Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

Philadelphia patrolman James T. Morrow was murdered while tracking down a suspected robber who had been terrorizing the northeast section of the city.  Police, in efforts to solve the murder, arrested and extracted confessions from three different men over a several year period.  Two of the men were convicted and sentenced to life in prison before being exonerated.

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William S. Green was convicted of murdering a night watchman.  The watchman had found that a rear door to a theater had been forced open.  He entered the theater and apprehended an intruder.  He then took the intruder to a police call box.  When the watchman turned to make a call, the intruder snatched his gun and fatally shot him.  The watchman had an elderly friend who watched from some distance away.

Two weeks later, two witnesses came forward who placed themselves within forty feet of the call box at the time of the shooting.  They identified Green, a Navy veteran, as the killer.  The watchman's friend could only say that Green looked something like the killer.  At trial in Jan. 1947, Green's defense presented several witnesses who were in the area at the time of the shooting and who testified that Green did not resemble the killer.

In 1957, after Green had served 10 years of imprisonment, one of the two identifying witnesses came forward and admitted he did not see Green at the scene of the murder.  He said the other identifying witness paid him $100 to give false testimony.  This second witness was a homosexual who had once been beaten up by Green after propositioning him.  The district attorney investigated the claim of the recanting witness and satisfied himself that it was true.  Green was subsequently pardoned.  (The Innocents)  [7/09]

Louis Clinton Thomas (aka Louis Mickens) was convicted of the rape and murder of a 12-year-old Edith Connor.  His conviction was based solely on the testimony of criminalist Agnes Mallatratt who worked at the Philadelphia crime lab.  Mallatratt testified to finding microscopic wax and bristle particles on the body similar to particles found in Lou's home.  The body was found in a debris-strewn alley behind and three houses down from Lou's shoe repair shop at 1109 N. 40th St.  The particles which were created in shoe repair work could presumably have blown down the alley from the shop.  No tests were done to prove otherwise.

Mallatratt testified that she was a graduate of Temple University; had done postgraduate work in zoology, biology, and botany; and that she was a hematologist.  Following trial, in 1967, she admitted she had not even graduated junior high school.  At Lou's retrial in 1969, Mallattrat's retired supervisor vouched for the veracity of her work, but neither of Lou's two juries knew that the person who collected and analyzed the evidence was a serial perjurer and a professional fraud.

In 1995 on his last day in office, Governor Casey reviewed 25 petitions but granted only Lou's petition for clemency.  Incoming Governor Tom Ridge (later U.S. Director of Homeland Security) had vowed never to release a lifer and refused to honor the granted clemency.  Nine years went by before a federal judge reversed the usurpation of Lou's constitutional right to clemency and ordered his immediate release.

Clemency is not a pardon but is the equivalent of parole.  After Lou's release, the parole board wanted Lou to admit to his crime and attend sex offender therapy.  For 40 years, Lou has insisted that he is innocent.  When Lou refused to admit that he was a sex offender, the Parole Board violated him for being a "denier," and threw the 76-year-old man back in prison.  Outraged by the Parole Board's conduct, a Federal Court ordered his release the next day.  (CM) (TruthInJustice)  [5/05]

Robert Wilkinson, a mildly retarded man, was convicted in 1976 of the arson murders of five people.  At 3:25 a.m. on Oct 5, 1975 someone used a Molotov cocktail to firebomb the home of Radamas Santiago.  The Santiagos, who lived at 4419 North 4th Street, were then asleep in their home.  Radamas and one of his sons, Carlos, survived.  Radamas's wife, three of his children, and Luis Caracini, a guest in the house, perished in the fire.  At the time of the firebombing, 14-year-old Nelson Garcia, a friend of the Santiagos, was sleeping on their front porch.  His hair aflame, Garcia fled from the house, looking for a fire alarm. Garcia saw Robert Wilkinson in an automobile stopped near the Santiago home.  Because Wilkinson was the first person he saw, Garcia assumed that Wilkinson had thrown the firebomb.  He accused Wilkinson, who police then arrested.  Garcia later elaborated that he had seen Wilkinson throw a bottle with a burning cloth onto the Santiago porch.

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Kenneth Granger was convicted of murder for the shooting death of Edward Harris, a North Philadelphia taproom cook.  Three eyewitnesses, including an off-duty Philadelphia police officer, testified against Granger and he was sentenced in 1982 to life imprisonment.  In 2008, Granger's daughter persuaded a public defender, Karl Schwartz, to take his case.  As Schwartz reviewed the case documents, he was puzzled why another eyewitness, a barmaid, was never called to testify by the prosecution.  Schwartz asked Common Pleas Court Judge Earl W. Trent Jr., who was presiding over Granger's appeal, to grant him access to to the homicide detectives' case file. In an unusual move, the judge approved the request.

There, Schwartz found that the off-duty officer had failed to identify Granger in a photo spread – an important piece of information that could have been used to discredit the officer's critical testimony.  Prosecutors then turned over from their own file the photos showing that the barmaid had identified someone else in a photo array – more information that could have helped the defense.  In addition, the defense learned that the off-duty officer had problems of his own. He had been suspended for 30 days for an off-duty shooting at a liquor store and later became a suspect in another shooting.

With such information likely to come out in a new trial, the District Attorney's Office offered a deal to Granger – plead guilty to third-degree murder and be released with no parole.  But Granger refused to plead guilty. So, after more negotiation, prosecutors agreed that if he would plead nolo contendere or "no contest," meaning that he was not contesting the charges but not admitting guilt, he could get out of prison. Granger accepted the offer and was released in July 2010 after 28 years of imprisonment.  (Phila Inquirer) (Wash AA)  [07/10]

George Booker was convicted of the robbery and murder of Paul Lehman.  Lehman worked a lottery stand at the corner of Germantown and Lehigh Aves.  The robbery netted $14,000 in state lottery receipts.  A year after the murder, a witness, Eric Murphy, appeared of his own volition and fingered two suspects.  “Two of the males I knew from before.”  “One of the males was Michael Sanford, and the other male was a guy named Spud.”  Spud turned out to be Tyrone Payne.  "The third guy," continues Murphy's statement, "I did not know but he was a tall black guy. He had on a black leather jacket."  Police took a second statement from Murphy 24 hours later in which he identified the first two men from photos and referred to the third man as “the other guy.”  Yet in a third statement 12 hours later, Murphy suddenly “knew” the third man for he identified Booker from a series of photos and said, “That's Junie, I saw him wrestling with the lottery man.”

In 2001, a female friend of Booker located Murphy and he readily recanted his testimony.  Booker petitioned for a new trial and at the court hearing, Murphy said he identified Booker because police told him to.  He said police had told him that failing to identify Booker would free Sanford and Payne.  Sanford had threatened Murphy after the shooting, warning him not to snitch.  Murphy thought he could best assure his own safety by turning him in.  Detectives may have fixated on Booker as the third man because as a juvenile he had been arrested with Payne.  The judge denied Booker's motion for a new trial, but Murphy was arrested for perjury as the prosecutor had threatened during cross-examination.  Murphy served 14 months of imprisonment on the charge.  The Innocence Project is reviewing Booker's case.  (Phila Weekly)  [7/07]

In 2000, Daniel J. Dougherty was convicted of starting a 1985 fire at his Carver St. house that killed his two sons, Danny Jr., 4, and John, 3.  He was sentenced to death.  Thirteen years after the fire, Dougherty's ex-wife called police and said he used gasoline to start the fire.  Despite the fact that no traces of gasoline or accelerant were found during the fire investigation, the fire marshal, John J. Quinn, changed his original story to match that of Dougherty's ex-wife.  On the day of Dougherty's arrest, his ex-wife left a message on his sister's answering machine stating, "I know he didn't do this.  I still love him."  The tape then mysteriously disappeared after being given to his court-appointed attorney.  However, paperwork surfaced that documented the tape.

By this time, two prison informants claimed that Dougherty confessed to them that he started the fire.  The fire marshal then changed his story again so as to not so closely match the discredited testimony of Dougherty's ex-wife.  Dougherty's ex-wife was not used at trial.  At trial, the fire marshal testified that there were three separate sources of ignition, a classic indicator of arson according to old school fire investigation techniques.

Three arson experts using modern techniques have since reviewed the case and dispute the alleged separate sources of ignition.  They found the original investigation to be so flawed that it was impossible to tell whether the fire was arson.  One of them, John J. Lentini, estimated that nationally between 100 and 200 people might be "doing hard time" for arsons that were not arsons.  As of 2007, Dougherty is appealing his conviction.  (DeathRowUSA) (Phila Inquirer)  [3/07]

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 the prosecutor at his first trial, Jack Mahon, had used racial bias to eliminate black jurors.  Mahon 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) (Mahon Video)

Walter Ogrod was sentenced to death for the 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn.  The murder occurred near her house at 7245 Rutland Street, close to Cottman Avenue.  Four witnesses had seen a man carrying a TV box in which Horn's body was found.  One of the witnesses, David Schectman, told police he'd interacted with the box carrying man for 11 minutes on St. Vincent St.

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Jose Pagan was convicted of two separate double homicides committed 12 days apart.  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's 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 at 4741 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.

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Frederick A. Thomas was convicted of the murder of William "Skip" Moyer Jr., a Federal Express truck driver.  Thomas was sentenced to death.  Moyer was shot in the face at 9th and Clearfield Streets in a drug-infested neighborhood often referred to as “The Badlands.”

A male caller phoned police three days after the murder to say that he worked for Federal Express and he "had heard that Moyer had been opening packages that he was to deliver" and "that whenever Moyer delivered to a certain address in North Philly, he knew drugs were being sent to the address because it was always the same address." The caller alleged that Moyer "had taken some weed and recently ‘ripped off’ a kilo of cocaine."  According to the coroner's report, Moyer had cocaine and methamphetamine in his system at the time of the killing.

A witness to the shooting, Maria Fielding, who died in 1999, gave a statement to police the morning after Moyer's murder, in which she described three male assailants, none being Thomas.  The DA's office failed to bring her into court for the two Thomas trials, even though at one point she was in the same building for charges on an unrelated matter.  Although two bench warrants were issued for Fielding around the time of the first two trials, they apparently were not lodged for her.  Prosecutors at the time maintained she had left the area and could not be found.

No physical evidence linked Thomas to the crime, but he was convicted based on the testimony of two men, Willie Green and Charles Rowe, who were “found” by Detective James Ryan, a police officer who was not assigned to the district or the case.  These men testified that they were on the other side of the street and saw Thomas walk around Moyer's truck after they heard a gunshot.  Another witness, whose mother lives on the street on which the murder occurred, corroborated Fielding's version of events.  Detective Ryan has since been convicted of shaking down drug dealers and making illegal armed detentions.  In another murder case, he paid a witness $500 to provide false testimony against a defendant.  In May 2002, a judge overturned Thomas's conviction.  In Oct. 2002, Thomas died on PA Death Row, before a retrial could take place.  (City Paper)  [1/07]

On Dec. 28, 2000, four men clad in black ski masks entered a row house at 816 N. Lex St. and forced its ten inhabitants to lay face down on the floor of the home.  The men then released a spray of gunfire that killed seven, ages 15 to 54, and injured three.  The killings, the deadliest mass murder in Philadelphia history, became known as the Lex Street Massacre.  Police arrested Jermel Lewis, 25, Hezekiah Thomas, 25, Sacon Youk, 22, and Quiante Perrin, 21, in connection to the killings.  Following his arrest Lewis confessed to the crime due to "a combination of misinformation [and] coercion."  Lewis may also have been on drugs that day, making him more vulnerable.

Yvette Long, a surviving victim, initially told police she could not identify any of the assailants.  However, after sessions with a psychiatrist, she testified that she recovered her memory of the night and named Youk and Perrin as shooters and identified Thomas by a nickname.  Another man, Shihean Black, repeatedly confessed to the crime, but police dismissed his confessions.  Originally police believed that the murders were committed as part of a dispute over drug territory.  However, Black's story was that a drug dealer who lived at the house had ruined the clutch on Black's car, and that the murders were committed in retaliation.  Another individual corroborated Black's story, and charges were dropped against the four men after they spent 18 months in prison.  The four men later sued the city and won a $1.9 million settlement for wrongful incarceration.  Another four men, including Black, later pleaded guilty to the homicides.  A book was written about the case entitled The Lex Street Massacre by Antonne M. Jones. [7/05]