The Upsetting Truth About Sandra McElroy, Witness 40 in the Ferguson Grand Jury

This isn't the first time McElroy has been in the news during a major story. In 2007, when news broke that Michael Devlin had abducted, sexually abused and held two boys captive, McElroy told KMOV-TV (Channel 4) that she had seen Devlin with one of his victims -- and she relayed that information to Kirkwood police. Police later said her story was a "complete fabrication." (See the police press release at the bottom of this story.)

Kirkwood police detective David Smith tells Daily RFT he can't confirm that Witness 40 is McElroy, but he did say that McElroy never contacted the department about seeing Devlin before he was arrested.

"We have not received any inquiries from the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's office or any other investigative branch...in regard to that Sandra McElroy that we dealt with in 2007," Smith says.

The identities of witnesses and jurors is secret, so before she publicly came clean, The Smoking Gun matched criminal, civil, matrimonial and bankruptcy court records, online postings and comments to Witness 40's testimony to conclude that McElroy is Witness 40.

"She gives up certain details when she was talking to federal agents," The Smoking Gun managing editor Andrew Goldberg tells Daily RFT. "She talks about her kids, she talks about her divorce. They ask enough questions, and she gives enough details."

Here's one example, via The Smoking Gun:

The McElroy liabilities included two dozen unpaid medical bills dating to 2002, the year the couple filed a personal injury lawsuit in connection with a February 2001 auto accident in St. Louis. "Witness 40" told grand jurors that she was seriously injured in a car crash on Valentine's Day in 2001. The witness, who said she was catapulted through the windshield, testified that she has struggled with a faulty memory since the accident.

There's a lot more in The Smoking Gun's report, but we'll leave you with one of McElroy's strangest Facebook comments.

On August 17, a Facebook commenter wrote that Johnson and others should be arrested for inciting riots and giving false statements to police in connection with their claims that Brown had his hands up when shot by Wilson. "The report and autopsy are in so YES they were false," McElroy wrote of the "hands-up" claims. This appears to be an odd comment from someone who claims to have been present during the shooting.

Here's the Kirkwood Police Department's 2007 press release about McElroy:

2007 Kirkwood Police press release

Jessica Lussenhop contributed to this report.

Follow Lindsay Toler on Twitter at @StLouisLindsay. E-mail the author at [email protected].