I just watched a case of Forensic Files that reminded me somewhat of Amanda and Raff 's case:
In 1963, man in Australia named John Button found his girlfriend, Rosemary Anderson, lying dead on the side of the road one night after she'd walked away after an argument. He put her in his car and took her to the hospital. The front of his car had considerable damage which he claimed had happened weeks before. There was also a little blood on the damaged area which Button said must have dripped onto it when he carried her to the car.
The police interrogated him, including hitting him once in the stomach. After 4 hours of being yelled at and told that they knew he had done it, he said he realized they weren't going to stop so he confessed saying he had only meant to scare her but lost control of the car and accidentally hit her.
The on-scene police officer examined the car damage and believed it was not consistent with having hit a human body but he wasn't asked about it at trial. Button had reported an accident that caused front end damage to his car, but no hood damage, to the police three weeks before Rosemary was run down but the police considered this irrelevant, and this report was never presented at trial.
He was convicted of manslaughter with his confession and the car damage being the only evidence against him. He was sentenced to 10 years at hard labor. While in prison, another man, Eric Cooke, who was scheduled to be executed for murder, confessed to having run down the girl on purpose and described her as having hit the hood of his car before flying over the roof of his car. The police told the man to take them to the scene of the murder but he identified the wrong area of the road. The police didn't believe him. At his execution, Cooke swore on a Bible that he was the one who hit Rosemary.
Button was released for good behavior after serving 5 of the 10 years sentence. He got married and had a couple kids but was severely depressed due to still being convicted of a crime he said he didn't commit and tried to kill himself. Luckily, he survived.
Three decades after being released, a reporter looked at Button's case and started investigating. She discovered that six women had been run down on dark roads before Rosemary but they had all survived. Cooke had confessed to all six.
One of the world's leading experts on accident reconstruction, Rusty Haight, flew to Australia from Texas where he used a biomedical human form dummy and three same make and model cars as Button was driving to reconstruct the crime. All three showed that Button's car could not have hit Rosemary. But when the make/model car that Cooke said he had been driving was used in three tests, the dummy did exactly what Cooke said Rosemary's body had done: hit the hood leaving a large dent then had flown up and over the hood. The body landed in exactly the position Button had described he found Rosemary in.
Button was fully exonerated by Australia in 2002 and awarded a few hundred thousand dollars. At first Rosemary's parents refused to believe Cooke, and not Button, had killed their daughter. But after meeting with the Button and Cooke families and the Director of Public Prosecutions, they finally accepted the truth.
Button now heads the Australia Innocence Project. But I'm sure there are some people who still think he's guilty and just looking for attention. :rolleyes:
In 1963, man in Australia named John Button found his girlfriend, Rosemary Anderson, lying dead on the side of the road one night after she'd walked away after an argument. He put her in his car and took her to the hospital. The front of his car had considerable damage which he claimed had happened weeks before. There was also a little blood on the damaged area which Button said must have dripped onto it when he carried her to the car.
The police interrogated him, including hitting him once in the stomach. After 4 hours of being yelled at and told that they knew he had done it, he said he realized they weren't going to stop so he confessed saying he had only meant to scare her but lost control of the car and accidentally hit her.
The on-scene police officer examined the car damage and believed it was not consistent with having hit a human body but he wasn't asked about it at trial. Button had reported an accident that caused front end damage to his car, but no hood damage, to the police three weeks before Rosemary was run down but the police considered this irrelevant, and this report was never presented at trial.
He was convicted of manslaughter with his confession and the car damage being the only evidence against him. He was sentenced to 10 years at hard labor. While in prison, another man, Eric Cooke, who was scheduled to be executed for murder, confessed to having run down the girl on purpose and described her as having hit the hood of his car before flying over the roof of his car. The police told the man to take them to the scene of the murder but he identified the wrong area of the road. The police didn't believe him. At his execution, Cooke swore on a Bible that he was the one who hit Rosemary.
Button was released for good behavior after serving 5 of the 10 years sentence. He got married and had a couple kids but was severely depressed due to still being convicted of a crime he said he didn't commit and tried to kill himself. Luckily, he survived.
Three decades after being released, a reporter looked at Button's case and started investigating. She discovered that six women had been run down on dark roads before Rosemary but they had all survived. Cooke had confessed to all six.
One of the world's leading experts on accident reconstruction, Rusty Haight, flew to Australia from Texas where he used a biomedical human form dummy and three same make and model cars as Button was driving to reconstruct the crime. All three showed that Button's car could not have hit Rosemary. But when the make/model car that Cooke said he had been driving was used in three tests, the dummy did exactly what Cooke said Rosemary's body had done: hit the hood leaving a large dent then had flown up and over the hood. The body landed in exactly the position Button had described he found Rosemary in.
Button was fully exonerated by Australia in 2002 and awarded a few hundred thousand dollars. At first Rosemary's parents refused to believe Cooke, and not Button, had killed their daughter. But after meeting with the Button and Cooke families and the Director of Public Prosecutions, they finally accepted the truth.
Button now heads the Australia Innocence Project. But I'm sure there are some people who still think he's guilty and just looking for attention. :rolleyes:
split fromvia International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/5BfAPxH
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