Facts Behind the Fiction
They say truth is stranger than fiction. In these cases, truth is scarier that fiction.
Just so there's no doubt, any individuals named here should be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. And, as we'll see, even then guilt may not be certain.
Prosecutors want to drop one of the murder charges against the 8-year-old boy from Arizona I told you about last week.
According to police, the boy confessed to killing his father, Vincent Romero, and his father's friend, Tim Romans, with a .22-caliber handgun.
This confession came 45 minutes into an interrogation by police with no relatives or legal counsel present, only after the boy initially explained how he found the men dead, and only after police suggest the boy committed the shooting himself by accident. On portions of the video released by the media it sounds like the boy is simply parroting with what the officers are telling him.
Now the Apache County prosecutors want to drop the charge for the murder of the boy's father. In a one-paragraph motion filed in juvenile court, the prosecutors said that "the state believes the interest of justice will be served by such a dismissal."
No explanation was given for the decision, and there's no word yet on the charge for Romans' murder.
An 8-year-old boy has confessed to police that he shot his father and another man at his rural home in Arizona. However, he made the confession after initially denying any involvement in the events. Only after police questioned him -- alone, without a guardian or attorney present -- did he admit to the killings.
A defense attorney who later became involved in the case says that the police "became very accusing early on in the interview. ... Two officers with guns at their side, it's very scary for anybody, for sure an 8-year-old kid."
Undoubtedly the circumstances of the police questioning will play a role in the boy's defense, leading one to question the wisdom of the authorities in situations like this.
In 2002, Marco Allen Chapman killed two small children. His lawyers, whom he dismissed in 2004 when he entered a guilty plea, questioned his competence over that decision.
However, Chapman sounded remarkably coherent when he told a judge, "I say we should go ahead and get it over with and done. ... I should be able to do what I want to do and go ahead and have the execution put forth." He says he doesn't want to "drag out the misery" for himself and his victims' families.
If the Supreme Court agrees with Chapman -- and so far it has, rejecting the defense team's arguments that his request for a speedy execution amounts to state-assisted suicide -- he could be executed as early as November 21.
Richard Cooey's argument that he was too obese to safely execute has been proven wrong. Cooey's life was terminated today at 10 o'clock in Ohio, USA.
41-year-old Cooey was 5-foot-7 and weighed 267 pounds at the time of his execution, having gained 70 pounds since his incarceration at the age of 19. He and his attorneys had insisted that that made him "morbidly obese" and that his weight and bulk would interfere with the normal lethal injection procedure, making it cruel and unusual punishment.
Speaking of cruel and unusual, Cooey and a friend, Clinton Dickens, threw chunks of concrete off a bridge onto Interstate 77, striking a car carrying Wendy Offredo and Dawn McCreery. Pretending to rescue the women, Cooey and Dickens instead took them to a secluded field where they spent three-and-a-half hours raping and torturing them, including Cooey carving an "X" into the stomachs of both women. They then beat the women to death.
Troy Anthony Davis was scheduled to be executed yesterday at 7:00 PM Eastern Time, in Jackson, Georgia, USA. Shortly after 5:00 PM, the U.S. Supreme Court granted a reprieve to Davis.
Davis had been convicted for the 1989 murder of an off-duty police officer, Mark MacPhail, who was shot while trying to break up a fight in a Burger King parking lot.
There was no physical evidence presented at Davis' trial, but nine people claimed they saw Davis shoot MacPhail. Since that time, seven of those people have recanted their testimony, saying they were either coerced by police, by the man who really shot MacPhail, or were simply mistaken.
Davis has also received a lot of celebrity support, including pleas from actors Susan Sarandon and Harry Belafonte, former President Carter, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pope Benedict XVI, and even U.S. lawmakers, all of whom have petitioned Georgia to grant Davis a new trial.
MacPhail's family is understandably upset with the stay of execution, since they believe Davis is guilty. As always, the question is, what if he's innocent? How sure should we have to be before putting a man to death?
In 1986 Robert Chambers killed 18-year-old Jennifer Levin during an episode of rough sex in Central Park. He pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served 15 years in prison.
Now he's been convicted of dealing cocaine and assaulting a police officer, and has been sentenced to 19 years. He could have faced a life term had his lawyer not reached an agreement with the courts.
Do you see something wrong here? 15 years for manslaughter, which was the maximum term because of discipline problems while in prison. 19 years to life for dealing drugs.
Is this indicative of the value we place on a person's life?
Now we know why Alabama Governor Bob Riley refused to issue DNA testing orders for death-row inmate Thomas Arthur, even though he had granted a stay of execution: They can't find the DNA to test.
Alabama's Attorney General claims the evidence that could have exonerated Arthur is missing. Of course, missing doesn't mean non-existent.
The state of Alabama doesn't have laws requiring the preservation of evidence, but some local Alabama agencies -- circuit court clerks and police units -- do. According to reports by the Innocence Project, the state Attorney General's office has made only cursory efforts to track down the evidence by contacting those other agencies. This would be consistent with their efforts in the case so far: they started looking for the evidence only six months ago, while Arthur has been requesting DNA testing for six years.
In a video tape he made of himself raping and torturing a 9-year-old boy, Joseph Edward Duncan III yelled at the boy, "The devil is here, boy, the devil himself. The demon couldn't do what the devil sent him to do so the devil came himself. The devil likes to watch children suffer and cry."
Today, in Boise, Idaho, U.S. District Judge Edward Lodge sentenced Duncan to death on the recommendation of a jury who watched the video Duncan made of his crime.
Duncan, a convicted pedophile, still faces another death penalty for the murder of the boy's mother, her fiance, and the boy's 13-year-old brother, and for the kidnapping and rape of the boy's 8-year-old sister.
He's also charged with the 1997 murder of a young boy in Riverside County, California, and is suspected in the murders of two girls from Seattle, Washington.
Jerry Buck Inman is ready to die for raping and murdering Tiffany Marie Souers.
Inman has spent about 18 years in prison for various other rapes. He was only out for nine months before he was arrested for the attack on Souers in May, 2006 when he left her body with her bikini top still tied around her neck.
A defense psychiatrist testified at Inman's trial that Inman, who has confessed to the crime, has also stated he wants to die for what he's done. Inman's confession is corroborate by DNA evidence found in Souer's apartment.
Inman will find out when he's sentenced on September 6th whether he'll get what he wants.
In 1992, Michael Rodriguez became infatuated with a Texas State University co-ed and arranged to have his wife killed. While in prison for that crime he met George Rivas, a thief serving 18 life terms. Led by Rivas, Rodriguez and five other inmates broke out of prison in South Texas in December, 2000.
The group then went on a crime spree Rodriguez says was thrilling, until it went wrong; they shot and killed a police officer. In January 2001, they were surrounded by a police SWAT team at a trailer park in Colorado. One of them committed suicide. Two others escaped but surrendered two days later. Rodriguez and the others were captured and returned to prison.
The six surviving members of the gang have all been sentenced to death, with Rodriguez scheduled to go first. Michael Rodriguez is ready. In fact, he's volunteered to be executed.
"I'm glad we got caught," he told reporters, "so no one else would get hurt. ... I have a lot of people here telling me how unfair the system is," Rodriguez says, but he disagrees. "At some point in our lives, you have to have some sort of accountability. ... I'm guilty of what they said -- everything. ... I think it's a fair sentence. ... I need to pay back. I can't pay back monetarily. This is the way."
Michael Rodriguez will pay for his crimes later this week.
26 years ago, Judy Wicker hires a man to kill her husband, Troy Wicker Jr. She serves 10 years of a life sentence. Thomas Arthur is convicted of carrying out the actual murder and is sentenced to death. But Arthur insists he's innocent and claims DNA testing will prove his innocence. He requests the tests be performed.
Alabama Governor Bob Riley refuses to order the tests.
Twice Thomas Arthur's execution is put on hold.
Today, Thursday, July 31, was to be the day the execution would finally be carried out. But on Monday, July 28, another man, Bobby Ray Gilbert, makes a sworn statement confessing to the murder of Troy Wicker. Gilbert is already serving a life sentence for a different murder.
In the light of Gilbert's confession, the Alabama Supreme Court postpones Arthur's execution again. But they did so by a narrow margin, in a 5-4 vote.
Another man confesses to the murder and four of those "Justices" still want to go ahead with the execution?!
Tommy Arthur has been on death row in Alabama for nearly 25 years. In two days his long wait could end. Tommy is scheduled to be executed on Thursday night, July 31.
Critical evidence in Tommy's case still has not be subjected to DNA testing and it's looking less and less likely that it will. Alabama Governor Bob Riley has so far refused all requests that he order DNA testing. While Riley's aides have said the Governor doesn't have the authority to order such tests, that apparently isn't true. Other state governors, including George W. Bush when he was Governor of Texas, have ordered such testing.
Across the US, 16 other people have been exonerated by DNA evidence while they were on death row.
It's still not too late to change Riley's mind. The Innocence Project has provided an online form you can use to send a message to Governor Riley, asking for DNA testing for Tommy Arthur:
http://www.innocenceproject.org/testing-for-tommy
Without these tests it's quite possible an innocent man may die.
Christopher Scott Emmett will not vote for Governor Tim Kaine in the next Virginia election. Emmett was executed after losing his appeal which claimed the State's lethal injection method would cause excruciating pain.
After stating, "Tell the Governor he just lost my vote," Emmett added, "Y'all hurry this along. I'm dying to get out of here."
His executioners did indeed hurry things along; Emmett was pronounced dead just five minutes after he was painlessly sedated.
Just shy of five decades after he was sentenced to hang at the age of 14, Steven Truscott has been awarded $6.5 million in compensation for his wrongful conviction in the rape and murder of 12 year old Lynne Harper.
In June of 1959, Lynne Harper went missing in a small community in Ontario, Canada.
Her body was found two days later.
Two days after that, Steven Truscott, 14 years old, was arrested and charged with her murder. He was tried and convicted later that year. His sentence: Death by hanging. His sentence was commuted to life in prison in 1960 and he was released in 1969.
In August 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeal pronounced that Truscott's conviction had been a "miscarriage of justice" and acquitted him.
While Steven is grateful for the acknowledgment of his innocence and for the financial stability the money provides, he says the announcement is "bittersweet." No amount of money can truly compensate for the terror he experienced, for the loss of his childhood, for the LSD treatments he was subjected to in prison, and for the decades of ignominy living as a convicted rapist and murderer.
In 1992, two men kidnapped a couple, tied up the man and sexually assaulted the woman, and then held another couple at gunpoint. All four victims identified Patrick Waller as one of the two assailants.
All four victims were wrong.
After spending more than 15 years in prison, Waller was released and exonerated this month when DNA tests conducted last year confirmed what he had always maintained, that he was innocent.
That same DNA test implicated another suspect who then identified his accomplice. Both men confessed to the crime but neither will face charges; the statute of limitations has expired.
Waller has already served the time for them.
Mark Dean Schwab was pronounced dead at 6:15 PM EDT today, executed for the 1991 kidnapping, rape, and murder of an 11-year old boy, Junny Rios-Martinez.
Schwab, who admitted kidnapping and raping the boy, and who led police to a footlocker holding Junny's nude body, challenged Florida's new execution procedure, claiming it would cause him unnecessary pain and suffering.
Florida's old lethal injection procedure was halted after the execution of Angel Diaz went awry in 2006, causing serious chemical burns to his arms.
In the new procedure, the inmate is rendered unconscious with sodium pentothal, paralyzed with pancuronium bromide, and then dispatched with potassium chloride which stops the heart.
Angel Diaz took thirty-four minutes to die in 2006. Today, Schwab passed away painlessly in twelve.
In 1989, Anthony Hanemaayer pleaded guilty to a knifepoint sexual assault on a 15-year old girl. But Hanemaayer was innocent. So why did he plead guilty? Because he was afraid he couldn't prove his innocence, that the courts would find him guilty, and that he'd be sentenced to a heavy term in federal prison. In exchange for his plea, he was given a lesser sentence of two years less a day in a provincial reformatory.
In June 2006, Scarborough rapist and serial killer Paul Bernardo confessed to this attack, providing details that only the attacker would know. Police, convinced Bernardo was the real perpetrator, then spoke to Hanemaayer but didn't tell him Bernardo had confessed to the crime.
Lawyers for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted didn't find out about Bernardo's confession until late 2007, and then only by happenstance. They were working on another case in which Bernardo may have played a role, the murder of Elizabeth Bain and the wrongful conviction of her boyfriend, Robert Baltovich. It was only this past week that Hanemaayer was finally and fully exonerated.
So, would you plead guilty if you were really innocent?
A journalist in Macedonia, 56-year old Vlado Taneski, was arrested and charged with the murders of two elderly women, and was being investigated in connection with the murder of a third woman and the disappearance of a fourth. All of the victims, whom police say bore similarities to Taneski's mother, had been sexually assaulted before being strangled, stuffed into nylon bags, and wrapped with telephone cords.
Police became suspicious of Taneski when he wrote articles for a national newspaper in which he reported facts the police had not revealed to the media.
Days after being jailed, Taneski was found dead in the cell he shared with two other men. According to a police spokesman the journalist is believed to have committed suicide. He was found with his head in a bucket of water.
An odd way of committing suicide, don't you think?
In an interview with police, Paul Bernardo, one of Canada's most notorious serial killers, insists he's not a liar. Yes, he admits he made some mistakes in the past (like kidnapping, raping, torturing, and murdering two teenage girls) but he denies lying about anything.
Police have re-opened their investigation into the murder of Elizabeth Bain in June of 1990. Originally, Bain's boyfriend, Robert Baltovich had been convicted for the crime, but he was acquitted earlier this year after Crown attorneys conceded they had no case against him. Now suspicion centers on Paul Bernardo, who terrorized Bain's neighborhood between 1987 and 1990 as the "Scarborough rapist."
When asked by police if he murdered the young woman in June of 1990, Bernardo replies, "Well, that's a loaded question. I mean, are we going to go back and go through the time sequence of what happened in my life? I mean I could just give a yes or no answer. But you know, there are a lot of issues about that."
Eventually, after complaining about police procedures, Bernardo says, "Anyways the answer to that is no. But the 800 pound gorilla in a room -- that's a life-25 sentence, you know. It really comes down to credibility."
Credibility indeed.
Michel Fourniret will spend at least 30 years behind bars, his wife at least 28. The couple, called "a devil with two faces" by the state prosecutor Francis Nachbar, have been found guilty in the kidnapping, rape, and murder of seven young girls and women in France between 1987 and 2001.
Fourniret admitted he had a sexual obsession with virgins and told the court, "I remain an extremely dangerous individual." He reportedly had sex with one of his victims, a 13 year old, after stabbing her to death.
Monique Olivier, Fourniret's wife, was not just an unwilling participant in the crimes. She actively aided her husband in the kidnappings and murders, acting, as one prosecutor described her, as a "catalyst."
Australian Colin Campbell Ross has received a pardon after forensic tests on hair samples cast doubt on his guilt for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Alma Tirtschke.
Prosecutors claimed that Ross gave the girl alcohol before raping and strangling her. While Ross professed his innocence and while witnesses supported his alibi for the time of the murder, he was nevertheless convicted based on hair samples that supposedly matched those of the victim, found on one of Ross' blankets. Once proper forensic tests showed the hair was not the girl's, Alma's relatives petitioned the government for the pardon, which was granted this past Tuesday.
Unfortunately for Ross, the pardon came 86 years too late. He was hanged for the crime in 1922
Apparently being a convicted serial killer is not without its dangers. Peter Sutcliffe, Britain's Yorkshire Ripper, should know. This past February he was attacked by a fellow inmate in the high security Broadmoor mental hospital. Patrick Sureda went after The Ripper with a cutlery knife, but only succeeded in causing minor wounds.
Nine years ago, Sutcliffe wasn't so lucky. An attack then left him blind in his left eye.
Charges have been laid in this most recent attack and when it goes to trial Sutcliffe will likely be called upon to testify, although he'll probably do so only via video link.
In 1981, Peter Sutcliffe, now 61 years old, was sentenced to 20 life terms as the Yorkshire Ripper, responsible for the murder of 13 women and the attempted murder of seven others. When he was sentenced, the judge in the case told Sutcliffe that he would serve a minimum of 30 years. However, there was apparently no formal declaration of that minimum term, called a "tariff" under British law.
Now one of Britain's top lawyers, Saimo Chahal, is arguing that the omission is grounds for Sutcliffe's release, claiming his human rights have been violated. Chahal was named Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year in 2006 for her work in behalf of those with mental illness. Her association with the Yorkshire Ripper stems from the fact that three years after beginning to serve his sentence in prison, Sutcliffe was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was transferred to the Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital where he has remained ever since.
In an experiment you'd expect to see on a CSI episode, the defense team for Robert Baltovich used two pig corpses as stand-ins for Elizabeth Bain's missing body.
According to the prosecutors, Baltovich killed Bain on June 19th, hid her body under bushes in a park, and returned two days later to move her body, using her car, to a remote area about an hour's drive north of the city.
In the experiment, the defense team brought two pigs to a guarded enclosure at the park, dressed them in shorts and t-shirts as they believe Elizabeth Bain had been dressed, slit their throats, and left them to decompose for the next two days. They were then placed in barrels for an hour to represent the time it would have taken to drive them to Lake Scugog and dispose of them.
The point of the experiment was to show that, under those circumstances, there would have been substantial evidence of decomposition in the car, specifically maggots and decomposition fluids. The entomologist who conducted the experiment reported that, "it is highly probable that hundreds of maggots from the body would have fallen off into the car."
However, when Bain's abandoned car was discovered three days after the murder, there were extensive blood stains on the back seat, but no maggots or other signs of decomposition.
Yesterday, after a re-trial, the prosecution dropped its case and Robert Baltovich was declared not guilty.
Elizabeth Bain's body was never found.
Who killed Elizabeth Bain eighteen years ago?
Was it Elizabeth's boyfriend, Robert Baltovich, whose friends describe as good-natured and intelligent, with no suggestion that he was ever inclined to violence?
Or was it the infamous Scarborough Rapist, the serial killer Paul Bernardo, who was stalking his victims in Elizabeth's neighborhood at the same time she went missing?
Elizabeth, in her diary, complained that Baltovich "sucks up to me too much" and "I get away with murder from him." She wrote that she needed, "some animal, some tough guy, some masculinity, some young traits." Is it possible she found just what she was looking for with Bernardo?
Interviewed by police last year, Bernardo denied killing Elizabeth Bain, but his answers to questions suggest he was concerned that admitting to the killing would show he acted alone, without the aid of Karla Homolka, his wife who took part in the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy.
Baltovich was today declared not guilty when the prosecution finally dropped its weak and largely circumstantial case against him. But since there were no eyewitnesses, no DNA evidence, and since Elizabeth's body was never found, the answer to the leading question remains elusive.
In my novel Trial By Fear, Simon Jacks, a defense attorney, is asked what would happen if a client accused of murder confessed to him. He admits that he couldn't tell anyone because of client confidentiality, but he insists, "It doesn't happen. Don't go by what you see on television. It just doesn't happen that way."
Yeah, right.
Andrew Wilson confessed that he fatally shot a security guard at a McDonald's restaurant in January 1982. The problem is, he only confessed to his attorneys. And, because of attorney-client privilege, they had to keep the knowledge secret until Wilson died in 2007. In the meantime, Alton Logan was accused, tried, and convicted for the crime. He's spent the last 26 years in prison for it, finally released on bail this past week. While technically not yet exonerated, it's unlikely the courts will retry him.
Dale Coventry, one of Wilson's attorneys, said, "I wish [the release] had happened a lot sooner, but unfortunately, there was no way to do anything."
One minute Glen Edward Chapman was sitting in his cell on death-row, fully expecting to be executed, eventually, for murdering two women sixteen years before. Ten minutes later he was a free man.
Charges against Chapman were dismissed after he was granted a new trial in November last year when the courts in Catawba County, North Carolina learned police had concealed evidence pointing to his innocence and even perjured themselves during Chapman's original trial in 1994.
The investigation into the 1992 murders of Betty Jean Ramseur and Tenene Yvette Conley have been reopened. Meanwhile, Chapman, happy to finally be able to get to know his two sons, fears some of his fellow prisoners on death-row may also be innocent.
Kevin Ray Underwood, who says he has sexual fantasies of torturing, raping, and eating his victims, has been sentenced to death by lethal injection for the rape and murder of 10 year-old Jamie Rose Bolin. Underwood, who lived in the same apartment building as Jamie and her father in Purcell, Oklahoma, confessed to police that he lured the girl into his apartment, beat her over the head with a cutting board, suffocated her, sexually assaulted her, and then tried to cut off her head with a dagger.
Jamie's family welcome the small sense of closure the verdict and sentence give them, but say they're prepared for a long appeals process.
Three days ago, two little girls playing on a beach at Carnoustie, Scotland found a plastic bag containing a woman's head. The next day, after conducting an extensive search of the area, police found two severed hands. Yesterday they identified the woman as 36 year-old Jolanta Bledaite, a migrant worker from Lithuania reported missing by her employer in nearby Brechin, Angus. Today police arrested two men, also from Lithuania, but have not yet laid charges.
Monique Olivier says her husband, Michel Fourniret, is the "Ogre of the Ardennes," a French serial killer responsible for the murders of at least ten young women.
She should know; she's confessed to luring many of the victims into her husband's hands.
Fourniret has likewise confessed to several murders, nine to be exact, although he denies any involvement with the 1990 rape and murder of Joanne Parrish, a British student who taught English in France. Parrish is one of the women Olivier says she helped her husband kill.
French authorities believe 65 year-old Fourniret may have murdered as many as thirty people since 1987, at least some of those with the help of his 59 year-old wife. Both husband and wife will stand trial in Charleville-Mezieres.
Erin Walsh served 10 years in prison for murdering Melvin (Chi Chi) Peters in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada in 1975. In 2005 he discovered documents -- including police records that showed authorities were aware of a conspiracy to frame him for the crime -- that have now led to his acquittal. Walsh expressed heartfelt gratitude for the judgement and said it was a tremendous relief. The terminal cancer patient can now die in peace.
According to Karl Taylor, a 27 year-old football coach from Covent Garden, London, Kate Beagley committed suicide by stabbing herself ... in the face and neck ... more than 30 times. She did this, Taylor insists, while he watched, stunned, as they sat on a park bench overlooking the River Thames. Once he realized she was dead he lay on the grass, crying profusely. Then he carried her body to her car, drove to Oxhey Wood, Hertfordshire, stripped her naked, and dumped her in a patch of nettles.
He admits he planned on stealing Beagley's car, but he insists he didn't kill her.
Inconceivably the jury in the Old Bailey found Taylor's story difficult to believe. After just two hours of deliberations they found him guilty of murder. He'll spend the next 30 years behind bars.
Erin Walsh is dying. He was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six to eight months to live ... more than eight months ago. His wish is that he'll be exonerated in the 1975 murder of Melvin "Chi Chi" Peters before death catches up with him.
In 2005, Walsh took advantage of access to information laws in New Brunswick, Canada to get a look at his original case file. There he found a number of documents never disclosed to his defense attorneys. Among them were statements from rail workers corroborating Walsh's claim that he pleaded for their help shortly before the shooting, and police notes on an overheard conversation between two of Peter's friends conspiring to put the blame for the shooting on Walsh.
While the Crown has conceded that a miscarriage of justice took place, they have not yet completely exonerated Walsh. A hearing is scheduled for March 14 during which both sides will present arguments. Hopefully that won't be too late for Walsh to get his wish.
In December 2007, Robert Pickton, one of Canada's most notorious serial killers, was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder and sentenced to the maximum punishment of life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. For the 58 year-old pig farmer, that's akin to a death sentence.
However, neither the prosecution nor the defense was happy with the outcome of that 11-month trial.
The prosecution argued the evidence supported a conviction for first-degree murder, while the defense argued the evidence didn't support a conviction at all. Both sides are appealing.
Now British Columbia Attorney-General Wally Oppal says that if the appeal succeeds and Pickton is granted a new trial, he'll be tried on all 26 original charges. If the appeal fails, Pickton will not be tried on the remaining 20 charges. Families of the 20 victims for whom Pickton has not yet faced trial are outraged that they may not get their day in court.
Mark Dixie will be jailed for 34 years for the rape and murder -- although not necessarily in that order -- of teen model Sally Anne Bowman. Dixie stabbed the teen seven times, bit her cheek, breast, and neck, and then had sex with her on the street outside her home in Croydon, south London.
This isn't Dixie's only crime. The thirty-seven year-old has a history of previous convictions for sex attacks starting when he was sixteen. Police believe he may have past victims in Australia, Spain, and Holland.
Mr. Justice Gross has sentenced Steve Wright to a whole life term without the prospect of parole. Under British law, this means Wright will never be released.
Wright is now being questioned in the deaths of other women, including Suzy Lamplugh who once worked with Wright on the luxury cruise ship Queen Elizabeth 2. Lamplugh went missing in July, 1986 at the same time that Wright was on shore leave from the QE2. Although her body was never found, Lamplugh was declared dead in 1994.
Forty-nine year-old forklift driver Steve Wright has been convicted for the murders of five prostitutes -- Gemma Adams, Tania Nicol, Anneli Alderton, Paula Clennell, and Annette Nicholls -- in the town of Ipswich, Suffolk, England.
Wright admitted having sex with four of the victims, which he says explains why his DNA was found on their bodies. But he could not explain why blood from two of the women was found on his jacket, or why fibers from his clothing, furniture, and cars were found on all five victims.
Family of some of the victims are calling for the death penalty, but that may have to wait while police investigate four other murders and disappearances going back to 1992.
Natalie Pearman, Kelly Pratt, Michelle Bettles, and Mandy Duncan all either disappeared or were found murdered in the 10 years from 1992 to 2002. All were working as prostitutes at the time, and all either knew steve Wright or frequented areas where he worked.
Criminologist Professor David Wilson observed that it's unusual for someone in their late forties to just start killing. "Serial murder is usually a young man's business."
Mark Dixie's own defense attorney admits his client's conduct may be considered "disgusting." Dixie has been accused of murdering teen model Sally Anne Bowman, but admits only to having sex with her after finding her dead on the street.
Dixie also denies attacking a Thai woman in Australia in 1998. The woman testified that an intruder entered her home through an open kitchen window, stabbed her eight times, (Sally Anne Bowman had been stabbed seven times) and raped her. Dixie's DNA was reportedly found on her body.
In responding to that accusation, Dixie admits he had a thing for Asian women and frequented brothels and massage parlors. The woman, he says, must have been a working girl or just someone he took out one night.
Steve Wright has admitted to having sex with four of the five prostitutes found dead in Ipswich, Suffolk, UK, but denies killing any of them. When Prosecutor Peter Wright (probably no relation) asked Steve Wright how blood from two of the four ended up on his jacket, Steve Wright replied that he has no idea. Wright (Steve) insists he isn't "any random psychopath," which begs the question, what kind of psychopath is he?
Doctor Charles Smith, Ontario's top pediatric forensic pathologist for 20 years, testified in dozens of criminal cases, helping to secure a number of convictions. Unfortunately, not all of those convicted were guilty. One man, William Mullins-Johnson, was later exonerated when it was found that Smith erred in some of his findings. Mullins-Johnson had been convicted in 1992 for the sex slaying of his niece when Smith supposedly found evidence of asphyxia caused by a neck and chest compression, and anal dilation.
Smith found the exact same evidence in Ohio in the 2000 child-murder case of Christopher Fuller, accused with the murder and attempted rape of his three-year-old daughter. The difference was that while Mullins-Johnson was sentenced to life in jail, the jury recommended the death sentence for Fuller. Fortunately the trial judge denied the request and sentenced Fuller to life imprisonment.
Mullins-Johnson spent 12 years in prison before it was determined that his niece was not sexually assaulted and that she probably died of natural causes. It remains to be seen whether Fuller's conviction may be similarly discredited.
Mark Dixie admits that while under the influence of drugs and alcohol he had sex with Sally Anne Bowman, a teen model, one night in September 2005, near Croydon, UK.
It was pretty violent sex, by the sounds of it. He reportedly left bite marks on her cheek, neck, and nipples.
What he denies is killing the girl, stabbing her several times so savagely in her neck and abdomen that some of the wounds passed right through her body.
The sex, Dixie insists, happened after he found Bowman already dead, lying in a pool of blood on the street outside her home.
Dutch student Joran van der Sloot was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and murdering American student Natalee Holloway in Aruba on May 30, 2005. He was released a few months later because there was insufficient evidence to hold him. He was arrested again in November of 2007 and released a month later, again because there was insufficient evidence to hold him.
Through all of this, his story regarding the events of that night have changed several times. Now, after being recorded telling a supposed friend that he was with Natalee, that she died in his arms, and that he and another friend disposed of her body at sea, he has again changed his story, insisting he was lying to his friend and that he really had nothing to do with Natalee's death.
It's certainly not unheard of for an accused, when under intense police interrogation or when suffering from diminished mental capacity, to confess to a crime he didn't commit. But van der Sloot, attending university and studying international business management, was just sitting in a car, talking to a friend. There was no pressure to confess. He says now that he simply told his friend what he wanted to hear.
So, did he lie about lying? Or is he telling the truth when he says he lied?
Over a 10-day period in December 2006, five women were found murdered near the town of Ipswich, about 80 miles north-east of London, England. The women, Gemma Adams, 25; Tania Nicol, 19; Anneli Alderton, 24; Paula Clennell 24; and Annette Nicholls, 29; all worked as prostitutes in Ipswich.
Whenever prostitutes in England are killed, images of Jack The Ripper come to mind. But while the Ripper ripped his victims, it seems whoever killed the Ipswich five was content merely to strangle. All were found naked. Two were posed in a "crucifix" shape. Some of the victims were found in water. Some had been missing for weeks before being discovered.
The accused in the case is 49 year-old forklift driver and resident of Ipswich, Steve Wright. Wright, who lived in a flat with his girlfriend in the red-light district where the women worked, admits having sex with four of the victims -- which would explain why his DNA was found on their bodies -- and having met with the fifth, but denies murdering any of them.
Wright's trial is expected to last into February.
Tim Masters was freed today after spending nine years in prison when DNA evidence was found that pointed to other suspects in the murder of Peggy Hettrick. Masters was 15 at the time Hettrick's mutilated body was found in a field in Fort Collins, Colorado, February 1987. He was jailed in 1998 and convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1999.
But possible misconduct by police and prosecutors meant evidence that could have exonerated Masters was withheld from his defense attorneys. Now, that evidence, along with DNA that points to three other possible suspects, has moved the court to vacate the conviction. That doesn't mean Masters has been declared not guilty, but it does get him out of prison, freed on his own recognizance, and back with his family. While it's possible the courts could order a new trial, District Attorney Larry Abrahamson says it may be unnecessary to try Masters again and that he'll decide as quickly as possible whether all charges against Masters will be dismissed.
In a television interview, Masters said he was convicted because of some very big egos. One of his lawyers was more blunt; she said that Masters was framed, plain and simple.
The question remains, if Masters didn't kill and mutilate Hettrick, who did? And what has that person been doing for the past twenty one years?
You may think the maxim "innocent until proven guilty" would mean we only need evidence to prove an accused committed a crime. We shouldn't have to prove he didn't. Unfortunately, for an accused to get a fair trial, that isn't true. Take the case of Tim Masters.
In February 1987, Peggy Hettrick was found dead in a field in Fort Collins, Colorado. She had been stabbed and sexually mutilated. Twelve years later, Tim Masters was convicted for the murder and sentenced to life in prison.
The evidence pointing to his guilt? Not much. There was no direct physical evidence, only a few violent doodles Masters had drawn as a fifteen year-old, after he admittedly walked past and saw Hettrick's body on his way to school. That should not have been enough to convict him, and it probably wouldn't have been when weighed against the evidence pointing to his innocence:
* Comments from a plastic surgeon to a Fort Collins police detective, Marsha Reed, that mutilation to Hettrick's body -- the removal of one nipple and much of her genitals -- appeared surgical in nature and that even he would have had difficulty making those cuts.
* An FBI profiler's conclusion that Masters' violent sketches did not reveal a motive to kill Hettrick.
* A week-long surveillance effort of Masters in 1988 after police lied to him, telling him they were getting close to making an arrest in the case, that showed no behavior out of the ordinary.
Perhaps most significant of all is the fact that prosecutors had -- or should have had -- a far more likely suspect, a surgeon who lived right across the street from where Hettrick's body was found, Dr. Richard Hammond. Did the prosecutors not know about Hammond? On the contrary, it seems they not only knew of him, but they knew him personally. Evidence has surfaced that the original prosecutors in the case had business, social, and religious connections with Hammond.
Hammond committed suicide in 1995 when he was charged with sex-exploitation for using a hidden camera to photograph the breasts and genitals of female visitors to his home. Yet, Hammond was never investigated in connection with Hettrick's murder.
So there was little or no evidence pointing to Masters' guilt, and plenty of evidence pointing to his innocence. So why was Masters convicted? Because the latter was never presented at his initial trial, nor at either of his two appeals. It appears that police and prosecutors purposely hid the evidence they didn't like. Now, finally, this evidence has come to light and next week hearings will resume that may lead to a new trial.
Both the defense and the prosecution have called for an appeal in the conviction of a man who may be Canada's worst serial killer, Robert Pickton.
Defense attorneys for Pickton claim Justice James Williams made several errors during the trial, including not asking the jury to clarify a question they posed part way through deliberations, giving them a confusing answer to their question, and allowing the jury to hear statements Pickton made to police.
Prosecutors argue that Justice Williams erred in severing the twenty-six charges against Pickton into two separate trials, the one just concluded covering six of those charges, and one still to be held covering the remaining twenty. They also insist essential evidence was kept from the jury, and that Justice Williams' instructions to the jury should have made it clear that dismembering and disposing of the victims was a clear indication of planning and deliberation, and that Pickton was therefore guilty of first-degree murder, not second-degree as the jury concluded.
The prosecution made sure to launch their appeal first. If they're successful, Pickton could be re-tried on all twenty-six charges of first-degree murder. If the defense appeal had been filed first, it's possible those six convictions for second-degree murder already handed down might not have been elevated to first-degree.
In any case, Pickton's days in court are far from over.
On August 10, in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, a woman was in her home when she saw a light go on in her sleeping toddler's bedroom. She went in to investigate and found a man trying to take money from the child's piggy bank. The man fled with $20. (The piggy was shaken but neither the piggy, the child, nor the mother was injured.)
The thief had entered the home through a window screen and, in the process, left behind a few drops of blood. Police used DNA testing on the blood samples to link Ryan Mueller, 30, to the crime. If convicted, Mueller faces up to nine years in prison for felony burglary.
At the same time, Thomas Arthur is still on death row in Alabama and Governor Bob Riley still refuses to grant a request for DNA testing in the case, testing that could prove Thomas is innocent.
So, DNA testing can be used in investigating theft from a piggy bank, but not in possibly saving a man's life. How does this make sense?