Blue Monk
Graduate Poster
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2002
- Messages
- 1,769
While were on the subject I’d like to bring up a local conviction I have serious reservations about.
It concerns a very high-profile case known as ‘The Yogurt Shop Murders’ and you may have heard of it as it got lots of national attention.
It was a particularly heinous crime. Someone entered an “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt’ shop here in Austin where four teenage girls worked and after robbing the place they raped and killed the girls and then set fire to the shop to destroy evidence.
Needless to say this outraged and sickened our community and we all wanted to see the killers brought to justice.
The problem was there was virtually no physical evidence to work with. No murder weapon, no DNA and most anything relevant was destroyed by fire.
Months turned into years and everyone was frustrated. There was one very public misstep as some Mexican Nationals being held in Mexico ‘confessed’ to the crime but it was later determined that they were not the guilty parties and had only confessed because they were beaten by the police.
Finally after many years the police issued warrants and arrested four men who were teenagers at the time and charged them with the crime. Charges were soon dropped against one due to lack of evidence but most feel that the police had finally found those responsible and they had confessions.
Before they actually came to trial, however, a very disturbing photo appeared in the local paper. It was from an overhead camera in the interrogation room where one of the defendants was being questioned and it very clearly showed a detective holding a gun to the defendants head.
The police account of this stated that the gun was not loaded and that it had nothing to do with intimidation and that the detective was merely acting out a point in the defendant’s confession for clarification.
Nonetheless, the first defendant to stand trial, Robert Springsteen, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death based on his and another’s confession, even though there were serious doubts raised as to whether or not coercion was involved, there was no physical evidence linking any of the suspects to the crime and no murder weapon was ever recovered.
I would very much like to see those responsible held accountable but I am also very disturbed that this man should be sentenced to death on this evidence. I was not at the trial and in my heart I do believe that they have the right individuals yet I have a hard time believing this is enough evidence to qualify as ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ and to justify a young man’s execution.
It is certainly not the first time I have had qualms about a death sentence in my home state.
It concerns a very high-profile case known as ‘The Yogurt Shop Murders’ and you may have heard of it as it got lots of national attention.
It was a particularly heinous crime. Someone entered an “I Can’t Believe It’s Yogurt’ shop here in Austin where four teenage girls worked and after robbing the place they raped and killed the girls and then set fire to the shop to destroy evidence.
Needless to say this outraged and sickened our community and we all wanted to see the killers brought to justice.
The problem was there was virtually no physical evidence to work with. No murder weapon, no DNA and most anything relevant was destroyed by fire.
Months turned into years and everyone was frustrated. There was one very public misstep as some Mexican Nationals being held in Mexico ‘confessed’ to the crime but it was later determined that they were not the guilty parties and had only confessed because they were beaten by the police.
Finally after many years the police issued warrants and arrested four men who were teenagers at the time and charged them with the crime. Charges were soon dropped against one due to lack of evidence but most feel that the police had finally found those responsible and they had confessions.
Before they actually came to trial, however, a very disturbing photo appeared in the local paper. It was from an overhead camera in the interrogation room where one of the defendants was being questioned and it very clearly showed a detective holding a gun to the defendants head.
The police account of this stated that the gun was not loaded and that it had nothing to do with intimidation and that the detective was merely acting out a point in the defendant’s confession for clarification.
Nonetheless, the first defendant to stand trial, Robert Springsteen, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death based on his and another’s confession, even though there were serious doubts raised as to whether or not coercion was involved, there was no physical evidence linking any of the suspects to the crime and no murder weapon was ever recovered.
I would very much like to see those responsible held accountable but I am also very disturbed that this man should be sentenced to death on this evidence. I was not at the trial and in my heart I do believe that they have the right individuals yet I have a hard time believing this is enough evidence to qualify as ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ and to justify a young man’s execution.
It is certainly not the first time I have had qualms about a death sentence in my home state.
