I am generally very sympathetic to claims of wrongful convictions. I surprised myself when, after reading more and more about the Truscott case, I started coming to the conclusion that this case doesn't fit the classic mold of a wrongful conviction.
Stephen Truscott Might
Have Done It
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 it would take to get himself off the hook.
Truthful accounts always agree on known facts. They inevitably disagree on the unknown. Truscott acknowledged that he gave Lynn Harper a ride on his bike the night of her death. He had to. There were too many witnesses. And his story is very consistent on this part of the evening. But his story seemed to vary on the details that he thought or knew with some certainty could not have been known by the police. He never provided any details the police didn't know about that could be independently, reliably verified.
Truscott sounded like he had foundered upon the unknown, and the unknown could have been what he thought the Supreme Court would have thought he was doing if he wasn't raping and murdering Lynne Harper.
The second reason 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 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?
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?
He was only 14. 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.
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.
Copyright © 2007 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.
