by Mike Riley
Despite the evidence they were collecting, Sweet and his team decided to wait to interview Penton. According to Sweet, Penton was a pathological liar, and they did not want to approach him until they were sure they could prove the case.
The detectives made five trips to Ohio to interview people related to Penton. On the fifth trip, they made plans to interview Penton himself.
At the time of the interview, other members of the team would be searching his cell. For some time, with co-operation with prison investigators, the team had been receiving copies of all mail Penton sent and received.
Finding their own names in his correspondence, they realized that Penton knew they were looking at him. He had never seen any of the detectives, but the prison grapevine had let him know he was being investigated.
When they first introduced themselves to Penton in the Ohio prison, his face went white and Sweet reports that Penton lost track of his bodily functions. Penton was allegedly almost scared to death by their talk of application for extradition and the attitude in Texas towards the death penalty.
Using their understanding of Penton’s personality, the detectives started the interview by praising how long it took them to find him and stroked his ego. They combined that with telling Penton they were not investigating him, they just wanted to meet him before he was extradited to Texas to face the death penalty.
When detectives mentioned the rags found in the attic in the Columbus house, Penton said “…but I never took any souvenirs”. Sweet realized that this was just about a confession. When he later said that the finding of the rags was a lie, because he never left any physical evidence behind, Sweet called him on it, asking him if that meant he’d used a condom. Penton started rapidly backpedaling, saying he meant he didn’t leave any physical evidence because he was not the one who had killed the girls.
Sweet reports that after his interview with Penton, any lingering doubt he had that he was the true killer was gone. The next day, the other detectives also interviewed Penton, and he continued to slip up a couple more times.
However, he never admitted anything outright, and technology at the time made recording the interviews difficult. Sweet hoped that the testimony of the four detectives in the room against Penton’s would be enough.
Sweet and his team were determined to see the trial through to the end. However, prosecutors approached them and told Sweet he was worried about work records, one of which could place Penton out of state at the time of one of the murders. The prosecution was worried that if one murder were refuted, it would affect all the others.
Prosecutors approached Penton’s lawyers and offered to remove the death penalty from the table if Penton pled guilty. They felt it was better to guarantee he would be in prison for the rest of his life, rather than go to trial and have him potentially go free.
After Penton’s guilty plea was accepted, Sweet found out some time later that Penton’s job where the timecard placed him out of state was for doing the timecards for that business. It would have been extremely easy for him to falsify his own record. He claims they did not have time to investigate that before the guilty plea was entered.
Current Status:
David Penton claims that he is innocent of the murders of the three girls, and only pled guilty to avoid the death penalty and create time for someone to listen to his claims of innocence. He also claims he did not want to drag his family through a murder trial.
He blames the deaths on a Jordanian national who allegedly fled the country before authorities could interview him. However, he does admit that if he had been on a jury for his own trial, he would have found himself guilty.
Penton has allegedly told his cellmate he is responsible for at least twenty other murders. One inmate told investigators that Penton said once he had raped a girl, they would just be a burden on society and of no other use, so why not kill them and throw them away. Sweet believes that Penton is a psychopath and has no conscious or soul.
Multiple members of the girls’ families were not happy with Penton’s plea bargain. Prosecutors had told them from the beginning that they would be seeking the death penalty. They cited that evidence that Penton was out of state the day Reyes was abducted could have hurt their case, and that was why they accepted the plea.
Penton will be eligible for parole in Ohio in 2027, at which time if he is freed he will be transferred to Texas to serve three life sentences.
Penton has involvement, or suspected involvement, in multiple other crimes. He has also been convicted of involuntary manslaughter after he shook his infant son to death in 1985.
Two of his ex-wives have reported that he sexually abused their children. Investigators believe he may be responsible for the deaths of up to fifty children.
Detective Sweet said that in the end Penton’s downfall was that he liked to talk. As well as the original informant, several other inmates have also come forward and corroborated his claims, telling investigators stories that Penton allegedly told them also. Many inmates told Sweet that they were surprised that it took so long for police to catch up with him.
Legos Were The Final Clue
Victim: Lucille Johnson
Location: Holladay, Utah
Suspect: John Sansing
Date of Crime: February 1, 1991
Date of Conviction: August 2014
Backstory:
Lucille Johnson was a grandmother from Holladay, Utah. In 1991 she was seventy-eight years old, and lived on her own in a mobile home.
She was a small woman, at 4’11” tall and weighed just one hundred and twenty-two pounds.
Her family describes her as very tender and loving, with lots of energy, despite her age. Her daughter has said that she brought many blessings into others’ lives.
On The Day In Question:
On February 1, 1991, Johnson was seen sweeping her porch. Later, when her family couldn’t reach her, her daughter went to her home to check on her. She found her mother’s body.
Investigation:
Johnson was left lying in bed, and had been brutally beaten. As well as a fractured skull, all of Johnson’s ribs were broken. An autopsy showed that the cause of death was strangulation.
When they first entered the home, police officers were surprised to find Lego toys littered around on the living room floor. Family members told them that Johnson kept them on hand for her grandchildren, but she never would have left them lying about on the floor. They also discovered that a necklace and ring were missing.
Tissue samples were taken from underneath Johnson’s nails, but at the time of her death the technology for testing the DNA wasn’t yet available.
From the beginning, police suspected the killer was someone Johnson knew. There was no sign of forced entry, and her daughter reported the doors had been locked when she arrived to check on her mom.
Despite investigator’s best efforts however, the case went cold. Salt Lake City Sheriff’s investigators continued to work on the case until 2006, when a lack of any new leads forced them to stop any investigation.
In 2013, twenty-three years after Johnson’s death, the case was re-opened. Technology had advanced to the point that the scrapings that had been collected from under Johnson’s nails all those years ago could be tested for DNA. They were run and a match was found, a man named John Sansing. Sansing was identified because his DNA profile was in the database due to another violent crime he’d committed. In fact, he was already on death row for a similar murder.
Disturbingly, when investigators re-tested the strangely scattered Lego blocks for fingerprints, they found they matched Sansing’s son. At the time of Johnson’s death, he had been just five years old. Sansing had left him playing with the Lego blocks while he murdered Johnson in the next room.
In August 2014, Sansing was charged with the first-degree felony murder of Johnson. Contrary to their earlier beliefs that Johnson knew her killer, investigators don’t believe that she knew Sansing at all.
Current
Status:
Sansing’s son has since told investigators that he remembers accompanying his father to Johnson’s house, and the memories had traumatized him for two decades. Sansing had allegedly also taken his son to the murder that he was already in jail for.
After Sansing’s DNA was matched, his wife came forward and admitted to detectives that he had told her in 1991 that he’d killed an elderly lady in Holladay. His nephew also told police that he had overhead Sansing and his wife arguing, with her threatening him that she’d tell police about the murdered woman in Utah. He reportedly physically abused his wife, but others say that her culture (she had grown up in Bangladesh) would have prevented her from leaving him.
The Salt Lake County Sherriff is quoted as saying he believes Sansing is simply evil. Sansing is in an Arizona prison on death row for an unrelated murder.
A Mother Exonerated
Victim: Azaria Chamberlain
Location: Northern Territory, Australia
Suspects: Lindy and Michael Chamberlain
Date of Death: August 17, 1980
Case Closed Date: June 12, 2012
Backstory:
The case of the death of Azaria Chamberlain is possibly the most notorious trial and verdict in Australia’s history. Azaria was just nine weeks old when she disappeared from her family’s campsite in Australia’s Northern Territory on August 17, 1980.
Her disappearance and assumed death (her body has never been recovered) divided the nation, and has inspired multiple TV specials and also a movie starring Meryl Streep.
Azaria Chamberlain was born June 11, 1980 to Lindy and Michael Chamberlain. The pair was married November 18, 1969 and lived in Tasmania for about five years. They also had two older boys, Aidan and Reagan who were 7 and 4 in 1980. The family had moved to Mount Isa in Northern Queensland in Australia.
On The Day In Question:
Azaria’s family, including her mother Lindy and father Michael, and her two older siblings, were camping near Uluru, known at the time as Ayers Rock. Azaria Chamberlain had been put to bed in a cot in the tent, while the rest of her family remained nearby. It was later in the night when Lindy Chamberlain’s now well known cries split the air – “A dingo’s got my baby!”.
Investigation:
The first investigations seemed to support the Chamberlain’s claims that a dingo had taken Azaria. Other people at the campsite reported hearing growling shortly before Lindy Chamberlain’s cries were heard.
Paw prints were found at the door of the tent, and drag marks were found in the sand. Canine hairs were found in the tent, and Lindy Chamberlain told police she had seen a dingo leave the tent.
A first inquest into Chamberlain’s death was held in December of 1980, and was the first to be telecast live across Australia. The magistrate ruled that the likely cause of death was a dingo attack, but believed that the body of Chamberlain had been taken from the dingo and disposed of by persons unknown.
Many Australians did not believe the verdict, and were suspicious of the Chamberlains. The Northern Territory police and prosecutors were also unsatisfied, and continued to investigate the case, despite the coronial inquest’s ruling.
The Chamberlains were Seventh-day Adventists, a religion that at the time was not well understood in Australia. Rumors began to circulate, including the claim that the baby’s unusual name of Azaria means “sacrifice in the wildernesses”. This is untrue, but even today some still believe it.
A second inquest was held in September of 1981. This time a forensic expert from the UK testified that using ultraviolet photographs he was able to determine that there was an incised wound around the neck of the jumpsuit. He claimed this indicated that someone had slit Chamberlain’s throat. He also claimed that there was a small adult’s handprint on the jumpsuit.
A forensic biologist then testified that blood had been found in the Chamberlain’s car, on a camera bag in the car, and on a pair of scissors. She also claimed that there was blood on the handprint on the jumpsuit.
The case went to trial, the prosecution alleging that Lindy Chamberlain slit her baby’s throat with the scissors, and then hid her body in the camera bag. She then allegedly rejoined the camping group and fed her other children, before going to the tent to raise the alarm. Finally, it was alleged that she snuck the body away while the others were out searching for the baby.
Lindy Chamberlain claimed that Azaria had been wearing a matinee jacket over the jumpsuit, but the jacket was now missing. Evidence in her defense included eyewitness testimony that multiple dingoes were seen nearby that evening. A nurse who was present also testified to hearing a baby’s cry after the time that prosecutors alleged she was already dead.
A forensic test found fetal hemoglobin in the Chamberlain’s car. Fetal hemoglobin is found in babies up to 6 months old and Azaria, being only 9 weeks old, certainly would have still had it in her blood.
Experts testified that other substances such as adult blood, mucus, and even chocolate milkshakes, could all test positive for fetal hemoglobin with the test that was used. Both of the latter two substances were in the car at the time of Chamberlain’s death.
An engineer testified that contrary to widespread popular opinion, a dingo’s teeth could sheer through fabric easily, and was also strong enough to carry a baby. In fact, just weeks earlier a three year old child had been removed from a car seat by a dingo, the event witnessed by her parents. However, this evidence was mostly ignored.
Some people believed that state resources were being used to prosecute two people unjustly, but the Chamberlains also faced incredible hostility from the general public. As far as most people were concerned, they were guilty before even being tried.
The press was voracious, seizing on anything to sensationalize the trial. They claimed that Lindy Chamberlain often dressed Azaria in black. It was in fact a fashion of the time to have dark clothing with bright colored accents, but it was seen as negative.
Claims were made that the Seventh-day Adventist church was actually a cult that sacrificed infants. Lindy Chamberlain herself, likely in shock and suffering from grief, showed little emotion during the proceedings, a fact that was also used against her.
Many newspapers also published cartoons and editorial pieces condemning the family. People also petitioned outside the court wearing shirts that read “The dingo is innocent”.
Lindy Chamberlain was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Michael Chamberlain was found guilty as an accessory after the fact, and was given a suspended sentence.
An appeal was made to quash the convictions to the High Court of Australia in November of 1983, but it was refused.
In 1986, a random discovery turned the case on its head. An English tourist who had been climbing Uluru fell. Because of the rock’s enormous size, and the scrub surrounding the base, it was over a week before his body was found.
His body was resting below the bluff from which he had fallen, an area that was full of dingoes. Police were searching the area for the tourist’s bones that may have been carried off by dingoes when they found a small piece of clothing – a baby’s matinee jacket.
The jacket was soon identified as the missing jacket from Chamberlain’s case, and the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory ordered Chamberlain’s immediate release from prison. Azaria Chamberlain’s case was officially re-opened.
It has since been discovered that the forensic evidence that had convicted the Chamberlains was extremely questionable. The test that showed blood in the car and on the items had been only a presumptive test, and had not been confirmed that it truly was blood. In fact, it had shown positive because of the presence of copper oxide.
The Chamberlains lived in Mt. Isa, Queensland, a mining town where the material was common. It was also shown that a sound deadener that was sprayed during the manufacture of the Chamberlain’s car also tested positive for fetal hemoglobin, and in fact the scientific community knew the test was wildly unreliable.
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bsp; In a later royal commission, the UK expert also testified that he had only assumed the handprint on the jacket had been in blood. He had never even tested it.
On September 15, 1988, the Chamberlain’s convictions were unanimously overturned in the court of appeals. Two years later, they were awarded $1.3 million in Australian compensation. This did not make them rich, in fact it only covered a third of their incurred legal expenses.
In 1995, a third inquest into Chamberlain’s death was held, but despite the evidence that now existed, it returned an open finding, meaning that the cause of death was unknown.
Finally in 2012, a fourth and final inquest ruled that Chamberlain had been taken from her cot and killed by a dingo. There were both tears and loud applause from the court gallery when the verdict was read.
Current Status:
Today the overwhelming majority of Australians believe the Chamberlains were always innocent. In fact, a motive could never be found to explain why Lindy Chamberlain would have committed the crime.
