Kalamazoo, Michigan — Leaders of the Michigan Innocence Clinic and exonerees were in mourning after learning that an attorney who worked to clear three wrongfully convicted men in Michigan had been shot and killed.
Mike McKenzie, 72, and his wife, Darla, 68, of suburban Atlanta, Georgia, were found shot to death at their Alabama home on Tuesday.
Police say the couple was visiting their daughter’s home in Etowah County, Alabama, two hours west of Atlanta, when they were shot by her husband.
Christopher Scott Johnson, the son-in-law, has been charged with capital murder and is being held without bond, according to sheriff’s deputies.
Mike McKenzie had established himself as an attorney who specialized in arson cases, particularly those involving junk science in convictions.
John Lentini, a certified fire investigator based in Florida, stated that he began working with McKenzie on fire insurance cases in the 1980s. Eventually, they began collaborating on wrongful conviction arson cases.
“He did not go for bad outcomes,” Lentini said. “If things are wrong and he’s got the capability to fix them, then by God, that’s what he’s going to do.”
Imran Syed, co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, said McKenzie began working with the clinic in 2009, always for free.
“He was well known then as one of the rare lawyers who had experience handling junk fire science cases that lead to wrongful arson convictions of innocent people,” Syed writes in an email to News 8.
“His work is why at least a dozen or so innocent people across the country won back their freedom after wrongful conviction,” Syed told the crowd.
“Mike did all this incredible work without charging a dime to any of my clients or the clients of any other innocence project,” Syed said in a letter. “He was a beloved friend and mentor to many young lawyers across the country, and few can dream to leave behind as many monumental good deeds as he did.”
Two of Michigan’s arson convictions involved murder cases, including David Gavitt, who was convicted in a fire that killed his wife and two young daughters in Ionia in 1985.
In Gavitt’s case, McKenzie asked Lentini to double-check the Michigan State Police lab’s tests, which revealed gasoline was used to start the fire.
“He got me the (state police’s) chemistry,” Lentini said. “It was some of the worst chemistry I had ever witnessed. It did not match gasoline. I was blown away. I’d never seen anything so ugly pass off as a good outcome.”
Gavitt, now 66, was exonerated 13 years ago after serving 27 years in prison.
Gavitt is saddened by the couple’s death, saying they had become friends. According to friends, Darla McKenzie was a retired transactional lawyer.
“Mike and Darla were like family to us,” Gavitt explained. “They worked so hard, not only to help me get exonerated, but also to believe in and trust me. And it meant a lot. “That meant a lot.”
He still wonders why an Atlanta attorney cared about a prisoner in Michigan.
“He’s a very special, caring person,” Gavitt explained. “He could have replied, ‘No, I don’t want anything to do with it. Why did he accept my case and work on it? I do not know. I cannot answer that question; only Mike can.”
Deputies in Alabama have not revealed a possible motive for the killings.