Quote:
Originally Posted by username n/a  |
I won't go so far as to say that racism played a part, I'd like to think that the majority of Americans are passed that. and I won't say no rape occured. But, in this case, I think it was a case of the states lawyer was a better liar (okay, story teller) than the defense.
Also, I have seen it too many times over my life where a good person is railroaded by ambistious prosecutors and judges. Or by what may have been good intentioned cops, but in th end were just guys out for the win, no matter who was right.
I lived for a number of years in a small midwestern town. Shortly after I moved there (over 25 years ago now). There was a small boy, like 4 years old if memory serves, walking with his baby sitter on the open air downtown shopping mall. The baby sitter ducked inside a drug store to say hi to a classmate or smething, but only for less than 60 seconds. The little boy disappeared. He was fund 3 days later, murdered and raped, less than a mile for the mall, by the river bank, near the railroad tracks.
The police quickly focused on a "rather slow" (IQ around 70)young man, around 17 if again memory serves. The young man had been working mopping floors in a post office, or some other downtown establishment. The cops quickly got a "confession" from the kid, and despite all the evidence and eye witnesses that hadn't seen the kid, and remembered the victim walking with an older man holding his hand, despite a bad quality video camera shot coroborating this, they sentenced the young man to life and sent him to prison. He suffered many attacks, was raped repeatidly in prison, was stabbed and nearly died.
About 5 or 6 years go by and the same thing happened again, same mall, same tiny midwest town. This time a little girl coming home from a dental appointment. her body was found about a mile from where the little boys had been found. Only this time there were witnesses. They had spotted a large man near the river that day. This man had checked him self in to a mental hospital later that day or the next, but before the girls body was found. Eventually this man was ID'd as a repeat sex offender with crimes dating back over 30 years. He ID the burrial spot of many murder victims and drew maps for the FBI. When the FBI mentioned the little girl, this man was supprised that someone else was serving time for the crime. He provided details of the day the little boy disappeared that "only" the killer could have known. It is estimated that this man killed over 30 people between 1951 and 1982.
Eventually the "slow" teen was released from prison, but the prosecutor who had railroaded him in the first place and ignored all evidence saying he couldn't have done it had gotten himself appointed state attny general by then, and all the cops who had practically recited to the young man what he should say in his "confession, had eventually admitted almost beating a confession from him: had gotten promoted, some transfered to bigger cities and bigger jobs on the weight of the "good" work they had done.
In the end, a notoriuous serial killer had walked away from that little boys body for nearly 9 years, and an innocent kid, a slow kid had to endure rape, beatings, stabbings and the practical ruination of any respectable life.
And you want to know why I don't trust cops?
