MGJR Volume 5 2015 | Page 18

A journalist should know the facts before stating things on the air as gospel and I was wrong. Barry not only won, he won big, and his people didn’t forget that in the Fox television interview I had questioned Barry's chances of victory.

On Election Night, after he won, Cora Masters, Barry's future wife, wouldn’t let me get close to him. In fact, members of Barry’s volunteer security detail pushed me to the floor in the gym of Anacostia High School, where he declared himself the new champion of the poor.

But covering Barry wasn’t about me. I had a job to do and Barry never kept a grudge. One year later I had been hired by The Washington Post and soon he was campaigning to get his old job back and nobody in the city doubted that he couldn’t win. In 1994, Barry won a three-way contest in the Democratic primary election, winning 48 percent of the vote.

Even though several reporters were assigned to cover Barry he always called me back when I was working on story about the D.C. Council. Once I was investigating his possibly questionable relationship with a woman and, after a press conference, he called me aside and whispered, “I know that you are checking up on me.”

In May 1996, I wrote about how unclaimed bodies were being stockpiled in the D.C. Morgue because the crematorium was broken and the city hadn’t paid its bill to a Landover cemetery that buried the poor. The story started with “Flies drowning in hot stench of death. Cockroaches running across stainless steel

autopsy tables.” Barry responded by going to the morgue to investigate the situation himself and then called me and asked for me to meet him there.

In another story, I was part of a team of reporters looking into allegations that Barry was accepting gifts from a developer in exchange for favors. Barry’s lawyer denied everything but I learned from a stone mason that Barry purchased stone for a new fireplace from a stone quarry in Upper Marlboro. I learned from a source that connected Barry to developer Young Yun.

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At The Washington Post we always need at least three sources to confirm things and this was the mayor of Washington. I went to Barry with my information and he turned out to be the third source for his own story. In that moment he was willing to help me confirm a less than flattering story at his own expense. The developer was indicted but somehow Barry kept on going.

There were always concerns and rumors that Barry had relapsed into drug use. In November 1996 my

editor sent me to the Coolfont resort in Berkley Springs, W.Va. to find out why Barry had assembled his entire cabinet there amid allegations that he was drinking and possibly using drugs again,

It was dark driving up that mountain. I knew I had no business being there. When I knocked on the door, former D.C. Police Chief Larry Soulsby answered. I was about to get kicked out but Barry came out. to the greeting area. I explained how The Post had sent me there. He laughed and asked if I was hungry. While Barry headed to the kitchen there was a knock at the door and it was a reporter