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.

Joran van der Sloot can't keep out of the public eye.

Twice arrested for the 2005 murder of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, and twice released, van der Sloot is back in the news after making another confession.

Shortly after Natalee went missing, van der Sloot denied any involvement in her disappearance. But apparently he enjoyed the attention he got by being a suspect. In 2008, he appeared on Dutch television in a video in which he tells a friend that after leaving a nightclub with Natalee, he had sex with the 18-year old girl on a beach. She "started shaking" and lost consciousness. Van der Sloot says he panicked and called a friend to help him. The two men put Natalee's body in a boat, and the friend dumped her in the ocean the next day.

But that was a lie. Van der Sloot admitted making the comments, but said he only told his friend what he wanted to hear; it wasn't true.

Van der Sloot's current story skips the friend with the boat. In the new version, van der Sloot himself dumps Natalee's body in a swamp.

Police aren't buying it. Prosecutor Peter Blanken says that he and Aruba police tried to verify the story, speaking to witnesses and checking facts. But they've determined it couldn't be true.

So why would van der Sloot make another false confession? Blanken responds, "You should ask him. Maybe he wanted to be on camera or make some money."

In a verdict that has captured headlines in both Europe and the United States, and polarized people in a way not seen since the OJ Simpson trial, Amanda Knox, an American student charged with the 2007 sexual assault and murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher, has been found guilty. On December 5, the Corte d'Assise of Perugia, Italy sentenced Knox to 26 years in prison. Her Italian boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, was sentenced to 25 years.

The details of the case are both sordid and sad. How anyone could slash the throat of an innocent person and leave them to die a slow and painful death is beyond reason. But also disconcerting is the reaction of the public to the verdict.

When the guilty verdict was reported on CNN and other American news sites, it immediately attracted thousands of readers and generated a storm of comments. Many of those comments expressed dismay and even anger at the judgement, unshakeable belief in Knox' innocence, and disdain for the Italian legal system. Typical of the comments: "America has, like it or not, a better justice system than Italy. This sham of a trial proved that to me." And, "Knox would never have been convicted in an American court based on the evidence presented."

Perhaps those individuals are unaware of what happened to Steven Barnes.

Accused of raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl, Barnes was convicted on vague statements from eyewitnesses and weak, unvalidated forensic evidence, and despite the presentation of substantial evidence that clearly did not connect Barnes to the victim. After serving more than nineteen years in prison, Barnes was finally exonerated in 2009 when the Innocence Project helped him obtain new DNA testing.

This took place, not in Italy, but in New York.

Of course, Barnes' story is not typical of American justice, but it's not unique either. The 245 victims of wrongful conviction in the U.S., exonerated through DNA testing, would likely take issue with CNN readers who believe Amanda Knox would have received a more equitable trial at home. Not a few of them found themselves behind bars for crimes they didn't commit principally because of corrupt police or incompetent attorneys.

Equally disturbing is the fact that the vast majority of the most adamant advocates on these forums did not actually attend the trial held in Perugia, Italy. Most of them probably don't speak Italian and would not have understood the testimony given even if they had been present.

So on what are the protesters basing their convictions? Not on the evidence, to which they've had no direct exposure, but on the mere description of the evidence -- sifted, edited, filtered -- by their local news outlet.

This is not to suggest that CNN, or any other news agency, is intentionally biased. No such suggestion is necessary, since no reputable journalist would suggest that an individual's fate should be decided by the media, or should be decided by the public based on evidence reported on by the media. That's why we have a legal system with lawyers, judges, and juries. If we're dissatisfied with the performance of this system, we should lobby our legislators to change it, not try to circumvent it in the court of public opinion.

Of course, none of this is likely to change anyone's mind. No evidence is enough to sway the minds of those quick to judge without evidence.

How reliable are scent dogs in identifying suspects in a police lineup?

That's a question that's hard to answer since -- in the US at least -- there are no national standards and no system in place to keep track of a dog's or a handler's accuracy rate.

There's also the question of how accuracy is determined.

In a typical dog-scent lineup, police rub a piece of gauze on a suspect's skin or clothing. The gauze is then placed in a tin can and placed on the floor in a line with other cans containing gauze from other suspects or controls. The dog's handler exposes the dog to a scent from the crime scene or from the victim, and the dog and handler then walk along the line of cans. When the dog detects the matching scent, it signals the handler by either stopping beside the can or barking at it.

It sounds like a simple, fool-proof system. Unfortunately, since no one speaks "dog," it's impossible to know what's really going through the canine mind. How certain is the dog that it's found a matching scent? Could something else be triggering the dog's reaction? Could the handler -- consciously or otherwise -- direct the dog to a specific can?

And what if the suspect chosen by the dog is convicted, but then that conviction is later overturned? Is the dog's record or the handler's record updated to reflect that wrongful conviction? Is there even a record kept?

(See my post from August 5th about Bill Dillon, wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for 26 years after being tracked down by a scent dog.)

Michael Buchanek, knows all too well the danger of relying on dog-scent lineups.

Buchanek was a commander of operations with the Sheriff's Office in Victoria County, Texas for more than 25 years when, in March 2006, he was accused of murdering his friend and neighbor, Sally Blackwell. His former friends and coworkers on the force were fully convinced of his guilt and turned to scent dogs to pinpoint him in a scent lineup.

Buchanek was not convicted. Five months after he was sniffed out by the dogs, another suspect was identified with DNA evidence and confessed to the crime. But the career officer says the incident has left him with a bad taste for law enforcement. "It's pretty much ruined my life altogether."

John Evander Couey is dead. For the family of the 9-year-old girl he raped and murdered four years ago, this is a small taste of justice.

In 2005, Couey, a registered sex offender, broke into the Lunsford home and dragged little Jessica from her bed. Evidence suggests Couey took the girl to the home of Couey's half-sister, within sight of the Lunsford home, where he kept her for at least two days, raping her, and finally stuffing her into a plastic trash bag and burying her alive in the backyard.

In 2007, Couey was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, and sexual battery on a child under 12. He was sentenced to death, but Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford never expected live long enough to see Couey executed.

In the end, it wasn't the State that balanced the scales, but Couey's own poor health. Couey died of natural causes September 30 in a Florida hospital.

Kenneth Ireland was still a teenager when he was convicted for the rape and murder of a 30-year-old mother of four, Barbara Pelkey. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison. This month prosecutors dropped all charges against him after DNA evidence ruled him out as the perpetrator of the crime.

In a similar case, James Tillman spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Tillman was awarded $5 million in a settlement with the state.

There's no word yet on what Ireland's next steps will be or whether he'll seek similar compensation.

When Bill Dillon was convicted of murder in 1981, DNA testing wasn't available. Instead, investigators and prosecutors relied on the testimony of John Preston and his supposedly infallible scent-tracking German-Shepherd, Harrass 2.

According to Preston, Harrass 2 repeatedly connected Dillon's scent to the killer's bloody t-shirt, was able to track Dillon from a paper he had touched, and even located him in a room where he was being held in the courthouse during his trial.

In fact, Harrass 2 wasn't much of a tracker at all.

In 1984, a Florida judge became suspicious of Preston and his dog and set up a test; Harrass 2 failed miserably. He couldn't track a scent more than 100 feet. It soon became obvious that the dog only appeared to track a scent when his handler, Preston, was with him. And apparently Preston could only lead the dog when he had been given his own lead by the prosecution.

That revelation, however, did Dillon no good. He spent another 20 years in prison before he even found out that Preston and Harrass 2 had been discredited. It wasn't until 2007 that DNA testing proved that his DNA didn't match that on the killer's shirt.

Preston died last year and Florida's Attorney General insists it's not aware of any conspiracy involving the tracker and his dog. Preston was never charged with perjury or convicted of any crime.

How many other people were convicted based on Preston's and Harrass 2's evidence remains to be seen.

Scott Kimball has a long history with disappearances.

In 2002, Kimball was in jail for writing bad checks. While there he offered authorities information about his cellmate, Steven Ennis, whom police suspected of being involved in a drug ring. In return for Kimball's services as an informant, the FBI released him and began paying him for information. The next year, 2003, Kimball was supposed to provide the FBI with information about Ennis' former girlfriend and exotic dancer, Jennifer Marcum, when Marcum disappeared. She's never been seen since.

Kimball's 19 year old step-daughter, Kaysi McLeod, also disappeared in 2003, after getting a ride to work with Kimball. A hunter found her body in 2007.

Also in 2003, Leann Emry disappeared shortly after leaving on a camping trip. Earlier this year FBI agents found Emry's body after Kimball was taken out of prison to help them search.

In 2004, Scott Kimball's uncle, Terry Kimball, disappeared. At the time, Scott Kimball reported that his uncle had won a lottery and traveled to Mexico with a stripper. But earlier this year he told police where they could find Terry Kimball's body.

Scott Kimball is already serving a 48 year sentence for theft and repeat criminal convictions. When that's done, he'll serve a 70 month sentence on firearms charges. But he likely will never serve time for the murders and disappearances of the people mentioned. He got a deal in exchange for revealing the locations of the bodies, allowing the victims families some closure. Without his cooperation, authorities probably wouldn't have enough evidence to convict him.

Back in 1819, the technology to find and analyze DNA evidence didn't exist. But for the Boorn brothers, it wouldn't have made a difference; there was no DNA evidence to find.

Two Vermont brothers, Stephen and Jesse Boorn, were convicted for the murder of their brother-in-law, Richard Colvin. But Colvin's body was never found.

There was however a penknife and a button found, both identified as Colvin's. A barn burned down, thought by some to be an attempt to destroy proof of the crime. Bones were found under a tree, but those were revealed to be not human, but animal remains. A convicted felon serving time for forgery, testified that Jesse Boorn implicated himself -- and was set free in return for his statement. The Boorn's uncle even reported a dream he had had in which Colvin told about his murder.

Presented with this overwhelming evidence, the Boorn brothers confessed and were sentenced to die.

Facing the hangman's noose, Stephen Boorn had a change of heart. He placed ads in local newspapers, explaining what had happened and describing his missing brother-in-law. Imagine his relief when someone responded! Colvin, it turned out, was alive and well, residing in New Jersey.

The Boorn brothers were released, becoming the first documented case of wrongful conviction in American history. Their story also served as the basis for Wilkie Collins' 1874 story, The Dead Alive.

Police in Milwaukee have linked a man's DNA to seven unsolved murders committed between 1986 and 2007. Six of the victims were prostitutes, the seventh a runaway involved in the drug trade. A state crime lab may yet link the same offender to at least 23 other unsolved prostitute murders with similar characteristics.

Unfortunately, while police have the DNA of the suspect, they don't know to whom the DNA belongs. There are no matches in any police databases, which means the offender has so far managed to stay out of police hands for any related felonies.

Murder charges against Paul House may have been dropped, but questions about his involvement in the rape and murder of Carolyn Muncey remain.

Muncey went missing from her rural Tennessee home on July 13, 1985. Her body was found a day later in a wooded area. She had been beaten and raped. A friend of her husband, House, claimed he had been alone at home at the time Muncey was killed. But police determined that House had left his home for at least an hour that night, and that he returned with unexplained cuts and bruises.

House, already on parole for other sex offenses, was convicted in 1986 and sentenced to death. He spent 22 years on death row.

This week, all charges against Paul House were dropped.

It seems that the semen found on Muncey's body matched her husband, not House. Blood under Muncey's fingernails also does not match House. Nor does DNA found on cigarette butts at the crime scene.

Yet, questions remain.

How did Muncey's blood get onto House's jeans? The court has determined that it could have spilled there during Muncey's autopsy, or through mishandling by police at the crime scene.

But that raises even more questions. Why would police have taken clothing confiscated from a suspect back to the crime scene? Why would clothing from a suspect be allowed anywhere near an autopsy table?

Although District Attorney Paul Phillips wrote the petition calling for charges against House to be dropped, he has not conceded that House is completely innocent. He stated that "the new evidence raises a reasonable doubt that [House] acted alone and the possibility that others were involved in the crime." But he says the "substantial sentence" House has already served is another reason the charges have now been dropped.

Police in Los Angeles have caught a break on a decades old cold case.

From the 1950s to the 1970s, the Westside Rapist claimed dozens of victims, mostly older white females. At the time, police were unable to narrow down their list of suspects and lacked the technology to make a conclusive identification. But in 2002, while reviewing 6000 cold cases and using more advanced science, police were able to match DNA from several of the cases.

Then, in March of this year, a match was finally made with a suspect, 72-year-old John Floyd Thomas Jr., who had recently provided a DNA sample for California's sex offender database.

Thomas' history matches the modus operandi and circumstances of the earlier murders. Should the identification prove conclusive, police may have finally captured one of the worst serial killers in U.S. history.

Some of the most popular shows on television are crime dramas. In almost all cases, the stories focus on teams of intrepid investigators using wit, guile, and technology to capture bad guys.

Now there's a new show on the air. But it's not fiction, and the bad guys -- if there are any -- have already been caught.

Dallas DNA focuses on the work of investigators to clear -- or confirm -- the convictions of men who claim to be innocent. The series was inspired by the work of the Conviction Integrity Unit, formed after Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins took office in January 2007.

If the series is successful, perhaps more crime dramas will focus on the innocent, rather than the guilty.

Pennsylvania is one of 46 states with laws providing post-conviction DNA access. That means that individuals convicted of a crime can request -- and must be granted -- access to DNA testing that could prove their innocence or guilt.

Unfortunately, what the law allows and what actually happens are two different things.

Anthony Wright has been in prison for nearly 20 years for a murder he says he didn't commit. He's asked for DNA testing, but prosecutors have so far refused to grant his request.

First the prosecutors claimed that since Wright confessed to the crime, he isn't entitle to testing. (According to the Innocence Project, "One-quarter of the 237 people exonerated by DNA testing gave a false confession or admission to crimes they didn't commit.")

Then the prosecutors said that testing isn't justified unless there's reasonable doubt about the individual's guilt. Of course, if there was otherwise "reasonable doubt" the individual would not have been convicted beyond a reasonable doubt in the first place.

Attorneys from the Innocence Project have argued the case before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but it could be months before the court reaches a decision. In the meantime, Wright has little choice but to wait.

Back in 1983, former Saskatchewan cabinet minister Colin Thatcher was convicted in the murder of his ex-wife, JoAnn Wilson. Thatcher maintained his innocence, but still served 22 years in prison.

He was paroled in 2006 and moved to his family's ranch near Moose Jaw. There he began writing a book, Final Appeal: Anatomy of a Frame, in which he details his trial, appeals, years in prison, and -- most notably -- an alternative theory about Wilson's murder based on evidence not heard in court.

While some jurisdictions have laws prohibiting convicted felons from profiting from the proceeds of a crime, Saskatchewan does not. Of course, Thatcher could write and publish his book without making any money from it, but that apparently won't be the case here; he's already been paid an advance by his publisher, ECW Press, and will be paid royalties should the book sell, as it probably will.

Profits aside, it will be interesting to see what new evidence Thatcher presents, and whether his claim to innocence may be valid.

One would think that if the technology exists to help prove a person's innocence or guilt, it would be used to the fullest extent possible. Then why is it that Alaska has the ability to test DNA samples in the rape conviction of William Osborne, but refuses to do so, despite agreeing that the test could definitively prove Osborne's innocence?

Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that prisoners have a constitutional right to DNA testing that can prove their innocence. Most of the States agree and have laws that provide for such post-conviction testing. Alaska, along with five other states, does not.

In the presentation before the Supreme Court, Justice Breyer asks Kenneth Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney General in Anchorage, Alaska, "In other words, all he has to do is file a new piece of paper tomorrow, and he gets the DNA?"

Rosenstein replies, "Right." But before Osborne can do that, he has to insist that he's innocent. According to Rosenstein, "If he doesn't allege his actual innocence ... then this is really an empty exercise, a fishing expedition. He wants to just see what ... the evidence says. And that -- that is not the way litigation works."

That's not the way litigation works. So, they don't really care whether a man is innocent or guilty, so long as they follow the rules of litigation.

But under Alaska's laws, even if Osborne does allege is innocence, it's not enough. He has to be able to prove he's innocent before he can get the DNA test that will prove his innocence. As Neufeld stated, "They specifically said in the State courts that it is not enough to simply assert one's innocence; that you actually have to have proofs, facts that demonstrate your innocence before you get to that discovery. It is a Catch-22 situation."

Remind me not to move to Alaska. It's a beautiful state, but I don't trust its laws or its lawyers.

Timothy Cole was convicted for the 1985 rape of a 20-year-old student Michele Mallin and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The victim had picked Cole from a selection of photos presented by police, and then again from a police lineup.

This week a Texas district court judge reversed that conviction, based on DNA evidence and on a confession from another inmate.

Unfortunately, Cole was already dead. He died in prison in 1999.

The real rapist, Jerry Johnson, has been in prison since 1985, serving one life sentence for raping a 15-year-old girl, and a 99-year sentence for another rape. He won't be charged with raping Mallin; the statute of limitations has already expired.

A construction worker and former Marine from Reno, Nevada, James Michael Biela, had an alibi for the time 19-year-old Brianna Denison was raped and strangled: he was with his girlfriend.

Unfortunately for Biela, his girlfriend denies that he was with her the night Denison disappeared from her friend's sofa. And Biela's DNA has been matched to samples obtained from a pair of panties found in a field near Denison's body, and to a sample taken from the door knob of the home where Denison was staying.

Police first became interested in Biela when an anonymous tip told them that Biela's girlfriend had found two pairs of thong panties -- not her's -- in his truck. After considering the DNA evidence, reports from a number of attacks, and a detailed description given to police by another girl who was also assaulted, investigators believe Biela may be a serial rapist with a panty fetish, leaving the panties or thongs of one victim at the scene of the next victim's attack.

Biela denies involvement with any of the attacks and has entered a not guilty plea in Washoe County District Court. His trial is tentatively set for February, 2010.

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?

The recent spate of overturned murder convictions in the U.S. (the Innocence Project has reported 18 this year alone) has apparently led some jurisdictions to reconsider their capital punishment policies. One, the state of New Jersey, lead by Governor Jon Corzine, has abolished the death penalty and commuted the death sentences of eight men to life in prison without chance of parole.

While this lessens the chance of executing innocent people, not everyone is pleased with the decision.

Jesse Timmendequas is a sex offender who murdered 7-year old Megan Kanka in 1994. Megan's father, Richard, was quoted in the New York times as stating, "The only thing we can really hope for is somebody in jail will knock off these guys."

Even with the new legislation, there's no guarantee New Jersey won't revert back to deleting those offenders it deems most dangerous. Families of other victims have said they'll let their votes speak for them, implying that a change of politicians could lead to the death penalty being reinstated.

In the 1990s Doctor Charles Smith was a leading expert in forensic pediatric pathology, until many of his findings were called into question. In reviewing his cases, his colleagues have described some of his conclusions as "ridiculous."

In a SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) case Smith suspected the parents of criminal activity, but offered no explanation for his suspicions. Another pathologist, an expert in SIDS, the police, and other investigators found no evidence of foul play.

In another case, Doctor Smith suspected a mother had a mental disorder and was responsible for her child's death. Another pathologist conducted an autopsy and found a fungal infection that had grown in the child's airway, obstructed his breathing, leading to his death.

A number of individuals were convicted, at least partially, on the basis of Smith's testimony. Among them is William Mullins-Johnson who spent 12 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit.

We don't know why Smith reached some of the conclusions he did. He may have been under personal or job-related stress. He may have been overworked. In 2001 he even wrote to his superiors asking to be excused from performing postmortems. Whatever the reason for his job performance, rather than cast shame on Doctor Smith these incidents simply highlight that even "expert" testimony is not proof of guilt. Even so-called experts can--and do--make mistakes.

Robert Pickton has been sentenced to the maximum term possible for his second-degree murder convictions in the deaths of six women: life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

The 58-year old still faces an additional 20 murder charges. However, considering the expense and length of his first trial on six charges (jury selection began December 12, 2006; sentence was read December 11, 2007) and the fact that he'll almost certainly be spending the rest of his life behind bars in any case, even British Columbia's Attorney-General Wally Oppal questions whether there will ever be a second trial.

If there was a second trial, and if the verdict on all charges was guilty, Pickton would have the distinction of being Canada's most deadly serial killer.

There were so many missing women, most of them drug addicts and prostitutes, in and around Vancouver, B.C. that the police formed a Missing Women Task Force. Eventually their investigation led to the arrest, trial, and conviction of a man who may be Canada's worst serial killer, Robert Pickton.

Last week, Pickton was convicted of murder in the deaths of six of those women, and may still face trial for the murders of twenty others. But he was convicted only of second-degree murder, implying he didn't intend to kill his victims. Now the former head of the Missing Women Task Force asserts that the jury likely would have delivered first-degree verdicts if they had been given all of the evidence.

Don Adam praises the jury for the work they did, but claims a year of their lives were wasted and wonders how they'll feel when they learn the whole truth. At this time, Adam isn't saying what that whole truth is, perhaps because another trial is pending. But he did say no compelling evidence was found that would have convicted anyone else, Pickton's brother and two acquaintances, as the defense contended.

Adam hopes to stir public debate about what evidence should be provided a jury, and what should be withheld. Is it possible for a jury to reach a fair and just decision without having all the evidence?

Robert Pickton was today found guilty on six charges of second-degree murder in a courtroom in New Westminster, B.C. However, he was found not guilty on six charges of first-degree murder.

In a move that Pickton's defense attorneys said denied their client of a fair trial, Judge James William revised his instructions to the jury part way through their deliberations, telling them he had made an error when he initially explained what it would take to convict Pickton, and saying they could find Pickton guilty even if they believed he was only indirectly linked to the murders. It's likely this action will be used as the basis for any future appeals.

There was abundant evidence presented during the trial, including mutilated body parts, DNA matched to the victims and the accused, hours of video tape of police interviews with Pickton, testimony by an alleged eye-witness who claims she saw Pickton--covered in blood--butchering one of the victims hanging on a meat hook, and a possible confession from Pickton to an undercover officer.

However, the defense maintains the evidence isn't conclusive. It's reasonable that the accused's DNA would be found on his own farm and in his own home. The eye-witness who testified about seeing Pickton committing one of the murders was a confessed drug addict. And Pickton, they say, is an individual of "limited intelligence" who's apparent confession was obtained by police using sophisticated techniques of manipulation and lies.

The convictions carry an automatic life sentence, however the jury still has to determine whether Pickton will be eligible for parole after sometime between 10 and 25 years.

Outside the court, the families of the victims expressed disappointment at what they see as only a partial victory, the second-degree rather than first-degree convictions. One told reporters, "It's not right."

The United States Supreme Court today delayed the execution of Tommy Arthur, an inmate who's been on death row in Alabama for twenty years, not because they believe Tommy may be innocent, but because they will soon consider whether lethal injections (the common method of execution in the U.S.) constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

The Innocence Project is calling on Alabama Governor Bob Riley to take advantage of this delay to order DNA testing in the case, but the Governor has so far refused. The testing would take about four weeks and could be completed well before the Supreme Court deliberates on the lethal injection issue.

Why would the Governor refuse to allow the testing? When a man's life is at stake, shouldn't every effort be made to ensure justice is done, whether that means proving Tommy is innocent or guilty?

The Innocence Project has prepared a web page through which you can send a message to Governor Riley asking for DNA testing in this case: http://www.innocenceproject.org/testing-for-tommy

In 1996, Chad Heins was convicted of the 1994 murder of his sister-in-law, Tina. After spending 13 years in prison, Chad today became the 209th person in the United States to be exonerated through DNA testing, according to the Innocence Project which was instrumental in securing Chad's release.

Although Chad's murder conviction was thrown out last year based on DNA test results from hair and skin samples found at the crime scene, prosecutors prepared to retry him. Last month, additional DNA tests were performed on semen samples taken from the bed of the victim. Those tests indicated that one man was the source of all three samples, and that that man was not Chad Heins.

While the Florida State Attorney's office in Jacksonville has dismissed all charges against Chad, it has not yet fully acknowledged that Chad is, in fact, innocent. But at least it is continuing to investigate and now has solid evidence that may lead to the real assailant.

The plan had been to split the charges against alleged serial killer Robert Pickton in to two sets. The first six murder charges would be dealt with in one trial, the remaining twenty would be covered in a second trial. The second trial, it was said by prosecutors, would take place regardless of the outcome of the first trial. However, criminal lawyers across Canada say that may not happen.

If Pickton is found guilty, the lawyers suggest, he'd be sentenced to life in prison. Since he couldn't serve consecutive life sentences, there'd be no reason for the Crown to try the other charges. (This first trial has lasted ten months and cost millions of dollars.)

If Pickton is found not guilty, the Crown would be unlikely to try the remaining charges since the six from the first trial were chosen because they represented the Crown's best case. With no reasonable expectation of a conviction, the Crown would be hesitant to proceed.

Either way, canceling the second trial likely wouldn't sit well with the families of the victims. While only six charges are being dealt with in Pickton's present trial, the families of all the victims, as well as a huge group of citizens, have taken a very deep and personal interest in this case. The families of all the victims, not just the first six, want their day in court.

In 1994, Lynn DeJac, of Erie County, N.Y., was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of her 13-year-old daughter, Crystallin Girard, and spent 13 years in prison. On November 28th, 2007, Judge John Michalski released DeJac and ordered a new trial when DNA collected at the scene of the crime was found to implicate DeJac's boyfriend, Dennis Donahue.

Unfortunately, during DeJac's initial trial, Donahue was granted immunity for testifying against her and cannot be charged in the crime.

Of course, even if Donahue did murder Crystallin, it doesn't mean Crystallin's mother was not also involved. This may be what prosecutors hope to prove. But even if they succeed in convicting her for second-degree manslaughter she will not return to prison; she's already served the maximum sentence for that charge.

The trial of Robert Pickton is now in the hands of the jury. Picton is on trial in British Columbia, Canada for the murders of Sereena Abotsway, Marnie Frey, Andrea Joesbury, Georgina Papin, Mona Wilson, and Brenda Wolfe.

So far the jury has heard from 128 witnesses, listened to a week of closing statements from the prosecution and defense, and received three days of instructions from the judge. Evidence has included such gruesome details as testimony from a witness who claims she saw one of Picton's alleged victims hanging from a meat hook, to examinations of severed and split skulls.

Regardless of the outcome of this trial, Picton's days in court are far from over. He still faces an additional 20 murder charges that it was determined would have overwhelmed a single jury.

In the 1990's, Dr. Charles Smith was the head of Ontario's pediatric forensic pathology unit. Now an inquiry has described his work as bordering on the 'bizarre' and has called into question his testimony in dozens of cases.

Pathologists from Britain and Alberta have determined that Smith made errors ranging from subtle to extreme, some of them leading to convictions of innocent people.

One of those was William Mullins-Johnson who has been found not guilty in the death of his four-year-old niece, but who spent 12 years in prison for her rape and murder, based mostly on Dr. Smith's testimony. During the appeal and a review of the forensic evidence, it was discovered that not only did William not rape and murder his niece, but that the girl wasn't raped and murdered at all; her death was accidental.

Now it seems the doctor's shortcomings were systemic of problems throughout the coroner's office. In January 2001, as questions about his performance were beginning to surface, Smith wrote a letter to his superiors asking to be excused from performing postmortems, and suggesting the office commission an independent review of his work. His request went ignored and Smith was still conducting autopsies until 2003.

In a rare occurrence, the Manhattan District Attorney's office asked the courts to dismiss all charges against five men previously convicted of the rape of a female jogger in Central Park. The men, all between 14 and 16 years of age when the attack occurred in 1989, had confessed - more or less - to the crime. Then why the dismissal?

Another man, Matias Reyes, also eventually confessed to the crime. And while there was little to no physical evidence against the five boys, there was DNA evidence against Reyes.

So why did the five boys confess? It could have something to do with the fact that their interrogations lasted from 14 to 30 hours each. Or that at times they were questioned without their guardians or legal counsel present. Or that at least one of the boys suffered from borderline mental retardation. Or that they were told physical evidence linked them to the victim when it really did not. Or that they were led to believe they'd get an easier time of it if they implicated their friends.

Even though their confessions were contradictory and inconsistent, both with their friend's confessions and with the testimony of other witnesses, the boys were convicted. And while they served their time, the real attacker, Reyes, went on to rape and kill another woman.

Robert Pickton may be Canada's worst serial killer. The fifty-five year old pig-farmer faces 27 counts of first-degree murder. That number may rise as investigators continue to sift through hundreds of tones of dirt from Pickton's farm. Picton is suspected in the disappearance of more than 60 women, mostly drug-addicted sex-trade workers from Vancouver.

The case is still in the pre-trial phase and has recently encountered delays since the appointed judge has stepped aside due to scheduling conflicts; the trial is expected to run well into next year.

When we hear the term "child killer" we usually think of an adult who preys on children. This is an exception. In London, UK this month, British police arrested two girls and boy, 11 and 12 years old, on suspicion of attempting to murder a five-year-old boy.

The boy, Anthony, suffered serious injuries when the other children allegedly tried to strangle him by tying him to a tree with a rope around his neck. One could be inclined to excuse this as simply children playing, with no malicious intent. But such certainly wasn't the case in 1993 when two ten-year-olds murdered a toddler, James Bulger, under similar circumstances.

William Mullins-Johnson was convicted of killing his four-year-old niece in 1994. There were tissue samples that may have exonerated him, but those samples went missing before they could be examined. Now they've been found, in the office of a Toronto pathologist, raising the specter of wrongful conviction, not just for Mullins-Johnson, but in a number of other cases. Might innocent people have been convicted because of this doctor's actions, either accidental or otherwise?

As a result of this discovery, Ontario's Chief Coroner, Dr. Barry McLellan, will review at least 40 homicide cases in which the pathologist either performed autopsies or provided expert testimony. The Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted has called for a public inquiry beyond the coroner's review.

David Bayliss, counsel for William Mullins-Johnson, commented, "What needs to be answered here is how a system tolerated this type of medical incompetence, or medical negligence, in a systemic way. We need to make sure that nothing like this ever occurs again."

Clark Jerome McMillan, a 22-year-old man, is arrested for rape and robbery with a deadly weapon. One of his two alleged victims fails to identify him in a police lineup. Both fail to mention his pronounced limp. McMillan's sister and girlfriend insist he was with them at the time of the attack. Still, McMillan is convicted and sentenced to 119 years.

Now, twenty-two years later, McMillan's conviction is overturned after DNA testing reveals that the semen found on the victim's jeans wasn't his.

McMillan is overjoyed at his release, but he feels hurt. The soft-spoken man says, "It was an unbelievable experience." While he hopes for some compensation for his ordeal, Tennessee has no compensation statute. What could compensate a man for half his life?

Karla Homolka has served her entire 12-year prison term in what has been called a Deal with the Devil. At first it was believed that Karla was a victim of spousal abuse, forced by her husband, Paul Bernardo, to take part in the rape, torture, and murder of two schoolgirls. That's certainly the way she skillfully portrayed herself. And prosecutors believed her. In exchange for her testimony, they agreed to reduce the charges against her to manslaughter. Only after the deal had been signed did investigators discover several video tapes the couple had made of their attack on the girls.

The tapes told a different story.

Karla was not the victim she claimed to be, but a willing participant in the girls' murders, and in the rape and death of her own sister, and in the rape of another young girl, never publicly identified.

Homolka is due to be released in the first few days of July, 2005.

Dennis Rader pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree murder, admitting to a series of slayings that began in the 1970s.

In a slew of taunting, cryptic messages to police, Rader nicknamed himself BTK, for "Bind, Torture, Kill."

His sentencing date has not yet been set. But since Kansas adopted a new capital punishment law only after these particular crimes were committed, Rader will not face the death penalty.

Karla Homolka is afraid. "I believe some people wish to do the public a favour by killing me," the schoolgirl-killer said in an affidavit. So she asked the courts to ban all media and public mention of her.

While there may be legitimate concerns about her security, there's also the concern for public safety. Some psychologists who have examined her believe she may reoffend.

There's also some doubt about her real fears. Tim Danson, the lawyer for the families of two of Homolka's victims, questioned whether she's just playing a role. "What we don't know is whether this is simply part of Karla Homolka being the master manipulator to change the focus from the real problem -- the threat she poses to public safety -- by trying to portray herself as the victim."

Not surprisingly, the Quebec Superior Court, which heard the request, rejected it. Justice Paul-Marcel Bellavance of Quebec Superior Court ruled that granting the injunction would be a danger to freedom of the press. Of course, Homolka's lawyers will appeal.

Even if the court had passed the injunction, it would have been unenforceable. The Quebec court would have no jurisdiction over the rest of Canada, let alone the rest of the world, including the Internet.

After 12 years in prison for the kidnapping, rape, and murder of two schoolgirls, Karla Homolka is now a free woman. On July 4th, 2005, She left the Ste-Anne-des-Plaines prison north of Montreal where she's been for the past month and within two hours was giving a televised interview with Radio-Canada. While she claims she was a victim of her ex-husband, Paul Bernardo, forced into participating in the gruesome acts she committed, and that she feels remorse for what she's done, she's demonstrated outstanding acting abilities in the past.

In response, Paul Bernardo, himself serving a lift sentence for his part in the murders, requested that he be allowed to speak to the media as well. That request was denied, but he did manage to relay a message through his attorney. The message? That it was Karla who insisted they kill their victims, that she tried to kill one girl by embolism (injecting her with a syringe full of air), and that she strangled both girls.

Meanwhile, Karla has moved into an east-Montreal neighborhood where the residents seem, so far, content to leave her alone.

In June of 1990, University of Toronto student Elizabeth Bain goes missing from her Scarborough campus. A few days later her blood-stained car is discovered. But Elizabeth's body is never found.

The police investigate. The vehicle is carefully examined. Witnesses are interviewed. Although there's no physical evidence directly linking Elizabeth's boyfriend, Robert Baltovich, to the disappearance, the young man is arrested. Two years later, he's convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole for 17 years.

While Robert is behind bars, the Scarborough Rapist, only later identified as Paul Bernardo, is still at large. His modus operandi is strikingly similar to the circumstances in the case of Elizabeth Bain. Still, it's not until 2000, after the case captures the attention of the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted, that Robert is released on bail pending his appeal.

In 2004, the Ontario Court of Appeal overturns Robert's conviction, stating that the original trial judge's charge to the jury was one-sided and prejudicial. But an overturned conviction is not the same as an acquittal; Robert is not declared innocent. Although he's out of prison, he's not a free man.

Now, in 2005, Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General has decided to retry Robert on second-degree murder charges. While the case against him in 1992 was weak, today, with so much new evidence implicating a far more likely suspect, perhaps Robert will at last gain the freedom he longs for.

During the morning of March 13, 1986, a female worker at the Forbes Hospital was raped. Other employees at the hospital pursued the attacker but he got away.

A short time later, Thomas Doswell was arrested. At his trial he was convicted and sentenced to 13 to 26 years in prison. On four separate occasions he was denied parole because he insisted he was innocent and refused to accept responsibility for the attack.

On Monday August 1, 2005, after serving 19 years, Thomas walked out of prison a free man, not because he finally fessed up to his crime and made parole, but because the courts finally realized he was innocent as he claimed.

It turns out there were a number of irregularities in his case. The victim stated that the man who attacked her had a beard; Thomas did not. Thomas had suffered a neck injury at work and was wearing a neck brace; the witnesses never mentioned that. Of the eight photographs of possible suspects shown to witnesses, only Thomas' photo was marked with a large "R", signifying a previous rape conviction, a charge for which Thomas had long since been acquitted. (Under new guidelines this practice will change. Photos presented to witnesses will not be marked and those officers presenting them will themselves be unaware of the identity of the suspect or of the other individuals in the photo lineup.)

But none of these facts were enough to exonerate Thomas Doswell.

Eventually, at the urging of the Innocence Project but against the advice of the prosecuting attorneys, semen specimens collected during the medical examination of the rape victim in 1986 were retested. When it was found that they were not from Thomas Doswell, the prosecutors quickly joined the motion to have the charges vacated.

After his release, Thomas said, "Having the faith I have in Jesus has taught me that I couldn't walk around for 20 years with anger bottled up in me. It would have killed me. It would have done more damage to me than good." He also said, "I'm thankful justice has been served. The court system is not perfect, but it works."

On August 18th, 2005, Dennis Rader, the self-named BTK serial killer, was been sentenced to 10 consecutive life terms, at least 175 years without the possibility of parole. Since Kansas had no death penalty at the time of the murders, this is the longest sentence the courts can impose. (The murders all occurred between 1974 and 1991; the death penalty was not reinstated until 1994.)

While addressing the court in a choked and halting voice, Rader said, "I know the victim's families will never be able to forgive me. I hope somewhere deep down, eventually that will happen." Judging by the reaction of some in the court, Rader may be disappointed.

Kevin Bright, the brother of one of Rader's victims, Kathryn Bright, said, "No remorse, no compassion -- he had no mercy. I think that's what he ought to receive." Kevin had first-hand knowledge of Rader's actions. He was shot by Rader but managed to escape.

Rader kept photographs and journals detailing his exploits, along with what he called "hit kits" -- bags containing rubber gloves, rope, tape, bandanas, and handcuffs.

"A dark side is there, but now I think light is beginning to shine," Rader said during his testimony. "Hopefully someday God will accept me."

It's unlikely anyone else will.

Canada and the US certainly have no monopoly on wrongful convictions.

In China in 1994 She (pronounced "Shuh") Xianglin was convicted of killing his wife. He even confessed to the crime. But his conviction was overturned after he spent 11 years in prison, when his wife returned. It seems she had simply run off with another man.

Xianglin says he signed the confession without reading it after he was tortured by police. Human rights groups have said that torture is common in this system that relies heavily on confessions to crack difficult cases. According to some reports, prisoners are sometimes tortured to death, their relatives being told that they died of natural causes or committed suicide. Curiously, one of the officers who allegedly took part in Xianglin's abuse hanged himself when authorities began an investigation into the incident.

Xianglin has received compensation for his time in prison, $7.90 US a day for each of the 4,009 days he spent confined, plus $24,600 for lost earnings. He has not received any compensation for the beatings he says he suffered, nor have any of the police involved in the case apologized.