A woman imprisoned for more than four decades for murder in Missouri has been found not guilty.
Sandra ‘Sandy’ Hemme, 63, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison following the murder of Patricia Jeschke, 31, in 1980, but will now be released or retried within the next 30 days.
A judge overturned the conviction on Friday, after his lawyers revealed that the crime was likely committed by a now-discredited police officer who died in 2015.
Hemme was handcuffed after making statements to other police officers in St Joseph while sedated after the fact, incriminating herself in the process.
While doing this, police officers exploited her mental illness, forcing her to make false statements while taking medication intended to treat a psychotic break, Judge Ryan Horsman said, citing how the suspect was also threatened with the death penalty.
Sandra ‘Sandy’ Hemme, a Missouri woman imprisoned for 43 years for a murder she did not commit, was finally found not guilty on Friday. Hemme is seen here at some point during her imprisonment.
Sandra ‘Sandy’ Hemme, 63, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison after the murder of Patricia Jeschke, 31, in 1980.
“The only evidence linking Ms. Hemme to the crime was her own inconsistent and refuted statements, statements that were taken while she was in psychiatric crisis and physical pain,” he said in the order reversing the ruling.
To the contrary, “this court finds that the evidence directly links (then-police officer Michael) Holman to this crime scene and murder,” Horsman added, pointing to compelling new evidence presented by Hemme’s attorneys in February 2023.
He said prosecutors, at the time, failed to disclose such evidence, which he said would have definitely helped Hemme’s defense.
He added that as a result, his trial attorney fell “below professional standards,” paving the way for injustice.
The police officer in question died in 2015, after being fired from the St Joseph police for falsely reporting that his van had been stolen and collecting the insurance payment a month after Jeschke, a local library worker, was found dead. with stabs.
It was the same truck that his partner saw near the crime scene, which led them to locate the suspect.
The officer also attempted to use Jeschke’s credit card at a Kansas City photography store the same day his body was discovered, and in response he gave an alibi that he spent the night with a woman at a nearby motel.
This, however, could not be confirmed, although Hemme was still considered the main suspect.
A judge overturned the conviction on Friday, after his lawyers successfully argued that the crime was committed by a now-discredited police officer, Michael Holman of St Joseph’s (seen here), who died in 2015.
Holman, on the other hand, said he found the card in a purse dumped in a ditch, prompting a raid on his home by his fellow officers, during which they found a a pair of gold horseshoe-shaped earrings, along with jewelry stolen from another woman during a robbery earlier that year.
Jeschke’s father later came forward claiming he recognized the earrings as a pair he bought for his daughter, but the investigation into Holman ended abruptly four days later.
Many of these details, officials said Friday, were discovered later and never provided to Hemme’s lawyers, enough to classify it as a miscarriage of justice more than 40 years after the case made headlines.
It all began on November 13, 1980, when Jeschke did not show up for work, prompting his mother to climb through his locker window to discover his naked body surrounded by blood.
His hands were tied behind his back with a telephone cord and a pair of pantyhose wrapped around his throat, with a freshly used knife under his head.
A search for the librarian’s killers followed, and Hemme emerged as a suspect over the next two weeks.
She had been released from a psychiatric hospital the day before Jeschke’s body was found, and showed up nearly two weeks later at the home of a nurse who once cared for her, carrying a knife and refusing to leave.
The police, at that time, found her in a closet and returned her to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where she would soon become a suspect.
“The only evidence linking Ms. Hemme to the crime was her own inconsistent and refuted statements, statements that were made while she was in psychiatric crisis and physical pain,” Judge Ryan Horsman said in delivering his decision. On the contrary, he added, “the evidence directly links (then-police officer Michael) Holman to this crime and murder.”
Citing the timing of these hospitalizations, police began questioning Hemme, during which he was administered antipsychotic medication.
This, her lawyers noted, was the last in a series of hospitalizations that began when Hemme began hearing voices at the age of 12, and saw police officers notice that she seemed “mentally confused” and was not fully able to understand their questions. at that moment.
“Each time the police extracted a statement from Ms. Hemme, it changed dramatically from the previous one, often incorporating explanations of facts that the police had just discovered,” her lawyers wrote.
Eventually, he claimed to have seen a man named Joseph Wabski kill Jeschke, after meeting Wabski while they were in the state hospital’s detox unit at the same time.
He was quickly charged with capital murder, but prosecutors dropped the case a few days later when they learned that he was currently in an alcohol treatment center in Topeka, Kansas.
Upon hearing this, Hemme cried and she was the only murderer, just as the police began to investigate Holman.
He, however, got off the hook and was simply fired, while prosecutors continued their case against Hemme anyway.
As she did this, the police exploited her mental illness, forcing her to make false statements while taking medication intended to treat a psychotic break, the jurist said. Hemme is seen here in a booking photo provided by the Missouri Department of Corrections.
While imprisoned awaiting trial, she wrote to her parents on Christmas Day 1980: “Even though I am innocent, they want to put someone in jail so they can say the case is solved.” She said she could also change her plea to guilty.
“Let it finish,” he added at the time. ‘I’m tired.’
The following spring, he agreed to plead guilty to capital murder in exchange for the death penalty being dropped.
His lawyers presented these oversights related to the case a year and a half ago, after which the Missouri Court of Appeals scheduled an evidentiary hearing for January 16, 2024.
The hearing took place over three days. during which former detective Steven Fueston testified that he interrupted one of Hemme’s police interviews because “he didn’t seem totally coherent.”
Horshman, in turn, issued his ruling Friday, rebuking the department as he did so.
Larry Harman, a local judge who helped Hemme get her initial guilty plea thrown out, said in the petition that he believed she was innocent.
“The system,” he said, “failed him at every opportunity.”
The decision to release her or retry her will be made within the next 30 days.
