My trial was not held until August of 1977 because my attorney filed perjury charges against Miller in an effort to have him declared incompetent as a witness. Miller was involved in the notarized affidavit filed with the FBI by Miller and Wilhelm claiming that Wilhelm’s initial complaint to the FBI was a hoax. In Pennsylvania, at that time, a convicted perjurer was not competent to testify. If convicted of perjury, Miller would not have been able to testify against me and there would not have been a trial. When my attorney filed these perjury charges through a private complaint on my behalf, the District Attorney declined to prosecute so that Miller could remain the chief witness against me. My attorney then filed a petition for court approval of a private prosecution which was turned down by the Court of Common Pleas. This decision was appealed to the Superior and Supreme Courts of Pennsylvania which upheld the lower court.
I never told anyone the truth about the fire until several years after my trial. I maintained my innocence for all the charges. My parents owned both their home and the restaurant building as entireties property and there was a $100,000.00 mortgage on the restaurant. This meant that they could lose their home if there was a mortgage foreclosure on the restaurant. I felt responsible for getting them into this mess and that if I did not deny having the restaurant burned down, they would be ruined financially. I also must have subconsciously felt that I would have to escape any criminal conviction in order not to be disbarred. I never told anyone the truth about the fire until several years later after my parents settled with the insurance company. Because I did not tell the truth, I had no valid explanation for trying to give Miller an alibi. The jury logically concluded that I had a motive for lying for Miller. Without my admitting that Miller had the fire hanging over my head, the jury believed that I was involved with Miller in the scheme to defraud Wilhelm and had a motive to want Wilhelm dead.
While I lied about my involvement in the fire, Miller lied also. He testified that I hired Wilhelm to set the fire and that Wilhelm was pressuring me for payment for both the fire and the land fraud. When Miller first talked to the police, he discussed the fire and the homicide. He made no mention of the land fraud. It was only after my attorney requested pretrial discovery in connection with the FBI file and the police questioned Miller, that he admitted the land fraud to the police. True to form, Miller implicated me. What is hard to explain is that the police accepted Miller’s story with very little corroborating evidence.
Miller told the police:
• That Wilhelm was in the driver’s seat, Miller was in the right front seat, and that I was in the back seat of the automobile.
• That I hit Wilhelm over the back of the head with a wrench and Wilhelm then got out of the car to get away from me.
• That I then got out of the car, chased Wilhelm, and started to stab him outside of the car.
Miller told the police what I was wearing that night and when they searched my home the next day, they found the described clothing with no blood on them;
Miller told the police and testified that I borrowed and wore his gloves, and committed the murder with the gloves on my hands;
The physical evidence totally contradicted Miller’s statements!
According to the testimony of the pathologist who did the autopsy, there was no bump on Wilhelm’s head;
There was no blood or skin on the wrench that was recovered at the crime scene;
According to the testimony of one of the police detectives, there was a trail of blood spatters on the dashboard of the car with tailings on them showing the direction the blade had moved during the attack. This proved that the occupant of the right front seat had stabbed the victim who was seated in the driver’s seat. This also meant that the victim had to have been stabbed in the car. This is significant because it means that the prosecutor had knowledge through the police that the stabbing had to have started in the car. Notwithstanding this knowledge, the prosecutor went forward and put Miller on the stand to testify that the stabbing started outside the car. This was done to make it look like I could have been the one who wielded the knife;
Miller admitted to getting rid of the clothing he wore that night;
Miller’s gloves were recovered near the crime scene. They had blood on them from the victim. The crime lab also found one of Miller’s hairs in the gloves. There was no evidence connecting me to the gloves. The prosecutor was aware of this when he presented Miller as a witness;
The police conducted a thorough investigation of the crime scene and took many pictures but did not take any pictures of the blood spatters on the dash board of the vehicle. This is hard to explain in light of the fact that the rest of the crime scene investigation was so thorough.
According to the experts that we brought in recently, had the police taken pictures of the blood spatters on the dash board with a scale, they could have identified who the assailant was to a certainty. The crime scene was investigated thoroughly in all other respects. This investigation was conducted by the homicide department of a major police force of a large city. This unusual coincidence is hard to explain.
At a minimum, the prosecutor and the police prejudged this case and ignored forensic evidence which contradicted the theory of their case.
My lawyer had a strong feeling that Miller had something wrong with him psychologically. He filed a pretrial request to have Miller examined by a psychiatrist. The court denied this request. At my trial my attorney asked Miller if he had ever had any medical problems and whether he had ever been hospitalized. Miller answered falsely that he had not.
The solicitation charge was very damaging. Coupled with no explanation for trying to alibi for Miller led to my conviction for murder. I was approached by a former inmate of the county jail and an undercover policeman, and agreed to pay them to have Miller killed. There were several factors which contributed to my participation in the solicitation. My wife left me a few weeks before the solicitation and I was unable to work at anything meaningful while I waited for trial. Soon after my arrest I started seeing a psychiatrist. I had been taking tranquilizers and antidepressants in large doses under the psychiatrist’s supervision. I foolishly decided to abruptly discontinue taking all medication a couple of weeks before the solicitation. I convinced myself that my depression was the result of the medication and was a cause of my wife leaving. What specific factor played the major role I can not say for sure. They all combined to create a willingness on my part to participate in the solicitation. I felt that my life as I knew it had come to an end and that everything that could possibly go wrong had happened to me. My lawyer had delayed the trial, my wife left me, and Miller had blamed me for everything he did. I also was not getting along well with my attorney Dave Rothman. Because of this I did not have faith in him which made me feel that much more desperate. Of all the things I did, the solicitation bothers me the most. That I allowed myself to do this has troubled my conscience more than any part of the whole story.
While housed in the County jail, waiting to stand trial, I was accused of a second solicitation. This was very upsetting at the time, but it proved to my family and lawyers that the police were not acting honestly.
Another prisoner named Ronald O’Shea, claimed that I solicited him to murder Police Detective Ronald Freeman, Police Lieutenant Ralph Pampena, Clarence Miller, and the Police Detective John Mook, who was the undercover detective in the first solicitation.
As I said above, at first I was very upset at having to deal with more trouble, but then I realized that even though I knew that O’Shea was lying, I also knew from what he said that there had been police complicity. When I was arrested on the first solicitation, the newspaper articles never mentioned the name of the undercover police detective, John Mook. This meant that either I gave Mook’s name to O’Shea, or he got it from the Police.
I knew that something was wrong from the way that the Allegheny County jail handled the case. I was not placed in segregation or given a misconduct. I was allowed to remain in general population. This made no sense to me. Under normal circumstances in any prison or jail, a prisoner who tries to have someone killed is immediately sequestered to isolation. It is one of the most serious prison infractions.
There was never a trial for this case. The charges were dropped. After sentencing on the main charges I was sent to SCI Pittsburgh. I saw Ronald O’Shea. I was surprised that he and I were allowed to be in the same institution. This too, is unheard of.
While I was at SCI Pittsburgh, O’Shea approached me and said that he was sorry. When I told him how I figured out how there was police complicity, he was shocked. I asked him who gave him Mook’s name, and who put him up to it. He told me that it was Detective Ronald Freeman. He gave me a written statement which I immediately mailed to my attorneys. Within a few days, the police were informed. They contacted the authorities at SCI Pittsburgh. O’Shea then claimed that I threatened him. Again, no misconduct was issued. I was placed in isolation and then shipped to SCI Huntingdon.
Many years elapsed and Ronald O’Shea was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death. While he was housed on death row at SCI Greene, my attorney and investigator went to see him. He told them the story and signed an affidavit. (See affidavit of Ronal O’Shea.) (You will need to get a copy of this affidavit from the lawyers.) A year or two later, O’Shea passed away of pneumonia which housed on death row. He was in his fifties.
Read about Post Trial & The Direct Appeal…