Confession

NEW YORK - A Maple Shade man charged with murder decades after one of the nation's most infamous child disappearances can be brought to trial, a judge ruled Wednesday, turning down the man's claim that the evidence was too thin to proceed. In a case that hinges on a disputed confession, the judge said there was enough evidence to sustain the charges against Pedro Hernandez. He is accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, last seen walking to his Manhattan school bus stop in 1979. The ruling propels the case toward a trial that would likely revolve around whether Hernandez's confession amounts to a mentally ill man's imaginings, as his defense says.

The jury in the upcoming Harrison "Marty" Graham murder trial can hear the multiple-slaying suspect confessing to the strangling of seven women whose rotting corpses were found in his North Philadelphia den of death, a Common Pleas judge ruled today. Judge Robert A. Latrone said all of the prosecution's evidence, including Graham's confession, will be allowed at the trial. It was a defeat for the defense, which had sought to bar all of the police evidence. "For what condolence it might have for the defense, the question of the admissibility of the (Graham confession)

The confession of an accomplice who cannot be cross-examined generally cannot be used to help convict a co-defendant, the Supreme Court declared yesterday in a 5-4 decision. The ruling reaffirmed - and possibly strengthened - a criminal defendant's constitutional right of confrontation. That right forces witnesses against the accused to submit to cross-examination, which the high court has called "the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth. " In the case decided yesterday, Millie R. Lee and her boyfriend, Edwin Thomas, were tried jointly before a judge for the 1982 double murder of her aunt and her aunt's friend in East St. Louis, Ill. Neither of them testified.

Just because a jury rejects the validity of a confession, that's no reason to toss it into the trash. Yesterday, the same confession to the murder of jogger Kimberly Ernest that jurors rejected by acquitting Richard Wise, and his co-defendant, last Friday was used against Wise in court in an unrelated case. The prosecutor's tactic infuriated Wise's lawyer, Jack McMahon. "I never saw anything so lame," he said. Wise and co-defendant Herbert Haak were acquitted of the Ernest slaying in about three hours by a jury that apparently considered the confessions insufficient evidence.

Catherine Wells knew what she was doing when she confessed in August that she helped kill a man in his Worcester Township home eight years ago, a Montgomery County judge ruled yesterday. Montgomery County Court Judge Anita B. Brody yesterday denied a motion to suppress Wells' taped confession that she and a friend stabbed and suffocated Andre Lars Paschedag in 1982. Defense attorney Michael Cassidy had argued that Wells was under unusual stress when she confessed the killing to police on Aug. 1. Cassidy said Wells had had only two hours of sleep the night before the confession, had not eaten all day and had smoked marijuana and taken caffeine pills before she talked to police.

So-called jailhouse witness Clark Greene testified yesterday that Wilfredo Santiago never confessed the murder of police officer Thomas Trench to him, contrary to the prosecution's claims in the arrest warrant. Under questioning by detectives last July 17, according to the prosecution, Greene claimed that while in the Detention Center Santiago had admitted killing Trench, who was found dead of two bullet wounds in his patrol car on 17th Street above Spring Garden at 3 a.m. on May 28, 1985.

The jury listened intently as a homicide detective read a detailed confession he took from Richard Wise admitting the brutal beating and sexual assault of jogger Kimberly Ernest. The detective then maintained a stoic calm as Wise's fiery lawyer, Jack McMahon, sought to prove that the investigator had made up key parts of the confession. The confession came on Nov. 29, 1995, three weeks after Ernest's death, and just hours after co-defendant Herbert Haak, 26, signed a statement admitting a role in the murder but pointing to Wise as the actual killer.

It seemed like the cops did everything right. Six-and-a-half hours after his arrest in a murder case, Ernest Goldsmith, 47, confessed to stabbing to death Michael Jones, 31, in the hallway of their Frankford apartment building on April 20, 1991. He had given a statement denying the crime, but finally agreed to confess. Before taking the second statement, cautious homicide cops asked Goldsmith if he would agree to waive his right to an arraignment within six hours of his arrest.

In a taped confession played for a Burlington County Superior Court jury yesterday, Thomas F. Forsythe said he shot a delicatessen manager twice in the face by mistake. "I didn't want to shoot her," Forsythe said. "I had the hammer back. I thought what I would do was just scare her if it came to that. " Forsythe, 26, of Hamilton Township, who is being tried for attempted murder, aggravated assault, robbery, burglary and other charges, said he only intended to grab the woman's pocketbook and flee after she arrived to open Bordentown's Glenbrook Delicatessen around 6 a.m. last April 28. Forsythe said that, when he came out from behind a partition in the back room, he thought the manager, Lucy B. Murray, 52, of Chesterfield Township, was in the front of the store.

It hurt him to do it, the judge said, but he had to throw out the confession of an accused triple killer. The cops had violated the rights of Lamont Daniels, 24, by questioning him too long before advising him of his constitutional rights under the Miranda decision, said Common Pleas Judge Robert A. Latrone. The district attorney's office will be forced to drop all charges against Daniels. It had no other evidence to link him to the slayings of two young men and a 17-year-old girl on May 26, 1995.

NEW YORK - A Maple Shade man charged with murder decades after one of the nation's most infamous child disappearances can be brought to trial, a judge ruled Wednesday, turning down the man's claim that the evidence was too thin to proceed. In a case that hinges on a disputed confession, the judge said there was enough evidence to sustain the charges against Pedro Hernandez. He is accused of killing 6-year-old Etan Patz, last seen walking to his Manhattan school bus stop in 1979. The ruling propels the case toward a trial that would likely revolve around whether Hernandez's confession amounts to a mentally ill man's imaginings, as his defense says.

A Burlington County man's confession in one of the nation's most notorious child disappearances was false, peppered with questionable claims, and made after almost seven hours of police questioning, his lawyer said Wednesday in court papers asking a Manhattan judge to dismiss the murder case. "No evidence or witnesses have been found corroborating any of the few facts" in Pedro Hernandez's statements about the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, defense lawyer Harvey Fishbein wrote, arguing that there was not enough proof to support the case.

A Bucks County exterminator has been held for trial on murder charges in the January strangulation of Philadelphia pediatrician Melissa Ketunuti. Philadelphia Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni ordered Jason Smith, 37, of Levittown, to stand trial on a general count of murder, arson and related charges in the Jan. 21 death of Ketunuti, a pediatrician and researcher at Philadelphia's Children's Hospital. The body of Ketunuti, 35, was found on fire in the basement of her Graduate Hospital-area rowhouse by a dog walker who arrived to walk Ketunuti's dog. Philadelphia Police Homicide Det. Henry Glenn testified that Ketunuti was wearing riding boots and her hands had been bound behind her with a leather strap from horse gear.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - Steven Goff, the drifter handyman turned confessed killer, waited 23 years to admit killing 15-year-old Frederick "Rickey" Hart in the woods near Absegami High School, but his involvement in the death did not come as a surprise to local police. Goff, 41, known as a teenager to police for a string of burglaries and a steroid-distribution ring while a student at Absegami, was interviewed at the time of Hart's disappearance in May 1990, police sources said Wednesday.

Steven L. Goff first landed in jail as a young man who made "bad and stupid decisions" during his "misspent youth," he wrote in an online profile. Mostly for drug possession and distribution, he noted. Now, at 41, the Ventnor man is back in jail after he surrendered Monday morning, making a surprise confession to the murder of Frederick Hart, 15, of Galloway Township, nearly 23 years ago. "I did the crime and I'm prepared to do . . . whatever I gotta do," Goff said at his first court appearance before Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Donio in Mays Landing.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - Steven Goff, the drifter handyman turned confessed killer, waited 23 years to admit killing 15-year-old Frederick "Rickey" Hart in the woods near Absegami High School, but his involvement in the death did not come as a surprise to local police. Goff, 41, known as a teenager to police for a string of burglaries and a steroid distribution ring while a student at Absegami, was interviewed at the time of Hart's disappearance in May 1990, police sources said Wednesday.

When the body of 15-year-old Frederick Hart was found 19 months after he was reported missing in May 1990, his remains were so decomposed officials could not determine a cause of death. But now, 23 years later, the mystery of the Galloway Township boy's death may be solved. On Monday, Steven L. Goff, 41, of Ventnor, walked into the township's Police Department and confessed to killing Hart, officials said. Goff, who was 18 at the time, said he had stabbed the boy to death. At his initial court appearance Tuesday, Goff wanted to plead guilty but Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Donio prevented him from doing so without legal counsel.

By Marissa Boyers Bluestine Last week, the Delaware County District Attorney's Office withdrew murder charges against a man it determined to be innocent. Tahmir Craig was charged with the Memorial Day killing of Devon Williams after several witnesses identified him as the man seen in a surveillance photo. Craig maintained his innocence, saying he was with his family at the time of the murder. This story could have easily ended in a conviction and life sentence for Craig. But District Attorney Jack Whelan, after prodding from Craig's family and attorney, continued his investigation.

MOSCOW - Russian police on Wednesday began to outline the plot that resulted in an acid attack against Sergei Filin, artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, a story of temperamental artists, professional jealousy, and possibly a woman scorned. Pavel Dmitrichenko, 29, a Bolshoi star who was detained Tuesday, confessed on Wednesday to the crime, according to Maxim Kolosvetov, a Moscow police spokesman. "I organized this attack," Dmitrichenko, with dark circles under his eyes and looking slightly disheveled, said in a video shown on Russia 24 state television.

Murder defendant Tyrirk Harris told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury Thursday that he killed in self-defense. Harris said he shot Franklin Manuel Santana last Valentine's Day after Santana grabbed him in an attempt to take the 9mm pistol in his waist holster. "This man lost his life over an argument over poop," Assistant District Attorney Deborah Watson-Stokes said of the incident. Harris had two dogs, a German shepherd and a Chihuahua. Santana accused him of letting the dogs defecate on Santana's front lawn in Tacony.