When Innocence Is Not Enough

Julie and Joel

by Diane Fanning

If your child were murdered and you were charged with committing that homicide but you knew you were not the perpetrator, how do you cope with knowing that your innocence simply was not enough to pull you out of the vortex of a criminal justice system operating in an alternative reality?

Can you imagine anything worse ever happening to a parent?  I can't.

It is what happened to Julie Rea after the murder of her ten-year-old son Joel Kirkpatrick.  She described the intruder in her home.  She suffered injuries that the emergency room doctor said could not have been self-inflicted.  She passed lie detector test.  Law enforcement did not believe her. 

Represented by an inexperienced, court-appointed attorney, she was convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison.

Initially, I did not believe her, either.  I did not place any credibility in what was said by Julie, her friends, her family or her attorneys.   Then, I heard the prosecutor speak.  He said that there were no stranger fingerprints in the house; that no stranger would come into the house to kill a child; that the violence of the crime proved the perpetrator was someone very close to the child; and that a person does not come into someone's home without a weapon and pull a knife out of the kitchen drawer and use it to kill.

That's when I knew Julie Rea might not be guilty because I'd been interviewing serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells for my book Through the Window.  He did all those things at crime scenes.  I didn't suspect him then but thought someone just like him could have committed the crime. 

When I wrote to Sells about what the ridiculous things the prosecutor said, without any details of names, places or dates, he wrote back asking if the crime was committed a couple days before his murder of Stephanie Mahaney in Springfield, Missouri--maybe on the 13th.  That was how his confession began.  Still, I was skeptical until Bill Clutter, investigator for the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project, found corroborating testimony in the town of Lawrenceville, Illinois.



Julie Rea and Diane Fanning

From that moment on, I was convinced and was determined to do what I could to help find justice for Julie Rea.  The Center for Wrongful Convictions and an extraordinary Chicago defense attorney, Ron Safer, became involved.  Julie got a new trial and was acquitted of the crime.  Just last month, she received a Certificate of Actual Innocence from the State of Illinois. Julie handed me the Defender of the Innocent Award from the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project--definitely the highlight of my career as a crime writer.

Whenever anyone maligns the True Crime genre or is dismissive of my writing, I will always think of Julie and the role my book played in her tragic story.  It is just one example of why I think the genre makes a significant contribution and why I feel compelled to keep writing it.

But still something was missing and that was Justice for Joel.  After his murder, if the sheriff's office would have paid any attention to reports of a suspicious stranger in town, maybe deputies could have found Tommy Lynn Sells before he killed again.  But, instead, they myopically focused on proving Julie's guilt, hid some evidence from the defense and ignored anything that did not fit their theory of the case.

Today, even though the state has completely exonerated Julie Rea, the State's Attorney's Office refuses to investigate further--refuses to find Justice for Joel.

This Sunday night, on the Investigation Discovery channel, at 10 pm Eastern, On the Case with Paula Zahn presents A Mother's Nightmare, the story of Julie Rea, her son Joel and the many people including me, who stood up to find Justice for Julie and Joel.

Throughout the trial of Casey Anthony, Diane Fanning, author of Mommy's Little Girl, writes daily about the the pursuit of Justice for Caylee Anthony on her blog, Writing Is a Crime.

Tweet

Darlie Routier: Vicious Mother or Tragic Victim?

by Diane Fanning

Every time a television program involving Tommy Lynn Sells or one of his crimes is broadcast, I receive emails asking if he could have been in Rowlett, Texas, on June 6, 1996--the day seven-year-old Devon Routier and his five-year-old brother Damon died. These questions began within days of the release of my book about Sells in April 2003 and have continued unabated since then.

.

The boys were murdered in the middle of the night, Sells' favored time for homicide. Someone had plunged a knife into their chests, puncturing their lungs. A weapon Sells was known to use often.

The boys' mother, Darlie, who had fallen asleep with them on the floor in front of the television, also had wounds. Although hers were not life-threatening, they were definitely beyond superficial. One cut damaged the sheath surrounding her carotid artery but did not sever that vital link to life. With a little emergency care, she was soon able to stand on the front porch in her bloody nightgown and tell her story of the events in her home.

Darlie said that she awakened when the man made physical contact with her. It was

at that moment, she realized her children had been harmed. She fought him off, he dropped his knife, he raced toward the garage. She described him as medium height, dressed in black and wearing a ball cap. After giving her statement, she was taken to the hospital. (above left)

This scenario bore a lot of similarity to the murder of 10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick and the wounds inflicted on his mother Julie Rea Harper. As a result when an episode about Julie and Joel's case aired on Unusual Suspects, an Investigation Discovery show, a couple of weeks ago, I was deluged with dozens of emails asking once again about Sells' whereabouts.

The similarities went beyond the time of night, the viciousness of the attack, dead sons and injured mothers. In Darlie's case, two unidentified bloody fingerprints were found--one in the house, one in the garage--but prosecution witnesses testified that all the prints found belonged to Darlie or her boys. In Julie's case, investigators found a bloody footprint on a piece of cardboard in the bedroom. It was far too large to be Joel's footprint and even too large to belong to his mother. The prosecutor in Illinois concealed this evidence from the defense.

In both cases, there were items available for DNA testing. In both cases, the prosecutor fought this testing. This is a stance I cannot understand and cannot accept. I've heard all the arguments justifying this behavior, but I am not moved. If it is your mission is to uncover truth and seek justice, should you ever fight learning a fact? No. I expect more from prosecutors--much more.

Both Julie and Darlie were found guilty of murder in the death of their sons--a conviction that if wrongfully rendered was the cruelest fate that could ever befall any mother who loses a child to violence. Julie was sentenced to sixty-five years behind bars. Darlie was given the death penalty.

When Sells confessed to me that he murdered young Joel Kirkpatrick, a door was opened for Julie Rea Harper. I put it in my book and between the work of the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project at the University of Illinois at Springfield and the Center for Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, Julie got a new trial. Julie was acquitted and released from jail.

I know, without the shadow of doubt and beyond any concerns, that Julie Rea Harper did not murder her son. I am strongly inclined to believe that Tommy Lynn Sells did commit this crime, just as he said.

As for Darlie, I'm not convinced of her guilt or innocence. I am certain that there are many questions that need to be answered before we can possibly put her to death with a clear conscious.

There is only one thing I know absolutely about the deaths of Devon and Damon--those murders cannot be laid at Tommy Lynn Sells' feet. He was in a penitentiary in West Virginia serving a sentence for assaulting Fabienne Witherspoon, a woman who fought back and survived his brutal knife attack.

If not Sells, then who? The obvious answer is that it could be Darlie. But that is not the only answer. As Texas Ranger Coy Smith once told me: "If you knew how many people like Sells were roaming across the country at any given time, it would blow the skirt right up over your head."

Maybe Darlie did kill her sons. Maybe it was one of those drifters Smith mentioned. Maybe.

Shouldn't that question be answered with certainty before we allow the state to take Darlie's life?

Tweet

Written in Blood

by Susan Murphy Milano

Late on a Saturday night, Richard Langert and his pregnant wife, Nancy, arrived at their Winnetka, IL, townhouse after a family birthday party. It was April 7, 1990. Nancy, 25, was three-and-a-half months pregnant. She and Richard, 30, soon realized they were not alone. A teenager waited in their living room, a .357 magnum in his lap.

David Biro, a 16-year-old high-school student the Langerts had never met, sat up in an easy chair and pointed the gun at their heads. He bound the terrified young couple's wrists with handcuffs and led them to the basement.

"I'm pregnant. We're begging for our lives!" Nancy pleaded. "Please, please don't hurt us."

Instead, Biro blew Richard's brains out, splattering his blood over his terrified wife, who lay beside him.

Arms shielding her abdomen, Nancy continued to beg. "Please don't hurt me. Please don't hurt my baby!" Biro shot Nancy in the stomach, instantly killing her unborn child. As she lay bleeding to death on the basement floor, Nancy called for help in the darkness. It never came. Before the young wife took her last breath, she expressed her undying love for her husband of three years. With his blood, she drew a heart and the letter "U" on the metal storage shelves above her.

Biro was arrested after he told a friend details of the killings. Convicted of murdering the Langerts and their unborn child, Biro is now serving three consecutive life terms in prison.

But for Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins, Nancy Langert's sister, Biro's punishment was not enough.

The very personal and high-profile tragedy drove Bishop-Jenkins to look for causes of such brutal and meaningless violence and for ways to help others protect themselves from it. She works to ensure no other family will have to suffer as hers did. These days she appears frequently in the news media, most recently on ABC's "Good Morning America" last week. She used her appearance to oppose the release of Manson family murderer Susan Atkins.

Bishop-Jenkins is also against second chances for juveniles like Biro. Several organizations are advocating that prisoners convicted of murder as adolescents get a second chance -- release from prison -- after serving 15 years. The argument is being pushed under HR 2289 – The Juvenile Justice Accountability and Improvement Act of 2009.

On Aug. 17, the Heritage Foundation is scheduled to debate the issue live on C-Span. The organization also will release the findings of a damaging report on "Adult Time for Adult Crimes: Exposing the Movement to Set Free Juvenile Killers and Violent Offenders." It lays out myths created by offender-advocate groups, which have spent over $10 million in the last two to three years publishing "poor child in jail" propaganda. They use photos that make it appear convicts who were 17 when they killed were much younger, often showing them as 10-year-olds. The one-sided myths omit detailed information about individual crimes, misleading readers into believing youthful killers might deserve a second chance.

In Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins's opinion, "the focus of those who support HR 2289 has been, up to this point, almost entirely offender-centered. The message being sent is too much about 'the poor kids in prison.' They need to change their approach to one built on not only strong partnerships with law-enforcement and violence-prevention professionals, but to one that is all about restorative-justice principals."

Restorative Justice is an approach that addresses the harm caused to victims and focuses on accountability for crime. Some offender advocates have attempted to hijack the restorative-justice process and turn it into simply this: the victim forgives and the killer gets out.

Victims' rights need to be heard, considered and protected! So, I ask: What do you think? Should Biro and others like him be released?

Tweet

Babysitter Turns Crime Sleuth

by Susan Murphy Milano

What do a babysitter and a former mob boss Frank Cullotta, co-author with Denny Griffin on the book "Cullotta" have to do with answers to a 28-year-old McHenry County, Illinois unsolved homicide of a bar owner and his employee?

On June 2, 1981, in McHenry, Illinois the bodies of Ronald Scharff and his barmaid Patricia Freeman were discovered. The local authorities had the man, the motive, and the evidence shortly after the crime. For some reason police sat on the evidence and the case went cold.

Last year a former babysitter to Scharff’s son Paul, now grown with a family of his own who at the time of his father’s murder was only ten years old began asking questions about the 1981 unsolved murder. The babysitter's father also happened to be best friends with the deceased Ronald Scharff. The former babysitter googled the names of Anthony Spilotro head of a violent street crew with whom the movie casino was based played by actor Joe Pecsi, and others from the notorious “hole in the wall gang.” On her Internet search the book “Cullotta,” co-authored by retired veteran cop, tuned author and radio show host Dennis Griffin appeared.

The book is based on the life of Frank Cullotta, who happened to be a childhood friend of Chicago Outfit enforcer Anthony Spilotro. Frank Cullotta in the early 1980s joined Spilotro's violent Las Vegas street crew. The former mobster committed crimes ranging from robbery to murder, and later turning government witness in its investigation of the mob's influence in Las Vegas.

When the former babysitter turned crime sleuth read the book "Cullotta," there is was in black and white on page 130, providing enough details to the June 2, 1981 murders of bar owner Ronald Scharff and waitress Patricia Freeman at the P.M. Pub in McHenry, IL.

Frank Cullotta named "hole in the wall" crew member Larry Neumann as the killer of Scharff and Freeman. After serving time in prison with Neumann, Cullotta introduced him to Spilotro's gang. As Cullotta recalled during his law enforcement debriefing, Neumann admitted committing the murders. Larry Neumann was angry when he learned earlier that evening bar owner Ronalld Scharff had thrown his ex-wife out of the tavern.

The feds provided McHenry authorities with information on the man and the motive. Ronald Scharff had been killed for the perceived slight. Patricia Freeman was murdered because she was a witness in the wrong place at the time. Instead of arresting Larry Neumann and closing the case McHenry County detectives went out of their way to discredit Cullotta's details of the crime. Those detectives have since retired.

Larry Neumann died in prison in 2007 after a lengthy criminal career that included at least six murders, including a 1956 triple homicide from which he managed to gain release.

Since discovering and reading the book, Paul Scharff has been working with McHenry Detectives to get his father’s case closed. And with the unlikely pair of co-authors Denny Griffin and Frank Collutta who set out to tell a tale of one man’s life in the mob, could have never predicted the book would take on a unique and important journey, Justice!

Tweet

Mystery Man - Bill Clutter

by Bill Clutter

In June of 2000, I was contacted by an attorney. The lawyer explained that she represented a woman who was the target of an upcoming grand jury "investigation." Her client, Julie Rea-Harper, was a graduate student and Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University. Julie had already lost her child, and now her life was threatened.

Convinced that Julie had murdered her 10-year-old son Joel, prosecutors were planning to seek the death penalty.

For three years, the case of the Joel's death had gone unsolved, but the local sheriff and Julie’s ex-husband singled her out as the only suspect. The crime happened in Lawrenceville, a small town in southern Illinois on the Indiana border.

Julie (pictured below with Joel) described being awakened at 4 a.m. by her son’s scream. She went into Joel’s room, she said, where she was beaten by the man who broke into her home and stabbed her child to death using a knife from the kitchen butcher block. She described him having a “jerky” gait as he fled.

After hearing the news of Joel’s murder that morning, a citizen of Lawrenceville rushed down to the Sheriff’s office to report he had seen a “drifter” in town who was at a local diner. The stranger had made disturbing comments to his eleven-year-old son. “I think I saw your suspect,” he told the Sheriff. The citizen described the drifter as having “real jerky” movements when he walked. But the Sheriff told the witness that he was busy with a murder investigation and disregarded the information. The Sheriff did not even take the time to write a report.

The case of Julie Rea Harper is classic tunnel vision—when police are so locked in on one suspect, in this case, the mother, that they totally disregard other evidence that may lead them to someone else. This crime, after all, happened at the very time when Boulder, Colorado police were pointing the finger at the parents of JonBenet Ramsey. We now know there was compelling evidence that an intruder committed that crime.

Julie’s attorney had been referred to me because she was in need of a private investigator with experience in capital and criminal defense. She had been informed about a new program in Illinois called the Capital Litigation Trust Fund that just went into effect. The Fund was created after private investigator Paul Ciolino uncovered evidence that exonerated Anthony Porter, who was at one time 48 hours away from execution.

Hearing the details of Julie’s description of the assailant, I told her attorney about a drifter by the name of Tommy Lynn Sells who was facing capital murder charges in Texas for killing a child after he broke into a home at 4 a.m.--his M.O. in many other crimes. I told her that Sells would be the starting point of my defense investigation. Sells was known to travel and commit murders in Southern Illinois.

A few months after this conversation, Julie was indicted by a special prosecutor, charged with a capital offense. Julie by this time was unrepresented by counsel because her Indiana attorney was not licensed to practice law in Illinois. So Julie filed a pro se motion requesting the appointment of two capital-qualified attorneys, citing new Supreme Court rules that require the appointment of two attorneys, well qualified and experienced in criminal defense, to represent anyone facing the death penalty.

Prosecutors responded by declaring that they no longer wanted the death penalty—not because they opposed capital punishment—but because their decision made it more likely that they could win a conviction. Prosecutors were willing to abandon their intent on taking Julie’s life because it made the odds of taking her liberty more likely.

Their decision meant that Julie would not have equal protection under the law. State funding that was designed to hire experts, such as my services as a private investigator, were no longer available to her. Two years later, Julie’s family contacted the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project to request our assistance. Our Project was just beginning, and depended on private donors. We had no State funding. Julie had been convicted of Joel’s murder by a jury in Fairfield County.

Although there was no direct evidence she committed the murder, her ex-husband and chief accuser gave testimony that Julie once entertained the idea of having an abortion upon hearing news that she was pregnant with Joel. It was an allegation that should never have been allowed to influence the jury’s decision, and one that Julie vigorously denied. The daughter of a Methodist minister, she was opposed to abortion based on her religious beliefs. However, her attorney did not resist or refute the testimony of her ex. The impact of this emotionally charged testimony on the jury was unfairly prejudicial. The effect it had on the jury is best demonstrated by examining the election results of the 2004 senate race between two African-American candidates: Barack Obama and Alan Keyes. A single-issue candidate, Keyes' one difference was his opposition to abortion. Keyes won Fairfield County with 72% of the popular vote--by the same margin Obama carried the entire state.

Within a year of being convicted, true-crime author Diane Fanning published a book detailing the crimes of child serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells (pictured right). In the book, Sells described killing a boy in southern Illinois after he was released from prison in 1997, as well as his struggle to get away from the child’s mother. The details of his confession mirrored the facts of Joel’s murder.

It was the investigation of our Project that corroborated Sells' confession, leading Texas Rangers to conclude that Sells’ confession was genuine. One would have expected prosecutors and police in Illinois to seek justice when presented with evidence exonerating Julie. But they persisted in trying her again after the appellate court reversed her conviction. This time, with the presentation of the new evidence, she was granted a fair trial. Julie-Rea Harper was acquitted.

In the twenty plus years I have worked as a criminal defense investigator, the greatest satisfaction is being able to witness an innocent client walk out of prison. That satisfaction overcomes the despair one feels in the years of working on these cases, when the word justice seems at odds with what is happening to your client.

Tweet