A Missouri woman who was imprisoned since 1980 for a murder she was said to commit will get a court hearing that could lead to her release.
Sandra Hemme’s Court Trial
63-year-old Sandra Hemme will get a court hearing that could approve her release after the attorney general’s office in Missouri approved the said hearing. She was charged with murder way back Nov.12 1980 after killing Patricia Jeschke. Jeschke was a library worker in St. Joseph. Last February, Lawyers for the Innocence Project filed a petition for Hemme’s release. At the time of the murder, she was a patient at a psychiatric hospital when she gave her statements regarding the murder.
According to the Innocence Project, Hemme’s illness was exploited by the police, leading to her conflicting statements about the murder. At the time, she was being sedated and was treated with antipsychotic measures. According to a response last week, Circuit Judge Ryan Horsman was called on by the attorney general’s office to gather the lawyers who handled the case and to inform them to set a date for the evidentiary hearing during the arranged time of their meeting come July 10.
Hemme on Jeschke’s Murder
Hemme’s lawyers stated that the only evidence linking her to Jeschke’s murder were only statements that were very conflicting and far from reality. At first, Hemme did not mention anything about killing Jeschke but later stated that she was killed by an unknown individual and that she knew about Jeschke’s murder due to her having “extrasensory perception”, as stated by her lawyers.
After Jeschke’s body was recovered by the authorities, Hemme informed the police that she thought she killed Jeschke with a knife but later said “I don’t know. I don’t know”, according to her lawyers. Hemme pleaded not guilty to murder but her plea was trashed during the appeal. Later, she was found guilty after a one-day trial, with only her “confession” as the sole evidence.
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