At least 130 people per year are exonerated. They spend time in jail for a crime they did not commit yet they still have to serve the punishment. The night of February 5, 1985, 68 year old Helen Wilson was sexually assaulted and killed in her apartment in Beatrice, Nebraska. Her body was found in the apartment the next morning by her sister, Wilson appeared to be sexually assaulted, stabbed, and suffocated to death. The years that followed the homicide were filled with turmoil over whom to convict with the crime and who actually commited the crime.
In March 1985, Bruce Allen Smith became subject of the BPD’s investigation and they obtained blood and hair samples from him for testing. Erroneously, however a technician ruled out that Bruce Allen smith appeared to be a “secretor” and that he therefore could not be involved in the Wilson homicide. In 1989, 4 years later, Thomas Winslow, who was in jail for an unrelated
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Dean stated he could not remember the gender of the person but believed it was a woman with light brown hair and a medium build. On May 18, Searcey received a photograph of Kathy Gonzalez from the BPD, during his March 24 statement Dean identified Gonzalez as the person present in Wilson’s murder. A statement from Deb Shelden shows that she also claims remembering seeing Gonzalez during the homicide.
Nearly a year later, on May 25, 1989 Searcey arrested Gonzalez who had been living in the same apartment complex as Wilson had when the murder had occurred. A blood test showed that Kathy Gonzalez had type B-blood. Gonzalez claimed that she was in her apartment on the night of the murder “doing laundry and watching a movie”. When asked about White, Taylor, and Winslow, Gonzalez stated that she did not even know who Winslow was, the officer claimed that her mind was blocking it out because she was having repressed
Second, the search of Hicks home did not include a search warrant, and in Meyers case the police did have a search warrant. In Myers case, police had a lawful search warrant to search for drugs and drug paraphernalia. During that search police located a bloody rag, which was sent for testing. The results of this test revealed the blood belonged to a murder victim, implicating Myers for suspicion of murder. Although the police did have a search warrant, the warrant only listed drugs, and paraphernalia.
In February 1998, Watertown, SD, was not bursting with riveting activity. Watertown had a population of 20,127 people in 1998, which is not much less than the 22,000 residents it has today. Brenda Barger was mayor of Watertown, SD, during the years of some of the worst flooding ever in Watertown. Although the little town of Watertown seems like the perfect rural town to raise a family, it’s not all butterflies and rainbows. On February 1, it was reported that two teenage girls were accused of beating a 47 year-old man to death in his home. David Paul Bauman died of a head injury caused by the girls. Bauman was currently unemployed and mildly disabled due to a car accident a number of years earlier (“2 Teen-agers Arrested in Watertown Killing”
There are many differences when it comes to gender within the trial of Thomas and Jane Weir. Women were usually domestic workers within the household and society, doing jobs such as child-rearing, weaving, and roles of mother, sister, daughter, wife and caretaker in the community. Men were either seen as the husbands of the female witchcraft users or someone of an intense authority figure. “Sir Andrew Ramsay, Lord Abbotshall then Provost of Edinburgh” were all men with high statuses within the community in Edinburgh in which Thomas lived. Women during the time of witchcraft in Scotland came to be connected with the Devil by possession while most men do not have carnal knowledge of the work of the Devil himself
The first eyewitness, Kevan Baker had stopped for gas he saw an unknown man in a flannel shirt inside the gas station approaching Mrs. Lopez and trying to strangle her by the hair and taking her to the back room of the station. The man suddenly saw Baker witnessing and released Wanda’s hair and went up to Baker warning him “ I got a gun. Get back, Don’t mess with me.” After that the man ran away and Baker reported that the man ran in an east direction from the store. Before Lopez was on the ground she yelled “help me, help me” and Baker attempted to help and ran in the back of store to get paper towel to stop the bleeding, until the police and paramedics arrived. The second eye witness was George Aguirre. Aguirre had stopped as well for gas exactly at 8 pm. As he was filling up his van with gas, he saw a man standing outside of the gas station store, wearing dar...
In 1994, football pro and actor Orenthal James Simpson was tried for the murder of his wife and a waiter. O.J.’s wife and the waiter were found murdered outside of her condo. O.J. and his wife had divorced to years prior to the murder, so in retrospect, O.J. automatically looks guilty. O.J.’s wife was found stabbed multiple times in the head and neck. There were also wounds on her hands, showing that she tried to defend herself from the assailant. The wounds to her neck were so severe, her throat was gaping wide open and her spine had been pierced by the blade.
Garcia, D. (August, 26 2011). Brandy Hall Case Being Looked at Again. Retrieved from My Hometown News: http://myhometownnews.net/index.php?id=84053
“I agree with Ms. Krejci that the entire file should have been disclosed with the publics record request, but that does not make it discoverable.” Feeney said. “I understand her frustration that she wasn 't given the same information that another defense attorney was. When I discovered what had happened, which was in august, I immediately requested the entire file from the Phoenix Police Department so that I could disclose it to the defense council. I didn’t do that because I believed that the information was discoverable or relevant. I did it as a professional courtesy. So that we were on the same field, and so that she felt that she had everything tha...
Kathleen Weiand shot and killed her husband Todd. At trial, Kathleen’s defense was BWS; because of Todd’s abuse, she had no choice but to kill him, fearing that if she did not, he would eventually kill her. Defense expert Dr. Len...
evidence and the right of a condemned man to ask for testing.("A.B. Butler").He was exonerated by
Patty Hearst was a normal 19 year old girl, living in an apartment with her fiance and attending university in Berkeley, California, until one day her life, and the lives of everyone around her changed forever. On the evening of February 4, 1974, some members of the left-wing radical group called the Symbionese Liberation Army barged into Hearst’s home armed with guns, and beat up her fiance before kidnapping Hearst and bringing her to their house where she was kept blindfolded in a closet for 59 days. While locked in the closet, Patty Hearst was verbally and sexually abused and she was denied the use of even a toilet or toothbrush if she didn’t tell them that she agreed with the group’s ideas and beliefs. It is believed that while being locked in the closet like this, Patty was being brainwashed by the SLA and that she may have even developed Stockholm Syndrome, a condition in which a person who was kidnapped starts to empathise with their captor, and even starts defending them. This is how the Symbionese Liberation Army convinced Patty Hearst to join their group. They released an audio tape to the public in which Patty Hearst said she was changing her name to Tania and that she had decided to join the SLA. She then helped the SLA rob a bank and steal an ammunition belt from a sports store. After this, she started travelling around the country with two members of the SLA named John and Emily Harris, to try avoid being captured by the police. During this time, the police found a house where some members of the SLA were hiding out. Attempts to make the SLA members surrender ended up in a massive gunfight, ultimately ending up in the deaths of 6 SLA members. The FBI eventually found and arrested Patty Hearst on September 18, 1975. T...
The report included testimony from Officer Darren Wilson, physical evidence, forensic evidence, and many witnesses. According to the Department of Justice report on the incident, Officer Darren Wilson was driving after finishing one of his calls and saw Michael Brown and his friend walking on the double yellow line in the middle of the street blocking traffic. According to his account, officer Wilson told them to move to the sidewalk in which they ignored. He then noticed they fit the descriptions he had earlier heard of the suspects of the robbery, he then parked his vehicle blocking traffic. He attempted to get out of his vehicle to speak to the boys but apparently Michael Brown blocked the car door and started to punch the officer. They engaged in a scuffle where Officer Wilson reached for his gun in which he claims that all he had access to. Michael Brown tried to take control of the gun, according to Wilson’s account. (Department of Justice, 2015) Officer Wilson then regained control of the gun and shot Michael Brown’s hand. Michael Brown then took off and Wilson chased him on foot. Brown started coming towards Wilson. Many witnesses even described Brown as “charging” towards Wilson. (McLaughlin, E. C. (2014, August 15) Wilson warned Brown multiple times and Brown kept moving forward towards Wilson
On August seventh 1970 Jonathan Jackson gained control over a courtroom in Marin County, California. Once in the courtroom, Jackson armed the black defendants and took Judge Harold Haley and three female jurors as hostages. As Jackson transported the hostages and two black convicts away from the courtroom the police began shooting at the vehicle. The judge and the three black men were killed, and one of the jurors and the prosecutor were injured. The guns Jackson used in the attack, and the shotgun used to kill Judge Haley had been purchased by Angela and publicly registered by her in her own name two days
My homicide case began when the Shreveport Police Department (SPD) received a call from a male caller via 911 reporting he found a body of a black male found in a park near a cul-de-sac in a residential area. I was dispatched and responded to the scene. Upon arrival, I began steps documenting the crime scene. I initiated a rough sketch of the scene and initiated my field notes. A cordon was initiated as I began identifying possible evidence and identifying witnesses and suspects. I canvassed the area and found four 9mm shell casings near the body.
On January 17, 1982, her body was found in the wardrobe of her bedroom by a neighbour, Jimmy Holloway. He had been given a key to her home by Mrs. Edwards. Mrs. Edwards had been wounded to death. Whether she had been sexually attacked would remain a subject of some difference (Berkeley Law School Death Penalty Clinic, 2012; Bonner, 2013; Grinberg, 2014; Law Book Review: Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong by Raymond Bonner, 2012; Van Horne,
The legal system in the United States doesn’t have a lot of gray areas when it comes to murder cases, usually someone’s going to jail at the end of the day. However there are certain cases involving children where the law needs to be viewed with exceptions. Sometimes the laws need to bring new ideas and concepts into consideration that weren’t thought of when the laws were originally written. For instance in most cases when an adult kills another adult, the adult who killed the other person will be convicted and sent to prison. But in the cases of when a young child kills another person the law cannot be too quick to convict them due to many discoveries in the field of childhood development. A young child ages 2-6 is still developing biologically,