Philadelphia D.A. Says Death-Row Prisoner Walter Ogrod is ​‘Likely Innocent’

After a review of the case by its Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU), the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office has told a state tri­al court that death-row pris­on­er Walter Ogrod (pic­tured) is ​“like­ly inno­cent,” that new­ly dis­cov­ered evi­dence showed that city pros­e­cu­tors had vio­lat­ed his right to due process, and that his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence should be vacated.

In brief­ing filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on February 28, 2020, CIU Chief Patricia Cummings wrote that her unit’s inves­ti­ga­tion had found that the evi­dence used to send Ogrod to death row for the 1988 mur­der of 4‑year-old Barbara Jean Horn was ​“false, unre­li­able and incom­plete.” His con­vic­tion, she said, was a ​“gross mis­car­riage of jus­tice,” marred by police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct — includ­ing the pre­sen­ta­tion of junk sci­ence and false infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny, and with­hold­ing excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence con­cern­ing the cause of the young girl’s death.

Ogrod has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained his inno­cence and has said that police coerced him into false­ly admit­ting to beat­ing Horn to death. His first tri­al was declared a mis­tri­al, with the jury hung at 11 – 1 for acquit­tal. A juror told the Philadelphia Inquirer, ​“There were gap­ing holes in the prosecution’s case. … I didn’t put much stock in the recant­ed con­fes­sion. I want­ed to see evi­dence.” At his sec­ond tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors filled those holes with what pros­e­cu­tors now con­cede was unre­li­able tes­ti­mo­ny from a jail­house infor­mant who claimed that Ogrod had admit­ted to the murder.

The DA’s fil­ing describes defects in three pil­lars of the prosecution’s case. At tri­al, pros­e­cu­tors claimed Ogrod had beat­en Horn to death with a weight bar. However, an autop­sy per­formed at the time, the results of which were not dis­closed to the defense, found that she actu­al­ly died of asphyx­i­a­tion. Subsequent foren­sic eval­u­a­tions cor­rob­o­rat­ed that find­ing. ​“Now, almost a quar­ter cen­tu­ry after Ogrod was sen­tenced to death, rel­e­vant, reli­able sci­ence has con­firmed that Barbara Jean did not die as a result of the blows to her head; Ogrod’s weight bar could not have caused and did not cause those injuries; Detective Marty Devlin and Detective Paul Worrell uti­lized inher­ent­ly coer­cive tac­tics and inac­cu­rate infor­ma­tion to obtain a false and unre­li­able con­fes­sion from Ogrod; and jail­house infor­mants col­lud­ed to pro­vide false and unre­li­able tes­ti­mo­ny against Ogrod in an effort to pro­cure favor­able treat­ment in their own crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions.” In addi­tion, new DNA test­ing ​“pro­duced a full male DNA pro­file suit­able for com­par­i­son” that exclud­ed Ogrod as a contributor.

Cummings described Ogrod’s coerced con­fes­sion as part of a pat­tern of mis­con­duct by two rogue homi­cide detec­tives. She wrote that CIU inves­ti­ga­tions in oth­er cas­es had uncov­ered ​“a pletho­ra” of evi­dence estab­lish­ing that Detectives Marty Devlin and Paul Worrell ​“had a his­to­ry of using coer­cive tech­niques to obtain con­fes­sions and incrim­i­nat­ing state­ments.” Since 2016, three mur­der con­vic­tions that had relied on con­fes­sions obtained by Devlin have been over­turned, includ­ing one oth­er in which DNA evi­dence had proven the confession false.

The CIU also found evi­dence that the jail­house infor­mants who claimed that Ogrod had con­fessed to them col­lud­ed with one anoth­er and had lied. The wife of jail­house infor­mant John Hall told the CIU that she had gath­ered news­pa­per arti­cles for her hus­band as part of a ​“snitch scheme.” When the arti­cles didn’t have enough details about Ogrod’s case, Hall’s wife wrote to Ogrod pos­ing as a strip­per who want­ed to befriend him. Hall then fed infor­ma­tion to fel­low infor­mant Jay Wolchansky, who also tes­ti­fied against Ogrod.

Cummings con­clud­ed that ​“no cred­i­ble evi­dence links Ogrod to the crime” and ​“it is like­ly that Ogrod is in fact innocent.” 

The D.A.’s fil­ing also address­es a sec­ondary con­se­quence of Ogrod’s wrong­ful con­vic­tion: the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor has nev­er been found. It states that ​“in addi­tion to the gross mis­car­riage of jus­tice com­mit­ted against Ogrod, Barbara Jean’s fam­i­ly and the jury, the Commonwealth rec­og­nizes that because the infor­ma­tion regard­ing Barbara Jean’s cause of death stayed hid­den for decades, the actu­al per­pe­tra­tor of the crime has not only escaped pros­e­cu­tion but it is pos­si­ble the per­pe­tra­tor has been free to com­mit oth­er crimes.” Ogrod’s case, it says, is ​“a per­fect storm of unre­li­able sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence, pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct, Brady vio­la­tions and false testimony.”

Ogrod’s lawyers and Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors have entered into a joint stip­u­la­tion regard­ing the facts that they say enti­tle Ogrod to relief. The next court date in the case is March 27, at which time the court could accept the par­ties’ agree­ment or sched­ule further proceedings.