A judge overturned the conviction of a Missouri woman who spent 43 years in prison after incriminating herself in the 1980 murder when she was a psychiatric patient, with the judge and the woman’s lawyer suggesting that the former police officer could be the killer.
Judge Ryan Horsman ruled late Friday that Sandra Hemme, now 64, established substantial evidence of her innocence and must be released within 30 days unless prosecutors retry her in the death of library employee Patricia Jeschke, 31. The judge said Hemme’s defense counsel was ineffective and prosecutors did not disclose evidence that would have helped his defense.
Hemme’s lawyer, who filed a motion to seek immediate release, said it was the longest time a woman had been incarcerated for the crime.
“We are grateful for the Court to recognize the grave injustice Ms. Hemme has endured for more than forty years,” the lawyer said in a statement, pledging to continue in the effort to dismiss the charges and allow Hemme to be reunited with the family. .
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Hemme was shackled by the wrists and so sedated that she “couldn’t hold her head straight” or “utter anything beyond a monosyllabic response” when she was first asked about Jeschke’s death, according to her attorney.
The lawyer said in a petition seeking Hemme’s release that authorities ignored “conflicted” statements and withheld evidence linking police officer Michael Holman, who tried to use Jeschke’s credit card. Holman died in 2015.
The judge wrote that “there is no evidence whatsoever outside of Ms. Hemme’s unreliable statements that connects her to the crime.”
“In contrast, this Court finds that the evidence directly connects Holman to the scene of this crime and murder,” the judge wrote.
On November 13, 1980, Jeschke missed work and his distraught mother climbed into the window of her apartment and found his body naked on the floor in a pool of blood. Jeschke’s hands were tied behind his back with a telephone cord, a pair of tights was wrapped around his throat and a knife was under his head.
Hemme was not investigated in connection with the murder until he showed up almost two weeks later at the home of a nurse who had treated him when he was carrying a knife and refused to leave.
Police found Hemme in a closet and transported her back to St. John’s Hospital. He has been hospitalized several times since he started hearing voices at the age of 12.
Hemme had been discharged from the same hospital the day before Jeschke’s body was found, and arrived at his parents’ home later that night after riding more than 100 miles across the country. The timing seemed suspicious to law enforcement, and Hemme was later questioned.
Hemme was being treated with antipsychotic medication which caused involuntary muscle spasms when he was first questioned. He complained that his eyes were rolling back in his head, according to the attorney’s petition.
Detectives said Hemme appeared “mentally confused” and could not understand his questions.
“Each time the police took a statement from Ms. Hemme it changed dramatically from the last, often incorporating an explanation of the fact that the police had recently discovered,” her lawyer wrote in the petition.
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Hemme eventually claimed that he witnessed a man named Joseph Wabski kill Jeschke.
Wabski, whom Hemme met while they were both in the detoxification unit of a state hospital, was initially charged with capital murder before prosecutors quickly learned he was in an alcohol treatment center in Topeka, Kansas, at the time and dropped the charges against him.
After realizing that Wabski is not the killer, Hemme breaks down in tears and claims that he is.
Police also began looking at Holman as a suspect. About a month after the killing, Holman was arrested for falsely reporting his pickup truck stolen and collecting an insurance payment. The same truck was seen near the crime scene and Holman’s alibi, where he claimed to have spent the night with a woman in a nearby motel, could not be confirmed.
Holman, who was eventually fired and has since died, also tried to use Jeschke’s credit card at a camera store in Kansas City, Missouri, the same day he was found. Holman claims he found the credit card in his wallet left in the ditch.
During a search of Holman’s home, police found gold horseshoe-shaped earrings in a closet, which Jeschke’s father said he recognized as a pair he bought for her. Police also recovered jewelry stolen from another woman during a burglary earlier in the year.
The four-day investigation into Holman then ended abruptly, and Hemme’s attorney said he never provided many of the details he found.
Hemme wrote to his parents on Christmas Day 1980, saying he might as well change his plea to guilty.
“Even though I’m not guilty, they want to put someone else down, so they can say the case is over,” Hemme wrote.
“Just get it over with,” he added. “I’m tired.”
The following spring, Hemme agreed to plead guilty to capital murder in exchange for the death penalty.
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But the judge initially rejected her plea because she failed to show enough details about what happened.
His attorney said his chances of avoiding the death penalty depended on the judge accepting a guilty plea. After a break and some training, he gave the judges more details.
That plea was later overturned on appeal, but he was re-convicted in 1985 after a one-day trial in which jurors did not comment on what lawyers now say was “extremely coercive” interrogation.
The system has “failed at every opportunity,” Larry Harman said in his attorney’s petition. Harman, now a judge, previously helped Hemme get an early guilty plea.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.