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He said, talk to that kid who walks the street all of the time. and they didn t know who he was, so billy did a vigil and it became this quest for the mythical figure for the walker. you can twin case for the walker. so i sat there for six weeks. richardson even hoped that he might find the real perpetrator, but he came up empty handed. and then before the second trial, richardson hired an investigator the renew the search, and finally, they found the mystery man, no murderer, but a high school senior who worked at the lope s at the local supermarket. a guy by the name of john rupauh, lived down the street from the eastpursuants. and highway had a habit of walking the road, and he was a big blond kid with a blond mustache. and it fit, fit like a glove. so during the discovery, he ....
He would get the death penalty times three. tim hennis could hear his father sobbing in the courtroom. he had never heard that before. when that jury said that he is guilty, you still had faith that he was telling the truth? always. never once. not a doubt in your mind? no, never. that time i felt like i did, because i felt that we got our man, and this is the one case that truly did deserve the death penalty. tim hennis had spent his entire career serving the military, and now he was serving time on death row. but not long after his arrival hennis received a mysterious letter. it said, mr. hennis, i did the ....
And the letter said that tim didn t do it. and you were hearing rumors like that. and billy goes to the sheriff s department and he has to pretend that he is investigating another case, because if it was this case, it would have set off bells and whistles. and sure enough, the wallet belonged to a fellow named shawn buckner. it belonged to a friend of pat cone, the star witness. the letter called his testimony into question. that letter called his testimony into doubts. it told his fiance about doubts, and to the point they wrote each other a letter about it. so richardson flew to louisiana where he was in training with the air force, but when he got there, buckner closed the door in his face. he did not want to get involved. he had to decide whether or ....
Not to betray his friend and help someone wrongly accused of a triple murder. and shawn buckner had no reason to help tim hennis. he came home empty handed hoping that buckner would eventually change his mind. the retrial of timothy hennis began on january 27th, 1989, almost four years after the brutal murders of gary eastburn s wife and daughters. the state had a re-trial, but the defense had an entirely different case. we were going to drill him and film him and let him watch it. did you kill these three people? no, i did not kill these people. i have a daughter of my own, and i could not hurt any children at all. did you do this crime? no, i did not. and we felt that if he showed rage or emotion, the jury would say, there, you see, he could get to this point. how does this all make you ....
He had killed two children and a woman. and how much will he suffer for the rest of his life. like it or not, tim is our client and if he dies, we will live with it. in the years that follow, the hennis case was the textbook case of wrongful prosecution. scott whisnant spoke about the case, and it was adapted into a tv movie. not everybody sitting in prison is guilty. north carolina now has a commission that actually has released a number of innocent people. despite all of the attention to hennis acquittal, the eastburn murders would go unsolved for 16 years until 20005 when scott whisnant spoke about the case at a criminology seminar, and he spoke at a seminar with larry fayetteville was in the audience. there were potentially other evidence out there. well, if he is innocent, who ....