"And this is what we don't know:
Who is the real killer and what has that person done in the five years Lake County authorities focused their efforts on convicting the 39-year-old Hobbs?
How was the small sample of DNA missed five years ago?
Why would Jerry Hobbs confess to killing his own daughter when the new evidence suggests he did not?
It all sounds so familiar - and so troubling. A man wrongfully charged for a crime he didn't commit after actually confessing to that crime. DNA evidence not detected at first that leads to someone else."
EDITORIAL: THE DAILY HERALD; Wikipedia informs us that, "The Daily Herald is a daily newspaper printed in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The newspaper is distributed in the northern, northwestern and western suburbs of Chicago. The paper started in 1871 and is independently owned..."
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BACKGROUND: The northern Illinois man jailed on first-degree murder charges in the 2005 stabbing deaths of his daughter and another young girl was freed early in August, 2010, after prosecutors dropped charges because DNA evidence from the crime scene matched that of another man. Hobbs, 39, had pleaded not guilty in the stabbing deaths of his 8-year-old daughter, Laura, and her friend, 9-year-old Krystal Tobias in Zion, about 50 miles north of Chicago. Prosecutors in Lake County had several months earlier that DNA from the crime scene matched another man who once lived in Zion but was in custody in Virginia after being charged in two attacks on women. The DNA match came on June 25 from a national database, where the man's DNA had been recently entered, according to Lake County Deputy State's Attorney Jeffrey Pavletic. Prosecutors then relaunched their investigation. The man in custody in Virginia has not been charged in the 2005 Zion deaths. In May 2005, Jerry Hobbs reported finding the girls' bodies near their homes in Zion. Both had been stabbed numerous times. Prosecutors alleged Hobbs killed them because he was angry his daughter was outside when she was supposed to be home. Police said Hobbs confessed to the slayings, but his attorneys said the confession was coerced. Both defense attorneys and prosecutors have acknowledged there was no physical evidence linking Hobbs to the killings.
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"This is what we know today in the case of Jerry Hobbs," the Daily Herald editorial published on September 6, 2010, begins under the heading, "Troubling questions in Hobbs case."
"His daughter, Laura, and her friend, Krystal Tobias, just 8 and 9 respectively, were brutally murdered in Zion on Mother's Day 2005," the editorial continues.
"He spent five years in jail after confessing to the crime.
This week, he was released and the charges dropped when Lake County prosecutors said they no longer could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hobbs was the killer because of DNA found on Laura Hobbs that did not match her father.
And this is what we don't know:
Who is the real killer and what has that person done in the five years Lake County authorities focused their efforts on convicting the 39-year-old Hobbs?
How was the small sample of DNA missed five years ago?
Why would Jerry Hobbs confess to killing his own daughter when the new evidence suggests he did not?
It all sounds so familiar - and so troubling. A man wrongfully charged for a crime he didn't commit after actually confessing to that crime. DNA evidence not detected at first that leads to someone else.
This was exactly the case with Kevin Fox. In late 2007 we wrote an editorial urging Will County authorities to focus their efforts on finding the real killer of 3-year-old Riley Fox. They eventually charged someone else earlier this year. That editorial was written after a jury awarded Riley's parents, Kevin and Melissa, $15.5 million (later reduced to $8.6 million) in their lawsuit against the Will County detectives who arrested and interrogated Kevin Fox for the 2004 crime. Fox was held for eight months before being released.
Two other cases didn't involve confessions but are similar. The "Ford Heights Four" spent 18 years in prison before getting cleared in a 1978 double murder. They were awarded $36 million in a settlement with Cook County.
Rolando Cruz was awarded $3 million from DuPage County after Cruz was freed from death row in 1995 after his acquittal, in a third trial, of the 1983 murder of 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville.
Now Lake County law enforcement officials must answer these hard questions. And they may have to do it as part of a civil suit. Attorney Kathleen Zellner, who also represented Kevin Fox, has been hired by Hobbs' family to investigate.
"This is better DNA in this case than there was in Fox," Zellner said last month after a hearing on the DNA. "It's highly unusual for someone to be locked up for five years without a trial. So that's what we're investigating."
Indeed it is. We agree with Lake County State's Attorney Michael Waller who said Wednesday his priority "is holding somebody responsible for these murders." But we also believe his priority should be to fully investigate the early days of the murder case and why Jerry Hobbs would apparently falsely confess to the crime.
This is owed to Hobbs and to the people of Lake County."
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The story can be found at:
http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=398772
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be accessed at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
For a breakdown of some of the cases, issues and controversies this Blog is currently following, please turn to:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-feature-cases-issues-and.html
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog; hlevy15@gmail.com;
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