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Lloyd Lindsey was convicted of murdering three little girls and their brother.  He was also convicted of raping one of the girls.  A man who boarded with the children's family and a surviving brother told police when interviewed together that Lindsey along with Eugene Ford and Willie Robinson had strangled the children after raping the girls.  The three men then set fire to the home.  Lindsey confessed to this crime, parroting the details of the boarder and surviving brother.  The home, at 1408 W. 61st Street in Chicago, was occupied by Mrs. Catherine Horace, her six children, and Lavelle Watkins, the boarder.

Medical evidence indicated that the children had not been strangled, but had died of smoke inhalation.  Two of the girls, moreover, were virgins and showed no signs of sexual abuse.  Lindsey and his compatriots, who had not confessed, were tried together, but with separate juries.  Lindsey was convicted, but his compatriots were acquitted.  In 1979, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed Lindsey's conviction, and barred a retrial.  It ruled “the inconsistencies in the testimony of [the principal prosecution witnesses] were not only contradictory but diluted [their testimony] to the level of palpable improbability and incredulity.”  (NL)  [1/06]

David Hendricks was convicted of murdering his wife, Susan, 30, and their three children, Becky, 9, Grace, 7, and Benjy, 5.  The murders occurred at 313 Carl Drive in Bloomington.  While traveling in Wisconsin, Hendricks called police to check on his family.  No one had answered the phone all weekend and he was worried.  When police and neighbors searched his home the next day, they found that Hendricks' entire family had been hacked to death with an ax and butcher knife.  When Hendricks returned later that day, police questioned him and checked his clothes and car for bloodstains. But the search was inconclusive, and Hendricks' alibi of having left for Wisconsin around 11:30 p.m. on November 4, appeared solid.

While his wife was at a baby shower, Hendricks said he taken his children out for a pizza at about 7:30 p.m. on November 4. According to him, they then played in an amusement area and returned home at 9:30 p.m. He said his wife returned at 10:45 p.m. and he left for his business trip shortly thereafter.  But after studying the children's bodies, medical examiners discovered an apparent hole in Hendricks' story. Ordinarily, food leaves the stomach and moves into the small intestine within two hours. However, in all three children, vegetarian pizza toppings were still in their stomachs, which led investigators to estimate their time of death sometime around 9:30 p.m., while Hendricks was still at home.  Hendricks' defense attorney hammered away at the only physical evidence against him, pointing out that physical activity or trauma can affect the rate of digestion.  However, Hendricks was convicted of four counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Hendricks' conviction was later overturned because an appeals court found the prosecution's argument of an alleged motive irrelevant and prejudicial. The prosecution introduced evidence that Hendricks was a member of a conservative religious group which shunned divorce and that he made passes at female models he had hired for advertising purposes.  At Hendricks' 1991 retrial the prosecution presented the testimony of Danny Wayne Stark, a jailhouse informant, who said that Hendricks confessed to the slayings.  However, the defense presented three inmates who testified that Stark was known as a liar.  The retrial jury acquitted Hendricks.  Jurors said the prosecution had not proven its case.  A book was written about the case entitled Reasonable Doubt by Steve Vogel.  (Google) [6/08]

Thomas "Hank" Hughes Kimbell, Jr. was sentenced to death for the 1994 murders of his neighbor, Bonnie Lou Dryfuse, 34, her daughters, Jacqueline Mae Dryfuse, 7, and Heather Sue Dryfuse, 4, and their cousin, Stephanie Herko, 5. The murders occurred at the Dryfuses' mobile home at 100 Ambrosia Road in Pulaski Township. Bonnie was stabbed 28 times, Jacqueline, 14 times, Heather, 16 times, and Stephanie, 6 times. Bonnie’s husband, Thomas “Jake” Dryfuse discovered the bodies shortly after 3 p.m. Mary Herko, who was Stephanie's mother and Jake's sister, had been talking on the telephone with Bonnie at 2:20 p.m. and testified at trial that Bonnie said she had to go because "someone is pulling up the driveway" (possibly the murderer). Previously, Herko had told the police that Bonnie had said, "Jake is pulling up the driveway." The defense was not allowed to impeach Herko’s testimony to bring out the fact that Bonnie had indicated her husband rather than just “someone.” The husband, Jake, claimed to be elsewhere at the time the phone call ended.

Jake was initially regarded as a suspect. However, the police could not figure out how he could have washed up after the murders and gotten rid of his bloody clothes. When police arrived at the murder scene, Jake had a little blood on his hands. Jake said he got it from touching Heather’s arm, thinking she was alive. However, DNA tests showed that the blood was from Jacqueline, not Heather. Kimbell’s defense unwisely brought up this discrepancy at trial. In rebuttal, the prosecution secured the judge’s permission to introduce crime scene photos. While the prosecution had a point in that blood flew everywhere and blood from one victim could have gotten on Jake’s hands from another victim’s body, the prejudicial effect of the photos far outweighed any probative value. The jury was made to feel that somebody had to pay for this terrible crime.

Kimbell’s conviction was overturned in 2000 because of the limitation placed on his defense in questioning Herko’s testimony. For retrial, the defense hired Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist. Omalu told the defense lawyers, "Show me the hands of the suspects and I'll show you the hands of the killer." Crime scene photographs that included Jake's hands were then examined and showed fingernail abrasions on the back of his hands as well as abrasions and bruises on his palms. Kimbell was small, 5’4” tall and weighed 120 lbs. He was also a moderate hemophiliac who bled profusely when cut. It is difficult to understand how he could have tangled with 250 lb. Bonnie Dryfuse and not sustained detectable injuries. Kimbell was acquitted at his 2002 retrial. Kimbell's case is profiled in the second half of the book The Death Penalty on Trial by Bill Kurtis.  [5/08]

Pagan was convicted of two separate double homicides.  In July 1992 he was convicted of the second-degree murders of Luis Bermudez, 20, and Ivelisse Gonzales, 21.  The two were murdered inside Bermudez' apartment in the 400 block of West Dauphin St. on Dec. 30, 1990.  In Dec. 1992 Pagan was convicted of the first-degree murders of Pablo Padilla, Sr., 59, and Pablo Padilla, Jr., 31.  The Padillas were murdered inside their home in the 4700 block of North 3rd St. on Jan. 11, 1991.  Pagan was sentenced to death for these murders.  On April 1, 1991, Police Officer Julio Aponte reported that Pagan had confessed to the four murders ten days earlier.  Aponte later helped to convict Pagan by testifying to this alleged confession.

However, neither jury learned key facts that would have undermined Aponte’s credibility.  In early Jan. 1992, months before Pagan’s trials, it became known that Aponte, while a police officer, was part of a ring that robbed drug houses, stealing drugs, cash, and weapons.  Aponte was later imprisoned for several years on these charges.  Shortly after his release from prison, he was arrested in New York on drug related charges and remains incarcerated in New York.

At both of Pagan’s trials, another witness, Hector Alicia, provided similar testimony as that of Aponte, and testified that Pagan had confessed to all four murders.  Nevertheless, five years later, in 1997, he pleaded guilty to four counts of third-degree murder for the same murders.  A third witness, George Swisher placed Pagan at the scene of the Bermudas-Gonzales murders.  However, Swisher was convicted of those murders eight years later in Dec. 2000 and is awaiting trial on the Padilla murders.  A fourth witness, Rosemary Santiago, also testified against Pagan at both of his trials.  Pagan alleges she testified at his first trial to protect her cousin, Alicia, from having murder charges filed against him.  He also alleges she testified at his second trial to prevent murder charges from being filed against her as she was the senior Padilla’s ex-girlfriend.

During the first double homicide, one of the victims, Gonzales, was raped.  DNA test results linked that rape not to Pagan, but to another man, Jamad Rohn.  He was arrested for the Bermudas-Gonzales murders in 1996.  He pleaded guilty in 1999 to the murders.  Rohn also implicated Santiago in the Padilla murders, as does her cousin, Alicia.  According to both men, Santiago set up her ex-boyfriend to be robbed and was in the house at the time of his murder.  The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office has acknowledged in a motion to the PA Supreme Court that had it provided to Pagan’s defense information on its witnesses prior to his trials, the outcome of the trials would likely have been different.  The PA Inmate Locator web site showed that Pagan was still imprisoned as of July 2007.  (Source)  [7/07]