When a serial killer strikes, the randomness of the violence often complicates investigations. If the police don’t realize the killer is a stranger to the victim, they might focus on the wrong suspects. This can lead to innocent people being convicted. It’s a tragic consequence when authorities, desperate to close a case, convict the wrong person.
It’s especially heartbreaking that these serial killers not only murdered dozens of people but also stole years of freedom from those wrongly convicted. Let’s explore ten such cases.
10 Benjamin Miller
In 1967, the bodies of Black prostitutes began appearing near the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. By 1971, five had been found, all strangled with their own bras. Lead investigator George Mayer suspected Benjamin Miller, a postal worker with schizophrenia known for preaching and yelling at prostitutes. Though Miller had once paid for a prostitute’s company, there was no solid evidence linking him to the murders.
Mayer interrogated Miller, who was later sent to a psychiatric hospital. During his stay, Miller delusionally confessed to the murders and was charged. However, four months later, Robert Lupinacci was arrested for attempting to strangle a prostitute near the parkway. Evidence against Lupinacci included sightings of his car near the crime scenes and black women’s hair in his vehicle.
The most damning piece of evidence was a deck of pornographic playing cards. A card from a similar deck had been found near one of the bodies, and Lupinacci’s deck was missing a matching card. Despite this, Mayer and the district attorney didn’t change their minds. Miller pleaded not guilty due to insanity and was institutionalized for three murders.
In 1988, after spending 16 years in a psychiatric hospital, Miller was granted a second trial, and the charges were dismissed. Institutionalization had made him unable to live outside, and he voluntarily committed himself, dying at age 80 in 2010. Lupinacci was never charged and denied the murders, while Mayer, who remained convinced of Miller’s guilt, became the chief of police.
9 William Avery
On February 17, 1998, the body of Maryetta Griffin, a 39-year-old sex worker, was found in a garbage pile in Milwaukee. She had been strangled.
Police connected Griffin to a crack house run by William Avery. Avery voluntarily went in for questioning. During the interview, Avery said he remembered “grabbing” Griffin but then blacked out, later recanting this statement. Avery and his partner were arrested on drug charges due to a lack of murder evidence.
Avery was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the drug charges. In 2004, jailhouse informants claimed Avery confessed to Griffin’s murder, leading to a first-degree reckless homicide charge and a 40-year prison sentence.
The real killer, Walter Ellis, had avoided detection by having another inmate submit a false DNA sample in 2001. Finally, in 2010, Ellis submitted his DNA, matching it to seven murders. Avery requested the DNA from Griffin’s murder be retested, confirming Ellis’s involvement.
Avery was released in May 2010 and won a settlement of over $1 million. Ellis pleaded guilty to killing seven women over 21 years and died in prison in 2013.
8 Jacob Beard
In June 1980, Nancy Santomero and Vicki Durian, hitchhikers en route to the Rainbow Gathering in West Virginia, were found murdered. They had been shot multiple times.
The case remained cold for two years, partly due to local resentment toward the Rainbow Family. Police focused on Jacob Beard, who had called Durian’s parents with disturbing information. Beard told strange stories connected to the murder, including a false claim about townspeople killing another woman.
Three years later, Lee Morrison claimed Gerald Brown was the killer but later confessed to fabricating the story under Beard’s threat. In 1992, a new investigator reopened the case, and witnesses implicated Beard. He was convicted in 1993 and sentenced to life without parole, despite contradictory testimonies.
In 1994, Joseph Franklin, a white supremacist serial killer, confessed to the Rainbow Murders, even drawing a map of the crime scene. Beard’s conviction was overturned in 1999 after six years in prison. He was found not guilty in a retrial in 2000 and received a $2 million settlement.
Franklin, convicted of seven murders but suspected of at least 22, was executed in 2013.
7 David Allen Jones
In 1992, three prostitutes were found strangled near an elementary school in South Los Angeles. Police discovered David Allen Jones, a janitor with an intellectual disability equivalent to an eight-year-old, had a history of sex crimes near the school.
Jones was interrogated without an attorney and confessed to the murders, despite not committing them. In 1995, he was convicted on one count of second-degree murder, two counts of voluntary manslaughter, and one count of rape, receiving a sentence of 36 years to life.
About a decade later, the cold case unit linked 10 murders, including those Jones supposedly committed, to Chester Turner, a pizza delivery man. Turner was already imprisoned for rape. Jones was released in 2004 and received $720,000 from the city and $74,600 from the state.
Turner was ultimately convicted of 15 murders and received two death sentences.
6 Anthony Capozzi
Between December 1983 and July 1984, a series of rapes occurred in Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York. The rapist grabbed women from behind, threatened them with a gun, and told them to stay on the ground after he left.
A year later, a former police officer saw Anthony Capozzi, who had schizophrenia, acting strangely near the crime scenes. Capozzi matched a general description given by the victims.
Victims identified Capozzi in a lineup, but there were discrepancies. Three women described the man as athletic and weighing 150–160 pounds, while Capozzi weighed 220 pounds and didn’t exercise. He also had a prominent scar that none of the victims mentioned.
Capozzi was charged and, in 1987, convicted of two of the rapes, sentenced to 11–35 years. The rapes didn’t stop, and the violence escalated to murder in 1990 and 1992.
Capozzi was repeatedly denied parole because he couldn’t admit to crimes he didn’t commit. In 2006, another murder near a bike path sparked renewed interest in the case. Police realized the crimes were connected and Capozzi was likely innocent.
Detectives found that a victim had recorded the license plate of the attacker’s car, which led to Altemio Sanchez, the owner’s nephew. Sanchez’s DNA linked him to the murders and rapes. Capozzi was exonerated and received a $4.25 million settlement.
Sanchez admitted to three murders and a dozen rapes and was sentenced to 75 years to life in prison in 2007.
5 Jerry Frank Townsend
Between 1973 and 1979, several African-American women were murdered in Florida. Police focused on Jerry Frank Townsend, a carnival worker with an IQ of 50, who confessed to 23 murders. Townsend was convicted of one rape and six murders, receiving seven concurrent life sentences.
However, Townsend wasn’t the killer. It’s believed that 10 more women and children died due to the wrongful conviction. In 1988, the Sun Sentinel suggested Eddie Lee Mosley, who also had an intellectual disability and a history of sex crimes, was a suspect in 40 rapes and a dozen murders.
Mosley was confined to a psychiatric hospital in the 1970s, during which the crimes stopped. When he was released, the crimes resumed. Finally, in 1988, Mosley was confined again and linked by DNA to eight deaths.
DNA evidence from the Townsend murders wasn’t tested until 2001. Mosley was connected to two murders for which Townsend had been imprisoned, casting doubt on Townsend’s confessions in other cases. Townsend was freed after 22 years and received a $4.2 million settlement.
Mosley is believed to have committed 41 rapes and 17 murders between 1973 and 1987. He died in a Florida hospital in May 2020 at age 73.
4 Julie Rea Harper
On October 13, 1997, Julie Rea Harper awoke to a scream in her Illinois home. Her 10-year-old son, Joel, was missing. She was attacked by a masked man, struggled with him, and chased him outside. Joel’s body was later found; he had been stabbed multiple times.
Rea Harper was the primary suspect due to circumstantial evidence. There were no signs of forced entry, the knife was from the kitchen, and her former husband testified against her. In 2002, she was convicted and sentenced to 65 years for her son’s death.
True crime writer Diane Fanning noticed similarities between Joel’s murder and the crimes of Tommy Lynn Sells, a serial killer. Sells had been in the area at the time. On October 15, 1997, he murdered a 13-year-old girl in Springfield, Missouri.
Sells confessed he had broken into a house on October 13, stabbed a young person, fought with a woman, and escaped. In 2004, Rea Harper was granted a new trial. In 2006, Sells’s confession was admitted, and Rea Harper was acquitted.
Sells admitted to 50 murders, but investigators confirmed 15 murders and two attempted murders. He was executed in 2014 for the murder of Kaylene Harris.
3 Rolando Cruz And Alejandro Hernandez
On February 25, 1983, 10-year-old Jeanine Nicarico was kidnapped from her home in Illinois. Her body was found two days later; she had been raped and beaten to death.
Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez gave false information to the police to try and get a reward. Instead, they and Stephen Buckley were charged with the rape and murder of Jeanine Nicarico.
Despite no physical evidence, Cruz and Hernandez were found guilty in 1985 and sentenced to death. The jury deadlocked on Buckley, and he was never retried. In June 1985, Brian Dugan admitted to five serious crimes, including Jeanine’s murder, but his confession was ignored.
Cruz and Hernandez’s convictions were overturned in 1989, but they were found guilty again in the early 1990s. In 1994, another trial was ordered for Cruz. DNA evidence didn’t match either Cruz or Hernandez, and a police officer recanted his testimony.
Cruz was found not guilty in 1995, and Hernandez was released a month later. They received seven-figure settlements from the county and six-figure sums from the state.
The DNA matched Dugan, who was sentenced to death in 2009 for Jeanine’s murder, later commuted to life after Illinois abolished the death penalty.
2 Huugjilt
In 1996, an 18-year-old man, known as Huugjilt, found a woman’s body in a textile factory in China. Huugjilt called the police and became their only suspect.
China was focusing on swift justice. After two days of interrogation, Huugjilt confessed, was convicted, and was executed by firing squad in just 61 days.
The real killer, Zhao Zhihong, continued to roam free for nine years, raping 13 women and murdering 10 people. He was finally captured in 2005 and confessed to the crimes, including the murder for which Huugjilt had been executed.
Zhao was found guilty of nine murders in 2006. Eight years later, he was convicted of the textile factory murder, and Huugjilt was exonerated. Huugjilt’s parents received 2.05 million yuan in compensation. Zhao was executed on July 30, 2019.
1 Kevin Green
On September 30, 1979, Kevin Green returned home to find his pregnant wife, Dianna, had been raped and beaten. She was in a coma, and their baby girl died after a C-section.
Dianna remembered the attack a month later, claiming Kevin had been the perpetrator. He was arrested and convicted of second-degree murder and attempted murder, sentenced to 15 years to life.
In 1996, investigators learned about the CODIS system and tested DNA from an unidentified serial killer called the “Bedroom Basher.” The DNA matched Gerald Parker, who was already in prison. Parker had also attacked Dianna Green, causing the death of her baby.
Kevin was released based on DNA evidence after 16 years. The judge apologized, and he received over $600,000 from the state. Dianna then sued Kevin for the wrongful death of their daughter, claiming he had attacked her before Parker’s assault. They settled out of court.
Parker confessed and was sentenced to death in 1999.
These cases highlight the devastating impact of wrongful convictions. Share your thoughts in the comments below.
