PUBLISHER'S NOTE: A fascinating post by Peter Gill, on Andrew L. Urban's Blog 'The Wrongful Conviction's Report' explaining why the element of 'suspicion, fueled by media, is relevant to a wrongful convictions website prompted by the recent discovery of the recent discovery of the dead bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa. were found on Wednesday 26 February.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
———————————————————————————————
PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: "People – police, the public, jury members, anyone who’s watched crime shows on TV – simply don’t seem to like innocent explanations. Their minds, fuelled by crime shows in TV and movies – expect a culprit. But accidents do happen. Falls do happen. Often. Let’s look at a few local Wrongful Convictions to see if there is any trend for media speculation to turn an accident or the like (ie an obvious explanation) into murder, fuelling a murder trial which should eventually be overturned.
—————————————————————————————————————
PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Keli Lane: Keli was told that anyone involved in an illegal abortion would get 2 or 3 years in jail. Not wanting that to happen, and assured by her outclassed lawyers that she would not lose her trial, she expected that, after the media frenzy of her case settled down, she’d be found not guilty. That’s why she banged her head against the wooden dock so hard that paramedics were called, when she heard the guilty verdict. Keli copped a double whammy recently – she’s now eligible for parole, but in response to the media-swamped Chris Dawson rightful conviction, the NSW government introduced a “no body, no parole” law – if Keli can’t say where the dead body is, Keli can’t get parole. Since there’s no dead body, she’s a bit stuck. The trial and appeal revealed that, like Folbigg, Keli is a good mother, but in both cases the media and the prosecution thrived on suggesting otherwise."
----------------------------------------------------
POST: "Suspicion – fuelled by media – can lead to Wrongful Convictions," by Peter Gill, published by Andrew L. Urban's Wrongful Conviction Report, on March 3, 2025.
SUB-HEADING: "Public suspicion can (mis)lead courts & juries to miscarriages of justice, as contributor Peter Gill finds."
GIST: "Sadly, the dead bodies of Gene Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found on Wednesday 26 February. The media have reported the following:
- Betsy’s partly-decomposed body was found on the bathroom floor, with a bottle of tablets scattered beside her. A black space heater had probably fallen in the bathroom too.
- Gene’s pacemaker stopped recording his heartbeat on 17 February.
- Gene’s partly-mummified body was found in the Mud Room, with his cane and sunglasses fallen beside him. A Deputy said it looked like he’d had a fall. A Mud Room is a small room near the front door, for taking your shoes off etc.
- Fatal falls are relatively common. CDC data in USA for 2021 found twice as many fatal falls as homicides. The CDC also found more than 14 million non-fatal falls in USA in 2021 by older people. Falls are an under-reported source of injury, anguish and even death, because – unlike murder and suicide – falls are not a crime, thus no good for selling newspapers. Falls are just accidents, un-newsworthy accidents.
- Gene was 95. Betsy was 63.
- One of their dogs was found dead in or near a closet attached to the bathroom. Their other two dogs were fine.
- The gas valves and pipes have been checked, and are fine.
- Bathrooms are one of the danger areas where people have falls.
- When panicked, falls are more likely.
The media are rife with speculation about “suspicious” circumstances. That sells newspapers. Accidents do not sell newspapers. (Ed: in most cases)
Joining the dots from the above evidence produces this sad scenario – which might well be what happened. (Ed: Or not)
On Feb 17, Betsy reached for the tablets, screaming as she slipped and fell onto the bathroom floor. Gene heard her scream, rushed inside, but fell in the Mud Room. They were unable to help each other. Their bodies were discovered nine days later by the first person (tradesman?) to arrive at the house. One dog, without access to water or food, sadly passed away too.
So why is this relevant to a Wrongful Convictions website?
Both the media and the social media discussions on Reddit etc of Gene’s death focus heavily on suspicious circumstances – suicide or murder.
People – police, the public, jury members, anyone who’s watched crime shows on TV – simply don’t seem to like innocent explanations. Their minds, fuelled by crime shows in TV and movies – expect a culprit. But accidents do happen. Falls do happen. Often.
Let’s look at a few local Wrongful Convictions to see if there is any trend for media speculation to turn an accident or the like (ie an obvious explanation) into murder, fuelling a murder trial which should eventually be overturned.
Lindy Chamberlain
Simple explanation – a dingo took and killed her baby. Fuelled by suspicion and innuendo in the community and in the media, a witch hunt took off, pervading the court system, until at long last concrete evidence of a dingo’s culpability emerged when a tourist fell from Uluṟu to his death among dingo lairs. Dingo attacks had been rife at Uluṟu before Azaria died, but were covered up in an attempt to create a murder case.
The reality nowadays is that all the real evidence, ignoring any misleading created evidence, is that a dingo did it.
The ring road back to the simple explanation is over.
Tim Anderson
Prosecutor Tedeschi’s first wrongful conviction. The media frenzy about the Hilton bombing, combined with Tim’s history, made Tim a suitable patsy when political pressure required a scapegoat to be found. Add to the media frenzy that the prosecutor Tedeschi never lost a jury trial in about 30 years of prosecuting, and Anderson had no chance. When freed, Anderson spent a decade trying to get authorities to rectify the system so that subsequent wrongful convictions didn’t happen, but his complaints fell on deaf ears before finally being dropped without ever being investigated. A chance to save heaps of money was thus lost by the authorities, whose stone wall in the face of any criticism circumvented any lessons being learned from the Lindy Chamberlain and Tim Anderson cases.
Gordon Wood in Sydney
His girlfriend jumped to her death. Masses of evidence indicated a suicide jump.
The police and others accepted that it was a suicide (ref Wikipedia). A couple of years later, the girlfriend’s father, whose wife had committed suicide and daughter taken an overdose a few years earlier, lobbied for it to be murder, and, fuelled by the media, the police used suspicion and innuendo to invent an implausible murder case, which was torn to shreds by Judges Peter McClellan and Stephen Rothman on appeal. Nowadays, every piece of real evidence indicates suicide, but even nowadays public discussions of the case on social media often don’t believe that reality.
Simon Gittany in Sydney
His fiancée fell accidentally to her death from a balcony. Masses of evidence indicates an accidental fall. Simon Gittany showed the police how to find a hidden camera whose video showed Simon Gittany with his mouth over his fiancée’s mouth to stop the neighbours from hearing her yelling. The police said they would never have found that camera hidden in a wall if Simon hadn’t volunteered its location to them. Hardly the act of a guilty man. The authorities widely circulated a freeze frame from that video, which to most viewers looks like he’s strangling her, though he is not. So he became the face of domestic violence, though the domestic violence never happened in this case. With such a background, Tedeschi had little trouble winning yet another conviction, and getting Gittany out of jail is going to be tough. Oh, the chaos that can unfold after an accident.
Gable Tostee
Just after Gittany’s fiancée fell, Tostee was charged with murder when his date fell accidentally to her death from a balcony on the Gold Coast, after massive media publicity, Tostee was found not guilty by the jury. Lucky he didn’t have Tedeschi as a prosecutor, because Tedeschi won perhaps all his jury trials in his 30 year prosecuting career. (Several were overturned on appeal or after an inquiry…)
Rob Farquharson in Victoria
Media and the public fuelled his wrongful conviction after a tragic accident. Scientist Chris Brook’s book Road to Damnation methodically shows that it’s indisputable that Farquharson is not guilty, but Farquharson remains in jail. A theme of this case and the Folbigg case is the emotions arising when children die, which can make it hard for the public, the police and the judiciary to accept that there was no guilty perpetrator to blame. The public are primed by TV shows and movies to expect that there’s a guilty person – on TV it’s almost never an accident at the end (otherwise the TV show would soon be off air).
Henry Keogh
After his fiancée accidentally drowned in a bath, a murder case was created by Colin Manock and others, based in part on incorrect assumptions. Yet another accident turned into a murder case.
Kathy Folbigg
The media and public painting Folbigg as the most evil woman was based on the idea that if children die, someone must be responsible, and in this case they went after the good mother. Read Quentin McDermott’s new book Meadows Law, if you want to know more.
Keli Lane
Keli was told that anyone involved in an illegal abortion would get 2 or 3 years in jail. Not wanting that to happen, and assured by her outclassed lawyers that she would not lose her trial, she expected that, after the media frenzy of her case settled down, she’d be found not guilty. That’s why she banged her head against the wooden dock so hard that paramedics were called, when she heard the guilty verdict.
Keli copped a double whammy recently – she’s now eligible for parole, but in response to the media-swamped Chris Dawson rightful conviction, the NSW government introduced a “no body, no parole” law – if Keli can’t say where the dead body is, Keli can’t get parole. Since there’s no dead body, she’s a bit stuck. The trial and appeal revealed that, like Folbigg, Keli is a good mother, but in both cases the media and the prosecution thrived on suggesting otherwise.
Lloyd Rayney
Media and public speculation about Rayney killing his wife, based on no evidence at all, swept through Perth a decade ago. The massive misguided focus on Lloyd prevented any focus on a relatively simple evidence-based explanation of his wife’s death, an explanation which is likely to be what actually happened.
Robert Xie
The horrendous nature of the ritual slaying of the entire Lin family at North Epping led the media and public to portray the accused as a vile murderer, despite there being no evidence at all that this quiet man with no history of violence was responsible for the brutal killings. In this case, the false assumption by the media and public – that the police had got it right by arresting him – led to public condemnation of Xie, despite Xie himself doing nothing that was consistent with him being a murderer. (Coming Soon: FRAMED – Andrew L. Urban’s book on how the legal system framed Robert Xie for the Lin family murders.)
Sue Neill Fraser
Media Frenzy at its worst. The obvious explanation was ignored – that the woman whose DNA was on the boat and who admitted what happened would never invent such a story. Based on my research, before the trial over 90% of Tasmanians had made up their minds, so Sue stood no chance at the trial.
An obvious explanation ignored, because the legal fraternity wouldn’t admit that they erred.
The Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) cases, including some in Victoria
Some babies die by accident. Alas, a worldwide witch hunt which jails fathers for murder is currently rife, with some scientists supporting a controversial scientific theory that a triad of “injuries” implies Shaken Baby Syndrome. Juries have to decide between a simple explanation of accidental death or a murderous shaking. Jesse Vinaccia and Joby Rowe, both locked up in Melbourne jails, are among the dads caught up in this nightmare scenario.
A new NZ podcast about SBS called Fractured can be found via this link Reprieve for man facing execution for same diagnosis as NZ case – Newsroom.
“Paul” (see Case 6 on the right of this website)
A simple explanation (no abuse) was ignored, especially when the media got hold of the story.
Jeff Gilham
A simple explanation held sway for many years, until Jeff’s Uncle Tony lobbied to have Jeff Gilham pursued. The scientific goofs at trial were exposed dramatically at the successful appeal, where Judge Peter McClellan seemed stunned by the inadequacy of the prosecution.
Summary
Gene and Betsy’s deaths have a logical explanation that follows directly from the available evidence, but the media so far is more intent on trying to make the deaths look suspicious, because that sells more newspapers. Various wrongful convictions and other cases in Australia confirm that the media, the police and the judiciary have a habit of trying to develop a distorted murder case rather than stick to a simple explanation of deaths."
The entire post can be read at:
——————————————————————————————
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am grateful to 'Authory' a valuable service which creates a portfolio of all of my posts since I fired my first post into the cybersphere on the Charles Smith Blog on September 29, 2007, some 17 years ago. Today's post is number 11, 784 Yikes! Yes, this is a compulsion, but it's a healthy one ! One of the best features of 'Authory' (which I am trying out on the Blog for the first time, is a search engine for the portfolio which makes it easier for readers to follow the many important cases, issues and developments (and occasional rants) in the area of flawed pathology, flawed pathologists, and whatever else might cross my mind in jurisdictions throughout the world which are at the heart of the Blog. So, dear reader, you can access the portfolio at the following link. Just type the inquiry into the search box at the following link, and hit enter. (The search box is on the top write side of the page under 'Read more.' Why not try it out, and, as encouraging use of this search function by my readers is rather new to me, any feedback on how it is working would be appreciated at: hlevy15@gmail.com. Cheers!
https://authory.com/HaroldLevy
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
————————————————————------------------------------------------
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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 found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
———————————————————————————————
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;