A 64-year-old woman has finally been released from prison after serving 43 years for a murder she did not commit.
Sandra Hemme from Missouri in the United States was freed in July 2024 after years of battling to prove her innocence with the help from the Innocence Project - a legal organisation that works to exonerate wrongly convicted individuals.
According to The Independent, the judge had ordered the prison to release Hemme within 30 days, however, days later, the prosecution blocked her release and took the decision on appeal.
After months of waiting, on Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court upheld the the lower court’s ruling and ordered Hemme’s release.
The publication said it was still not clear when should would be released.
Hemme was arrested for killing 31-year-old library worker, Patricia Jeschke on November 13, 1980. Hemme was 20 at the time.
The Kansas City Star reported that Hemme’s legal represantive, Sean O'Brien, argued that there was no evidence linking his client to the murder, instead, there was evidence that Michael Holman — a former police officer, who died in 2015, might have committed the murder.
O'Brien argued that there was evidence showing that Holman's car was seen outside Jeschke's house, he tried to use her credit card, and her earrings were found in his home.
The Innocence Project said police buried an investigation into Holman because evidence linking him to the murder was never revealed during Hemme’s trial, it was discovered later when challenging her conviction.
At the time of Jeschke’s death, Hemme was a patient at St. Joseph’s State Hospital and was receiving treatment for auditory hallucinations, derealisation, and drug misuse. She had been experiencing mental challenges since she was 12-years-old.
A day after Jeschke’s body was discovered, police were working at the crime scene when Hemme appeared in the area having just been discharged from the psychiatric hospital. She looked a bit confused and police decided to take her in for questioning.
The organisation said St. Joseph police conducted hours-long interviews with Hemme and some were conducted while she was in hospital on heavy medication. In some interviews, she was medicated that she was unable to even hold her head up and was restrained and strapped to a chair.
Even though Hemme’s statement failed to match with the evidence, police arrested her for the murder. Her “confession” was the only thing used to convict her.
She pleaded guilty in exchange for removing the possibility of the death penalty.
“Hemme was excluded as a source of all the hairs and fingerprints taken from the crime scene. There was no physical, forensic, or eyewitness evidence that linked her to the victim or the crime scene,” the organisation said.
According to the organisation, this isn’t the first time the St. Joseph police wrongfully targeted and convicted a person with mental health illness that made them uniquely vulnerable to falsely confessing.
IOL News