Guy Heinze jr. - another wrongful conviction

[Charlie Wilkes]

That guy needs to get a new lawyer and appeal based on ineffective assistance of counsel. This is so absurd I have to wonder if there is more to the story.

He might have figured a guilty verdict with no DP was the best he was going to get, so why force a mistrial. But I also think there probably is more to the story. I bet the cops have a pretty good idea who really killed these people, and they know damn well it wasn't Heinze jr.

 

[Samson]

He might have figured a guilty verdict with no DP was the best he was going to get, so why force a mistrial. But I also think there probably is more to the story. I bet the cops have a pretty good idea who really killed these people, and they know damn well it wasn't Heinze jr.

You have said this a couple of times. It seems a remarkable proposition. It seems there must be well discovered precedents for you to be so confident. Is there well researched literature that describes similar malfeasance?

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

You have said this a couple of times. It seems a remarkable proposition. It seems there must be well discovered precedents for you to be so confident. Is there well researched literature that describes similar malfeasance?

Well... it's conjecture, and I hope I haven't tried to suggest it is more than that, because I don't know. But it is reasonable conjecture, and there are precedents, starting with the Dreyfus case. The real traitor (Esterhazy) was tried and acquitted in a closed-door proceeding, because exposing him would have made the French high command look bad.

Another one to look at is the Barry Beach case in Montana. Beach was convicted of murdering a teenage girl on the strength of a false confession. It's more likely this girl was killed by a group of peers who resented her (cf Kelly Ellard/Reena Virk). One of these peers was the daughter of a local cop. Evidence disappeared from a locker at the police station, fingerprints were never matched, and rumors have been swirling ever since. But Beach is back in prison after having been released for a couple of years. The Montana court system is determined to protect this wrongful conviction.

Also look at the Marty Tankleff case. He has been cleared of murdering his parents. The real perpetrator was probably a business associate of Tankleff's father who again had connections to the local police dept.

In the Heinze Jr. case, we have a witness who says two men threatened to kill the entire family of one of the murder victims. If he knew these guys had a vendetta, probably other people did too. The guys who do what happened to Heinze Jr.'s family are not like sex killers, who usually don't tell anyone. They are local tough guys who want people to be afraid of them, so they let it be known. And of course people who know something are afraid to talk to the cops, for good reason. Even so, I'm guessing it's very likely these murders could have been solved with a proper investigation, and perhaps still could be.

I harbor similar suspicions in the Lundy case as well.

 

[newyorkguy]

...In the Heinze Jr. case, we have a witness who says two men threatened to kill the entire family of one of the murder victims.

I read on the local message board that the police looked at the other suspects but one of the men seemed to have an airtight alibi that he was somewhere else when the murders took place and the police then focused on Guy Heinze Jr.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

nunchuck redux

I read on the local message board that the police looked at the other suspects but one of the men seemed to have an airtight alibi that he was somewhere else when the murders took place and the police then focused on Guy Heinze Jr.

newyorkguy,

See this link for a little bit of information on the alternate suspects and an alternate murder weapon. The cops theorized that the murder weapon was a missing stock from a shotgun, which was never found. I previously implied that the nunchucks made more sense. See also this link for information on a knife and a cell phone.

 

[HumanityBlues]

I read a bit on the defense experts testimony that there was no blood splatter on the defendant, which the expert said would have happened if he did this. But I can't find anything about the cross exam of the expert witness or any expert witness by the prosecution. Did the prosecution have any explanation or counter argument?

 

[Chris_Halkides]

let's just use the same bag

"A cell phone also found in the car contained blood belonging to Joe West, another of the victims." link Whose phone was this, and was it in the trailer at the time of the murders?

"Lt. Kevin Bullard with Glynn County Sheriffs Office testified he took Heinze's booking photo and put his clothing in a nylon mesh bag. During cross examination the defense got Bullard to admit its possible the evidence in the bag could be cross contaminated or this evidence could contaminate other evidence because the mesh bags are reused." Don't get me started on contamination.

 

[Chris_Halkides]

Michael Knox's testimony

Apparently Websleuths had a thread, and from that thread, one can find some news stories. The quotes below come from two news stories.

"All eight victims Heinze is charged with slaying had blunt force trauma that caused their deaths, but there were other wounds that don’t fit the pattern of a single weapon, he testified.

“There’s a variety of weapons that resulted in these types of injuries,’’ Knox testified.
By studying the blood patterns, Knox said, it was evident a short, heavy weapon was used in addition to the long, slender one that caused much of the fatal blunt force trauma to the victims’ heads.

He also referred to a bathroom where clothes with blood on them were found piled but never processed."

"Knox testified that the blood on the shorts was transfer blood that got on the shorts after the crimes not blood spattered on the shorts during the beating, Hamilton said."

 

[Charlie Wilkes]

I read on the local message board that the police looked at the other suspects but one of the men seemed to have an airtight alibi that he was somewhere else when the murders took place and the police then focused on Guy Heinze Jr.

They only found out about these other people after they had charged Heinze Jr. One of them was in jail at the time of the murders, but he might have been part of a larger group. This looks like a hit where someone - a local drug lord, maybe - used hired muscle.