Green was convicted of rape in 1983 and sentenced to 75 years in prison. But last Wednesday, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Texas announced that new DNA testing proved that Green was not involved in the assault. Green said he can’t help but be angry about the time that he lost. The process Green faces [...]
Tag Archive 'Rape kits'
Allen Porter free after 19 years!
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Miscarriages of Justice
He spent half of his life in prison for a rape and robbery he did not commit. But last Friday, at the age of 39, Allen Porter is finally a free man. Porter’s case stemmed from a robbery and sexual assault at an apartment in southwest Houston on June 18, 1990. Three masked robbers burst [...]
Lapointe hearings to resume in August 2010
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved Homicides
Questions about how long a fire burned at Mrs. Martin’s apartment and possibly tainted DNA evidence on a pair of gloves found at the crime scene were brought up last Thursday during a hearing for Richard Lapointe. Mrs. Bernice Martin was raped, stabbed and strangled in her apartment in Manchester on March 8, 1987. Lapointe was convicted [...]
Eby’s hands under the loupe…
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Solved, Unsolved Homicides
Authorities will get a closer look at the hands of the man accused of sexually assaulting and drowning 3-year-old Riley Fox. Smudged prints were found on the back door to the Foxes’ Wilmington home at the time of the 2004 abduction and murder, but testing of those prints has yet to find a match, case [...]
LOUISVILLE, KY - After 11 years in prison before being paroled in 1994 for being convicted of rape and other charges in 1982, Michael VonAllmen’s record is now clear. On July 15, 2010, a judge finally ruled to dismiss all charges with prejudice, which means the charges can never be brought back. “I think this is a [...]
Fox, Hobbs III, Rivera and Lapointe
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved Homicides
Lisa Black and Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune have written an excellent piece about what makes people confess falsely. False confessions are not so uncommon as you would think. I understand that right now you shake your head and question Vidocq’s sanity…justifiably so! Why would a parent confess to raping their own three year old [...]
Lapointe hearing July 7-8-9, 2010
Posted in Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved Homicides
Christopher Cosgrove, Lapointe’s public defender during the criminal trial, and Henry Theodore Vogt, who sought a new trial for Lapointe in the late 1990s, testified during the latest hearing seeking a new trial for Lapointe. Paul Casteleiro, Lapointe’s current lawyer, focused on what Cosgrove and Vogt didn’t do when they handled the case in court. [...]
Lapointe hearing July 6, 2010
Posted in Forensics, Lapointe, Miscarriages of Justice, Unsolved Homicides
During direct examination on Tuesday, Lapointe’s attorney, Paul Casteleiro, suggested that in his quest for a confession, Detective Morrissey overlooked inconsistencies in Lapointe’s admission to Morrissey and failed to ask important questions. In his confession, Lapointe said he had strangled 88-year-old Bernice Martin with his hands, but the medical examiner determined she had been strangled [...]
The trial of Bernard Jackson, the man accused of four Waldo area rapes in the 1980s, is slated for 2011. Judge Charles E. Atwell is scheduled to preside over the trial, which will be in either April or July. A case management conference is scheduled for August 13, 2010. Earlier this month, Jackson entered a [...]
Life sentences in 1980 high school sweethearts murders
Posted in Cold Cases in the News, Forensics, Solved, Unsolved Homicides
Edward Edwards, of Louisville, Ky., was arrested after DNA connected him to the deaths of Tim Hack and his girlfriend, Kelly Drew, who disappeared from a Wisconsin wedding reception in August 1980. Their bodies were found weeks later in the woods. Investigators believe Hack was stabbed and Drew strangled. Auhorities said the state crime lab matched Edwards’ [...]