A very confused psychiatric patient spent 43 years in prison for a murder committed by a cop.
The only evidence against her was a string of rambling, incoherent, and frequently changing confessions, ultimately coerced by threatening her with the death penalty.
Absolutely nothing tied her to the crime. No knife, no bloody clothing, no fingerprints, nothing. Meanwhile, prosecutors hid evidence of the cop’s involvement from defense attorneys.
How could this happen to such a helpless person? Police motivations are clear enough; they needed someone to take a fall so they could clear a homicide case.
So, as lazy detectives often do, instead of working the case, they grabbed a vulnerable person, put her in an interrogation room, and worked her over until she “confessed.”
But why did Missouri’s criminal justice system allow it to happen? Why didn’t a jury see through the beyond-flimsy case against her? Wasn’t there a reasonable doubt? And why didn’t judges at any level intervene? Read story here.