I am now part of a very,
very small minority: I think Stephen Truscott might
have done it.
The Supreme Court was
right, in it's recent ruling, to declare that Truscott would not today have
been found guilty by a reasonable jury of the charges against him, based on
the evidence offered at this original trial and now somewhat discredited.
But it was also right to say that it could not, with any degree of
certainty, pronounce him innocent.
There are two main reasons
for my uncertainty. Firstly, Truscott's testimony before the Supreme
Court when it initially reviewed the case in 1966 was extremely problematic.
He was given ample opportunity to impress the court with a clear, forthright
description of what happened the night of June 9, 1959. Instead, he
seemed to equivocate, blend, improvise, and evade. He was a bad
witness in every respect.
Truscott never testified at
his original trial, as was his prerogative.
Now, it's clearly possible
that he was nervous, confused, or even evasive for the wrong reasons, but
whatever the cause, he could not give a rational narrative account of how he
took Lynne Harper down the road to the highway, who he passed and did not
pass, how long it took, and then how he left her there and then turned
around to see her get into a stranger's car. It seemed to some of the
justices that he was trying to say whatever he thought would convince them
that he was innocent, instead of trusting to a real narrative of the nights
events. By itself, this isn't compelling... but it's disturbing.
Truscott acknowledged
to the police that he gave Lynn Harper a ride on his bike the night of her
death. There was an interesting period of two days before his arrest
in which Truscott circulated among his friends, who were all talking about
the disappearance of Lynne Harper, and many of whom knew Truscott had been
seen with her moments before she disappeared. If Truscott was guilty,
his situation was precarious. He needed to know how much they knew.
It was immediately apparent that everyone knew he had given her a ride, but
it was also apparent that nobody had seen him take her into Lawson's Bush.
But he almost acts as if he was worried someone did-- he tells some of his
friends that he had gone there looking for stray calves that evening.
Later, he denied this.
But his
story seems to vary on the details that he thought or knew with some
certainty could not have been known by anyone else. He never provided
any details the police didn't know about that could be independently,
reliably verified.
The second reason for
my uncertainty of his innocence is the problem of the location where they
found Lynne Harper's body. There is some fairly strong evidence to
indicate that Harper had been murdered and raped exactly where her body was
found in Lawson's woods-- there seemed to be indentations where a
rapist's knees and toes would have dug into the ground. This means
that, if Truscott didn't do it, whoever did do it picked her up at the
highway, drove off, then turned around and brought her back to the
area from which he had abducted her,
took her into Lawson's woods, murdered and raped her, and left her there to
be found two days later. Even if the real perpetrator had murdered her
somewhere else, he remarkably delivered her body right back into the
neighborhood from which he taken her, and where, presumably, parents and
friends might be out looking for her.
It's not inconceivable.
That's why, as I said, I would personally have voted "not guilty". But
it's not very likely. It's difficult to explain. It's difficult
to imagine. Did he take her somewhere for a few hours and then return when
none of the kids swimming or fishing in the Bayfield River (between the
highway and the woods) were still around? Did he get confused and
drive around and end up back where he started by mistake? Was the
scientific evidence mistaken: was she raped somewhere else and then
perversely returned to the area he took her from, for some grim joke?
There is one possibility I hadn't considered
when I first wrote this piece. Suppose Truscott's story was true, and
she had been picked up by a stranger in a car. Suppose that after
driving some distance away, the stranger began to frighten her with his
behavior, or suppose she changed her mind about running away, and suppose
that, in either case, she asked him to bring her back home? Suppose he
did, reluctantly, and then, at the last minute, saw Lawson's woods on the
left, drove down the old farm road, and attacked her there?
Don't forget that farmer Bob Lawson,
after he heard that Lynne was missing, reported to the police that he had
seen a strange car parked along the wood about 10:00 the night Lynne
disappeared, and that he had exchanged words with the driver who then
quickly drove away. He thought he saw a much smaller person than the
driver in the passenger seat.
The only problem with this scenario is that
it would have been unlikely to have gone without notice in the first few
hours after Truscott left her at the highway, because of the number of
witnesses, and the day light. Again, it's possible, but.... [added
April 27, 2008]
Some of the reasons that
people give for believing Truscott is innocent don't carry a lot of weight
with me. Sure he has consistently maintained his innocence for all
these years. Sure he actively sought a retrial with very little to
gain. Sure he seems like a very nice man. But he didn't
seriously pursue exoneration until after he was married. Did he
suddenly have a passion for clearing his name? Or did the passion come
from his wife, who believed his claims of innocence, and was outraged by
injustice of it all. Is it possible that Stephen Truscott, at that
stage of his life, felt lucky just to be free? Is it equally possible
he did not have faith in a justice system that had so clearly gotten it
wrong?
He was only 14 at the time of Lynne Harper's
murder. But
he was 5' 7" at the time, and 130 pounds.
As I said, I have no
problem believing that Truscott might have been wrongfully convicted.
Jocelyn Gaudet's testimony now impresses no one. The bicycle track
found near the body was farcically unlikely to have come from Truscott's
bike (it was made in the mud and there had been no rain for a long time). The time of death given by the pathologist as precisely during
the hour Truscott was with Harper is now disbelieved. This testimony
was initially regarded as proof she died early in the evening-- while she
was with Truscott. A reexamination of the evidence only proves that
she could have died later.
But that's important-- this evidence has been re-examined carefully because
it is so pivotal to the case. She could
have been killed later. At least one expert, Dr. Warren Spitz, who
examined the reports 40 years later, said he "stood behind" the original
autopsy conclusions.
The testimony of the
children at the river and along the road is inconsistent and unreliable.
Astonishingly, it still is today! That alone deserves a book: they
can't all still be telling the truth. Their memories have become
conformed to whatever version of the story they have insisted on telling
again and again and again over all the years but, I repeat, they can't
possibly all be telling the truth. Either Truscott rode past the
culvert with Lynne Harper on his bike and returned without her or he didn't.
I'm never surprised to read
about a case of wrongful conviction. I think the police and
prosecutors often pick on the first likely suspect and build a case around
him. I just read about how a man convicted of rape and
murder in Mississippi and sentenced to death was recently released after DNA
evidence proved that he was not the source of the sperm found on the
victim's body. The man is black and mildly retarded. The
authorities say they might still try him again, because they don't find DNA
evidence "convincing". He might have had an accomplice.
"We didn't need DNA evidence to convict him the first time" says a state
attorney. I have very little doubt that they got the wrong man.
I'm pretty sure this guy was railroaded and the police obviously made no
effort to catch the real perpetrator. Did I mention that he was black?
I don't have that degree of
certainty about Truscott and, unless someone finds the missing specimen jars
somewhere, I think I never will.
The DNA evidence from the
Truscott case-- whatever there was left of the samples they took from Lynne
Harper's body-- went missing years ago and is presumed lost. That is a
tragedy.
