A judge overturned a man’s conviction Missouri Woman who spent 43 years in prison after pleading guilty to a murder in 1980 that she believed was a psychopath. The judge and the woman’s lawyers had suggested the killer could be a former police officer.
Judge Ryan Horsman ruled late Friday that Sandra Hemme, now 64, has presented evidence of actual innocence and must be released within 30 days unless prosecutors try her again in the death of library employee Patricia Jeske, 31. The judge said Hemme’s trial attorneys were ineffective and prosecutors did not turn over evidence that would have helped her defense.
Hemme’s lawyers, who filed a petition seeking her immediate release, said it was the longest a woman has been held in prison for a wrongful conviction.
“We are grateful to the court for recognizing the grave injustice that Ms. Hemme has suffered for more than four decades,” her lawyers said in a statement. They vowed to continue their efforts to dismiss the charges and reunite Hemme with her family.
Sandra Hemme, now 64, spent 43 years in prison before a judge overturned her murder conviction. (Missouri Department of Corrections, via AP)
According to Hemme’s lawyers, when she was first questioned about Jeschke’s death her wrists were shackled and she was so sedated that she was “unable to keep her head straight” or “provide anything articulate other than one-word answers.”
In a petition seeking to exonerate Hemme, the lawyers said authorities ignored his “wildly contradictory” statements and suppressed evidence implicating then-police Officer Michael Holman, who attempted to use Jeschke’s credit card. Holman died in 2015.
The judge wrote that “other than Ms. Hemme’s unreliable statements, no evidence links her to the crime.”
“On the contrary, this Court finds that the evidence directly links Holman to this crime and the murder scene,” the judge wrote.
On November 13, 1980, Jeschke did not go to work and her worried mother peered through her apartment window and discovered her naked body on the floor covered in blood. Jeschke’s hands were tied behind her back with a telephone cord, a pantyhose was wrapped around her neck and a knife was held under her head.
Hemme was not investigated in connection with the murder until she turned up nearly two weeks later at the home of a nurse who had once treated her, while wielding a knife and refusing to leave.
Police found Hemme in a closet and took her back to St. Joseph’s Hospital. She had been hospitalized several times since she began hearing voices at age 12.
Hemme had been discharged from the same hospital the day before Jeschke’s body was found, and she traveled more than 100 miles across the state to her parents’ home that night. Law enforcement found the timing suspicious, and Hemme was later questioned.
Hemme was being treated with antipsychotic drugs, which caused her to have involuntary muscle spasms when she was first questioned. According to her lawyers’ petition, she complained that her eyes were rolling back.
Detectives said Hemme appeared “mentally confused” and was unable to fully understand their questions.
“Each time the police took a statement from Ms. Hemme, it changed dramatically from the previous statement, and often included clarification of facts that police had recently uncovered,” her attorneys wrote in the petition.
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A judge ruled that Sandra Hemme had established evidence of actual innocence. (iStock)
Hemme eventually claimed he had seen a man named Joseph Wabski murder Jeschke.
Wabsky, whom Hemme had met while they were both staying in the state hospital’s detoxification unit, was initially charged with murder, but prosecutors later learned he was in an alcohol treatment center in Topeka, Kansas at the time, and the charges against him were dropped.
After learning that Wabski was not the killer, Hemme began crying and claimed that she was the killer.
Police also began to view Holman as a suspect. About a month after the murder, Holman was arrested for falsely reporting his pickup truck stolen and collecting insurance payments. The same truck was seen near the crime scene, and Holman’s testimony, in which he claimed he spent the night with a woman at a nearby motel, could not be corroborated.
Holman, who was eventually fired and is now dead, also attempted to use Jeschke’s credit card at a camera store in Kansas City, Missouri, on the same day her body was found. Holman claimed he found the credit card in a purse that had been discarded in a ditch.
During a search of Holman’s home, police found a pair of horseshoe-shaped gold earrings in a closet, which Jeschke’s father said he recognized as a pair he had bought for her. Police also found jewelry stolen from another woman during a burglary that occurred earlier that year.
four day investigation The investigation into Holman ended abruptly, and Hemme’s lawyers said they were never given many of the details that were uncovered.
Hemme wrote to her parents on Christmas Day 1980 saying she might change her plea to guilty.
“Even though I’m innocent they want to put someone in jail so they can say the case is solved,” Hemme wrote.
“Just let it be over,” she said. “I’m tired.”
The following spring, Hemme agreed to plead guilty to capital murder in exchange for not considering the death penalty.
Sandra Hemme’s lawyers filed a petition demanding her immediate release. (MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)
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But the judge initially rejected her guilty plea because she failed to share enough details about the incident.
His lawyer told him that his chance of avoiding the death penalty depended on the judge accepting his guilty plea. After a holiday and some coaching, he gave the judge more information.
That plea was later rejected on appeal, but he was convicted again in 1985 after a one-day trial in which jurors were not told details that his current lawyers say subjected them to “disgraceful coercive” questioning.
Larry Herman, his attorneys’ filing said the system “failed him at every opportunity.” Herman, now a judge, previously helped get Hemme’s initial guilty plea dismissed.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
