Saturday, July 12, 2008
Unopened doors
Police tipped early on to look into Chris Stoneâs possible connection
CONTENT WARNING
This series contains references to vulgar language and violent acts that may be objectionable to some readers and that parents may find inappropriate for their children.
Editorâs note: This series is the product of a six-year investigation by former Daily News-Miner reporter Brian OâDonoghue and his journalism students at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, with support from the News-Miner.

She wanted to believe the right people are paying for her sonâs 1997 murder.
But Evalyn Thomas had doubts.
âI do believe there were quite a few people not telling the whole truth,â she e-mailed in April 2005. âToo many people with stuff to hide.â
Thomas later described a recurring dream she and a friend shared following the murder. John Hartmanâs mother saw herself concealed in bushes behind Chris Stone, her sonâs 14-year-old friend. He was watching her boyâs beating. And it had to do with something Chris had done.
âWho knows about dreams, but it still makes me curious that two of us had the exact same dream,â observed Thomas in another e-mail from upstate New York shortly before she died in a four-wheeler accident.
The motherâs living nightmare began early Saturday, Oct. 11, 1997, when a motorist came upon a teen sprawled unconscious over pavement and curb. Medics raced the unidentified victim to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. That evening, about 8 p.m., Thomas identified the 15-year-old on life support as her son
Within hours, police received the first tips about Stone, the last person seen with Hartman prior to the crime.

Chris Stone, seen here in a March 2006 photo taken at Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington state, says that events from the night John Hartman died in October 1997 are still fuzzy in his mind.
Police heard two teens describe Stoneâs controlling influence over Hartman during a party at Noahâs Rainbow Inn. An older family friend urged police to investigate Stoneâs own recent beating.
But detectives already had a group of suspects, backed by two confessions. By the time Hartman died that Sunday evening, police were moving to arrest four current and former basketball players from Howard Luke Academy, Fairbanksâ largely Alaska Native alternative high school.
Hartmanâs last night out received little attention.
Two of the arrested young men â Eugene Vent and George Frese â later recanted their confessions. Other evidence gathered against the group of four was mainly circumstantial. Three Anchorage juries, weighing evidence against the various suspects in separate trials, each returned guilty verdicts before anyone learned of Stoneâs attention-drawing actions while his friend lay dying on a nearby street.
Courts still ponder that point a decade later.
âKnown to runâ
As Hartman lingered in a coma that Saturday night, police investigator Peggy Sullivan heard friends describe Hartman slumping onto the motel room floor in an apparent seizure. Band mate Trent Mueller told her he urged Hartman to leave with him. But Hartman elected to stay with Stone and the latterâs friend, Elijah âEJâ Stephens.

Marvin Roberts and Kevin Pease (top), Eugene Vent and George Frese (bottom), taken in July 2007 at Red Rock Correctional Center, a private prison in Eloy, Ariz.
Mueller didnât like the influence the pair seemed to hold, according to the police report.
âJohn was just sitting there with Chris and EJ, just dazed,â he said, âjust like he was a robot and they were controlling his body.â
Sullivan also noted that Mueller referred to Stone as a âcrack headâ who had recently suffered a beating.
Earlier that morning, Stone had left a message at Barbara Ann Higginsâ home, pleading for a place to stay. The 41-year-old bartender found the message on her answering machine when she arrived home from El Sombrero, a restaurant and tavern where she worked with Stoneâs mom.
The teenager and his mom were often at odds, and it wasnât unusual for Chris to bunk at Higginsâ place. But this was the first time he had called in advance, and the tone of the message concerned her. Though
it was late, Higgins called Stoneâs mom. She was curtly informed the teen was already home.
The following evening, Thomasâ boyfriend called Higgins from the hospital relaying the news about Hartman. Higgins knew he was Stoneâs friend. Aware that Chris had recently suffered a beating that sent him to the hospital, she wondered if the two assaults might be connected.
After work that Sunday, about 1 a.m., she visited police headquarters and made a full-page, handwritten report. âI have some names in Chrisâ assault that will probably be included in this case,â she wrote.
âChris is known to run away,â she added. âSo if he thinks heâs in trouble, he will.â
Higgins preserved Stoneâs recorded message for at least two months. Police didnât follow up, she later testified, and a power failure erased it.
Detective Aaron Ring, chief investigator on the Hartman case, later said in court he didnât recall seeing Higginsâ written statement or the Alaska State Troopers report on Stoneâs assault. The detective had heard Stone was roughed up over a girl. âIt wasnât connected with this case,â he testified.
Wouldnât name names
One night three weeks earlier, an employee at the Fort Knox gold mine, about 20 miles northeast of Fairbanks, came upon a battered youth hitchhiking by the companyâs front gate. Mine security provided cold packs and contacted Stoneâs family.
âHe had bruising about his face and head and down his back,â noted trooper Richard Quinn, who interviewed Stone at the hospital shortly before 2 a.m., Sept. 18, 1997.
The teen said he couldnât remember what happened.
EJ Stephens didnât come home that night until after Stone landed in the hospital. Quinn contacted him. âStephens indicated that Chris had âgone to the store with friends,ââ reported the
trooper. âNot cooperative with AST,â he added.
Though Stoneâs memory eventually cleared, he refused to name his assailants. âIt will just happen again,â he told Quinn.
âThis case is closed pending cooperation from the victim,â noted the trooperâs final report, dated four days after Hartmanâs assault.
A brotherâs burden
Chris âSeanâ Kelly, then 26 and wanted for parole violations, hid inside his motherâs house when he saw police approaching the front door that Saturday. But police werenât calling about the older brotherâs transgressions. They had reason to believe the unidentified boy in critical condition at the hospital was Thomasâ youngest son, John Hartman.
A âterrible groanâ from his mom brought Kelly flying downstairs
Kelly didnât mention it to police until months later, but he had been tipped the previous night that his kid brother might be in bad company over at Noahâs Rainbow Inn. He had spoken with a pair of sisters he knew at the low-rent motel and was assured âJGâ appeared OK. So he put the warning out of his mind, he recalled in a 2004 interview.
Liann Peryea, who was then living at Noahâs with her younger sister, is pretty sure the warning came from her end. âPeople usually like to look out for their little brothers.â In those days, she said, the motel now known as șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Inn was ânot a great place for anyone to be hanging around.â
Peryea is reluctant to discuss the conversation she had that night. âAnything that could have been done should have been done that night,â she said in fall 2006.
With his younger brother still clinging to life, Kelly stormed over to Noahâs. By then, he knew JGâs friends had alerted police about Fridayâs party. He expected yellow crime tape across Room 244.
He was angered that nobody in the hallway had seen police nosing around.
Guilt magnified the older brotherâs distress. Not long before, according to Kelly, he had ripped off Calvin Bollig, a Fox drug dealer busted later that fall for running a $1 million cocaine operation.
Was JG stomped in retaliation, he now wondered?
The ignored warning ate at him. As Kelly told police following his arrest in January 1998, âI was too busy doing what I was doing to go get my little brother.â
Officers mainly wanted to know what the victimâs brother had heard through the prison grapevine about the four suspects already charged. Kelly described what he took to be an incriminating apology from Vent. He also urged police to look into the recent beating suffered by his brotherâs friend, âChris Stoneman.â
Memory improves
Available police records indicate Stone wasnât interviewed until Monday, more than 48 hours after Hartmanâs fatal beating. The teen calmly described sharing a cab to Stephensâ house on Laurene Street. He said he last saw Hartman when they parted company at the end of the block.
âHiggins said you sounded upset,â Ring said in that taped session.
Stone blamed his agitation on the prescription pills taken at Noahâs.
âYouâre not just afraid?â
âNo,â Stone said.
âBecause thatâs the information we have â that you might have been there when he was assaulted,â the detective said. âSaw what happened and were threatened by these guys.â
Stone repeated that he left Hartman and went looking for his mother at El Sombrero. Finding the place closed, he said he continued to Carrs-Foodland, made a few calls and eventually caught a cab home.
But Melissa Stephens had lingered by the window after her son EJ arrived home from Noahâs. Her front alcove offered a view up Laurene Street to Airport Wayâs access road. She watched Hartman and Stone turn right, striding off together.
âIt looked like they were going somewhere with a purpose,â she testified in the final Hartman trial.
A few months after the murder, Stone was arrested as an accessory in a rape case. In August 1998, Ring and then-Sgt. Dan Hoffman visited the 15-year-old at Fairbanks Youth Facility.
âI did see Kevin Pease that night,â volunteered Stone, who credited newspaper photos with jogging his memory of the suspectâs presence near the supermarket payphone.
Nine months had elapsed since the murder. For the first time, Stone recalled a small blue car, packed with âwhite or Native kids,â hovering by the liquor store entrance. He had a good look at the car, he said, when he walked back outside through that door.
Witness faces scrutiny
Prosecution of the Hartman suspects was delayed more than a year by legal battles over the admissibility of Freseâs and Ventâs confessions, the district attorneyâs failure to inform grand jurors of possible alibis, and complications arising from the extensive pre-trial publicity.
To ensure fairness, the trials were eventually moved to Anchorage. In February 1999, Frese became the first to face a jury. Ventâs turn came in July. Marvin Roberts and Kevin Pease were tried together that August.
Stone, the last person known to have seen Hartman alive and the witness who later placed Pease with a blue car outside the supermart, held a major part in the stateâs case. The teenâs reluctance to name his own assailants, meanwhile, garnered attention with each courtroom appearance.
âWe stopped at, like, a dead end,â Stone testified during the first trial, describing a joyride with friends that suddenly exploded. âWhen we were getting back in, I was assaulted. They hit me, like, with (billiard) balls. They were wrapped up in socks.â
Prosecutor Jeff OâBryant elicited Stoneâs declaration that none of the Hartman suspects were involved.
âWho was it?â defense attorney Bob Downes asked under cross-examination.
âDale Lapue, Mike,â Stone mumbled. âGod, I canât remember the rest of the guys. Mike something. And Chad something. And there was another guy I didnât even know.â
Stone described the car used joyriding as brown or tan. He swore he didnât know why âfriendsâ had turned on him.
Candor follows arrests
Five months after Freseâs trial ended with a guilty verdict, the News-Miner reported arrests in another murder case. âTrio pleads innocent in death of cabbie,â read the headline.
Dale Depue, Sean Aldridge, both 18, and 28-year-old John Holloway were accused of killing a cab driver missing since the previous summer. Maurice Smithâs taxi had been pulled from the Tanana River loaded with rocks. That spring, a hiker stumbled across his body in the woods north of town.
The arrests coincided with the opening of Ventâs trial, at which Stone described his own beating in greater detail. He portrayed Dale Depue as the instigator. Stephens was present, he said, but hadnât joined in the assault.
Further details emerged during Stoneâs final Hartman trial appearance that August and from his testimony at Hollowayâs trial in 2000. Why had he protected the kids who beat him up?
Stone explained at the final Hartman trial that his âclose friendâ Sean Aldridge begged him to shield the person he viewed as his brother. âHe was like, can you not go tell?â
Aldridge and Depue, who were raised in the same household, eventually confessed to chasing and beating Smith after luring him into the woods. It was Holloway, their martial arts teacher, according to the pair, who slit the cabbieâs throat. Both testified for the state.
Holloway and Aldridge were each convicted of second-degree murder. Though Depueâs plea bargain resulted in a lesser charge of manslaughter, Judge Charles Pengilly gave him 15 years, triple the usual sentence. âHe has an unbroken criminal record since he was 9,â said the judge, adding that Depue was capable of repeating such violence âin an instant.â
Unopened door

John Hartmanâs mother, Evalyn Thomas, and his brother, Michael Kelly, are seen in front of a memorial in their home in October 1998, one year after the 15-year-oldâs murder.
The final Hartman trial featured legal skirmishes over defense attempts to portray Depue and his associates as alternative suspects. âTheyâre trying to just make Depue look like a bad guy,â said OâBryant, objecting to a defense disclosure of his arrest as a suspect in the cabbieâs murder.
âHeâs a bad guy,â countered Judge Benjamin Esch, citing Stoneâs account of Depueâs role in the Fort Knox assault.
The judge instructed jurors to disregard the references to Depue being locked up, but he refused to block the defense from trying to link the two assaults. âWeâll get a chance to maybe see if they can make me believe it.â
Toward that end, the defense attempted to put Brandy Hudspeth on the witness stand. She was prepared to testify she had heard Depue and his friends talk about âknocking headsâ the night of Hartmanâs assault. The date stood out, she stated at an evidentiary hearing, because that Friday, Oct. 10, marked Depueâs 17th birthday.
Before heading out that night, recalled Hudspeth, who was 15 at the time, Depue and his friends groused about being broke. They returned home with $160 in cash, she said. Though Hudspeth saw the cash, the rest amounted to hearsay, Esch ruled, so no jury ever heard what she had to say.
Troopers handled the cabbieâs 1998 homicide. Fairbanks police had jurisdiction in Hartmanâs 1997 murder. As lead prosecutor for both cases, then-Assistant District Attorney OâBryant was positioned to ensure possible connections were explored.
âI believe there was inquiry,â OâBryant said in a 2002 interview. âNot obviously that night. But later on, when that information surfaced, I believe there was inquiry made. To what extent? Or how in depth? I donât recall.â
Paul Keller, the detective who headed the Hartman investigation until his retirement in fall 1997, agrees police looked into Stoneâs assault and Depueâs possible involvement in the murder. âAll this was investigated and sorted out,â Keller said in a recent e-mail for this story.
But even after Depueâs arrest, Detective Ring saw no need to delve further, not with trials already under way for those he deemed responsible for Hartmanâs murder. âThere was no evidence that there was anyone but these individuals there,â he said in a 2002 interview.
His testimony in the final Hartman trial that August established that Fairbanks police never looked beyond associates of the group prosecuted. âDid you ever investigate any other suspects?â Ring was asked.
âInitially, other friends of Eugeneâs,â said the detective, referring to Vent. âNames he had given me that turned out to be false, that sort of thing.â
âOnly people associated with these â somehow associated with these four boys?â
âYes,â testified the lead detective on the Hartman case.
In his closing argument, Robertsâ attorney complained that the investigationâs tight focus left open questions regarding a possible connection between the murder and Stoneâs earlier assault.
âCoincidence?â Dick Madson asked jurors. âWho knows? But strange. But weâll never know because thatâs an avenue that was never driven down, and it was a door that we never looked behind.â
New evidence
From her booth overlooking checkout stands, money counter Karan Bilyeu warily eyed the teenager who had come rushing through Carrs-Foodlandâs front door about 1:45 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, 1997.
His hasty entrance commanded attention, agreed night manager Sheryl DeBoard. âI thought âpeople are going to come in running after him.ââ
Jan DeMasters had the front register. Stone appeared âagitated,â she recalled, in a way that put the night crew on alert. âHe wasnât obviously walking in for a loaf of bread and peanut butter.â
More than anything else, employees agree, the youngster radiated fear. âLooked scared to death,â recalled Marney Osborne in a 2004 interview. âI have three boys. So I can tell that it was obvious he (Stone) was very afraid.â
The night manager inquired if there was someone she could call.
âYou canât call my mom,â DeBoard recalled being told by the teen. She thought she also heard him mention a friend being hurt â though his exact words later escaped her.
He had her call El Sombrero, in case someone remained inside the closed tavern, as well as the Greyhound Lounge. She couldnât reach the people he wanted, so DeBoard called his mother.
Maggie Stone had a cab fetch her son.
âTeen dies in hospital after downtown attack,â proclaimed the headline in Mondayâs News-Miner.
âOh my God,â DeBoard recalled wondering. âDid this have something to do with him?â
News accounts indicated the case was solved. No one from the store called police.
Following the trials, the night manager mentioned the terrified kidâs memorable entrance to Shirley Demientieff, a longtime customer. The Native activist alerted defense lawyers. Stoneâs behavior while his friend lay dying came under scrutiny for the first time.
Only a âparanoid feelâ
In May 2001, Esch again presided as Robertsâ lawyer argued for a new trial citing jailhouse retractions from Arlo Olson, the stateâs key witness, and DeBoardâs encounter with Stone at the supermarket.
The store manager assured the judge that Carrs Foodlandâs liquor store door was locked by that time of night, casting doubt on Stoneâs claimed encounter with Pease. She said he dashed into her store in a panic.
âI did not come running into the store. I walked into it,â Stone countered. âYes, I had a paranoid feel about me, because I was very high on pills that I took. It had nothing to do with anything real.â
Esch struggled reconciling their conflicting accounts.
âShe (DeBoard) was very believable about her perception that Stone was fearful,â the judge noted. âHowever, such an observation is consistent with Stoneâs own testimony that he was paranoid because he used drugs earlier, that he was afraid of the person who stared at him near the pay telephones or both.â
He denied Robertsâ request for another trial.
In a 2003 opinion upholding the exclusion of Hudspethâs testimony and Eschâs evaluation of what DeBoard had to say, Alaskaâs appellate tribunal summarized defense arguments suggesting Stone engaged in a cover-up.
âRobertsâ theory was that Depue ... and Aldridge were actually the people who had robbed and killed J.H. He represented that Stone had been assaulted by Depue and others approximately three weeks before J.H.âs death. He also represented that they drove a tan or beige four-door car similar to the one observed by (Franklin) Dayton and Stone before they were assaulted.â Roberts further contends, the court noted, âthat Stone had lied about not being presentâ during the attack that claimed his friendâs life.
In a 2004 interview at Seward Correctional Center, Depue said he had nothing to do with Hartmanâs death. He also said he was out of state at the time of the Fort Knox assault, though both Stone and Stephens portray Depue as the one who started it. Depue said he is aware the group convicted of Hartmanâs murder professes to be innocent. âWho knows?â he said. âIt could all be show.â
âIâm guilty of my crime,â the former Lathrop High student added. âBut it was just kid stuff that got out of hand. Maybe thatâs what happened to them.â
Juvenileâs disclosure
No one involved in the original Hartman trials appears to have known about Stoneâs comments in an unrelated juvenile criminal proceeding.
Under a plea deal in a December 1997 rape case, Stone was required to discuss how he and another teen detained a girl at knifepoint while her friend was sexually assaulted in another room. She played along, he insisted, and hadnât acted scared.
âYou ever been scared, Chris?â a trooper asked in that March 1998 interview.
âYes, I have,â Stone responded. âIâve been scared to death. I was scared when I was in jail. I was scared when I got the hell beat out of me. I was scared when my best friend died.â
âSo you know what fearâs like right?â
âÔš±đČő.â
âSo,â the trooper said, âdo you whimper or whine?â
âYes, I do.â
âEvery time?â
âWhen Iâm scared to death, as she puts it, I do,â Stone said. âIâm not calm. Iâm not just sitting there. Iâm looking around my shoulder â I am freaking out.â
The juvenileâs statement first surfaced through a public records request for an adult co-defendantâs files. In 2006, the eight-year-old interview with Stone was cited by Ventâs current attorney as further cause for a new trial.
In a motion arguing against that request, Assistant District Attorney Helen Hickmon characterized Stoneâs comment as so open to interpretation as to be meaningless. She emphasized her point with a list of ready explanations:
- Stone could have been scared because his friend had been killed.
- He saw who did it.
- He could identify the perpetrator and feared reprisals.
âOr perhaps,â the stateâs attorney concluded, âStone was afraid heâd be attacked in jail for his own crimes against humanity.â
DeBoard reviewed the teenâs statement for this story. Stoneâs description stopped her cold.
âThat is what Mr. Stone looked and felt like when he walked â no, ran! â through that door,â the former supermarket manager said. âHe was freaked out.
âAnd I think itâs natural for another human being to heed another human being if theyâre scared. Thatâs why we were so drawn to him.â
Dread he canât explain
A letter from a county jail in Washington hinted at a break.
âProsecutors, investigators, detectives and reporters all hunted me as a kid,â Stone wrote in fall 2005, âwanting to get the facts of that night â to keep remembering about it. None cared how I was affected by it all.â
Stone, then 22 and serving time for passing a stolen check and other charges, agreed to be interviewed about the crime he said drove him from Alaska.
âI think maybe the Lord has set this up for you to help me.â
March 9, 2006, a jailer escorted the lanky, big-shouldered inmate into a cleared cafeteria at Monroe Correctional Complex, a 95-year-old state prison housing 2,500 male inmates.
âI just woke up,â he said sheepishly.
Much of that night in October 1997 is a blur, Stone said up front. Seizures he dates to the Fort Knox assault affect his memory, he said. Heâs left with bits and pieces: Drinking wine elsewhere in the motel; glimpses of a kid who later gave him a hard time; Hartmanâs seizure.
Parting company with Hartman â thatâs Stoneâs sharpest memory. But heâs not entirely sure.
âI really even,â Stone paused, âdoubt that things happened the way from, you know, after we left the hotel. I mean, just everything from we left the hotel till my mom being in my face waking me up â telling me JGâs dead. It seems just like a one terrific nightmare.â
Stone said he didnât see Hartmanâs beating. âWasnât there with him,â he said, adding more firmly: âI wish I was. I mean as I wasnât as big then, but I donât think it would have happened. I was still 6 foot tall ... I was a big kid, 185, 200 pounds.â
He hadnât gotten over the traumatic events of that year.
âWhen I see a car drive by, a car full of people and late at night,â Stone said, âI panic.â
He canât point to a cause.
âI donât live in an actual fear of anything in particular,â Stone said. âBut I live in fear of the abstract things that I donât know.â
And heâs nagged by the questions over Hartmanâs last steps. âI just want this all to be done with, figured out and, hopefully,â Stone said, âI can figure out why Iâm a spaz. Why I freak out.â

Evalyn Thomas displays a thank you card received from an anonymous organ transplant recipient who now carries a kidney that belonged to her deceased son, John. Hartmanâs other kidney, liver and heart ventricles were all surgically transplanted to other patients.
The inmate talked for more than an hour, resolving little. Like so many others ensnared in the crimeâs aftermath, his memories of that night churn from drugs, booze and time.
âI told you all I know,â Stone wrote from prison following the interview. âMaybe there were keys there and we just donât know it. Like I said in the interview, whoever hurt my friend, I want justice to find them â if it hasnât already.â
Lives lost
For Hartmanâs mother, the continuing litigation remained an open wound until her death in 2005.
âEach time I go through everything all over again,â Thomas said in 2003 upon learning jury error might result in a new trial for Roberts and Pease.
âDo you know what thatâs like?â
Timeâs passage left others mourning as well.
âThey took my boyâs life away for no reason,â Hazel Roberts said several years ago. âSomebody needs to pay for that.â
Marvin Roberts, who turned 30 in November, would have been paroled by now had he taken the stateâs offer and testified against his former teammates. He sticks by that choice. âIâm innocent,â he said in a telephone interview from Red Rock, the private prison in Arizona housing Alaskaâs long-term offenders. âI wasnât going to say I did it.â
Years ago, discussing the case with a student video crew, Roberts alluded to blue moments when his patience snaps and when he, too, canât resist pointing the finger.
âI canât always control it. Some days, I do get angry at them.â
He meant Fairbanks Police.
âI figure it all started with them,â said Roberts, looking straight into the student crewâs camera. âThey had this case solved from day one. They wouldnât look at other leads. They put four of us together. Said, âYou guys did it. Thatâs it. Case closed.ââ
From the stateâs perspective, those four guilty verdicts, representing the collective judgment of 36 Anchorage jurors, certify that justice was delivered in fair measure.
And donât try to tell the former Fairbanks district attorney the case he brought against Hartmanâs murderers held room for reasonable doubt.
âYou tell his mother,â OâBryant said last spring, âthere wasnât evidence in the bruises on her sonâs face.â
Murder victimâs last steps
1- șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű 1:15 a.m., John Hartman, Chris Stone and Elijah âEJâ Stephens share a cab from Noahâs Rainbow Inn to Stephensâ home on Laurene Street.
2- Hartman and Stone last observed together at end of block. Stone said pair shook hands and parted company. âEJâ Stephensâ mom, Melissa Stephens, said pair continued on together.
3- Stone said he went to El Sombrero in hopes of finding his mother, but tavern was closed.

A map of downtown Fairbanks details the last steps of Josh Hartman | Source: Taxi log, police reports, court testimony
4- Around 1:35 a.m. a resident of the womenâs shelter on 9th Avenue hears the sound of a fight on street below
5- șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű 1:45 a.m., Stone alarms employees with his entrance into Carrs-Foodland supermarket. The night manager calls his mother, who arranges a cab home.
6- șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű 2:45 a.m., a motorist cruising east on 9th Avenue comes upon a teenager sprawled across the curb near Barnette Street. Hartman never regains consciousness and dies the following evening.
Brian OâDonoghue is a UAF assistant professor of journalism. Former students Cary Curlee, Robinson Duffy, Mark Evans, Laurel Ford, Russ Kelly, Theresa Roark, Frank Shepherd and Abbie Stillie contributed to this report.
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ABOUT âDECADE OF DOUBTâ
This seven-part series offers no proof of guilt or innocence. It does document gaps in the police investigation that raise questions about the victimâs last conscious hours. It points out that the group convicted of John Hartmanâs murder may have been prosecuted with forms of evidence identified later in national studies as contributing to some wrongful prosecutions elsewhere. And it shows how rulings from this stateâs courts have undermined Alaska Native confidence in the justice system by keeping juries from weighing all thatâs known about the crime.
Among the seriesâ observations:
- The police investigation remained focused on suspects flagged through a pair of confessions, subsequently retracted, despite lab tests that yielded no supporting evidence.
- Jurors remained unaware that state crime lab experts couldnât match Freseâs boots with photos of Hartmanâs bruises. Though it bore the labâs logo, the suggestive exhibit presented at trial was a non-scientific photo overlay assembled by police and the district attorney. Recent studies have shown that evidence lacking forensic merit often figures in convictions that are later overturned.
- Detectives referred to fictitious evidence throughout the interrogations that yielded confessions from Vent and Frese. Employing such trickery on suspects who profess no memory of a crime, while standard practice in 1997, today draws specific cautions in the nationâs standard-setting criminal interrogation manual. The revisions reflect lessons learned from re-examining tactics used obtaining confessions later proven false in cases that sent innocent people to jail.
- The stateâs case strongly relied upon identifications made by an eyewitness standing 550 feet from a robbery. The distance raises the possibility of witness misidentification, which has emerged as the leading common denominator among hundreds of errant murder and rape convictions.
- Police paid scant attention to the last person known to have been with Hartman. Chris Stone, a 14-year-old self-described methamphetamine addict, had been hospitalized following a similar assault only weeks prior. And jurors never heard about Stoneâs attention-getting entrance into Carrs-Foodland about the time Hartman lay dying in the street. Also, no one involved in the Hartman case had access to Stoneâs sworn statement, sealed in an unrelated juvenile proceeding, suggesting, under one interpretation, awareness of his friendâs plight.
All of this has contributed, in the eyes of many, to a decade of doubt.