lab, the evidence storage room, and the prosecutor’s office.5Los Angeles Times. Wrongful Conviction Case Prosecutors told the defense the biological sample had been lost.2Center on Wrongful Convictions, Northwestern. John Willis O’Reilly discovered Fish’s handwritten notes in the case file showing the blood-type exclusion, and three independent forensic experts confirmed the mismatch. O’Reilly called it “powerful evidence of Willis’ innocence.”4Chicago Tribune. Prisoner to Go Free as DNA Clears Him in Beauty Shop Rape
Prosecutors eventually located two slides in a manila trial folder. DNA testing on those slides excluded Willis and positively identified Dennis McGruder as the source of the semen from the May 2, 1990, assault.4Chicago Tribune. Prisoner to Go Free as DNA Clears Him in Beauty Shop Rape1Innocence Project. John Willis
Pardon, Lawsuit, and Settlement
Willis received a pardon from then-Governor George Ryan. In 2000, he filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of Chicago and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. The suit alleged that Fish falsely testified about the serology results, that exculpatory evidence was withheld from the defense, and that a county prosecutor “wantonly and maliciously destroyed or hid or failed to preserve or otherwise rendered unavailable evidence that he knew … would reveal that Mr. Willis was innocent.”3Chicago Tribune. $2.5 Million Deal in Rape Case Suit
The case settled in 2004 for $2.5 million, split equally between the city and the county at $1.25 million each. The Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee approved the settlement.3Chicago Tribune. $2.5 Million Deal in Rape Case Suit
Pamela Fish herself was not an isolated problem. By 2001, she had been accused in lawsuits of giving false or misleading testimony that contributed to the convictions of nine men, with her work linked to at least three wrongful convictions overturned through DNA evidence. In August 2001, she was transferred from her position as chief of the biochemistry section at the Chicago police crime lab to an administrative role. A state police spokesman called the move routine; State Representative James Durkin said he had urged the state police director to remove her from a position of authority due to ongoing questions about her scientific integrity.6Chicago Tribune. Crime Lab Analyst Moved
The Boston John Willis: “White Devil John” and the Ping On Gang
The other John Willis, from Dorchester, Massachusetts, became a rare figure in American organized crime: a white man who rose to a senior position in a historically Chinese Boston Chinatown gang. On August 15, 2013, United States District Court Judge Joseph L. Tauro sentenced him, then 42, to 20 years in federal prison and ordered him to forfeit $2 million after he pleaded guilty to leading a drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy.7FBI Boston. Leader of Drug and Money Laundering Conspiracy Receives 20 Years in Federal Prison
How He Ended Up Inside the Ping On
Willis was orphaned at 15. According to journalist Bob Halloran, who wrote the 2016 book White Devil: The True Story of the First White Asian Crime Boss, Willis was working as a bouncer at a bar near Fenway Park at 16 when he helped a Ping On gang member named “Woping Joe” during a fight. That encounter led to an introduction, a safe house, and a welcome into the group.8Boston.com. How a White Kid From Dorchester Became a Chinatown Kingpin
He taught himself Cantonese, Toisanese, and Vietnamese by watching films, listening to music, and paying close attention to the conversations around him. FBI Supervisory Agent Scott O’Donnell said that fluency gave him access to criminal circles “not typically available for other criminals.”9NPR. White Man Rises Up Ranks of Asian Gang in Boston10WBUR. Boston White Devil8Boston.com. How a White Kid From Dorchester Became a Chinatown Kingpin
The gang he joined had been built in the mid-1970s by Stephen Tse, known as “Sky Dragon,” operating as a branch of the Hong Kong-based 14K Triad. It controlled Chinatown’s gambling, prostitution, loan sharking, extortion, and drug trafficking for more than a decade before federal racketeering prosecutions in the mid-1990s dismantled its leadership.11Boston Magazine. In the Shadow of the Dragon
The Oxycodone Pipeline and the Arrest
With the original Ping On leadership gone, Willis built his own operation, moving hundreds of thousands of oxycodone pills from Florida to Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, and laundering millions of dollars in proceeds. Prosecutors said the operation generated more than $4 million. Willis himself later claimed the real figure was ten times that.7FBI Boston. Leader of Drug and Money Laundering Conspiracy Receives 20 Years in Federal Prison8Boston.com. How a White Kid From Dorchester Became a Chinatown Kingpin He also acted as an enforcer for Wei Xing Chen’s brothel operations and was recorded in a 2010 wiretapped call discussing violence on behalf of a brothel operator.
He was arrested in 2011 after an investigation by the Boston FBI’s Organized Crime Task Force. Investigators noted he had been using at least five burner cell phones at once. During a traffic stop in North Carolina, roughly $80,000 was seized from him; Willis called it his life savings, but prosecutors identified the money as drug proceeds.8Boston.com. How a White Kid From Dorchester Became a Chinatown Kingpin
Willis pleaded guilty in March 2013 to conspiracy to distribute oxycodone and money laundering conspiracy. His girlfriend, Anh Nguyen, had faced charges of witness tampering, and according to Halloran’s account, Willis took the plea deal in part to keep her out of prison.8Boston.com. How a White Kid From Dorchester Became a Chinatown Kingpin7FBI Boston. Leader of Drug and Money Laundering Conspiracy Receives 20 Years in Federal Prison9NPR. White Man Rises Up Ranks of Asian Gang in Boston
Book and Film Interest
As of Halloran’s book in early 2016, Willis was held at the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland.8Boston.com. How a White Kid From Dorchester Became a Chinatown Kingpin Based on the 20-year sentence imposed in August 2013, he would not be eligible for release until the early 2030s, though federal good-time credits could shorten that.
In August 2013, Warner Bros. announced it had hired filmmaker James Gray to write and direct a crime thriller titled White Devil based on Willis’s life, with Steven Kane and Matthew Valentinas attached as executive producers.12Deadline. Warner Bros. Sets James Gray for Boston Crime Thriller White Devil There is no public indication that the film has been produced.