The Case Of Ron Williamson And Dennis Fritz Being Wrongfully Charged With Murder Of Debbie Carter

Scott Lee Peterson was once married to Lacy Peterson in California. They were expecting their first child together when Laci disappeared on December 24th, 2002, Laci was 8 months pregnant. Scott was not immediately named a suspect in Laci’s disappearance. Scott told detectives that he was out fishing that morning 90 miles from their Modesto home. The detectives were thrown off by how calm Scott was and Scott’s lack of questioning within the first few weeks of Laci being gone.

Twenty years later information surfaced that suggested that the evidence in the two previous trials had been tampered with. The Assistant District Attorney, with the help of Evers's widow, began compiling a new case. (Elliot Jr., pg.1)

On the 2nd of March 1998, a 10 year-old boy, LMW, was charged with the manslaughter of Corey Davis, a 6 year-old boy. Corey Davis was drowned in the Georges River when the defendant, LMW, dropped him in with what was thought to be the complete knowledge that the victim was unable to swim.

The case that I will be discussing is the cold murder case of Lucille Johnson from Salt Lake City, Utah. Unfortunately, at the time of the murder the investigators didn’t take certain evidence serious in the case. The investigators thought that it was just evidence that had no meaning. None the less, it ended up convicting the murderer, John Sansing.

In 1999, a home invasion occurs where two burglars break in and kill Clyde Shelton’s wife and daughter. A terrifying incident that happened simply by Shelton opening the door without checking for who was entering. He and his wife were tied down while being stabbed, and their daughter was taken away (we assume she is killed as well). Shelton seeks justice from prosecutor Nick Rice, but Rice is unable to find any evidence against the two robbers. Rice is a high ranked prosecutor with a high conviction rate. He wishes to keep his stats high by making a deal with one of the robbers, Clarence Darby, to a lesser charge if he testifies against his partner in crime, Rupert Ames. Shelton gains knowledge of this deal for Rice’s career and feels as

Recently in Alabama a man by the name of Anthony Ray Hinton was exonerated from death row after already spending thirty years in prison. Hinton was convicted of two separate fatal shootings of fast food restaurant managers in Birmingham, AL. One on February 25, 1985 shooting a John Davidson, and the second occurrence was on July 2, 1985 making Thomas Vason the second deceased. The evidence brought against him was a revolver that somewhat matched the one Hinton had in his home. There was no physical evidence, no fingerprints and no eyewitnesses linking him to the crime. Also, the revolver was questionable at best due to the fact the gun belonged to his mother who he lived with. Ballistics could not accurately tell if the gun Hinton had was even the weapon used in the shootings because they could not tell if his gun had been fired out of recently. They also could not conclusively say that all the bullets used in the two shootings were fired from the same gun. All in all, Hinton was convicted by a possible bullet match to his gun; and an eyewitness’s testimony from a person who was present at a similar, but different crime that Hinton was never accused of. Hinton coming from an underprivileged area only had a $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to disprove the allegations. Thus leading to a person whose proposed allegations were questionable. Hinton was found guilty and put on Death Row. After sitting in a jail cell for thirty years he was released after firearms experts

Vanessa Vermont, a gorgeous woman found dead in her own kitchen, laying on the floor with a fatal head wound on the back of her head. Just recently she bought a new broiler and need and outlet over her kitchen counter, something her husband could do. And it is right where she was murdered. There is also a woman’s briefcase on the floor near the kitchen. Which means Mrs. Vermont was leaving, which in turn could’ve enraged the husband.

2. Case Facts: On October 13, 1979, George Schnopps fatally shot his wife of 14 years. The victim and schnopps began having marital problems six months prior, when schnopps became suspicious that his wife was seeing another man. A few days prior to the incident, Schnopps threatened to make his wife suffer. On October 12, 1979 while at work asked a coworker to buy him a gun, telling the worker that he had been receiving threatening phone calls. Schnopps paid his coworker for the gun and ammunition. On the day of the incident, Schnopps told a neighbor he was going to call his wife and have her come pick up some things, and asked if them to keep the youngest child with her so he could talk to with his wife. When the wife went over Schnopps tried to convince his wife to stay with him, in response the wife made some vulgar comments which triggered Schnopps. He then shot her and then shot himself. Shortly after he called the neighbor and told her what had happened and she called the police. The defense offered evidence from friends and coworkers who noticed difference in Schnopps physical and emotional health after the victim had left him. The Commonwealth’s expert

Frosch, D and Johnson, K. (2007). Colorado Hearing Re-examine 1987 Murder Case. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/us/27fortcollins.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

By the 1950s, it was not uncommon for both state and federal appellate courts to review a defendant’s capital conviction. In recent

Suspects in this case were Arthur Stanley Brown, James Ryan O’Neill, Derek Percy, but the main suspect in his case was Bevan Von Einem (Owen, 2002). Bevan Von Einem was convicted of murderer in 1984. He murder 1-5 boys and young boys. He was a suspect in the Beaumont case because a witness name Mr. B (Not the witness real name) had told the police the Einmen had told him that he had kidnap the Beaumont children back then.

Darryl Hunt is an African American born in 1965 in North Carolina. In 1984, he was convicted wrongfully of rape and murder of Deborah Sykes, a young white woman working as a newspaper editor. This paper researches oh his wrongful conviction in North Carolina. Darryl Hunt served nineteen and a half years before DNA evidence exonerated him. The charges leveled against him were because of inconsistencies in the initial stages of the case. An all-white bench convicted the then nineteen-year-old Hunt, even though there was no physical evidence linking him to the crime. A hotel employee made false claims that he saw Hunt enter the hotel bathroom, and later emerge with bloodstained towels. Other witnesses also fixed Hunt to the case.

In 1982, Alton Logan was charged and sentenced to life in prison for the first-degree murder of a McDonald’s security guard in Illinois after three witnesses identified him despite the fact that several family members gave testimonies stating that Logan was home in the bed when the murder occurred (CBSNews, 2008). Around the same time attorneys Dale Coventry and Jamie Kunz were defending a man named Andrew Wilson was facing similar charges in the same jurisdiction who confessed to them that he killed the McDonalds security guard, and that Alton Logan was innocent (CBSNews, 2008). The two attorneys, being bound by the Attorney-Client Privilege and their duty of confidentiality to their client they did not come forward with the information that could have relieved Logan from the charges and his life sentence. Wilson gave the attorney’s permission to disclose the information upon his death and they took necessary measures to preserve the information until the time came when they would be able to share it (CBSNews, 2008).

What is most interesting about this story is that it exposes a flawed justice system. The police did a reasonably good job of investigating the murder scene, but right away they focused their attention on two men without solid evidence. The obvious suspect would have been the last person seen alive with the victim, someone who knew the victim and thus could gain access easily to her apartment, and definitely someone who had argued with the victim the night she was murdered (Thornburgh 28). There were many valid clues pointing to other suspects. Instead, the police convinced themselves early on that Ron Williamson was their killer. After five years when they were unable to solve the crime, and with pressure mounting, they pieced together a paper

concerned about pinning the murder on someone and they really didn?t care who it was. Interrogators literally forced Williamson to make his dream confession and this was the basis for the entire prosecution even though the defendant was obviously mentally incompetent The prosecution team used other unreliable sources of evidence, mainly hair samples, and ?jailhouse snitches? who received reduced sentences as a reward of testifying against the defendant. Eventually they manipulated an inexperienced jury into believing their insignificant evidence and Ron Williamson was sentenced to death. His friend Dennis Fritz was sentenced to life in prison, mainly for being the only friend Ron had when the murder occurred.