Sandra Hemme spent decades in prison on unjust charges.
Photo: EAST NEWS.
Sandra Hemme, who wrongly spent 43 years in prison, was released in the United States. Although Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey tried desperately to keep her behind bars, the judge was even so disheartened by the attorney general’s bitterness that he threatened to charge him with disrespect for Themis.
Sandra ended up in prison when she had just become a mother. Decades later, she was welcomed into freedom by those who believed in her innocence until the end: her sister, her daughter and her granddaughter.
According to the legal organization Innocence Project, Sandra became the record holder among women wrongfully convicted and imprisoned in American prisons.
I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING
The police came looking for Hemme when she was 21 (she is now 64).
“You are accused of being involved in the murder of Patricia Jeschke,” the security forces announced to the woman, handcuffing her.
Librarian Patricia Jeschke had been murdered a month earlier. The unfortunate woman’s body was found in her home with head injuries and a telephone cord around her neck. The victim was abused before her death.
At first they tried to pin the murder on a certain repeat offender, Joseph Patrick Wabski, who was being treated for drug addiction and alcoholism in a rehabilitation center. And Hemme was going to be charged with concealing a crime. She had been in psychiatric hospitals more than once and also had problems with drugs. Her main “advantage” for investigators was that the girl, frightened and on sedatives, automatically agreed with whatever version suited the police.
As a result, Wabski had a solid alibi, was released, and Sandra, under pressure, took the blame for the murder. According to the circumstances, she was instructed by a free lawyer who was in collusion with the investigation (he, for example, ordered the telephone wire to be mentioned).
Sandra, 21, under pressure, admitted to the murder herself.
He screwed a colleague
The most interesting thing: the security forces did all this to get rid of their colleague, police officer Michael Holman. He left the police force a week after the murder.
The man used the victim’s credit cards and was caught. A black hair identical to his own was found on Jeschke’s bedsheets (but the fragment was absurdly deemed “too small” to be examined). Holman kept the victim’s earrings at home. In addition, witnesses saw a police van at the librarian’s home on the day of the tragedy.
But the only thing Holman was accused of was that he allegedly used Jeschke’s credit card to pay for a camera after finding her bag in a ditch. Investigators hid some of the evidence. The former police officer was only sentenced to two years, but was released on parole a year later. It is true that he went back to prison more than once after that for stealing and falsifying documents. But this is still not a particularly cruel murder – Holman died in 2015.
It was easier for the court to find Sandra guilty. Besides, the only evidence was her confession, no evidence at all.
At the request of Sandra’s new lawyers, the court overturned the sentence this year. But the decision had no effect on the Missouri attorney general. Why he was so angry with Hemme is a mystery. Despite the trial court’s order to release the woman on her own recognizance, the prosecutor called the prison warden and asked to… ignore the court order.
But the state appeals court insisted, and Hemme was released in late July.
FOREIGN THEFT
Mistakes in American investigations and justice often ruin the lives of Americans. The truth comes to light decades later only thanks to private detectives and stubborn lawyers.
Last spring, Sidney Holmes, 57, who spent 34 years behind bars, was released.
An African-American man was charged with robbing a store and shooting; he was supposedly the gang’s driver. Themis turned a blind eye to his alibi and other inconsistencies. For example, Holmes’ car did not match the description of the attackers’ car. He received a sentence of… 400 years.
“I never gave up hope and I always knew this day would come,” Holmes admitted after his case was heard in court. His mother was waiting for him from prison.
JURY FRAUD
A California court recently granted the state attorney general’s request for the release of 71-year-old African-American Curtis Lee Ervin. He spent 38 years behind bars, 33 of them on death row, accused of the contract killing of a woman named Carlene MacDonald.
The prosecution was able to prove that Ervin’s case was tried in court with violations: California prosecutors deliberately excluded blacks from the jury. Therefore, the Attorney General demanded Erwin’s release or a review of his case.
– He is grateful to all those who helped him. “I am in shock, as is my client,” the lawyer admitted.
FALSE EXAM
In December, an Oklahoma court acquitted Glynn Simmons, 71, who spent nearly half a century in prison for a murder he did not commit.
The court believed that Glynn killed the clerk during a liquor store robbery, as a witness claimed. Despite his alibi (Simmons was playing pool with friends), he was sentenced to death and later commuted to life in prison.
Marvin Grimm served 45 years in prison for abusing a three-year-old boy. A 20-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, he lived next door to the baby’s family. During interrogation, Simmons confessed everything.
He was released on parole in 2020. But the American was not guilty of the crime. He incriminated himself due to blackmail by investigators and threats of the death penalty. And the examination, according to which the eight hairs found in Graham’s car belonged to the murdered child, turned out to be wrong. Repeated DNA tests showed: all these hairs belong to different people and not to the victim at all.
