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After days of police interrogation at the Saraland Police Department, Pardue, 17, confessed to brutally murdering Ronald Rider, 20, and Harvey Hodges, 68, attendants at two gas stations 16 miles apart in Mobile and Baldwin counties.  He also confessed to the murder of a skeleton, which happened to be found in a Mobile County ditch during the interrogation.  The skeleton was later identified as Theodore White, 43, and his cause of death is officially listed as unknown.  Using similar tactics the police coerced Pardue's associates John Brown, 21, and Theresa Lanier, 15, to sign confessions, although Brown could not read and the three confessions contradicted each other as well as the forensic and physical facts of the cases.
        Pardue's Baldwin County trial lasted 1 1/2 hours.  At it, Pardue was convicted of the Rider murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.  He then pleaded guilty to the other two murders because both his attorney and the DA informed him he would receive the death penalty for these crimes if he did not.  Pardue did not know that Alabama had no death penalty in 1973.  For his cooperation, Pardue received three consecutive life sentences, the maximum allowable under Alabama law.

Three officials associated with Pardue's prosecution such as Baldwin County DA Jimmy Hendrix were later imprisoned for drug smuggling or jury tampering, bribery, and extortion.  Pardue escaped from prison three times in 1977, 1978, and 1987, but was caught each time within a matter of days.  For his last escape he received two additional life sentences, which also made him a habitual offender under Alabama law.

In 1992, a federal judge issued a writ of habeas corpus on the Rider murder conviction, allowing Pardue to appeal it in state courts.  In 1994, the Alabama Supreme Court overturned the conviction on the grounds that police did not read him his rights until they were 30 hours into a 78-hour interrogation.  Months after this 1994 decision another federal judge issued a writ of habeas corpus on the Hodges and White murder convictions because officers failed to tell the then teenage Pardue that he could apply for youthful offender status.  These two convictions were effectively overturned.

In 1995, a Mobile County jury convicted Pardue of the Hodges’ murder after hearing the 22-year-old tapes of his confession at the Saraland Police Department.  Pardue was then sentenced to 100 years in prison.  A year later an appeals court overturned the conviction after concluding that investigators coerced his confession and denied him access to a lawyer.

In 1997, prosecutors in both Mobile and Baldwin Counties abandoned their murder cases against him.  Pardue remained imprisoned solely for escaping from his wrongful imprisonment.  In 2000, the Alabama Supreme Court threw out convictions stemming from Pardue’s escapes.  A year later Pardue pleaded guilty to escape related charges in exchange for a time served sentence plus parole.  He was released after serving 28 years in prison.  Pardue's story was featured on "Dateline" and he and wife Becky have written a book entitled Freeing the Innocent.  (Justice Denied)  [7/07]

John and Coke Brite, brothers, were convicted of the murders of deputy sheriffs Martin Lange and Joseph Clarke, as well as the murder of Captain Fred Seaborn, a U.S. Navy officer. The Brites, who were gold prospectors, returned to a cabin on their rented land, where their parents stayed, and then headed out again. At nightfall they set up camp on the land of a neighbor, B. F. Decker, and went to bed. Two intruders then entered their camp, another neighbor, Charley Baker, and his friend, Fred Seaborn. At trial, Baker alleged they were looking for a strayed horse that Baker owned. It was later learned that Baker had been using the cabin on the Brites’ property for rent-free storage and had motive to drive the Brites from their land. Baker and Seaborn picked a fight with the Brites, which proved to be a mistake as the Brites made quick work of them. Baker then went to a judge and talked him into issuing warrants charging the Brites with assault.

Baker got the deputy sheriffs to depart from normal procedure and serve the warrants by sneaking into the Brites’ camp the same night at 1 a.m. Later, the brothers said they fought for their lives, thinking Baker had brought a gang to attack them. Neighbors reported hearing a “roar of gunfire.” The deputies and Seaborn ended up dead, but Baker escaped unharmed.

Following the killings there was great local sentiment against the Brites. A posse was sent to find them with orders to “shoot on sight and shoot to kill.” Even if the brothers escaped the posse, it seemed most likely they would be lynched. After interviewing Baker and other witnesses, the district attorney, James Davis, did not like what he was hearing. He concluded that even if everything Baker had told him was the truth, the brothers had acted in self-defense. Davis then arranged for the brothers to turn themselves in and spirited them out of the county.

Davis refused to prosecute the brothers. However, a grand jury indicted them and appointed a special prosecutor. The Brites were convicted of first-degree murder and initially sentenced to death. Baker gave many inconsistent and contradictory statements about the night of the killings. However, all his stories indicated that the deputies successfully snuck up on the Brites and were on top of them, clubbing them with blackjacks. It was not clear how the Brites could have resisted. The brothers did not remember anything about the killings other than the initial clubbing and finding dead bodies around them later. The brothers' report seems especially credible in the case of John Brite whose behavior immediately following the killings indicated he was clubbed somewhat senseless.

The case later came to the attention of a program called “The Court of Last Resort” in which wrongfully convicted prisoners’ cases were studied and reported on in Argosy Magazine. In its investigation Argosy found evidence that Baker never mentioned and took some steps to deny. The brothers had a good-sized dog with them named Smoky. Both the Brites and a neighbor, B. F. Decker, stated that the dog was in the Brites’ camp. Decker distinctly remembered the dog barking shortly before the shooting. It was a peculiar growling bark that a dog makes when it is engaged in some sort of struggle.

During the assault, the dog grabbed hold of the back of Deputy Clarke’s coat while he was blackjacking Coke Brite. The dog brought Clarke to his knees and pulled the end of the coat over his head. At this point, Clarke’s rump was higher than his head. In an attempt to stop the dog, a member of the Baker party apparently fired a shot at the dog and missed. The bullet entered the base of Clarke’s spine and exited out his right shoulder.

At the Brites’ trial it was alleged that all bullets fired in the melee were fired from the Brites’ rifle. However, recovered shell casings indicate that only two bullets were fired from the rifle. In addition, the base of the rifle was used as a club, indicating the Brites had run out of ammunition. The bullet that hit Seaborn and the bullet that hit the leg of Officer Lange could have come from the Brites’ rifle. At trial the Brites were convicted of first-degree murder for firing two shots though Officer Lange’s forehead as he lay on the ground. Evidence, however, indicates that these shots could not have been fired from the Brites’ rifle, nor could the shots have been fired while Lange was on the ground. Evidence also indicates that another shot, from a rifle, had been fired from outside the Brites’ camp towards the location of the Brites.

After Argosy magazine printed its investigation of the Brites’ case, it became clear to authorities that the brothers could not be guilty of first-degree murder. In Sept. 1951 the Brites were released on parole.  (CLR) (Sacramento Bee) (People v. Brite)  [6/08]

Souliotes was convicted of arson and triple homicide stemming from a 1997 fire that killed his tenant, Michelle Jones, and her two children, Daniel and Amanda.  At the time of the fire, Souliotes was trying to evict the Jones family from the house. Investigators claimed that Souliotes set the fire to collect insurance money.  Investigators also claimed that medium petroleum distillates, a class of sometimes-flammable substances, were found on both Souliotes’ shoes and a carpet in the home.  At trial many defenses witnesses testified that Souliotes had no financial motive to set the fire. The defense also presented its own arson expert who testified that the fire could have been an accident, possibly caused by a faulty stove. The trial ended in a hung jury.

At the second trial, in 1999, Souliotes was represented by the same trial attorney.  The prosecution presented the same witnesses, but this time the defense counsel presented no witnesses at all.  Souliotes was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.  Since his second trial, arson investigators have reanalyzed the evidence, and found that the medium petroleum distillate found on Souliotes’ shoes is not the same substance that was found at the scene.  (IP Arson)  [12/07]

Kirk was convicted of triple homicide for allegedly starting an apartment house fire that killed three people.  The fire began on a stove in Kirk’s apartment in Building 8 of the Beaver Brook Apartments.  Police interrogated Kirk for hours, and engaged in psychological manipulations including threatening him with a death sentence.  Kirk eventually confessed to accidentally starting the fire.  He said he was using an electric burner on the stove to light a cigarette when he spilled a bottle of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum on the burner, causing the fire.

Kirk’s conviction for intentional homicide was based on this confession even though he recanted that he even accidentally spilled the rum.  Kirk said he was asleep at the time of the fire and awoke to smoke and the sounds of his girlfriend and her son shouting in the kitchen.  A central problem with the confession is that the 70-proof rum is not flammable, at least as a liquid, and will not burn.  However, at trial, the prosecution presented a video that purported to show that the rum vapors ignited when a trickle amount was poured on an apparently modified white-hot stove burner.  A defense expert presented a video showing that no fire resulted when the rum was poured on a normal red-hot stove burner.

Two weeks before the fatal fire, Kirk’s girlfriend, Darlene, told him that the stove had caught fire while she was using it.  This fire was apparently caused by to a buildup of grease.  Kirk cleaned up the grease as best he could.  It does not seem plausible that a stove would catch fire two times in a two-week period due to two unrelated causes.  The building maintenance man, Steven Rivera, 44, who lived in the apartment above Kirk’s, was scheduled to look at the stove, but he died in the later fire, along with two of his children, Frances, 17, and Robert, 8.

Kirk had an argument with Darlene on the day of the fire and police alleged that he set the fire in order to kill her.  Darlene and her two sons had no problem escaping the apartment.  At trial, Darlene’s 16-year-old son, Jason Hamby, testified that Kirk had said to him, “"I'll kill you and your family, or hurt you."  Jason made no such statement during the initial investigation and it is believed that under police coercion he fabricated his testimony to protect his mother.

Kirk asked his attorney about suppressing his confession at trial.  The attorney said it would be better strategy to put up the appearance of trying to suppress it, but to let it in, thus committing the state to their case-in-chief.  At a bench trial, Kirk’s friend, Tom Garrett, for whom the rum was his liquor of choice, testified that he drank the last of the rum prior to the fire.  Despite the apparent lack of a flammable accelerant and the lack of even an “inflammable accelerant,” Judge Norman Barron convicted Kirk.

There existed political motives behind Kirk’s conviction.  Building inspectors apparently took bribes to illegally pass the Beaver Brook Apartments where the fire occurred, as the buildings had no firebreaks.  The prosecution of Kirk helped to divert media attention from this issue.  (Justice Denied) (www.mark-kirk.org)  [6/07]

Hansen was charged in 1994 with the famous unsolved murders of three 11 to 13 year old boys that occurred in 1955.  The victims were John and Tony Schuessler and their friend Robert Peterson.  They had traveled downtown to attend a matinee at a Loop theater and were found dead two days later in Robinson’s Woods, outside of Chicago.

Hansen was on his honeymoon in Texas at the time of the murders, but he found his 40-year-old alibi impossible to confirm.  Four witnesses claimed he confessed to them separately and alone in 1955, 1964, 1968, and 1976.  There was no other evidence.  Three witnesses were paid informants.  Hansen was convicted and sentenced to 200 to 300 years.

After the trial, the fourth witness admitted his testimony was fabricated.  None of the witnesses mentioned the confessions to anyone before 1993.  In addition, after the trial, a woman came forward and claimed her dead husband, Silas Jayne, confessed to her to performing the murders in 1956.  She left her husband the next day.  Other witnesses and some physical evidence corroborated her story.  Despite there being no evidence that the boys were molested, the trial judge allowed evidence of Hansen’s homosexuality and deviate lifestyle to be presented.  The 2002 retrial with new evidence and the widow witness also resulted in conviction.  (TruthInJustice)

Carter, a contender for middleweight boxing title of the world, was convicted of a triple homicide.  His acquaintance, John Artis, was also convicted.  In 1974, while in jail, Carter published a book entitled The Sixteenth Round, From No. 1 Contender to #45472.  The book was discovered by Bob Dylan, who made Carter a folk hero with the release of the song "Hurricane" and led to a public outcry that was largely responsible for his retrial in 1976.  Carter was also supported by Coretta Scott King, Muhammad Ali, Joan Baez, and Bobby Seale as well as by some journalists and lawyers.

In a climate of racial tension, Carter was alleged to have killed white people to avenge the death of a black man who had been killed by a white man that same night in Paterson, NJ.  The triple homicide occurred at Bob's Lafayette Grill at 18th and Lafayette Sts.  Against evidence, Carter was reconvicted in 1976, in part because a first trial witness, who recanted his testimony, recanted his recantation and testified again.  Later Carter's conviction was overturned because Judge H. Lee Sarokin declared that both of Carter's two previous convictions had been based on "racism rather than reason, and concealment rather than disclosure."  Carter was freed in 1985, but it took another three years for charges to be completely dismissed.  His co-defendant, John Artis, was paroled in 1981.  Today Carter heads a Toronto-based lobbying group, AIDWYC, the Association in Defense of the Wrongly Convicted.  (JD01)  [6/05]

Dr. Jay C. Smith was sentenced to death in 1985 for the 1979 murders of Susan Reinert and her two children.  Smith was the principal of Upper Merion High School (in Montgomery County) for 12 years and Reinert was a teacher there.  Reinert's fiancé, William Bradfield, was also a teacher at the same school as well as president of the Teacher's Union.  Bradfield was convicted in 1983 of conspiracy to murder Reinert and her children as he was named beneficiary of Reinert's life insurance.

Reinert was last seen alive driving away from her Ardmore home with her two children at 9:20 p.m. on Friday, June 22, 1979.  Her dead body was found in her car in a Harrisburg parking lot the following Monday morning.  Her two missing children are presumed dead.  An autopsy revealed she was badly beaten 24 to 36 hours before her death and that she died early Sunday morning from an injection of morphine.  It also revealed that she had sand between her toes implying she could have visited a beach area like Cape May, NJ.  In addition, she had written directions on her to an area just north of Cape May.  Cape May is approximately 100 miles southeast of Reinert's home, while Harrisburg is approximately 100 miles west.

Bradfield had an alibi from 11:15 p.m. Friday on, when he got together with three friends, reputable high school teachers, and left with them, spending the weekend in Cape May, NJ.  The prosecution did not believe that he could have traveled to Harrisburg during this period and it was alleged that Bradfield had employed Smith as Reinert's killer.

Smith was convicted of murdering Reinert and her two children in 1985.  At Smith's trial, the prosecutor did not call Bradfield as a witness, but instead called a series of witnesses who recounted their recollections of what Bradfield said.  The judge allowed this hearsay testimony after the prosecutor assured him that the state attorney general found that such testimony was allowed under the law.  A jailhouse informant, who had been imprisoned for perjury, claimed that Smith had confessed to the crime.  This informant was wired with a hidden recording device, but on every recording in which the informant brought up the subject with Smith, Smith stated that he had nothing to do with the Reinert murders.

The PA Supreme Court overturned Smith's conviction in 1992 because the judge permitted hearsay testimony, the police withheld evidence that sand was found between Reinert's toes, and five state troopers perjured themselves on this point.  The troopers did not want Smith's jury to hear about the sand as it allowed the defense to argue that Reinert had been in Cape May and that Bradfield had personally killed her.  The Court found the prosecution's conduct so egregious that it broke new legal ground and barred a retrial.

The chief case investigator, Trooper John J. Holtz, was later found to have accepted $50,000 from author Joseph Wambaugh for information on the Reinert investigation.  The money was provided on the condition that suspect Jay Smith be arrested.

Smith's exoneration should have undermined Bradfield's conspiracy conviction on the basis of insufficient evidence.  At Bradfield's trial, there was no direct evidence that he conspired with Smith, but without Smith, there is not even circumstantial evidence that he conspired with anyone.

Despite his excellent alibi, evidence suggests that Bradfield orchestrated Reinert's murder and tried to frame Smith for it.  Bradfield had warned associates that the evil Dr. Smith planned to kill Reinert for some time before the murder.  Smith was previously convicted of robbing a Sears store by posing as an armored car driver to collect the day's receipts.  Smith was due to be sentenced and imprisoned the same day and in the same city that Reinert's body was found, so it seemed that Bradfield used his last opportunity to kill Reinert and throw suspicion on Smith.  It seems doubtful that Smith, who had no motive for killing Reinert, would drive her car with her dead body to Harrisburg, then return home and drive his own car to his sentencing.

Bradfield died in prison in 1998.  The case is the subject of three books, Echoes in the Darkness by Joseph Wambaugh (1987), Engaged to Murder by a Philadelphia Inquirer editor (1988), and Principal Suspect by Smith's trial and appeal attorney (1996).  The case was also the subject of a TV mini-series.  [1/06]

Counterman was sentenced to death for the arson murder of his three children.  The children perished in a fire at their row house home located at 436 Chestnut St. in Allentown.  On the morning of the fire, neighbors reported seeing Dennis in his back yard in his underwear screaming for help because his kids were inside.  The fire department believed that the fire was set and accelerants must have been used because of the speed with which the fire spread through the house.  Expert testimony has since shown that the type of sofa that was in the Counterman's house acts as its own accelerant, and that the fire theories relied upon by the local fire department were outdated and have long since been repudiated.

At trial, the prosecution suppressed exculpatory evidence, although it released some evidence in the middle of the trial when the defense team was too overwhelmed to review it.  Counterman’s six-year-old son, Christopher, had a history of fire starting and in fact had burn scars from a prior fire that he had started.  Christopher had set fire to the curtains in the house one month before.  The prosecution’s lead witness, Counterman's mentally retarded wife, told investigators at the time of the fire that Dennis was asleep when the fire started (he had worked the night shift the evening before) and that she had awakened him to alert him that the house was on fire.  Under the joint influence of police interrogation and heavy medication for severe burns, she subsequently gave a statement that Dennis had set the fire.  Counterman’s conviction was overturned in 2001 because the state withheld evidence of Christopher’s fire starting.  Rather than face the uncertainty of a new trial, Counterman agreed to a time served plea in which he did not have to admit guilt. He was released in Oct. 2006.  (TruthInJustice) (CounterPunch)  [1/07]

Harold C. Wilson was convicted of the ax murders of Dorothy Sewell, 64, her nephew, Tyrone Mason, 33, and Mason's girlfriend, Cynthia Goines, 40.  The murders occurred in the 1500 block of South Stillman St. in South Philadelphia.  Wilson received three death sentences.  Wilson was retried in 2003, but the trial resulted in a mistrial.  At his third trial in 2005, DNA evidence was presented for the first time.  Tests revealed that blood found at the crime scene came from a person other than Wilson or the three victims.  The jury deadlocked three times, but then came back with a unanimous verdict.  According to Wilson, one could discern from their faces the three jurors who held out.  “It was some students on the jury that was studying, was going to a college for DNA.”  The jury’s verdict was “not guilty” on all charges.

One of the reasons Wilson got a new trial is because a court found that DA Jack Mahon had used racial bias to eliminate black jurors.  The DA had made a training video on jury selection in which he advised prosecutors to keep poor blacks off juries.  He also said, “You don't want smart people, because smart people will analyze the hell out of your case.  They have a higher standard.  They hold you up to a higher standard.  They hold the courts up to a higher standard, because they are intelligent people.  They take those words ‘reasonable doubt,’ and they actually try to think about them.  And you don't want those people.  Bad luck with teachers, bad luck with social workers, bad luck with – intelligent doctors are bad. I always feel doctors are bad, too.”  (DemocracyNow)

Henry Watkins Skinner, also known as Hank, was convicted of bludgeoning to death his live-in girlfriend, Twila Busby, and stabbing to death her two sons, Randy Busby and Scooter Caler.  Hank was sentenced to death.  The murders occurred at 801 East Campbell Ave. in Pampa.  Hank, then 31, had been drinking earlier in the evening and passed out after taking codeine to which he was severely allergic.  A friend, Howard Mitchell, arrived to take Hank and Twila to a New Year’s Eve Party at 9:30 p.m., but he could not rouse Hank.

At the party Twila, 40, was stalked by her drunk uncle, Robert Donnell, a big man, who made rude sexual advances.  Twila became agitated and asked Mitchell to take her home.  She arrived home between 11:00 and 11:15 p.m.  Shortly afterwards she was bludgeoned to death.  Her younger son Randy was stabbed to death in his bed.  Her older son, Elwin “Scooter” Caler, 22, was also stabbed, but managed to escape to a neighbor’s yard where he collapsed on the porch.  He never regained consciousness.  The neighbor found him and called police at 11:59 p.m.

It is believed that after the attacks, Scooter revived Hank and led him outside, but left him in an alley.  Hank suffered a cut on his right palm that night, possibly from stumbling.  Other than that possibility, Hank suffered no noticeable harm from the attacks, either because Scooter scared off the intruder(s), or the intruder(s) were only interested in attacking Twila and her sons, and Hank, being comatose, posed no threat.  Hank managed to find his way to a different neighbor’s house, the home of Andrea Joyce Reed, where he was arrested three hours later.  Following his arrest he was unable to stand on his own for police photos.  After being photographed, he was then taken to a hospital to give blood samples.  The samples, taken six-and-a-half hours after the murders, showed a blood alcohol level of .21, more than twice the legal limit for intoxication.  Tests also revealed high levels of codeine in him.  Hank could not have drunk alcohol at his neighbor’s house as she was a recovering alcoholic and did not allow it in her house.

Autopsy results of Twila showed that she suffered a skull fracture that required great manual strength of someone wielding a club to inflict.  Hank, besides being in a stuporous state at the time of the murders, was only 5’9” 140 lbs. and had a handicapped right arm.  His right hand was too handicapped for him to have inflicted the strangulation injury found on Twila.  Whoever strangled her was strong enough to inflict bone fracture.  In contrast to Hank, Scooter towered over him at 6’6” 265 lbs. and was in good health.  Yet allegedly Hank was able to manually injure him and two other victims, without receiving any defensive wounds or bruises, aside from the possibility of his palm cut.

At the time of the murders, a witness, Ronnie Campbell, then in the county jail, phoned the house.  Scooter answered and Ronnie heard an unidentified man who was not Hank speaking with Twila.  On speaking to the frightened Scooter, he asked to speak to Twila but was told that she was speaking to "some guy."  Ronnie claimed that he heard Twila "screaming hysterically in the background."  Ronnie’s jailer confirmed that Ronnie reported the conversation to her shortly after it occurred.  Hank’s appointed attorney called neither Ronnie nor the jailer at trial.

The neighbor, Ms. Reed, who aided Hank after the murders, was threatened with being charged as an accessory after the fact and with harboring a fugitive.  She was also threatened with having her children taken away.  In response, her trial testimony made it seem as though Hank forced his way into her home and that he was physically capable of committing the murders.  She later felt remorse and signed an affidavit saying he did not force his way in and that he was unable to stand on his own.  She said that she had to practically carry him wherever he went in her house.

After Twila left the New Year's Eve party, her uncle, Robert Donnell, reportedly left 5 minutes later.  There was some evidence that Twila was raped.  She was found with her pants unzipped and her blouse was pushed up over her abdomen.  Although vaginal samples was preserved in a rape kit, police refused to test it.  Donnell's truck was identified by a neighborhood boy as being present at the time of the murders.  Following the murders Donnell thoroughly cleaned his truck, replaced the carpets, and repainted the exterior.  He was never questioned by the police.  He was later killed in a drunken auto accident.

Hank had been something of an irritant to the district attorney’s office and to the sheriff’s office.  He was an outspoken advocate of prisoner’s rights and had participated in inmate lawsuits.  He had many interviews in the Pampa newspaper on the way the prior sheriff, Jimmy Free, treated inmates in the jail and violated their rights.  He was previously arrested on a bogus burglary charge, but by demanding a rare examining hearing, got the matter dropped before he could be indicted.  Hank is still imprisoned as of 2007.  (www.hankskinner.org) (ODR)  [4/07]

Max Soffar was convicted of murdering Arden Alane Felsher, 17, Tommy Lee Temple, 17, and Stephen Allen Sims, 25, during a robbery of the Fair Lanes Windfern Bowling Center.  He was sentenced to death.  Soffar, 24, a mentally impaired individual, confessed to the murders after hours of police interrogation.  No physical evidence connected him to the crime.  A fourth victim, Gregory Garner, survived a gunshot wound to the head but failed to identify Soffar as a participant in the robbery.

Soffar had been caught in neighboring Galveston County with a stolen motorcycle and was looking for a plea deal by claiming to know something about the famous murders that occurred three weeks before.  He also wanted to get revenge against his friend, Latt Bloomfield, who resembled a police sketch of the murderer.  Both Soffar and Bloomfield had agreed to rob their parents’ houses, but Bloomfield reneged after they burglarized the home of Soffar’s parents.

Soffar first spoke only with Bruce Clawson, a local detective that he knew.  Clawson got Soffar to talk to Houston detectives.  Soffar made three statements to detectives that grew in detail during the three days he was interviewed.  Neither Clawson, nor his brother Mike, who was a policeman in the area, believed the statements.  Clawson said, "I specifically recall believing that Max's responses to these questions (posed by Houston detectives) were vague and unconvincing."  "Max certainly said nothing during the interrogations I witnessed which indicated to me that Max knew things about the bowling-alley murders that only a person involved in the offense would know."  Soffar soon disavowed his statements and later wrote that they were the result of relentless and pushy Houston detectives.

The federal Fifth Circuit Court overturned Soffar’s conviction in 2004.  It cited ineffective representation by Soffar’s trial attorney, Joe Cannon, the famous “sleeping lawyer.”  Cannon did not even call surviving victim Garner as a witness.  The court also cited at least 10 major discrepancies between Soffar’s confession and Garner’s recollection of events.  Garner, for instance, said there was only one robber, but Soffar said Bloomfield accompanied him.  Garner said the robber wore nothing to hide his face, while Soffar said he and Bloomfield covered their heads.

Garner said the robber gained entrance to the bowling alley, which had just closed, by feigning car trouble and asking the manager if he could come in to fill a plastic jug with water.  Soffar said he and Bloomfield simply walked through an unlocked front door.  Crime-scene photos showed a plain jug on the counter, but a cleaning crew washed it before police realized its possible significance.  Soffar said he and Bloomfield had burglarized the bowling alley the night before to gain more knowledge of the place.  The burglary had been reported in television accounts of the crime.  However, police had already arrested some area youths in connection with the burglary before Soffar was arrested.

Prosecutors contend Soffar made an admission that corroborates his presence in the bowling alley.  Soffar said that Bloomfield fired a warning shot into the floor.  That shot, they said, accounted for a bullet hole in the carpet that did not match up with an exit wound from one of the bodies.  However, detailed ballistics indicates the carpet hole came from a fragment of an exit wound bullet that shattered after it hit the cement floor under the carpet.  In addition, for there to have been a warning shot, five shots would had to have been fired.  Garner recalled only four.  Soffar was retried in 2006, reconvicted, and sentenced to death.  (DP News) (Info)  [2/07]

Garland Leon Martin, also known as Butch, was convicted of the arson murders of his common law wife, Marcia Pool, her son, Michael Brady Stevens, age 3, and their joint daughter, Kristen Rhea Martin, age 1.  The three died in a fire at the home they shared with Martin.  The conviction was based in large part on a hypothesis that accelerants were used to start the fire.  Some samples from fire remnants in the master bedroom reportedly tested positive for Norpar and deparaffinated kerosene.

Norpar can be used as lamp oil and deparaffinated kerosene can be found in lighter fluid, but they are also common chemicals found in numerous household products.  Experts dispute the supposition that these chemicals indicate the presence of accelerants and are petitioning to check the state’s evidence that the alleged chemicals were even found.  A defense investigator thought the fire started on the back porch rather than in the master bedroom near the back door.  He criticized original investigators for discounting and then disposing of an electrical cord that was used to connect a refrigerator on the back porch to an outlet inside the house.  He thought the fire marshal was looking for arson from the outset.  (IP Arson)  [7/07]

L. C. "Cooper" Johnson and Bennie Young were convicted of the murders of W. H. Barker, his wife, Loula Barker, and a boy named Homer Turk, aged about 13.  The murders occurred at the Barker home on Corsicana Rd., seven miles southeast of Waco.  Turk had gone over to the Barkers to play dominoes. Dominoes were found on the table drawn and separated into hands, as though the parties had been engaged in playing the game. The body of Mr. Barker was found in the back yard near a woodpile, shot through the head. The body of Mrs. Barker was found in the house, and her head was cut to pieces by blows from an axe; Turk was also killed by blows inflicted with an axe.

Johnson and Young, who were described as "boys," were arrested for these murders and confessed to them while in police custody.  The two were released in 1934 after the actual culprit was discovered.  [5/08]

David Wayne Spence was convicted of the murder of Jill Montgomery and sentenced to death.  Montgomery, 17, along with Raylene Rice, 17, and Montgomery’s boyfriend, Kenneth Franks, 18, were found murdered in Speegleville Park at Lake Waco.  Three other individuals, Gilbert Melendez, Tony Melendez, and Muneer Deeb were also convicted in connection to the murders.  Truman Simons, a night jailer who had unsupervised contact with inmates, largely developed the cases against all four.  Simons operated his own perjury factory in that he was able to get numerous inmates to testify to any story he wanted them to.  His only problem was coming up with believable stories that fit the facts.

Spence was executed on April 3, 1997.  Marvin Horton, the police lieutenant who supervised the case, said, "I do not think David Spence committed this crime."  Ramon Salinas, the homicide detective on the case, added, "My opinion is that David Spence was innocent.  Nothing from the investigation ever led us to any evidence that he was involved."  One of the inmates who testified at Spence's trial, Robert Snelson, said, "We all fabricated our accounts of Spence confessing in order to try to get a break from the state on our cases."  An “award-winning” pro-prosecution book, Careless Whispers by Dallas journalist Carlton Stowers was written about the murders.  It reportedly lionizes Simons who “brought Spence to justice.”  (DP News)  [1/07]

Deeb, a convenience store owner, had allegedly hired three men to kill a female employee on whom he had a $20,000 accident policy.  However, Deeb had such policies on all his employees as a hedge against worker compensation claims.  The prosecution alleged that the three men then mistakenly killed a woman who was not an employee.  The murdered woman did not seem to be the victim of a contractual killing as she was raped and tortured, as were two of her friends.  None of his three alleged co-conspirators testified against Deeb even though they were charged with capital murder like Deeb and were in a position to negotiate for a reduced sentence.  One trial witness testified that Deeb had acknowledged he would receive insurance money if one of his employees ever was murdered.  Deeb was convicted and sentenced to death.

Deeb’s conviction was overturned because the judge allowed a jailhouse informant to give hearsay testimony about statements allegedly made by one of Deeb’s alleged co-conspirators.  This informant described a murder for hire scheme in detail.  Deeb was acquitted at retrial in 1993.  (NL)

Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted of murdering his three daughters by setting his house on fire.  Lighter fluid was kept on the front porch of Willingham’s house as evidenced by a melted container found there.  Some of this fluid entered the front doorway of the house carried along by fire hose water.  It was alleged this fluid was deliberately poured to start the fire and that Willingham chose this entranceway so as to impede rescue attempts.  The prosecution also used arson theories that have since been repudiated by scientific advances.  Fire investigator, Gerald Hurst, reviewed the case documents including the trial transcripts and an hour-long videotape of the aftermath of the fire scene.  Hurst said, "There's nothing to suggest to any reasonable arson investigator that this was an arson fire.  It was just a fire."

In addition to the alleged arson evidence, a jailhouse informant claimed Willingham confessed, and witnesses testified that Willingham did not try hard enough to save his children.  Dr. James Grigson, the notorious “Dr. Death,” testified at sentencing that Willingham cannot be rehabilitated in any manner, and that he poses a continuing threat to society.  Grigson regularly gave such testimony regarding convicted defendants after conducting superficial examinations that no serious person would regard as supporting his diagnoses.  Willingham was executed by lethal injection on Feb 17, 2004.  (Chicago Tribune)

Army Capt. MacDonald, wife Collette, 26, and two daughters, ages 5 and 2, were attacked by intruders to their home.  MacDonald survived with wounds including a collapsed lung.  MacDonald was acquitted of the murders at a Ft. Bragg Army hearing and probably would not have been tried again had he not angered the prosecution by criticizing them during interviews on national TV.  MacDonald's Army acquittal meant that he could not be court-martialed, but he could still be tried in federal court and he was.  Before his federal trial MacDonald invited author Joe McGinniss on his defense team to write a book and hopefully help to establish his factual innocence.  At that trial MacDonald was unfortunately convicted.

Author McGinniss, who prior to publication acted like he was MacDonald's best friend and biggest supporter, revealed his personal morality by writing a best-seller Fatal Vision in which he portrayed MacDonald as a monster.  MacDonald sued McGinniss.  At the lawsuit trial McGinniss had famous authors like Joseph Wambaugh and William F. Buckley defending journalists right to lie or tell "untruths" to people in order to obtain information that they would not get if they behaved honestly.  Jurors, uneducated in such rationalizations, were appalled.  McGinniss ended up paying the imprisoned MacDonald, $325,000 to dismiss the suit.

Two of the intruders to MacDonald's home are known but the Army refused to investigate them because one is the daughter of a retired Army colonel.  She is also a known drug user and an informant for the Ft. Bragg military police.  MacDonald's in-laws were overwhelmed by the tragedy and wanted him to visit the graves every day.  Some time after the Army hearing, MacDonald was offered a job in California, which his in-laws insisted he not take.  They threatened him in front of witnesses, "If you move you'll live to regret it."  When MacDonald moved, his father-in-law turned against him and said he became convinced of MacDonald's guilt.  MacDonald is pursuing DNA tests and hopes that such tests will exonerate him.

Proceedings prior to MacDonald's trial and the trial itself were a mockery of justice in the suppression of evidence favorable to the defense.  At trial, the prosecution argued that there was no evidence of intruders in the MacDonald household, but it was later shown that there was plenty of evidence.  A second book was written about the case, which is pro-defense, entitled Fatal Justice.  (Crime Library) (www.themacdonaldcase.org) (48 Hours)  [7/05]