Forensic Files

[Constantine]

I watched about ump episodes of this show over the weekend (staying up almost all night). It's quite addicting.

I found two episodes particularly compelling. One was about a man suspected of killing his estranged wife. He seemed to have both motive and opportunity, but forensic evidence exonerated him: His wife's murder was a random killing by a man who didn't want to be arrested "merely" for molesting his three-month-old daughter! Another man was suspected of killing his mother, who lived alone in the house next door to him. He said he had given a lift to a man and, being suspicious of him, made him leave his car about half a mile from his house and then rode past it (to mislead the hitchhiker in case he followed him) and then rode around for a while before finally going home. Someone broke into his mother's house and killed her. The police didn't buy his story (how had the man found his mother's house?), but subsequent forensic evidence established that he was telling the truth. (The hitchhiker stumbled on his mother's house accidentally.)

How many people have been convicted of crimes they didn't commit or lived the rest of their lives under a cloud of suspicion because the truth was bizarre and forensic science was not sufficiently advanced at the time (or not correctly applied if it was)?

I really don't think this was the case with Lizzie (there were too many clues pointing in her direction), but who knows?

[kssunflower]

I like this program too and have spent a few late nights with it also. When I see an interesting show, I always try to get more details about it online.

[SallyG]

How many people have been convicted of crimes they didn't commit or lived the rest of their lives under a cloud of suspicion because the truth was bizarre and forensic science was not sufficiently advanced at the time (or not correctly applied if it was)?

My first husband lived across the street from, and grew up with, Kirk Bloodsworth, the guy who was the first person to be freed because DNA proved he was not guilty. He was convicted of raping and murdering a little girl. His mistake was that he offered to help a child in his apartment complex find a lost friend, placing him as the last person seen with her before she disappeared. He was, of course, innocent, and was just a small town guy, who located to a larger area, that was used to helping his neighbors out, or helping a child in distress. His kindness backfired, and he spent I forget how many years in prison. His mother died during that time, and I am sure the stress hastened her demise. His parents went backrupt trying to pay his legal expenses and almost lost their home. It was a horrendous experience for his family and friends.

Of course, I sympathize with the parents of the victim as well. They lost a child. And luckily they found the real killer....it was a person the cops had looked at briefly, but disregarded, in favor of Kirk, who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time! Overall, it was very shoddy police work.

What I can never understand is the urgency on the part of the police to arrest SOMEONE....would it not be better to get the RIGHT person.....even if it took a little longer?

Kirk did get a handsome settlement out of the whole fiasco, but it won't bring back his mother, who would more than likely still be alive if it were not for the ineptness of the police department who sent her son to death row.

You can bet there are many more out there in jail for something they did not do.

[Constantine]

There was a similar case I saw a program about. (I'm not sure whether it was on Forensic Files or a similar show, of which there are several.) A man wrongly convicted of killing his pregnant wife was freed after spending sixteen years in prison. He narrowly escaped being killed by other inmates who took a dim view of people who murder pregnant women. Others have not been so lucky. During the child-molesting madness during which many people "recovered" memories of things that had never happened, an unfortunate man who had been acquitted of having molested his now-grown child was killed by a self-righteous idiot who took it upon himself to administer "justice."

[Constantine]

Speaking of wrongful convictions, I just found this link on the TruTV site (which is the site of the station on which Forensic Files is shown):

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/phot ... rated.html

(Kirk Bloodsworth is among those featured here.)