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Links to recent articles. For older articles see "Links to Articles - (old)" Below are links to press articles, web pages and legal decisions relating to the Alfred Trenkler case and to convictions of innocent people around the country. 1 July 2008. "No Retrial in ’88 Double Killing on Long Island" by Bruce Lambert in the New York Times. The article begins.... "RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — A criminal investigation that started two decades ago effectively came to an end on Monday, as the state attorney general's office said it would not retry Martin H. Tankleff for the murder of his parents." [Someday, the case against Alfred Trenkler will end this way, and as with Marty Tankleff, there will be pressure on the authorities to prosecute other suspects.] 23 June 2008. "Doubting Case, a Prosecutor Helped the Defense" by Benjamin Weiser in the New York Times. A story of prosecutor initiatives to re-investigate and bring justice to previous crminal convictions. Excerpts from the article..... It is not as if Mr. Morgenthau has refused to admit mistakes. In 2002, in spectacular fashion, his office recommended dismissing the convictions of five men in the attack on a jogger in Central Park, after its reinvestigation showed that another man had acted alone. “It's my decision,” Mr. Morgenthau said then. “The buck stops here.”.... When Mr. Morgenthau's office was asked to take another look [at the Palladium case], Mr. Bibb said, his supervisors gave him carte blanche. “It really was, leave no stone unturned,” he said. Over 21 months, starting in 2003, he and two detectives conducted more than 50 interviews in more than a dozen states, ferreting out witnesses the police had somehow missed or ignored. Mr. Bibb said he shared his growing doubts with his superiors. And at a meeting in early 2005, he recalled, after defense lawyers won court approval for a hearing into the new evidence, he urged that the convictions be set aside. “I made what I considered to be my strongest pitch,” he said. Instead, he said, he was ordered to go to the hearing, present the government's case and let a judge decide — a strategy that violated his sense of a prosecutor's duty. [This case is complicated, but the shows how prosecutors can reinvestigate previous convictions, and bring reaffirm the cause of justice.] 23 June 2008. Exibit A News publishes in July issue, "Blast from the Past" by Julia Reischel. Excerpts from the article.... After years of denying Trenkler's various legal motions, U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel accepted this one and appointed a lawyer for Trenkler, Joan M. Griffin, who is fighting to win him a shorter sentence. If Trenkler is lucky, his new sentence could be less than the time he has already served, and soon he could be free. Researching it ‘up and down' But Trenkler says he will not be satisfied with an early release. He wants to clear his name and bring the real bomb-builder to justice. “It is
up to someone, either in the government or the Boston Police [Department],
to demand they reinvestigate this case,” he says. “They were on the right
track. They got five sets of prints under Shay's car. … Whose prints might
those be?” 5 June 2008. "Bomber’s lawyers ask to switch to new court" by Jessica Van Sack in the Boston Herald. The article begins... A federal appeals court is considering whether convicted bomber Alfred Trenkler's case should be remanded to U.S. District Court for resentencing, prolonging the nightmare for those who knew the Boston police officer killed in the 1991 explosion. [Posted at the Boston Herald website was the COMMENT by Morrison Bonpasse, which noted that resentencing is tragically ironic for a perfectly innocent man.] 3 June 2008. "Bomb-maker’s appeal for reduced jail term outrages Hub cops" by Jessica van Sack in the Boston Herald. The article begins... Lawyers for the man convicted of building the bomb that killed one Boston police officer and maimed another in 1991 are scheduled to argue in federal appeals court tomorrow that Alfred Trenkler has already served too much time behind bars and should be resentenced, outraging members of the Boston Police Department. “It is a shame that the victim's family continues to be victimized because of the suspect's unwillingness to accept responsibility,” said Boston Police Superintendent Daniel Linskey. “We hope that Mr. Trenkler is never again able to take an innocent life.” [Superintendent Linsky is correct that the Hurley and Foley families continue to be victimized, but it is not because of the innocent Tom Shay or Alfred Trenkler. It's because the ATF and U.S. Attorney's office in Boston have, so far, declined to "accept responsibiity" for any reasonable re-examination of the facts. At the end of such re-examination, they will have to "accept responsibility" for two wrongful convictions. Then, they and the Boston Police Department can renew the search for the real builder of the Roslindal Bomb, and they can start with the suspects already high on the BPD's list.] [See similar story at WBZ radio website: "Convicted cop killer seeks release from prison"] 15 May 2008. "Cops to judge: Say sorry" by Jessica Van Sack in the Boston Herald. This article concerned Judge Redd's comments about the large number of uniformed Boston policemen at Tom Shay's hearing on the revocation of his previously suspended 1-year sentence. See the related Boston Herald Editorial and Letter to the Editor by Morrison Bonpasse. 14 May 2008. " '91 Bombing Convict Gets Added Sentence" by Kim Ring in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette. Thomas Shay is sentenced to six months in the Worcester County House of Correction, afer he completes his Federal sentence in December of 2009. 10 May 2008. "Even After Great Loss, Embracing Innocence" by Jim Dwyer in the New York Times. Brought together for an Innocence Project fundraiser, the mother of Debbie Carter (the murder victim in John Grisham's The Innocent Man), is now the loyal friend of one of the two men originally convicted of her daughter's murder, Dennis Fritz. The other econerated man was Ron Williamson who died in 2004. Said Mrs. Sanders, "I hated him so bad.. Why did they do that to my little girl? Later, after the exoneration, "I had to do it [reconciliation withh the exonerees] for my daughter.. They [Fritz and Williamson] had become victims of this, too. People still don't believe they're innocent...." [Someday in Massachusetts, one or more members of the family of Jeremiah Hurley and Francis Foley and his family will embrace the exonerated Alfred Trenkler and Thomas A Shay, and work together to urge authorities to find the person(s) responsible for the Roslindale Bomb.] 5 May 2008. 5/7 Lawyers' publication, "Exhibit A," publishes story (1 April 2008), including description of U.S. Atty assistance to John and Donna Shea in return for assistance in prosecuting Alfred Trenkler. Titled "Left to Die" the story is primarily about the casting overboard of two women in Quincy Bay by John Shea and James Smith in 1991 and the recently produced movie about the case, "Wake." The connection to the Roslindale Bomb case is that Alfred Trenkler knew John and through him, his wife, Donna Shea. Said the article, "In 1993, when Trenkler went on trial for his role in killing the police officer, the Sheas made themselves useful to the prosecution. The information they provided about the 1986 explosion helped implicate Trenkler as a serial bomber and led to his conviction and life sentence. In exchange for the Sheas' cooperation, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Kelly pushed the court to revise John Shea's sentence." 24 April 2008. "Tankleff Awaits Decision on Future" by Bruce Lambert in The New York Times. The article begins.... The very first thing Martin H. Tankleff ever looked up on the Internet was www.martytankleff.org, the elaborate Web site created in the campaign to free him. Having spent 17 years in prison, Mr. Tankleff was an Internet novice, and pulled the site up on a cousin's computer, finding “Marty Didn't Do It” T-shirts ($15), an extensive archive of legal briefs, and the Marty Blog, which chronicles his life and times. He clicked and scrolled through it with delight. [Someday, Alfred Trenkler will be exonerated and liberated from his 16 or 17 years of wrongful imprisonment. As an electronics engineer, he will take even more delight than Marty Tankleff in a future immersion in the cyberworld, and then working with law enforcement to help determine the true source fo the 1991 Roslindale bomb.] 25 March 2008. "Consensus on Counting the Innocent: We Can't" by Adam Liptak in the New York Times. Excerpts from the Article... ... Those numbers are too small to be reliable, of course, but they would suggest a false conviction rate of 6 percent. ... Ms. Armbrust said investigators in Virginia were able to get results in only 22 of the 31 tests, suggesting a false conviction rate of 9 percent.... Professor Gross concluded that the false conviction rate for death row inmates has ranged from 2.3 percent to 5 percent. Were even the lower end of that range applied to people who received prison sentences of a year or more in the last three decades, he wrote, it would suggest that about 185,000 innocent people have served hard time.... [Even at 1% of the 2 million people in U.S. Jails and prisons, that would mean 20,000 innocent people in prison. How do lawyers, legislators, police, corrections officials, and judges sleep at night? Included in that hypothetical 1% are Alfred Trenkler and Tom Shay of Massachusetts.] 21 March 2008. "Man freed after wrongful conviction forgives witness who lied" By DAISY NGUYEN Associated Press Writer in the San Jose Mercury News Excerpts from the article.... LOS ANGELES: Willie Earl Green, caged for a quarter-century for a murder he didn't commit, has every reason to be bitter after the lies of a drug-addled witness put him behind bars for nearly half his life. But moments after his release Thursday, the 56-year-old Green basked in sunshine outside the downtown courthouse and graciously said he forgave prosecutors and the witness who recanted.... Four years ago, witness Willie Finley, a convicted killer and drug dealer, told Green's attorneys he was high on crack when the woman was murdered and didn't get a good look at the shooter because he had been pistol-whipped and couldn't see well. Finley also said a detective coached him to identify Green in a photo lineup. Green had sought a new trial for years, contending the witness had lied. Green eventually won the support of the forewoman of the jury and the legal backing of Centurion Ministries, a nonprofit group that advocates for the release of wrongfully convicted prisoners. Superior Court Judge Stephen A. Marcus overturned the conviction last week, saying Green did not receive a fair trial because jurors never heard enough of Finley's story to evaluate his credibility. Prosecutors said they would not oppose his release, and Green was freed by an order from Marcus.... 18 March 2008. Georgia (U.S.) Supreme Court denies new trial for death row inmate, Troy Davis despite considerable doubt of guilt. See New York Times story, "Georgian on Death Row is Rebuffed" Once again, judges sometimes favor their rules more than their common sense. Incredibly, the court's 4-3 vote means that Troy Davis will be executed despite "The dissent, written by Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, called the court “overly rigid” in its consideration of new evidence in support of a retrial and said it had failed to allow 'an adequate inquiry into the fundamental question, which is whether or not an innocent person might have been convicted or even, as in this case, might be put to death.' The chief justice acknowledged that sworn trial testimony was generally considered more credible than later recantations made out of court. But, she wrote, 'it is unwise and unnecessary to make a categorical rule that recantations may never be considered in support of an extraordinary motion for a new trial.' ” (For more information about this case, see below for 3 August 2007, 16 July 2007 and 15 July 2007. Davis' fate is again up to the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles.) 28 February 2008. article in Washington Post: "Record-High Ratio of Americans in Prison" by N.C. Aizenman. See the related article by Adam Liptak in the New York Times/International Herald Tribune, "1 in 100 U.S. adults behind bars, new study says" The Washington Post article begins.... "More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government, according to a report released today." [Morrison
Bonpasse posted the following comment
at the Washington Post website: "morrisonbonpasse
wrote: 24 January 2008. Tim Masters interviewed on CNN, "Masters: Cop's big ego stole half my life" by Elliott C. McLaughlin. Excerpts from the interview... "My opinion is that Jim Broderick, the guy in charge of it, has a very big ego and would not allow anything or anyone to convince him that he was wrong," Masters said. "He made up his mind in the beginning, from day one when he walked into my bedroom and saw my horror drawings and war stories, that I was guilty. Nothing would change his mind."... "They won their case by assassinating my character," he said. His father allowed police to search their trailer. He also allowed Masters to be interrogated for hours without an attorney. Police would use the evidence and interrogation to convict Masters in 1999. "We'll cooperate with them and give them anything they want and then they'll see that you didn't have anything to do with this and they'll move on," Masters recalled his father telling him in 1987. "It turns out that by cooperating with them it just encouraged them, because I was the easiest suspect to go after." Clyde Masters knew his son hadn't committed the crime, but he thought police were there to help, Masters said. His father was in the Navy for 22 years and felt you should obey authority, he added. "Well, you know what? You shouldn't always submit to authority. Our country wouldn't exist if everyone submitted to authority," he said. "It's just a shame Dad didn't know how the system was." [All such cases share some characteristics. Like Tim Masters, Alfred Trenkler was pursued by a few ATF investigators who made up their minds early, and disregarded contrary evidence. Also, Alfred Trenkler cooperated with the investigators and talked with them - and his words were distorted and used against him. This problem was compounded by Alfred's decision to accept the advice of his attorneys and not testify at evidentiary hearings and at his trial.] 23 January 2008. "Man Imprisoned for 9 Years for Murder Is Released in Wake of DNA Evidence" by Kirk Johnson in the New York Times. Tim Masters is released. The article begins.... FORT COLLINS, Colo. — A judge on Tuesday threw out the murder conviction and life sentence of a Fort Collins man who said for years that he was innocent of one of this city's most sensational killings, the stabbing and mutilation of a woman whose body was found in February 1987 in a vacant field near the man's home. ]See 19 January story, below.] 18 January 2008. CNN nightly news with Anderson Cooper highlights story of Tim Masters who claims wrongful conviction in Fort Collins, Colorado: "Police Split over Conviction in Colorado Slaying" As with the case of Alfred Trenkler, there was zero physical evidence linking Masters to the crime. Instead, there was a police hunch. In 1987, the police tried to get the 15 year old Tim Masters to confess, but he did better than Marty Tankleff against such browbeating. As with the Roslindale Bomb case, the investigators barely looked at the alternate suspects and alternate theories. Once they identified their lead suspect, the challenge was not to discover further truth, but to find the evidence that would convict Masters. Now a former policewoman, Linda Wheeler-Holloway, has come forward with her qualms about the case. Question for Colorado: How did a jury find this man guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in 1999? [See also, the 17 December 2007 New York Times article, "Colorado Hearings Re-examine '97 Murder Case".] 13 January 2008. "Cuomo Set to Look Into 1988 Long Island Murders" by Ray Rivera in the New York Times. Excerpts from the article... Gov. Eliot Spitzer appointed Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo on Saturday as a special prosecutor to investigate the 1988 murders of a Long Island couple whose son, Martin H. Tankleff, was recently released from prison after doubts arose over his conviction in their deaths... Though the attorney general's criminal division typically investigates cases like welfare fraud, racketeering and environmental crimes, Mr. Cuomo said his staff — made up of former state and federal prosecutors — was well prepared to take on a murder investigation. Even so, the 20-year-old Tankleff case could prove particularly difficult. “It's a challenging situation on a number of fronts,” he said. “The length of time that has passed, a 1988 murder doesn't make it any easier, and there are questions as to what is an allowable confession, so we'll take all those questions into consideration.” A separate inquiry is under way by the state Commission of Investigation into how Suffolk County prosecuted the case. Mr. Cuomo said his office would have no role in that investigation.... [Someday, there will be a federal inquiry into the Roslindale Bomb case, and why two innocent men were convicted.] 10 January 2008. In editorial, "More than a Steak Dinner" the New York Times notes that wrongful conviction rate in U.S. could be as high as 5%. Excerpt from the editorial... There are more than two million inmates in American prisons and jails, and some studies estimate that as many as 5 percent may be innocent. There are few procedures in place, however, for the wrongly convicted to put forth evidence to exonerate themselves.... Better oversight and funding of crime labs is also crucial, along with creation of innocence commissions to manage claims of wrongful conviction. A groundbreaking federal law now grants federal inmates access to DNA testing. [That "groundbreaking federal law, the Federal Justice for All Act of 2004 is an ironic development for Alfred Trenkler, as the Federal Government recently admitted that in 2005 and 2006 it had destroyed the evidence in his case including layers of electrical tape, thought to have fingerprints and DNA. This was AFTER the passage of the 2004 Federal law.] 5 January 2008. "US judge chastises Dept. of Justice - Blasts handling of prosecutor's misconduct" by Jonathan Saltzman in the Boston Globe. Excerpts from the article... The chief federal judge in Boston has urged the new US attorney general to crack down on prosecutors who commit misconduct and to force Justice Department lawyers to be truthful in court. Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf, in an extraordinary letter to Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, skewered the Justice Department's mild and secret discipline of Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Auerhahn in 2006 for misconduct that Wolf said required him to order the "release from prison of a capo and associate of the Patriarca family of La Cosa Nostra."... Wolf also wrote that "the department's failure to be candid and consistent with the court has become disturbingly common in the District of Massachusetts."... "There has been a disturbing pattern of the Justice Department taking inconsistent positions in litigation based upon how it views its interests at the time," said William Christie, a New Hampshire lawyer... [In Alfred Trenkler's case, the Assistant U.S. Attorneys obtained a reduction in sentence for W. David Lindholm in another court, with Judge Douglas Woodlock, without telling Alfred's trial judge or the defense, or the First Circuit Court of Appeals which relied upon the testimony of Lindholm that he would NOT seek such a reduction.] 4 January 2008. "15th Dallas County Inmate Since ’01 Is Freed by DNA" by Ralph Blumenthal in the New York Times. Excerpts from the article... HOUSTON — After nearly 27 years in prison for a rape he did not commit, Charles Chatman walked free on Thursday, the 15th wrongfully convicted prisoner in Dallas County to be exonerated by DNA testing since 2001. The innocence claims of seven other Dallas-area prisoners are pending, thanks in large part to a crime laboratory that, unlike others in Texas, has preserved evidence going back as long as three decades. “I'm bitter toward what happened,” Mr. Chatman, 46, said by telephone after Judge John Creuzot of State District Court, who had championed a review of his case, ordered him released in a jubilant Dallas courtroom. “He's my fourth one,” said Judge Creuzot, who had invited Mr. Chatman to his courtroom on Wednesday to hear the news that a DNA sample recently taken from him did not match the profile from the rape victim's vaginal swab of 1981. The judge said that he had bought Mr. Chatman a T-bone steak for lunch but that he had to instruct him how to use a knife to cut the meat — he was only allowed spoons in prison — and later showed him his first cellular phone and helped him call his family.... The lawyers and District Attorney Craig Watkins of Dallas County credited Judge Creuzot for taking a personal role in the case. But they also said the unusual string of exonerations was made possible by the many specimens saved by the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences, the laboratory under contract to Dallas County, and the latest DNA testing by Orchid Cellmark, a leading genetic research organization. “I think we're no worse than any other part of the country,” Judge Creuzot, 50, said of the wrongful convictions. “We just keep the samples.” [The role of Judge Creuzot is heartening. In Massachusetts Federal Court, it would be a great day for justice if Judge Douglas Woodlock, Judge Nancy Gertner or Judge Rya Zobel would do for the Roslindale Bomb case what Judge Creuzot did for Charles Chatman.] 2 January 2008. "Murder Charges Against Tankleff Are Dropped" by Bruce Lambert and Paul Vitello in the New York Times. The article begins... The Suffolk County District Attorney announced on Wednesday that he was dropping the charges against Martin H. Tankleff for the 1988 murders of his parents and will ask Governor Eliot Spitzer to appoint a special prosecutor to re-investigate the case. 2 January 2008. "Colorado Hearings Re-Examine '87 Murder Case" by Kirk Johnson and Dan Frosch in the New York Times. (article published 27 December) Excerpts from the article ... No physical evidence or murder weapon was ever produced linking Mr. Masters directly to Ms. Hettrick, but on the basis of his drawings, his knives and a psychological profile, he was arrested more than a decade later, convicted in 1999 and sentenced to life in prison. Now the case has been reopened with hearings that have riveted Fort Collins and the Colorado legal community. Mr. Masters's new lawyers, in seeking a retrial, have cast suspicion on a Fort Collins eye surgeon, Richard Hammond. Dr. Hammond, who also lived near the murder scene, killed himself in 1995 after being arrested as a sexual voyeur, but he was never considered a suspect in the Hettrick case. He was also acquainted, according to new court documents, with a prosecutor in Mr. Masters's case, Terence A. Gilmore, who is now a District Court judge. Evidence that might have raised suspicions about Dr. Hammond was never given to the defense team in Mr. Masters's trial, according to documents and testimony in the hearings, including a report from a woman who said she had seen a middle-aged man with a “square jaw,” similar to the description of Dr. Hammond, exposing himself near the field where Ms. Hettrick's body was found. “We're willing to admit that there are some things that should have been provided the first time around and weren't,” said Don Quick, the Adams County district attorney, who is serving as a special prosecutor looking into the handling of the case. “We find it troubling.” “I've been a cop for over 32 years, and I've put a lot of people in prison,” Ms. Wheeler-Holloway said. “This is the one and only case where I felt there has been an immense miscarriage of justice. I think Tim is truly innocent.” Ms. Wheeler-Holloway, now an investigator for a district attorney in Fort Morgan, who is helping Mr. Masters's defense team, said she started questioning his guilt in 1992. Mr. Masters had enlisted in the Navy, and she had traveled to Philadelphia, where he was stationed, to arrest him. Instead, after two days of intense interrogation, Ms. Wheeler-Holloway said she came away struck by the consistency of Mr. Masters's story and his explanation that the graphic drawings were a product of teenage angst and nothing more. “I began to have concerns that we'd gotten tunnel vision out of the starting gate,” she said. ["Tunnel vision" was one contributing factor in the wrongful convictions of Tom Shay and Alfred Trenkler, as well.] 29 December 2007. "New York Is Said to Have Inquiry in Tankleff Case" by Bruce Lambert in the New York Times. The article begins... New York State has begun an official inquiry into Suffolk County law enforcement's handling of the investigation into the 1988 murders of a Long Island couple, Arlene and Seymour Tankleff, according to people involved with the inquiry. The inquiry began quietly more than a year ago when the State Investigation Commission started gathering legal documents in the long-disputed case, people familiar with the inquiry said. The Tankleffs were fatally bludgeoned and slashed in their home in Belle Terre overlooking Long Island Sound. Their son, Martin, was imprisoned after being convicted of the crimes in 1990, but last week an appeals court vacated his convictions. Extensive new evidence pointing to other suspects probably would have changed the jury's verdict, the court ruled. “The S.I.C. is viewing this as a serious and significant investigation,” said a person who works with the officials overseeing the investigation and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter was confidential. [There should be a Federal investigation of how the prosecution and appellate defense of the Roslindale Bomb cases were handled, too.] 27 December 2007. "Man Convicted in Parents' Death Set Free" by Bruce Lambert in the New York Times. The article begins... Martin Tankleff walked out of court a free man for the first time in the 17 years since he was convicted of murdering his parents. But his next step was less clear. Prosecutors have not said whether they will retry Tankleff, who was released on $1 million bail Thursday, days after an appeals court overturned his 1990 conviction and ordered a new trial because of new evidence. Relatives paid the bail.... [See also, "After Half a Lifetime in Prison, an Inmate Is Free for Now " also by Bruce Lambert in the New York Times.]
26 December 2007. "An Acquittal After 15 Years on Death Row" from the Associated Press in the New York Times. Excerpts from the article... "A jury on Wednesday acquitted a man who spent more than 15 years on death row in Tennessee for the fatal shooting of a woman. Jurors in the retrial of the man, Michael L. McCormick, agreed with defense lawyers who said Mr. McCormick, 55, had been lying when the police secretly recorded his confession.... Mr. McCormick's lawyer, Michael Richardson, said in his closing argument on Tuesday that the only prosecution evidence was the recording, which was obtained by the police who had 'set up a man they knew to be an alcoholic and a notorious liar.' " [This article is posted here as it echoes the prosecution's use of Tom Shay's lies in the trial against him and in Alfred Trenkler's trial in 1993.] 26 December 2007. "Justice Dept. Numbers Show Prison Trends" by Solomon Moore in the New York Times. (published on 6 December) The article begins... "About one in every 31 adults in the United States was in prison, in jail or on supervised release at the end of last year, the Department of Justice reported yesterday. An estimated 2.38 million people were incarcerated in state and federal facilities, an increase of 2.8 percent over 2005, while a record 5 million people were on parole or probation, an increase of 1.8 percent...."
22 December 2007. Jailed 17 Years, Long Island Man [Marty Tankleff] Gets Second Trial - by Bruce Lambert, in the New York Times. Excerpts from the article... A state appeals court on Friday overturned the conviction of a Long Island man imprisoned 17 years for the grisly murders of his parents in 1988. The decision cited the “cumulative effect” of new witnesses and extensive new evidence that have emerged in recent years, pointing to other suspects as the real killers. ... “It is abhorrent to our sense of justice and fair play to countenance the possibility that someone innocent of a crime may be incarcerated or otherwise punished for a crime which he or she did not commit,” the judges wrote in a 21-page opinion. 4 December 2007. Innocence Project Exoneree #209 is freed. The Innocence Project Press Release begins... (JACKSONVILLE,
FL; December 4, 2007) – Chad Heins, who was convicted in 1996 of the 1994
murder of his sister-in-law despite a lack of evidence against him, was
exonerated today when the Florida State Attorney in Jacksonville dismissed
all charges against him. The Innocence Project, which represents Heins,
said he is the 209th person nationwide exonerated through DNA testing
(and the ninth in Florida). 1 December 2007. "DNA Evidence Frees a Woman Convicted of Killing Her Daughter" New York Times, 29 November 2007. The article begins.... BUFFALO, Nov. 28 — In 1994, Lynn DeJac was found guilty of strangling her 13-year-old daughter during a night of drinking and bar hopping. On Wednesday, Ms. DeJac walked out of the Erie County courthouse free, and the first woman in the United States to have her conviction for killing someone overturned based on DNA evidence. [Emphasis added here.] [The Innocence Project will add her to its Exoneree list. Maybe someday, when the DNA, which is expected to be found between layers of electrical tape found amidst the Roslindale Bomb debris, is examined, Alfred Trenkler will be placed on the Innocence Project Exonereee list - unless he's freed beforehand for non-DNA reasons.] 13 November 2007. "Judge won’t set aside former Quincy man’s guilty plea in fatal car bombing" by Dennis Tatz in the Patriot Ledger. The article begins.... BOSTON - A federal judge has refused a former Quincy man's request to toss out his guilty plea for a 1991 car bombing that killed a Boston police officer. Thomas Shay, who is serving time for a probation violation, filed a motion in September to have his conviction set aside and a lawyer appointed to represent him. U.S. District
Court Judge Rya Zobel on Friday denied both motions. 29 October 2007. "Inmate wants guilty plea tossed in '93 homicide - Questions raised in homicide case" by Shelley Murphy in the Boston Globe. Of particular interest for the Roslindale Bomb case... ... Today, after a decade behind bars, Bogues is urging a state appeals court to toss out his guilty plea. And he has found an unlikely ally, Brown's mother, Tina Chery, who became a leading crusader against violence after her son's death and formed the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in his honor. "My fear is that he didn't do it," said Chery, who has forged a friendship with Bogues's mother, Doris, through a support group for the mothers of victims and killers. After reviewing evidence that she believes points toward other possible suspects, she said she has questions about whether Bogues, the son of a Boston police officer, killed her son. "If he's saying he didn't do it and he wants a jury trial, then give him a new trial," said Chery, citing a series of wrongful convictions in Suffolk County in the 1990s. "Mistakes have been made in the past. If this was one of those mistakes . . . then I would hope it would be brought to light."... As Chery met with Bogues's mother, Doris, and sister, Sam, last week, the women said the case is riddled with unanswered questions and urged anyone with information about Brown's slaying to come forward. Chery said she wants a face-to-face meeting with Bogues so he can look her in the eye and tell her he didn't kill her son.
27 October 2007. Michele McPhee in Boston Herald, "Bomber’s snitch sis wants $$ - Seeks reward for tip on fugitive" The article begins... The Shay family circus continued yesterday after the not-so-loving sister of cross-dressing, convicted cop killer Thomas Shay demanded that Boston police cough up the $1,500 reward money offered for information leading to her fugitive brother's capture. “They couldn't find him without me. They were looking for him for a year,” Paula Shay told Herald yesterday. “I told on him. I did the right thing. Now I can use the money.” [Strange things happen in troubled families when a brother is wrongly convicted of conspiring to build and place a bomb that kills a Boston policeman.] 24 October 2007. Lincoln County News, Maine, runs ARTICLE about Alfred Trenkler case. by Sherwood Olin. Excerpts from the article... While working for Dechaine, Bonpasse said he developed a philosophy about advocating on behalf of a wrongfully convicted person. Such advocacy should involve a combination of educational, legal, political and public relations campaigns that involve all of the stakeholders in the case. A
tenet of this philosophy, outlined in Bonpasse's introduction to Perfectly
Innocent is that every citizen, including the families of the
victims, the officers of the court, and members of the jury have an obligation
to "pursue justice and when necessary, to correct injustice."" [The article stated that Alfred Trenkler was convicted for his role in the 1986 device, but that is incorrect. The charges were dropped by the prosecutors after a year, as the offense was not deemed sufficiently serious to warrant further prosecution.] 24 October 2007. Innocence Project releases report on New York State and its "Lessons Not Learned" Excerpts from the Innocence Project summary... – In 9 of the 23 exoneration cases, the actual perpetrators of crimes for which innocent people were wrongfully convicted went on to commit additional crimes while an innocent person was in prison. – In 10 of the 23 cases, innocent people falsely confessed or admitted to crimes that DNA later proved they did not commit. [For the Roslindale Bomb case, has the real Bomb Maker committed any crimes since the wrongful convictions of Tom Shay and Alfred Trenkler? Do the 10-out-of-23 odds help in understanding the risk involved in accepting Tom Shay's admissions as truthful, without even knowing Tom Shay's personal psychological history?] 18 October 2007. "Slain 150 years ago, thanked once more - 'Brothers in blue' honor first to die in line of duty" by John Ellement, Boston Globe The story is about the new memorial to Ezekiel Hodsdon, the first Boston Police officer killed while on duty, on 18 October 1857, 150 years ago. [18 October is an important day for the Roslindale Bomb case, too, as that was the day in 1991 that "Jyt Sahy" purchased six items at the Radio Shack store on Mass. Ave in Boston. One of the six items was a package containing the same model toggle switch as was found amidst the Bomb debris. Also, this day is the birthday of Tom Shay's mother, Nancy Shay.] 2 October 2007. New York Times article, "Exoneration Using DNA Brings Change in Legal System" by Solomon Moore, shows increasing awareness of the widespread conviction of innocent people in ALL crimes, and not just those involving DNA. The article begins... "State lawmakers across the country are adopting broad changes to criminal justice procedures as a response to the exoneration of more than 200 convicts through the use of DNA evidence." [However, except for the District of Columbia, there is no mention of changes in the Federal Criminal Justice system, and such agencies as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.] 16 September 2007. "Boston Maggie" posted a blog comment(actually in April, but just seen today) about the Roslindale Bomb case. The original comment with the subsequent comments are presented below... Boston Maggie: I
was glancing at the headlines of the Patriot Ledger. This one caught my
eye. "Bomb
convict fights for release; But feds want him to die in prison"
You have to get to the 9th paragraph before they mention Officer
Hurley . It should be more prominent. Anyway, my point. This
worthless piece of shit should rot in jail until it's time for him to
rot in hell. 3 Comments: Shawmut said... Let's send Trenkler some batteries for his pacemaker. I'd hate to see him deprived of the challenge to complete his full sentence. On the other hand, an officer of the law died - was killed, an officer who had taken on the burden of our safety. Actually, I'm more inclined to have his pacemaker charged by direct current. 26 April, 2007 Gunny John said... Maybe his pacemaker will crap out on him. That would break my freakin' heart...NOT. Scumbag. 28 April, 2007 BostonMaggie said... Shawmut -
SB liked the direct current idea, ggod job! (Morrison Bonpasse posted a comment on the Blog and wrote an email to "Bostonmaggie" to ask her to consider taking a deeper look at the case by reading the manuscript of Perfectly Innocent [to be posted on this website late next week] and reading materials on this website. She responded promptly by email and with her own posted comment to my posting.) 13 August 2007. Michele McPhee includes paragraph on Tom Shay in column: "A cop’s sacrifice is remembered...150 years later" in the Boston Herald. Excerpts from the column... On an
October morning [the 18th] in 1857, Boston cop Ezekiel W. Hodson was on
the lookout for burglars that had been preying on the Maverick Square
section of East Boston. [One reason is that Tom Shay was wrongly convicted in 1993.]
8 August 2007. "Shay what? Con reaches out to Howie" by Howie Carr in the Boston Herald. Excerpts from the column... You know
you have arrived in Boston journalism when you get a jailhouse letter
from convicted cop-killer Thomas Shay... [Howie Carr's "initial diagnosis" is reasonable. When the bomb exploded on 28 October 1991, Tom Shay immediately sought publicity and made himself part of the story, even though he actually had no role in it whatsoever. As he is not a "cop killer", he should not have been sent to prison for that crime, and if not, he would not have been on probation. Click here for his entire letter.] 3 August 2007. "Georgia Supreme Court will hear Troy Davis' appeal" by Rhonda Cook, Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Excerpts from the article... Davis, whose scheduled execution last month was put on hold by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. The court has put it on its November calendar. Penny Haas Freesemann [the Savannah judge] ruled that Davis' new evidence did not meet the legal standards for new trials. Some of the new evidence was cumulative to evidence Davis presented at trial, some was obtained as long as 10 years ago, some was based on inadmissible hearsay evidence and some was not sworn testimony, the judge said.... 4 August 2007. "A TV News Gumshoe Who Stayed on the Case" by Brian Stelter, in the New York Times. Excerpts from the article... ...Dan Slepian, an NBC News producer, found himself filming a nonfiction version of that plot for three years, from 2002 to 2005. Then he became something of a detective himself. Mr. Slepian chronicled the reinvestigation of the 1990 murder of a bouncer at the Palladium nightclub in Manhattan for a 2005 segment on “Dateline NBC.” Two men, David Lemus and Olmedo Hidalgo, were convicted of the murder in 1992. They spent 13 years in prison after their conviction, but their convictions were dropped in 2005 after new evidence emerged. The documentary does not dwell on the circumstances of the murder; it focuses instead on what Carol Kramer, the forewoman of the jury that convicted the two men 12 years earlier, called a “travesty of justice” in the 2005 “Dateline” report... In July 2004, after interviewing Mr. Pillot in prison, Mr. Slepian approached NBC's New York affiliate and encouraged the station to cover the case. Mr. Slepian produced the resulting reports, and Ms. Kramer, the original jury forewoman, happened to be watching. Startled by what she saw, Ms. Kramer, a veteran magazine editor, contacted the lawyers and eventually concluded that she had helped put two innocent men behind bars. One of the most dramatic moments in the documentary was filmed just a few months ago. On camera, Daniel Bibb, an assistant district attorney, said in an interview that he believed the men were innocent, even as he argued in court to keep them in prison — because, he said, he was under pressure to do so. Mr. Bibb did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Mr. Lemus's lawyers subsequently cited Mr. Bibb's admission in a motion, later denied, to have the case dismissed. Mr. Lemus's trial is scheduled for the fall. [emphasis added on website] 2 August 2007. "The Presence of Malice" by Mt. Holyoke College professor Richard Moran, in Op-Ed in the New York Times. Excerpts from the article... ...My recently completed study of the 124 exonerations of death row inmates in America from 1973 to 2007 indicated that 80, or about two-thirds, of their so-called wrongful convictions resulted not from good-faith mistakes or errors but from intentional, willful, malicious prosecutions by criminal justice personnel. (There were four cases in which a determination could not be made one way or another.) Yet too often this behavior is not singled out and identified for what it is. When a prosecutor puts a witness on the stand whom he knows to be lying, or fails to turn over evidence favorable to the defense, or when a police officer manufactures or destroys evidence to further the likelihood of a conviction, then it is deceptive to term these conscious violations of the law — all of which I found in my research — as merely mistakes or errors....
27 July 2007. "US ordered to pay $101.7m in false murder convictions" by Shelley Murphy and Brian R. Ballou, in the Boston Globe Excerpts from the article... A federal judge held the FBI "responsible for the framing of four innocent men" in a 1965 gangland murder in a landmark ruling yesterday and ordered the government to pay the men $101.7 million for the decades they spent in prison. The award is believed to be the largest of its kind nationally. "FBI officials up the line allowed their employees to break laws, violate rules, and ruin lives, interrupted only with the occasional burst of applause," said Gertner, berating the FBI for giving commendations and bonuses to the agents who helped send the men to prison for the killing in Chelsea of Edward "Teddy" Deegan, a small-time hoodlum. As Limone, 73, of Medford, and Salvati, 74, of the North End, sat stoically with their wives and children by their side in a courtroom packed with supporters, Gertner said it was only right to publicly vindicate the men, just as they had been convicted with much fanfare nearly 39 years ago to the day.... The FBI has never apologized for the wrongful conviction of the four men.... "Sadly when law enforcement perverts its mission, the criminal justice system does not easily self-correct," Gertner said. "We understand that our system makes mistakes; we have appeals to address them. But this case goes beyond mistakes, beyond unavoidable errors of a fallible system." She added, "This case is about intentional misconduct, subornation of perjury, conspiracy, the framing of innocent men." Later in the day, Gertner released a 223-page decision detailing her findings. She found that the government, which was sued under the Federal Tort Claims Act, was liable for the malicious prosecution of the four men, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. [Judge Gertner was Thomas A. Shay's defense lawyer for his first trial and has recently spoken openly of his belief in his innocence. The New York Times story,. "U.S. Told to Pay $101 Million for Framing 4 Men", said the amount appeared to be "the largest sum of money ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted". “The government's position is, in a word, absurd,” Judge Gertner said.] 25 July 2007. "Cop killer gets 33 months for probation foul" by Laurel Sweet in the Boston Herald. Excerpts from the article... Even his lawyer doesn't advise taking Thomas Shay at his word. The cross-dressing bomber behind the grisly 1991 death of a Boston police officer was sentenced to 33 months behind bars yesterday for violating the terms of his probation for the third time since his 2002 release. “I think
he is a very sick man,” said U.S. District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel, whose
many kindnesses toward Shay over the years have been thrown back in her
face. Assistant
U.S. Attorney James Lang had beseeched her to put Shay away for four years
and four months, calling the cop killer's ungrateful conduct “disgusting.”
25 July 2007. "Man convicted in bombing returned to prison" by John Ellement in the Boston Globe. Excerpts from the article... A federal judge has ordered Thomas Shay, who served a decade in prison for a 1991 bombing that killed a Boston police officer, to serve 33 more months for violating the terms of his supervised release. Shay, 35, was released from prison in August 2002. Under the terms of his release, he was required to stay out of trouble or face more jail time. A fugitive warrant was issued for Shay last August after he was arrested in Spencer on charges of allegedly selling drugs to one teenager and stealing from another.... He was ordered back to prison today by US District Judge Rya Zobel, the same judge who had presided over his original trial.... 18 July 2007. "Fugitive sought on warrants - Man served time in Officer's Death" by Kim Ring, Worcester Telegram and Gazette. Excerpts from the article... SPENCER— Police expect that a Boston man who served time for his role in a 1991 bombing that killed a Boston police officer will soon be brought to Western Worcester District Court, where he is wanted on three warrants.... Mr. Shay is being held pending a hearing July 24 to determine whether he should go back to prison. 18 July 2007. "Shays have no shame: Source: Boozing sis gives up bro, loses baby to DSS" by Jessica Van Sack and Michele McPhee in the Boston Herald. The article begins...
Thomas Shay's not-so-loving older sister, Paula Shay, led authorities
to her cop-killing, cross-dressing brother after allegedly choking another
sibling during a booze-fueled family circus that brought Quincy cops to
the Shay family manse three times in two hours Sunday night, sources told
the Herald. 18 July 2007. "Tip on fugitive came after plea for child; Sister led officials to Shay, police say" by Mac Daniel, Boston Globe. The article begins... QUINCY -- After police responded for the third time Sunday to calls of domestic violence at the faded white duplex on Beacon Street, the sister of fugitive Thomas A. Shay offered to serve her brother "up on a silver platter" if she were allowed to keep custody of her infant son, according to a police report.... 17 July 2007. "Quincy woman turns in fugitive brother; Despite serving tip on a ‘silver platter,’ DSS takes custody of son during arrest" by Dennis Tatz, Patriot Ledger. Excerpts from the article... QUINCY - Fearing
she would lose her infant son if she did not cooperate, a Quincy woman
tipped police off to the whereabouts of her brother, a fugitive wanted
by U.S. marshals.... Federal prosecutors had argued that it was Trenkler who built the explosive placed under the car of Shay's father. Boston police officer Jeremiah Hurley Jr., a member of the bomb squad, was killed when he went to the Roslindale home of the elder Shay to investigate the suspicious package. Hurley's partner, Francis Foley, was seriously wounded in the explosion. The 51-year-old Trenkler, who has continued to maintain that he had nothing to do with the crime, has been behind bars since his arrest in 1993. Trenkler was originally sentenced to two life terms, but Judge Zobel reversed herself in April and re-sentenced him to 37 years. He could be eligible for release in 19 years. Trenkler has fought unsuccessfully to have the court hear new evidence that he claims would lead to his conviction being tossed out. Investigators believed Trenkler was helping Shay murder his father following years of physical abuse. But Trenkler has insisted that the two men were only casual acquaintances and his only connection to Shay was giving him a ride home a few times. There was no forensic evidence to link Trenkler to the deadly bombing.... 17 July 2007. "Man Convicted In Bombing That Killed Police Officer Is Rearrested" from WCSH6, Portland, Maine, from the Associated Press. 17 July 2007. "Man convicted in bombing that killed police officer is rearrested" from WPRI, eyewitness news, Providence. From the Associated Press. 17 July 2007. "Man Guilty In Fatal Police Bombing Rearrested" from WCVB-TV, Boston, from the Associated Press. 17 July 2007. "Dress-up cop killer caught" by Michele McPhee in the Roslindale West Roxbury Transcript. (portions of the article from the Boston Herald, below.) 17 July 2007. "JOKE'S ON YOU! Dress-up cop killer caught: Captured at mom’s after taunting letter to Herald" by Michele McPhee in the Boston Herald. Excerpts from the article...
...Fugitive cross-dressing cop killer Thomas Shay taunted investigators
searching for him in a letter to the Herald received yesterday just hours
after federal marshals tracked him down at his mother's Quincy home and
hauled him away in handcuffs. [Also published with the front page article was an image of a letter sent to the Herald and received a few hours after his capture. Of Alfred Trenkler, Shay wrote, "He is an innocent man." Click here for the rekeyed text of the letter.] 17 July 2007. "Fugitive bomber is caught napping" by Shelley Murphy, Boston Globe Excerpts from the article... ...Shay, 35, was pulled out of bed at about 9:30 a.m. and arrested without incident, Bohn said. "He should be locked up," said Thomas J. Nee, president of the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association. "We're thankful someone else wasn't maimed or even killed. The kid doesn't belong out there, free. We've been very disturbed that he was out on the street." Shay was convicted of plotting with a friend, Alfred W. Trenkler, to make a homemade bomb, which was planted under Shay's father's car and exploded when members of the Boston Police Bomb Squad were examining it in a Roslindale driveway on Oct. 28, 1991. Officer Jeremiah J. Hurley Jr. , 50, a father of four, was killed in the blast, and his partner, Officer Francis X. Foley, lost an eye and was never able to return to his police job. Trenkler, 51, who had been serving a life sentence, had his sentence reduced in April to 37 years. Since Shay's release from prison in August 2002, after serving 10 years, he has repeatedly violated the terms of his federal supervised release, which require him to stay out of trouble or face up to five more years in prison. In late 2005, he was sent back to prison for four months after assaulting a Northeastern University officer and leaving a halfway house.
16 July 2007. "Condemned Ga. killer wins 90-day stay" San Jose Mercury News, Associated Press (See related article below, for 15 July 2007) Excerpts from the article... ATLANTA—A man convicted of killing a police officer won a reprieve a day before his scheduled execution, after his lawyers argued that several witnesses had recanted or changed their testimony.... The officer's widow, Joan MacPhail, decried the ruling. "I believe they are setting a precedent for all criminals that it is perfectly fine to kill a cop and get away with it," she said. "By making us wait, it's another sock in the stomach. It's tearing us up."... Prosecutors and the victim's family have argued that [Troy] Davis received a fair trial and has had plenty of appeals, all of which failed. "I believe police did their job correctly and found the right man," the slain officer's son, Mark MacPhail Jr., told reporters after his family addressed the board. MacPhail said he told the board what it was like to grow up without a father. The son, now 18, was less than 2 months old when his father was killed. The elder MacPhail was shot twice after he rushed to help a homeless man who had been assaulted. The Aug. 19, 1989, shooting happened in a Burger King parking lot next to a bus station where MacPhail, 27, worked off-duty as a security guard. [As with the Roslindale Bomb case, the victim's family is again being victimized, not by appeals from an innocent man, but by the mistakes made by police and prosecutors eager to build a case to fit their mistaken theory of the case. Erroneous witness identifications materialized once it was known who the police wanted identified.] 16 July 2007. "Fugitive in Boston cop killing case captured in Quincy" by Shelley Murphy in the Boston Globe. "A yearlong manhunt for Thomas Shay, who violated his probation after serving time for killing a Boston police officer, came to an end this morning as US marshals tracked him to his mother's home on Beacon Street in Quincy and found him sleeping in a second-floor bedroom. Shay, 35, who served 10 years in prison for helping plant a bomb under his father's car in Roslindale in 1991 that killed officer Jeremiah J. Hurley Jr. and maimed Officer Francis X. Foley, was arrested last July in Spencer on drug and larceny charges and fled to avoid going back to prison for violating the terms of his federal probation, according to the US Marshal Service. Supervisory deputy US Marshal Jeffrey L. Bohn said deputy marshals and Boston and Quincy police went to Shay's mother's home at about 9:30 a.m. today after receiving information that he was there. "Everybody in his family said he wasn't there," said Bohn, adding that the task force quickly discovered that they weren't telling the truth. "He was sleeping in a room by himself." It's the third time Shay has violated his probation since he was released from prison. Bohn said Shay was believed to have been moving around a lot over the last year, sometimes dressing as a woman to disguise himself, and had been tracked to Maine, New Hampshire, and Chicago before his arrest today. Shay is scheduled to appear in US District Court this afternoon." 16 July 2007. "Cross-dressing cop killer caught" By Michele McPhee Boston Herald Police Bureau Chief Monday, July
16, 2007 - Updated: 01:44 PM EST Shay served 10 years for planting a bomb under his father's car in 1991. The explosive detonated, killing Boston police bomb squad cop Jeremiah Hurley and critically wounding his partner, Frank Foley. Shay was considered one of Boston's most wanted by police. Look for more in tomorrow's Herald." [The supporters of the innocence of Alfred Trenkler look forward to hearing Tom Shay present the truth, from what he knows, about the Roslindale Bomb. We expect that he will repeat and elaborate upon what he said in his interview with the Patriot Ledger for its 7 August 2006 article, below. That was that he had absolutely no role in the creation or placement of the Roslindale Bomb and, to his knowledge, neither did Alfred Trenkler.] 15 July 2007. "As Execution Nears, Last Push from Inmates's Supporters." New York Times Troy A. Davis, Savannah, Georgia. Davis was convicted of a 1989 killing of Police Officer Mark MacPhail who intervened to try to stop a fight between the homeless Larry Young and Sylvester Coles, who was trying to take Young's beer and was pistol whipping him. Davis was convicted by the testimony of 9 witnesses, including Coles. Seven of those witnesses have recanted, but Davis is still scheduled for execution. On Monday, 16 July, 2007, he sought clemency from the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. 25 June 2007. "Meet Hub's Worst of Worst" by Michele McPhee in the Boston Herald. Tom Shay was the last listed, as follows.... "Convicted Cop Killer Wanted For Probation Violations: Thomas Shay , 34, 5-foot-9, 145 pounds. Dressed in drag to avoid capture, convicted cop killer Thomas Shay is wanted for a bevy of probation violations after he served a decade behind bars for planting the bomb that killed BPD bomb squad cop Jeremiah Hurley and maimed his partner, Frank Foley. While on probation, Shay has been busted on charges of attacking another city cop; posing as a massage therapist to sexually assault college students; and distributing drugs to minors in Spencer. [Note: On 4 November 2006, Tom Shay turned 35 years old. He is actually about 6 foot 4 and approximately 200 pounds.] 11 June 2007. "Lenient sentences put us at risk" by Michele McPhee in the Boston Herald. [This article also posted on the website of the Suffolk County Sheriff's Dept.] Excerpts relating to Tom Shay.... ... Murder a Boston cop, and maim another, by planting a bomb under your father's car - like Thomas Shay did in 1991 - the explosive detonating as it was being examined by the BPD bomb unit, and you get sentenced to a measly 10 years. That's 10 years for killing a cop and for ending the career of another's. Weeks after Shay was released, he violated the conditions of his probation, fled the state, and was captured and brought back to face the same federal judge who gave him the despicably short sentence. Judge Rya Zobel's punishment for Shay after he was caught running from the law just weeks after serving time? She tacked another year onto his probation and he remained a free man. And guess what? While free, Shay allegedly assaulted another cop in the city, this time a Northeastern University detective who was trying to arrest him on charges that he posed as a physical therapy student in order to give sexually inappropriate massages to college-age boys on campus. His punishment for the latest two incidents of running afoul of the law? Probation
again. Only the agency can't find him. Shockingly, Shay is now on the
lam- dressed as a woman to elude authorities. 8 June 2007. "Feds, police chase leads in hunt for cop killer" by Michele McPhee in the Boston Herald. Also in the 9 June Roslindale Transcript by Michele McPhee via the GateHouse news Service. Boston police and federal marshals continued their intensive manhunt yesterday for convicted cop killer Thomas Shay, who is on the lam believed to be disguised as a woman after he allegedly assaulted a Northeastern University cop who tried to bust him for posing as a massage therapist. Yesterday, the Herald reported that Shay is dressing in drag to elude U.S. Marshalls and cops assigned to the Boston Police Department Fugitive Unit after he violated probation for the third time since he was released from prison in 2003. Shay was passing himself off as a student therapist to “entice college-age males to massage them for money,” according to a BPD report. The story prompted several tips from Herald readers, said U.S. Marshal Jeff Bohn. “We are following several leads, so far all negative,” Bohn said yesterday. Shay served 10 years for planting a bomb under his father's car in 1991. The explosive detonated, killing Boston police bomb squad cop Jeremiah Hurley and critically wounding his partner, Frank Foley.
Within weeks of his release, Shay vanished from a court-ordered federal
halfway house and fled the state, but federal Judge Rya Zobel allowed
him to remain free despite that violation of the terms of his release.
7 June 2007. "Boston Blotter: Cross-Dressing Cop Killer?" by Caroline Roberts, online, e-magazine: The Bostonist. The article in its entirety... --You heard that right. A man who was convicted for killing a police officer may be in hiding – as a woman. In 1991, Thomas Shay was involved in planting a bomb that killed one police officer and maimed another in Roslindale. Now, he's violated his probation, and he assaulted another police officer. The Herald explains the cross-dressing thusly: "[Officials think] that Shay is donning a wig and a dress to avoid detection. Shay, who has an arrest record for male prostitution, could be selling his body as a transsexual, investigators believe." Why Shay was on probation is a mystery to us. His original offense involved plotting to put a bomb under his father's car, which killed the police officer. Another man, Alfred Trenkler, is doing time for the bombing, which was allegedly intended to kill Shay's father. Most recently, in 2005, he was posing as a physical therapy student and assaulted male students at Northeastern. [Morison Bonpasse responded to this article with the same "Letter to the Editor" as was sent to the Boston Herald. See below.] 7 June 07. "Transsexual cop killer hunted in Bay State" by Michele McPhee in the Boston Herald The article about Tom Shay begins...
Dressed in drag to evade capture, notorious Boston cop killer
Thomas Shay is the target of a massive manhunt after violating his probation,
for the third time, since he killed one BPD officer and maimed another
in a 1991 bombing, the Herald has learned. convicted...." ] 31 May 2007. Testimony of Lonnie Soury, member of Marty Tankleff Defense team, before the New York Assembly, in favor of taping interrogations and for a State Innocence commission. The testimony begins.... Hello, I am Lonnie Soury, part of a legal defense team from five law firms in New York and Washington, DC who having been fighting for over ten years on behalf of Martin Tankleff, a man who has been imprisoned in New York State since he was a teenager and has served 17 years of a 50-to-life sentence for a murder he did not commit. I represent Marty Tankleff and his family, the sisters of his murdered mother Arlene, brother of his murdered father Seymour and the dozens of cousins and relatives who have been fighting for 17 years to free Marty....
24 May 2007. Bangor Daily News reporter solicits interviews with jurors in 1984 trial. "Hicks'
juror? By BDN
Staff Our reporter is looking for people who sat on the jury in the 1984 murder trial of James Hicks. At the conclusion of that trial, Hicks was found guilty of murdering his wife, Jennie Cyr Hicks, seven years afer her disapperance. He became the first person in Maine convicted with no evidence of a dead body. Reporter Sharon Kiley Mack is working on a story related to the case, and is interested in talking with those who served on the jury. She can be reached at (207) 487-3187, or by email." [This is good news for the Alfred Trenkler case, as the Alfred Trenkler Innocent Commitee believes that the jurors in Trenkler's case can play a positive role in uncovering the truth. As of 12 June, several jurors had responded to the BDN inquiry.]
24 May 2007. "Cops snare drivers who stop at nothing" by Michele McPhee in the Boston Herald. As Leann |