BACKGROUND: "Four years after the naked and battered body of Barbara Jean Horn was found in a trash bag in Philadelphia, the police had made no arrests despite having a series of suspects. Ogrod was not considered a suspect in the 1988 murder of 4-year-old Barbara Jean Horn until three years after her body was found. He had no criminal record and didn’t match the physical description of the man seen carrying the box Horn was found in. There were no signs of sexual assault on her body. Ogrod was described by acquaintances as unable to make decisions for himself and easily manipulated due to a mental disability. He confessed to the murder and attempted assault after an unrecorded interrogation by detectives Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell, who obtained false confessions that led to exonerations in at least two other cases. His retrial (the first ended in a mistrial) included a notorious jailhouse informant known as “the Monsignor” due to his apparent knack for hearing confessions. Ogrod was convicted and sentenced to death in 1996. (Patricia) Cummings (Supervisor Conviction Integrity Unit) wrote Saturday that Devlin and Worrell “utilized inherently coercive tactics and inaccurate information to obtain a false and unreliable confession from Ogrod; and jailhouse informants colluded to provide false and unreliable testimony against Ogrod in an effort to procure favorable treatment in their own criminal prosecutions.” No credible evidence remains that can prove Ogrod killed Horn, which means Horn’s real murderer remains unknown and may have committed other crimes, Cummings wrote."
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: ""Walter Ogrod is officially exonerated. Five days after a Philadelphia judge agreed to overturn Ogrod’s conviction in the 1988 killing of 4-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, another judge on Wednesday agreed to let prosecutors withdraw all outstanding charges against him — the final step in Ogrod’s two-decade fight to clear his name.
GIST: "Walter Ogrod is officially exonerated.
Five days after a Philadelphia judge agreed to overturn Ogrod’s conviction in the 1988 killing of 4-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, another judge on Wednesday agreed to let prosecutors withdraw all outstanding charges against him — the final step in Ogrod’s two-decade fight to clear his name.
One of Ogrod’s attorneys, Andrew Gallo, said Common Pleas Court Judge Leon W. Tucker allowed the District Attorney’s Office to formally drop the case without a hearing. Though Ogrod, 55, had been released from prison last week, he still technically faced a new trial in the case — something prosecutors made clear they had no intention of pursuing because they believe him to be innocent.
Tucker’s actions on Wednesday closed the door on the case.Gallo said he was “happy that [the issue] was resolved quickly,” and that Ogrod was "very pleased to have this chapter of his life behind him.”
Ogrod has insisted since his 1992 arrest that he did not kill Barbara Jean, whose remains had been found four years earlier inside a cardboard box on the 1400 block of St. Vincent Street in Northeast Philadelphia.
His arrest was based in part on a confession he allegedly gave to two detectives, Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell. Earlier this year, the District Attorney’s Office said it believed Ogrod’s statement had been coerced. Prosecutors have accused the two detectives of coercing statements from defendants in other cases, and said they are reviewing an unspecified number of other convictions tied to them.
Prosecutors said Ogrod’s conviction was fundamentally flawed due to a host of other issues, including key evidence that was withheld by police and prosecutors at trial, and unreliable testimony from jailhouse informants.
During a hearing last week, Assistant District Attorney Carrie Wood apologized to Ogrod, Barbara Jean’s family members, and the city, saying the prosecutor’s office had previously concealed the truth about the case and "threatened to execute [Ogrod] based on falsehoods.”
Barbara Jean’s mother, Sharon Fahy, has said that she, too, now believes in Ogrod’s innocence, and that she supported his release from prison.
Krasner, in a statement, said Ogrod’s case was “not a feel-good story; what he suffered is beyond measure, and can never be undone.”
