Missouri womans murder conviction overturned after 40 years as suspicions turn to ex-cop

A judge overturned the conviction of a Missouri woman who spent 43 years in prison after incriminating herself in a 1980 killing while she was a psychiatric patient, with the judge and the woman’s lawyers suggesting a former police officer may have been the killer.Judge Ryan Horsman ruled late Friday that Sandra Hemme, now 64, established evidence of actual innocence and must be released within 30 days unless prosecutors retry her in the case of 31-year-old library worker Patricia Jeschke’s death.The judge said Hemme’s trial counsel was ineffective and prosecutors did not reveal evidence that would have helped her defense.Hemme’s attorneys, who filed a motion seeking her immediate release, said this is the longest time a woman has been incarcerated for a wrongful conviction.“We are grateful to the Court for acknowledging the grave injustice Ms.Hemme has endured for more than four decades,” her attorneys said in a statement, pledging to continue in their efforts to dismiss the charges and allow Hemme to be reunited with her family.Hemme was shackled in wrist restraints and so heavily sedated to the point that she “could not hold her head up straight” or “articulate anything beyond monosyllabic responses” when she was initially questioned about Jeschke’s death, according to her lawyers.The lawyers said in a petition seeking Hemme’s exoneration that authorities ignored her “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 “no evidence whatsoever outside of Ms.Hemme’s unreliable statements connects her to the crime.”“In contrast, this Court finds that the evidence directly ties Holman to this crime and murder scene,” the judge wrote.On Nov.

13, 1980, Jeschke missed work and her concerned mother climbed through a window in her apartment and discovered her nude body on the floor in a pool...