On Friday, 63-year-old Sandra Hemme was released from prison after serving 43 years for a crime there is pretty much no way in hell she actually committed — the murder of library worker Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri, whom she had most likely never even met.
On June 14, Judge Ryan Horsman overturned Hemme’s conviction, ruling that her attorneys had presented “clear and convincing evidence” of her actual innocence and ordered that she be released from prison within 30 days. However, the state’s Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey — WHO IS UP FOR REELECTION THIS YEAR, MISSOURI FRIENDS — went balls to the wall fighting against it and only allowed her release after Judge Horsman threatened to hold him in contempt.
I have no good way of preparing you for the absolute, jaw-dropping, galling stupidity and callousness that is the story of Hemme’s conviction for this crime other than suggesting you not read it while in the vicinity of anything especially breakable.
After a one-day trial on June 4, 1981, then-20-year-old Sandra Hemme was convicted of the capital murder of library worker Patricia Jeschke. There were no witnesses, there was no physical evidence, no motive and there was not even any reason for anyone to believe Hemme and Jeschke had ever met. There was, also, a boatload of evidence connecting police officer Michael Holman to Jeschke’s death — including the fact that his car was seen outside her residence at the time of her murder and the fact that he used Jeschke’s credit card to buy a camera lens the next day. Not only that, they found Holman in possession of Jeschke’s signature wishbone earrings.
The only “evidence” used to convict Hemme were her own confessions, given while she was in an inpatient psychiatric facility, on antipsychotics and sedatives, being treated for “auditory hallucinations, derealization, and drug misuse.” Hemme had, in fact, spent the majority of her life since the age of 12 in inpatient psychiatric facilities. Her confession changed multiple times, frequently including people who could not possibly have been involved and other factually impossible details.
According to The Innocence Project, “police conducted hours-long interviews with Ms. Hemme while she was in the hospital. At some points, she was so heavily medicated that she was unable to even hold her head up and was restrained and strapped to a chair.”
The jury in Hemme’s trial was not informed of the circumstances of the interview, nor were they told that there was no evidence Hemme was ever at the crime scene, as all fingerprints, hair, etc. were determined to have belonged to someone other than her. They found her guilty and sent her to prison, where she remained for 43 years until Friday.
Forty-three years. Four decades and three years. That is how long it took to get this very obviously innocent woman out of prison, despite the fact that she was sent there under the most ridiculous circumstances imaginable. And still — still! — the Republican state attorney general wanted to keep her in there. Actually fought to keep her in there. Actually called up the warden of the prison and other prison officials to tell them to not let her go, even though an appeals court had already ruled that she be released.
“I would suggest you never do that,” Judge Horsman told Bailey, adding “To call someone and tell them to disregard a court order is wrong.”
You think?
Bailey, by the way, is currently using his incredible powers of judgment to block student loan forgiveness and recently tried to sue the state of New York for being mean to Donald Trump by prosecuting him for his crimes. Bailey is also hoping to keep a possibly wrongfully convicted Missouri man from being able to put forth a case for his innocence before being executed, despite the intervention of a prosecutor who believes he is innocent.
According to Sandra Hemme’s family members who were present at court when she was released, her first stop would be to visit her father, who had recently been moved to palliative care for his kidney failure. His one hope has been to see his daughter free before he died.
There is nothing that can make up for taking 43 years of this woman’s life away from her and away from her family. No amount of money (though she should get lots of money) can make them whole. What we can do, however, is to demand changes to the way police are allowed to interrogate suspects and to do our level best to keep ignorant sociopaths like Andrew Bailey the hell out of office.
