NBC’s ​‘Dateline’ Investigates the Wrongful Capital Conviction of Death-Row Exoneree Walter Ogrod

NBC’s true crime series, Dateline, fea­tured an episode on August 13, 2021 on the wrong­ful con­vic­tion and even­tu­al exon­er­a­tion of for­mer Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er Walter Ogrod (pic­tured). The episode, enti­tled ​“The Investigation,” is part of an NBC News series called ​“Justice for All” that reports on wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the U.S. crim­i­nal legal system.

For the report, NBC News anchor Lester Holt inter­viewed Ogrod, the moth­er and step­fa­ther of 4‑year-old vic­tim Barbara Jean Horn, jour­nal­ist Tom Lowenstein, who has writ­ten exten­sive­ly on the case, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, and lawyers and inves­ti­ga­tors who were involved in the mul­ti-decade effort to free Ogrod from death row. The episode fea­tures Ogrod’s first nation­al inter­view about the case since his exon­er­a­tion in June 2020. NBC mar­ket­ed the episode as ​“reveal[ing] decades of mis­con­duct across Philadelphia’s crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.”

Ogrod was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 1996 for the 1988 mur­der of Horn. His first tri­al end­ed in a mis­tri­al when one of the jurors changed his mind after the jury had noti­fied the court that it had unan­i­mous­ly vot­ed to acquit. In the retri­al of the case, pros­e­cu­tors used unre­li­able evi­dence to con­vict Ogrod: tes­ti­mo­ny from a self-inter­est­ed prison infor­mant, as well as two con­flict­ing con­fes­sions from Ogrod that were incon­sis­tent with how the mur­der actu­al­ly occurred and that Ogrod says were coerced.

Ogrod told Holt how homi­cide detec­tives Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell hand­cuffed him to a chair, denied him access to an attor­ney, and fed him details of the crime before he final­ly agreed to sign a con­fes­sion. He says he was exhaust­ed and scared when he signed the con­fes­sion that they had writ­ten for him. He imme­di­ate­ly recant­ed.

Krasner, who told Holt that Ogrod’s case involved an ​“abuse of pow­er” by police, filed crim­i­nal per­jury charges on August 13 against Devlin and two oth­er for­mer homi­cide detec­tives for false tes­ti­mo­ny in anoth­er Philadelphia mur­der case in which pros­e­cu­tors had ini­tial­ly sought the death penalty.

An inves­ti­ga­tion by Lowenstein, whose 2004 series, Snitch Work, and 2017 book, The Trials of Walter Ogrod, played a key role in Ogrod’s exon­er­a­tion, explained to Holt how meet­ing Ogrod made it clear that his sup­posed con­fes­sion — which police had claimed was ver­ba­tim — was fab­ri­cat­ed. Lowenstein inves­ti­gat­ed how a noto­ri­ous jail­house infor­mant, John Hall, helped pros­e­cu­tors frame Ogrod. Hall had earned the nick­name ​“the Monsignor” because ​“he had heard more con­fes­sions than a priest.” Hall’s wife told Lowenstein that she had helped her hus­band cre­ate a false con­fes­sion from Ogrod by send­ing him news reports about Horn’s mur­der. Hall shared the fab­ri­cat­ed con­fes­sion with anoth­er pris­on­er, Jay Wolchansky, because pros­e­cu­tors told Hall they had used his tes­ti­mo­ny too often. 

Philadelphia dis­trict attor­neys fought for decades to keep Ogrod on death row, but in 2018, new­ly elect­ed District Attorney Larry Krasner’s Conviction Integrity Unit rein­ves­ti­gat­ed Horn’s death. The CIU found that Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors had sup­pressed evi­dence that was favor­able to Ogrod, includ­ing a per­son­al­i­ty pro­file that called him ​“eas­i­ly manip­u­lat­ed” and foren­sic evi­dence that showed his con­fes­sions did not match the actu­al cause of Horn’s death and that pros­e­cu­tors knew they were pre­sent­ing false tes­ti­mo­ny to the jury about how the murder occurred.

In 2020, the DA’s office joined Ogrod’s attor­neys in seek­ing his release. Horn’s moth­er, Sharon Fahy, also sup­port­ed Ogrod’s exon­er­a­tion. She told Holt, ​“Once I had all the facts, I, in my heart, believe he is the wrong man and he did not do this.” The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic reached the U.S. while Ogrod’s exon­er­a­tion was pend­ing, and he con­tract­ed the dis­ease, with a fever as high as 106°. James Rollins, one of Ogrod’s post-con­vic­tion lawyers, told Holt that he wor­ried Ogrod would die of COVID before he could be released and said he is ​“still angry” that prison offi­cials denied Ogrod emer­gency med­ical care. Ogrod was exon­er­at­ed and released from prison on June 5, 2020, after spend­ing 23 years on death row.

Ogrod’s case was fea­tured on CNN Headline News’ series, Death Row Stories, in 2018.