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Defendant

Date of Crime

Allen Jacob Chesnet, a learning disabled sixteen-year-old, had cut his hand while he was doing some work in the basement of his house.  While he was waiting outside his house for a ride to the hospital, a television news team, investigating the murder of a woman, Belulah Honaker, who lived down the street, approached him for directions, but Chesnet did not know where the victim lived. Noticing that his hand was bleeding, the reporter later told the police about Chesnet, and the police brought him in for questioning.

The authorities fed Chesnet details of the crime by showing him crime scene photos of the victim's body, her clothing, and the physical make-up of her apartment.  Then the lead detective faked a call from the state crime lab and told Chesnet that the lab had matched his DNA to the blood found at the crime scene.  According to police reports, Chesnet just put his head down and began to cry.  Soon thereafter, Chesnet began telling police officers what he thought they wanted to hear.  The details of his confession were at odds with the evidence, but it did not deter the officers from arresting him.

Several weeks after the arrest, police learned that Chesnet's blood did not match bloodstains found in the apartment.  By September, further reports confirmed this result.  The District Attorney, in the midst of an election, continued to keep Chesnet in custody.  In late November, after the District Attorney had won the election, Chesnet was finally released.  According to Chesnet, in the time frame between the discovery that the blood at the crime scene was not his and the time of his release, he was stabbed once and raped twice in the adult county jail where he was being held.  (The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World by Drizen & Leo)  [12/06]

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