At the wrong place, at the wrong time. Would people believe you if you were suspected of, say, killing someone and you say that you just happened to be at the wrong place, at the wrong time?
Well, I wouldn't know anyone in person who were wrongfully accused of committing a crime that they did not commit and were convicted of it. But how can we really know if the accused is innocent or not?
That's where evidence and eyewitness accounts should come in to tie up the stories with the facts. But even then, can we be 100% sure about it? Because if we can't, then we're going to ruin an innocent person's life.
“I tucked Joel in, but I feel so guilty I didn’t hold him longer,” Julie Rea said, her voice welling with emotion. That is all she can muster about the worst night of her life. As she tries to say more, she breaks down.
The story remains, still, almost unspeakable. In the early morning hours of Oct. 13, 1997, Rea was jolted awake by a scream. She discovered an intruder, but saw no sign of her son, in her Lawrenceville, Illinois, home. She told police that she struggled with the man, who fled. Then ran for help. But it was too late. Her son, 10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick, had been stabbed to death.
At the time of the murder, Rea was a single mother working toward a doctorate in educational psychology. She had divorced Joel’s father three years earlier and was leading a quiet, uneventful life in the wake of a turbulent marriage. The mild-mannered daughter of missionaries, Rea had devoted herself to her bright, inquisitive son.
But in 2000, after a protracted and deeply flawed investigation, Rea was charged with killing Joel.
Read about Rea's story on ProPublica.
(Image credit: Benjamin Rasmussen/The New York Times via ProPublica)
Comments (0)
1. The unipiper is one of the most annoying people this city has to offer. I know this because he used to bring his schtick to my neighborhood. Believe me, the last thing you want before noon on your day off is some d-bag on a unicycle with a set of bag pipes while you're trying to sleep off a hangover.
2. Rogue beer in general sucks. They had their moment back in the late '90s and early '00s when craft beer was still a new enough thing that people couldn't recognize a bad product for what it is. These days their beer is at best mediocre ad at worst completely undrinkable. The only reason anyone claims to like the Voodoo Doughnuts beer is because they don't want to admit they wasted $10 on a bottle of grotesque sugary swamp water.
3. Buckman Botanical is the worst brewery in the whole Rogue empire. I have never tasted any beer from that brewery that I found even remotely drinkable. They have managed to combine weird ingredients with some of the worst sanitation in a brewery I've ever seen.
Final thoughts: I am speaking with first hand knowledge here. Seriously, Rouge beer isn't very good, it's just well marketed.