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After making a deal for life in prison for himself, he admitted he had lied about Betty Wilson.  The state had acknowledged that without White's testimony there was no case against Betty Wilson.  White was not tried until after he testified at both sisters' trials.  He has stated that the prosecution coerced him to testify against the sisters by threatening to send him to the electric chair for capital murder.  Peggy Lowe was acquitted but Betty was convicted and sentenced to life without parole.  The case was profiled on a "48 Hours" episode.  (BW)  [5/05]

Patricia Gordy Wright was convicted in 1999 of the 1981 murder of her ex-husband, Willie Jerome Scott. Jerome was found stabbed to death in his motor home while it was parked in a bad area in downtown Los Angeles. Jerome’s homosexual lifestyle led to the dissolution of the couple’s marriage. It also led him to some unsavory partners and placed him in some dangerous situations. No physical or forensic evidence connects Wright to the crime.

Prior to Wright’s arrest, there were three previous suspects in the case. Police were unable to locate Jerome’s gay-lover or the male prostitute he was last seen with. In 1995, Wright’s brother, Larry, who was angry at his sister, pointed a finger at her and at Larry Slaughter, a family friend.  Two years later, Wright was arrested based on her brother's statement.  However, after being taken before Judge Lance Ito, she was released for lack of evidence.  Two weeks later, she was again arrested and taken before a different judge.  The police claimed to have a taped statement from Slaughter in which he claimed he was hired by Wright to murder Jerome for $25,000.  Without hearing the tape, this judge decided there was sufficient evidence to hold her.  Wright's attorney later demanded to hear the tape, but police claimed the tape was lost.  Slaughter later claimed that police taped him giving them them a statement, but in the statement he told them he knew nothing about the murder and did not know what they were talking about.

At trial, Slaughter did not testify, but a detective gave hearsay testimony as to his incriminating statements against Wright that were supposedly on the "lost" tape.  Wright's brother, Larry, also testified and stated that he lied in his statement to police, that he knew nothing about Jerome's murder, and that Wright never made any admissions to him about it.  However, a detective gave testimony about being present when Larry gave his statement.

To establish a motive, the state presented the testimony of an insurance agent who “remembered” selling Wright life insurance on her husband some 20 years before. The testimony had to be videotaped, as the agent, then 83, was confined to a nursing facility because of his Alzheimer’s disease.  Wright's attorney had no opportunity to cross-examine the agent.  Since her conviction, Wright has gathered evidence that largely refutes the life insurance claim.  Besides her own wrongful conviction, Wright also believes that Slaughter was wrongly convicted at his separate trial.  (JD38 p3)  [3/08]

With little evidence, Dorotik was convicted of murdering her husband Bob.  Though physically incapable of lifting her husband, the prosecution contended she carried her husband's body long distances and lifted it into and out of a large pickup truck.

The prosecution withheld evidence from the defense that two eyewitnesses had seen Bob twelve hours after he was allegedly murdered.  These witnesses placed him near or with two Hispanic looking men at a location that was close to where his body was found.  (JD30 p3)  [9/06]

Beverly Jean Long was charged with murdering her husband, James Long, in his workshop.  According to police, she cracked his skull, dragged his body, poured an accelerant on top of him, and ignited it.  Investigators claimed to find pour patterns on the floor where the accelerant puddled.  They said Jean’s story that the fire started when James was filling up a kerosene heater did not make sense.  They noted that the red filling can that Jean mentioned was found undamaged outside the workshop.

Defense investigators debunked the pour pattern evidence.  According to them, James mistakenly poured gasoline into a hot, but unlit kerosene heater.  Gasoline residue was found in the heater.  The gasoline exploded, setting James and his workshop on fire.  While he was running around on fire, James apparently hit his head on a metal worktable, cracking his skull.  The red filling can found outside the workshop was apparently not the one that was used as it contained kerosene.  At trial, Jean Long was acquitted.  (Forensic Files)  [9/07]

Martin was convicted of murdering her boyfriend, Richard Alfredo, 61.  Alfredo died in his home after a long history of heart disease.  Initially, it was assumed the disease was the cause of his death and no autopsy was performed.  Alfredo's assets worth about $25,000 went to his estranged wife and her children while Martin and her children continued to live in the home she had shared with Alfredo.  Four weeks after Alfredo's death, rumors surfaced that Alfredo was poisoned.  Martin's daughter had told high school friends that Alfredo had made sexual advances toward her, and that her mother got revenge by serving him Jell-O laced with LSD.

LSD is an illicit hallucinogen and can cause a rapid increase in heart rate.  Such an increase can be fatal to someone with a diseased heart like Alfredo's.  Alfredo's body was exhumed and tests indicated the presence of LSD.  The medical examiner then ruled the death a homicide and listed the cause of death as "Acute LSD Intoxication."  When police went to arrest Martin, they found that she and her daughter had fled, but phone records indicated they two were in Montreal, Canada, where they were captured.

At Martin's trial, the judge took her lawyer aside for not cross-examining forensic witnesses, but the lawyer assured him that he would defend against such testimony later, which he never did.  A local drug dealer also testified that he sold 30 doses of LSD to a small group that included Martin and her daughter.  Seven years after Martin's conviction, her new lawyer, Kevin Mahoney, a public defender, went to the courthouse to get her case file.  While there, he struck up a conversation with a prosecutor about the case.  The prosecutor told him to look very closely at the official cause of death.

Mahoney found out from a pharmacologist that there had never been a case reported where a person had died from the direct effects of LSD.  Therefore, the listed cause of death was very unlikely.  Secondly, the test kit used to determine the presence of LSD was designed only for fresh urine samples, not cadaver tissue.  It contained a warning label that it gave a preliminary result and required confirmation by tests that are more accurate.  Mahoney then found out that the prosecution had performed multiple confirmatory tests but they all came back negative.  The prosecution was required by the Brady Doctrine to turn over all exculpatory evidence to the defense without being asked, but it had violated this rule.

On appeal, Martin got a new trial.  Rather than remain in prison while awaiting a new trial, she pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for time served.  She maintained her innocence.  (Forensic Files)  [12/06]

While married to a different man, Sharee Miller had an online romance with an ex-police detective, Jerry Cassaday, from Reno, Nevada, whom she met on the Internet.  Sharee had told him numerous lies such as being wealthy.  She had also traveled to Reno five times and had a physical affair.  In her emails, she said she was married to a terminally ill husband, Jeff, who would die soon and that they could be together soon.  Then she told him her husband died, but she had to marry his brother, Bruce, because of family pressure.  She twice told Jerry she was pregnant with his child.

Regarding the first pregnancy, she told Jerry she lost the child because her husband had violently raped her.  Regarding the second pregnancy she said her husband had beaten her until she miscarried.  She even used cosmetic make-up to fake a picture of herself, showing herself all bruised up.  She also sent some emails allegedly from her husband to Jerry saying that he found out about the pregnancy and killed Jerry’s “bastard” child.  Sharee had also told Jerry that her husband was in the Mafia.  Jerry had trouble with drugs and alcohol and moved from Reno, Nevada to his hometown of Odessa, Missouri.

Sharee’s husband, Bruce Miller, 48, worked third shift at an auto plant in Flint.  He also owned a junkyard, B & D Auto Parts, where he worked when he was not working at the plant.  One night while Bruce was alone at the junkyard, Jerry showed up and murdered him.  Police thought Bruce was the victim of a robbery as money he had on him was missing.  In her online romance with Jerry, Sharee still was not willing to join Jerry, even though she was free of her husband.  In apparent despair, Jerry, then 39, committed suicide three months after the murder.  He left a suicide note and an alleged transcript of instant messages between himself and Sharee that implicated Sharee in the murder.  He said he had murdered Bruce with Sharee’s help.

Despite her infidelity, Sharee was reportedly happy in her marriage to Bruce.  He was her third husband and provided stability that she had not had before.  She also had no known motive to kill him.  She did not even have a small life insurance policy on him.  Police found email correspondence on Jerry’s computer between Sharee and Jerry.  There was nothing in these emails that directly implicated Sharee in the murder.  They somewhat supported Sharee’s claim that she was trying to scare Jerry, so he would not call her house so much.

Sharee was tried for the murder of her husband.  Jerry’s suicide note and his transcript of instant messages, which showed Sharee participating in the planning the murder, were introduced as evidence.  The transcripts could easily have been faked.  Because he had been jilted, Jerry had motive to falsely implicate Sharee in the murder.  There was little reason to regard them as reliable or trustworthy.  Being dead, Jerry could not be cross-examined.  Jerry was also an ex-police detective who likely was more adept than an average person in deciding how to frame an innocent person.

Sharee was convicted.  Her infidelity and the lies she told to Jerry do not make her an especially sympathetic person.  Nevertheless, since the evidence used to convict her is inherently unreliable, Sharee’s conviction is also inherently unreliable.  (AJ) [9/07]

Rick Tabish, a trucking contractor, and Sandy Murphy, a one-time topless dancer, were convicted in 2000 of murdering Murphy's boyfriend, Ted Binion.  Binion, 55, was formerly an executive of the Horseshoe Casino and had an estate worth $50 million.  Tabish and Murphy allegedly killed Binion by forcing him to swallow a mixture of black tar heroin and the sedative Xanax.  Murphy stood to inherit about $1.5 million from Binion’s estate.  Tom Dillard, an investigator hired by the Binion family, gathered evidence against the pair and got police to file charges.  Defense argued at trial that Binion was a well-known heroin addict and had simply overdosed.

Binion reportedly became depressed in March 1998 after the Nevada Casino Gaming Control board permanently barred him from his family’s casino because of his reported drug use and his association with a known mobster.  The day before Binion’s death, he was prescribed a month’s supply of Xanax, which is useful for combating the withdraw symptoms of heroin.  However, it seemed unlikely that he planned to use the Xanax for that purpose, for later that day, he bought 12 balloons of black tar heroin from a drug dealer.  Tabish and Murphy’s convictions were overturned in 2003 and the two were acquitted on retrial in 2004.  (LA Times) (AJ)  [12/06]

"Shasta" Lerlene Evonne Roever was charged with murdering her live in fiancé, Ian Wilhite, in part because Wilhite was shot with a .22 caliber bullet and she owned a .22 caliber gun, although ballistics soon ruled out her gun.  Wilhite had moved to Pahrump from Las Vegas because his life had been threatened there.  At trial the key witness and main investigator lied on direct examination and impeached their testimony on cross-examination.  Throughout the trial, this investigator fraternized with the jurors in the jurors lounge, not just on the day he testified.  His excuse was that it was the only smoking area in the court building.  Roever was convicted but the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the conviction and noted, "There was no physical evidence to link the defendant to the crime."

At the second trial Roever insisted on testifying, but her public defender avoided or refused to ask important questions regarding her husband's background and associates.  The subject was not even broached.  Roever's public defender refused to subpoena anyone on the two-page list of witnesses that she gave him and even insulted her uncle, the only witness that was there for her.  This time the DA admitted there was no evidence, so he felt justified in trying her based on whatever stories or opinions his witnesses could fabricate about her.

As an example, one witness testified that Roever had stated she had killed her own mother and a baby.  Roever had shared with this witness the story of the drowning death of her mother and the story of the death of her child who was asphyxiated during delivery by his own umbilical cord.  Roever had an ex-husband whom she had thrown out years before for lying and stealing; his relatives were there to testify.  The ex-husband's mother who once told Roever she was in love with her fiancé (the murder victim) and wished he would be interested in older women, told some tales that Roever hadn't a clue about.  Even though the jurors stated their concern about the lack of evidence, Roever was convicted again.  Later the Chief Deputy DA argued in his response to the Nevada Supreme Court that ultimately, the truth behind the stories is immaterial.  In fact, he said, prosecutors assumed the stories weren't true.

Roever has repeatedly been offered plea bargains which would have allowed her to get out years ago, so maintaining her conviction is a matter of pride for prosecutors rather than a feeling that she must be locked up as a danger to society.  (JD02)  [6/05]

“Susie” Mowbray was convicted of murdering her husband, J. William "Bill" Mowbray, Jr.  After incessantly protesting her innocence, she was granted a retrial in 1996 by a Texas appeals court that ruled prosecutors concealed a crucial report on the blood splatter evidence that supported Mowbray's innocence.  When retried in 1998, forensic evidence supported the defense claim that Mowbray's husband committed suicide while she was asleep next to him in bed.  Dr. Herbert MacDonnell testified that it was likely Bill Mowbray committed suicide.  Mowbray was acquitted.  [10/05]