New information reveals 'Witness 40' may have lied during her grand jury testimony

By ISABELLE CHAPMAN

New information has revealed that Sandra McElroy, 45, a witness who supported Officer Darren Wilson's version of the events that led to the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, has a criminal history and has been known to make racist remarks, according to grand jury documents.

McElroy was known as "Witness 40" during the grand jury case, when she claimed she had seen Michael Brown charge Officer Darren Wilson on August 9. According to CNN, prosecutors had questioned whether she had been in Ferguson, Missouri, on the day of Brown's death, though she testified that she had been in a car near the scene of the crime when Brown had run toward Officer Wilson with his head down "like a football tackle, like he was going to tackle the officer."

Officer Wilson's testimony matched McElroy's, though most other witnesses said that Brown "stumbled" toward Wilson, or that he took "two or three steps forward." However, Witness 48 also used the word "charge" to describe what Michael Brown did after he was shot by Officer Wilson for the first time, according to grand jury documents.

In the grand jury documents, it is also revealed that McElroy was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1985, though she has not been treated for her mental illness since 1988. She also mentioned that she was in Ferguson on the day of Brown's killing because she sometimes likes to "have coffee and ... strike up a conversation with an African American and I will try to talk to them because I'm trying to understand more." Before she clarifies that she has "feelings that others consider to be racist ... I believe that I made very racist remarks that can be very offensive to others of other races."

According to The Smoking Gun, McElroy is divorced, has three daughters and two sons, and her legal history includes a variety of civil lawsuits, and an arrest in 2007 on two felony bad check charges.

She claims to struggle with a faulty memory since she was seriously injured in a car accident in 2001, according to grand jury documents.

Before McElroy claimed to have information about Michael Brown's case, the mother of five also claimed to have involvement with a case of a boy who had been rescued after four years in captivity in 2007. According to the Smoking Gun, these claims were dismissed by police as a "complete fabrication."

McElroy's online presence perhaps only lessens her credibility as a reliable witness in the Brown case. McElroy has taken to airing out her feelings of racism on the Internet.

According to grand jury documents, McElroy had posted a comment online on August 9, declaring, "They need to kill the f---ing n-----s. It is like an ape fest. It is just not right." (AOL has redacted the actual words here, though McElroy used them in full.)

More than a month after this post and the killing of Michael Brown, McElroy went to the police with her information, according to The Smoking Gun.

According to the Daily Mail, just two days later after her first conversation about the Brown killing with law enforcement, McElroy had gone on a pro-Wilson Facebook page and posted a graphic image of a dead Michael Brown lying in the street and accompanied the photo with text that read: "Michael Brown already received justice. So please, stop asking for it."

See our related gallery of Ferguson protests:

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