For those of you who support the death penalty this should be an eye-opener. A young woman, 24 [then], disappeared 31 years ago. When police failed to find either her or the body, they declared her dead. Later a suspect confessed he'd raped and murdered her and everyone believed she actually was dead. But . . . http://nypost.com/2015/09/27/woman-faked-her-death-to-live-new-life-in-germany/ Makes one wonder, how many of those missing people we hear of actually are "genuinely missing?"
And that's probably the strongest argument why people campaign against the death penalty. This isn't the first time that somebody as turned up after being declared dead and there's also been many murderers on death row that have since been proved innocent.
I didn't think about this story in the context of the death penalty! Which is surprising if you look at my other posts on the subject... I thought it was a very interesting story though. But exactly, the guy confessed to a crime he didn't commit! Makes me think of another great point, how many people were forced to confess to a crime they never committed?
If there isn't 100% proof, I don't see how you could really rule a death penalty. Ending someone's like needs real evidence...
Plead guilty and you get leniency. This is what probably makes people confess to crimes they didn't commit. Circumstantial evidence could be used to convict someone and if things look really bad, they have no alibi, no money to pay a good lawyer and so on, they'll take the offer of leniency in return for a confession. The judicial system isn't perfect.
I'm wondering whether this woman actually saw the reports of the "confession" all those years ago and if so, how could she let someone take the blame for her disappearance? Do we actually know what happened to this guy at all?
That is one of the stranger cases I have heard about. I think that people have some odd motivations to go missing sometimes and may not really be missing at all. There are several cases like that in the United States. I think that the majority of cases involve someone who is really missing, but I guess there are those few that a person disappears and may not be still alive. It is just one of those things that can happen when you have complex human beings in the mix.
I find stories like these greatly fascinating and would really like her to come out and say why she decided to disappear for all those years? I've never been a fan of the death penalty but I doubt this story will prove others otherwise. What I think should happen though is if a person is found guilty of a crime where a death penalty would be issued, instead they should serve time in prison for the remainder of their life.
The man had committed another crime prior to confessing that he'd "killed" this woman. I suppose even though it turns out he didn't kill the other woman, he was fairly punished for committing the other crime [murder and rape].
Although, in this case the woman turned up, the majority of these cases end up in foul play. I'd say that there is still some reasons why the death penalty should be utilized, unless you're okay with forever containing murderers at the expense of tax payer dollars. The idea that these people can be rehabilitated is optimistic at best. A lot of the murderers locked up or on death row already have existing mental conditions.