Location |
Defendant(s) |
Date of Alleged Crime |
Shelby County,
AL |
Patrick Swiney |
Dec 10, 1987 |
Patrick Swiney was convicted of
murdering his wife, Betty Snow Swiney, and her ex-husband, Ronald Pate. One
night, when Swiney was approaching his house, he blacked out, stating that
he felt as though he'd been hit on the head with a baseball bat. He awoke
in his house with a serious bruise on his head and with the rifle he kept in
his truck lying near him. He found his wife and her ex-husband lying on
the floor, shot dead with bullets assumed to have been fired from the rifle.
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Los Angeles
County, CA |
Evans & Ledbetter |
July 8, 1928 |
Police officers Walter E. Evans and
Miles H. Ledbetter, both detectives, were convicted of extorting a $750 bribe
from Harry McDonald, a person with a criminal record of felonies. After
being arrested in 1929 for receiving stolen property, McDonald surprised the
District Attorney by confessing to conspiracy transactions involving over 50
LAPD officers. Among those were officers Evans and Ledbetter. McDonald
claimed that the officers had in 1928 extorted a $750 bribe from him in
exchange for suppressing evidence that McDonald had purchased stolen
diamonds from a Jack Hawkins.
At trial,
McDonald, his wife, and his maid all swore that Evans and Ledbetter had
visited McDonald on a Saturday and Sunday in 1928 and that McDonald had paid
the officers a bribe. The officers countered that they had indeed visited
McDonald on Saturday July 7 and Sunday July 8, 1928, but the visits were to
investigate an unconnected robbery of two diamond rings. In rebuttal,
McDonald and his wife testified that the detectives could not have visited
them on the specified dates as the McDonalds moved to a bungalow in Venice,
CA on the Sunday before July 4, and that they were not in Los Angeles for
the two weeks thereafter. The jury chose to believe the McDonalds and
convicted the two officers. In 1930, following unsuccessful appeals, the
two officers started serving their sentences in San Quentin.
Later evidence
surfaced that McDonald signed a safety-deposit record of a Los Angeles bank
on July 9, 1928, so he could not have been out of town that day as he and
his wife swore. Also evidence surfaced that their maid had not been in
their employ until after August 8, so she could not have been present on
July 7 or July 8. Coupled with these disclosures, and other discovered
facts, California Governor Young pardoned both officers in 1931. Evans and
Ledbetter later received $4533.36 and $3313.39 in compensation. (CTI)
[11/07] |
Santa Barbara
County, CA |
Leonard Kirkes |
Aug 1942 |
Leonard M.
Kirkes, a
highway patrolman, was convicted in 1950 of the 1942 murder of 20-year-old
Margaret Senteney. Her body was found on the foothills above the town of
Carpinteria. The conviction was based on circumstantial evidence including
the testimony of a key witness who said she saw Senteney get into Kirkes'
car on the night of her murder. In 1953 Kirkes was retried and acquitted.
The key witness at Kirkes' first trial had been sent to a mental
institution, and doctors stated that she had been mentally disturbed even
before she testified. (Conviction)
(Acquittal)
[7/07] |
Cook County,
IL |
Steven Manning |
May 1990 |
Steven
Manning was
convicted of a 1984 kidnapping in Clay County, Missouri and the 1990 murder
of trucking company owner Jimmy Pellegrino in Illinois. Pellegrino was
last seen leaving his Will County home on May 14, 1990 and his body was
found floating on June 3, 1990 in the Des Plaines River near the Lawrence
Avenue Bridge in Chicago. Manning's convictions
were based on the testimony of jailhouse informants. Manning, a former Chicago
cop, had been an FBI informant, but when he no longer wanted to work for his
FBI handlers, Robert Buchan and Gary Miller, he sued them for harassment.
They retaliated by framing him for the crimes, for which he was sentenced to
death. Manning was released in 2004 and awarded $6,581,000 in Jan. 2005
after a jury agreed that he had been framed. The 1984 kidnapping apparently
never happened, as the kidnapped drug dealers did not report the crime for 6
years. The FBI refuses to criminally charge Buchan and Miller for their
actions. (CWC)
(Chicago
Tribune) (Justice: Denied) (People
v. Manning)
[9/05] |
Floyd County, IN |
David Camm |
Sept 28, 2000 (Georgetown) |
David
Camm, a former
Indiana state trooper, was convicted in 2002 of the murders of his wife Kimberly, daughter Jill,
5, and son Bradley, 7. Inside the garage
of the Camm residence, the children had been shot to death while sitting in
the back seat of the family's Ford Bronco. Kim was shot to death next
to the Bronco.
The residence was on Lockhart Road in Georgetown, IN.
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Vanderburgh County, IN |
Patrick Bradford |
Aug 1, 1992 |
Patrick
Bradford, an
Evansville police officer, was convicted of murdering Tammy Lohr, 24, a
woman with whom he had been having an affair. The evidence shows that
Bradford could not have committed the crime. Tammy worked at the county
jail, and a more logical suspect is a corrections coworker who was fired for
hitting inmates and sexually harassing Tammy. The coworker ranted that he
would get even with Tammy if it was the last thing he ever did. A later
review of this individual's court activity suggested that the prosecution
needed him to testify in some cases and for that reason they were not
willing to regard him as a suspect. (TruthInJustice)
(48
Hours) [11/05] |
Oxford County, ME |
Dwyer & Carroll |
Oct 13, 1937 (South Paris) |
Francis M. Carroll, a deputy sheriff in
Oxford County, was convicted in 1938 of the murder of Dr. James G.
Littlefield. Littlefield and his wife, Lydia, disappeared from their home in South
Paris on Oct. 13, 1937. On Oct. 16, Paul Nathaniel (Buddy) Dwyer, 18, also
from South Paris, was found sleeping in the couple's car by police in North
Arlington, NJ. The bodies of the dead couple were found in the trunk.
Dwyer confessed to killing the couple and was extradited to Maine the next
day. He was placed in the custody of Francis Carroll, the father of Dwyer's
former girlfriend, Barbara (Babs) Carroll. On Dec 2, Dwyer pleaded guilty
to the murder of Dr. Littlefield and was sentenced to life in prison.
Within months,
Dwyer accused Deputy Carroll of having killed Dr. Littlefield to prevent him
from disclosing that the deputy had engaged in incest with his daughter,
Babs. Babs allegedly acknowledged that she engaged in sexual activity with
her father on several occasions beginning when she was eleven years old.
Carroll was soon convicted of the murder of Dr. Littlefield, primarily
because of Dwyer's testimony. Carroll and Dwyer could not both be guilty of
murder under the conflicting prosecution theories on which their convictions
rested, but both were imprisoned until 1950, when Carroll's conviction was
vacated. In vacating the conviction, a Superior Court judge declared that
the prosecutor in the case �deliberately, purposely, and intentionally . . .
practiced fraud and deception on the court and jury.�
While there is reasonable doubt about Carroll's conviction, Dwyer's story
implicating him is quite believable and it would appear that Carroll is most
likely the killer. In Oct. 1959 Maine Governor Clausen commuted
Dwyer's life sentence to 28 years, making him immediately eligible for
parole, a parole Dwyer was soon granted. (CWC)
(NY
Daily News) (AP)
(Life)
(Murdered
in Jersey) (NY Times) (56)
(58)
[10/09] |
Suffolk
County, MA |
Kenneth Conley |
May 27, 1997 |
Kenneth
Conley, a
Boston police officer, was convicted of perjury for testifying that he did
not observe the police beating of a shooting suspect in 1995. The suspect
happened to be an undercover officer. The conviction was overturned in 2000
because the prosecution withheld evidence that the witness against Conley
expressed doubts about his memories and suggested that he be hypnotized.
(Boston Globe)
(99)
(00)
(5/01)
(9/01)
(03)
(04)
(05) [11/05] |
Chickasaw County, MS |
Cameron Todd |
1997 |
Cameron
Todd, a police
officer, arrested three adults and three teenagers for setting fire to a
trailer. One of them, a 13-year-old girl accused him and others of raping
her. Todd was charged with Capital Rape (in 1997) and was linked in press
hysteria as being one of the ringleaders of a major child prostitution,
drug, and pornography operation. The girl who made the initial accusation
has since recanted. (MS
Justice) (Todd
v. State) (DOC) [3/05] |
Atlantic
County, NJ |
Jim Andros |
Apr 1, 2001 (Pleasantville) |
Jim
Andros, an
Atlantic City police officer, was charged with suffocating his wife. Twenty
months later charges were dropped after prosecutors concluded she died of a
rare heart condition. (NY
Times) [9/05] |
Stephens County, OK |
Lefty Fowler |
Jan 23, 1948 (Duncan) |
E. L. �Lefty�
Fowler was convicted of the murder of Helen Beavers. Fowler was a Duncan
policeman and had been with her a short time before she was killed.
Following Beaver's murder, Fowler quit his job, failed to pick up his last
check, and engaged in conversation indicating that he was considering
suicide. He also began an excessive round of drinking.
Less than two months after Beavers' murder, Fowler was arrested in Waurika
and imprisoned for drunkenness in the Jefferson County Jail. Three Crime
Bureau Agents then fraudulently conspired to transport Fowler to Stephens
County for interrogation. They freed Fowler (by paying his fine) on
condition he drive a supposedly drunk cellmate, who was actually an agent,
to Stephens County. Once in Stephens County, Fowler was arrested on bogus
charges that were never filed. He was then denied access to a magistrate
and a lawyer, and interrogated under coercive conditions for 12 days.
Fowler eventually confessed to the murder of Beavers, but the County
Attorney thought the confession was inconsistent with the facts. Beavers
was then required to give another confession, which was signed at 5 a.m.,
apparently after an all night grilling. Even this confession was not
regarded as sufficient and Beavers had to give two more before authorities
were satisfied.
In 1960, Fowler
was granted habeas corpus relief due to his coerced and illegal
interrogation. He presumably was released. (Argosy) [4/08] |
Providence
County, RI |
Scott Hornoff |
Aug 11, 1989 |
Jeffrey Scott Hornoff, a Warwick
Police Detective, was convicted of bludgeoning to death Victoria Cushman
with a fire extinguisher and a porcelain jewelry box. Following the murder,
Hornoff denied being anything other than friends with Cushman. Detectives
knew otherwise and Hornoff soon admitted that he had two sexual encounters
with her. Hornoff's alibi was that he was at a party with his wife and
friends on the night of the murder. People at the party confirmed his
presence. A grand jury considered the evidence, but did not indict him.
The Rhode Island
State Patrol took over the investigation in 1991 and Hornoff was indicted in
1994. At trial in 1996, the prosecution dismissed his alibi, saying he
slipped away from the party and returned without anyone noticing his absence. Hornoff's initial claim of only
having been friends with Cushman was presented as evidence that he tried to
cover-up the murder. Hornoff was sentenced to life in prison and, in 1999,
the Rhode Island Supreme Court unanimously rejected his appeal.
Realistically,
it was time for Hornoff to abandon hope. But then a miracle occurred. On
Nov. 1, 2002, Todd Barry walked into the attorney general's office and
confessed to murdering Cushman. Barry said he was consumed with guilt that
an innocent man was serving time for a crime that he committed. Barry's
confession revealed how the murder investigation had focused exclusively on
Hornoff. Barry lived near Cushman, had dated her on and off, his name and
number were near the front of her Rolodex, and he was known to her friends.
Yet he was never questioned about the murder, either by the Warwick PD, or
by the state police.
Hornoff was soon
released and cleared of all charges. In 2006, Hornoff was awarded $600,000
plus $47,000 a year for life from the City of Warwick. He may also be
awarded additional money from the Rhode Island State Patrol. (American
Justice) (caught.net)
(JD33
p10) (TruthInJustice)
(TIJ2)
(CrimeLibrary)
[7/07] |
Grant County, WV |
Paul Ferrell |
Feb 17, 1988 |
Paul William Ferrell, a rookie
sheriff's deputy, was convicted of the murder of Cathy Ford, a 19-year-old
waitress from nearby Maryland. Her body has
never been found and no one had ever seen her with Ferrell. Some time after
Ford's disappearance, her boyfriend, Darvin Moon, discovered her badly
burned truck 75 yards from Ford's trailer home. Some believed
that the truck was burned elsewhere because there was no scorching on
the vegetation surrounding the vehicle.
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|
Brown County,
WI |
John Maloney |
Feb 10, 1998 (Green Bay) |
John
Maloney, a
detective in the Green Bay PD, and an arson investigator, was convicted of
strangling his estranged wife, Sandy, and setting her body on fire. Maloney
was a suspect because of their impending divorce, ongoing child custody
battle, and history of domestic disputes. Sandy was a heavy user of
prescription pills and was very drunk at the time of her death. She
apparently tried to hang herself shortly before her death, but the cord
broke causing her to bruise her head on a coffee table. She then apparently
started a fire by careless smoking or perhaps deliberately. The state
maintained that Maloney hit her on the head, strangled her, and then set a
fire that was staged to look like the result of careless smoking.
Special
prosecutor, Joe Paulus, (DA of Winnebago County), withheld evidence.
Initially the fire was labeled an accident but circular reasoning
developed: �The fire guys decided it must be an arson because it was
murder. The coroner decided it must be a murder because it was arson.� (TruthInJustice)
(Article
2)
(Article 3) (48
Hours) [11/05] |
Eau Claire County, WI |
Evan Zimmerman |
Feb 26, 2000 |
Evan Zimmerman, a former Augusta, WI
police officer, was convicted of murdering his former girlfriend, Kathleen
Thompson. Thompson had had a violent fight with her husband just hours
after their wedding. Following the fight, both were taken to the Eau
Claire County
Jail. Thompson was last seen walking away from the jail at 3 a.m. and later
was found strangled on a Eau Claire street. Her husband was never
considered a suspect as he was in jail at the time of her murder.
Zimmerman's conviction was based on allegedly inconsistent statements he
gave to Eau Claire police about his whereabouts around the time of the
murder. None of Zimmerman's interrogations were taped.
Zimmerman's
son, Shannon, said the alleged inconsistencies were due to his father being
in an alcoholic haze at the time of the crime and during subsequent police
interviews. He said the case against his father consisted of �out-of-context
statements, misleading statements and very, very shaky facts.� With the
help of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, Zimmerman's conviction was
overturned. At retrial in April 2005, the prosecution's case did not
proceed well, and in mid-trial the prosecutor asked the judge to throw out
the case, saying he lacked the evidence to show �beyond a reasonable doubt�
that Zimmerman had killed his former girlfriend. The judge agreed and
acquitted Zimmerman. Zimmerman had served 3 1/2 years in prison for the
crime. (Wisconsin
State Journal) [1/08] |
Milwaukee
County, WI |
Laurie Bembenek |
May 28, 1981 |
Lawrencia
Bembenek, also known as Bambi, was convicted of murdering Christine Schultz,
her husband's ex-wife. Bambi's husband Fred Schultz was a police officer as
was his ex-wife. Bambi had become a police officer and was stunned by the
amount of graft going on in the department: officers selling pornography
from their cars, accepting oral sex from hookers, frequenting drug hangouts,
and harassing minorities.
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