Mostly guilty people
5% or 10% of the people listed on this page are not guilty.
This page will list a bunch of murder convictions of people who appear to be guilty, and are probably guilty, but 'probably' as in 90%, or 95%, not 100%, and below links to the case are some of the factors that are problematic.
1) Nicholas Browning / probably guilty / 95%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtNASztI83c
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Waggoner_Browning
https://krazykillers.wordpress.com/2011/09/05/nicholas-waggoner-browning-family-slayer/
https://newschomp.blogspot.com/2008/02/cockeysville-mdanother-amityville-teen.html
Problems
a) He is at an age where he could be easily induced to fabricate a believable scenario, and the interviewers are doing everything they can to encourage him to fabricate a believable scenario.
b) He told the interviewer where the gun was, which is a strong indication he is guilty, but it is about 1% possible that the gun was not the murder weapon and the police hid that fact. If he were not guilty he would have been working useful details into his story, and it's possible the gun was there for another reason. Unlikely, but possible, and a person should not trust the police to tell the truth about twists like that. In other words a person does not know unless they research it properly.
c) Notice the comment at https://newschomp.blogspot.com/2008/02/cockeysville-mdanother-amityville-teen.html
Anonymous said...
I went to middle school and high school with John Browning (the father). The ironic thing is that about 35 or so years ago, one of John's sisters was killed by an accidental gun discharge in the family home. Someone looking through old Howard County police and news could probably find more details.
So a person knows there was an accidental shooting in that family one generation prior, and the boy had probably been told things about it, and probably had imagined many scenarios. Depending on what he knew about that shooting the pressure from the interviewers could have caused him to insert one of the scenarios he had imagined previously, if there were indications he tended to daydream and construct fantasy worlds.
d) There is some indication of that.
During his time in prison, PEN America awarded Browning an honorable mention in the Edward Bunker Prize for Fiction in the 2020 PEN America Prison Writing Contest followed by a 3rd Place prize in Fiction in the 2021 PEN America Prison Writing Contest.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Waggoner_Browning
e) He says the mother woke up when the father was shot then went back to sleep, then he shot her. Sounds unlikely, possible though.
f) One of the biggest warning signs is the lying and manipulativeness of the interviewers. If they were competent then all that posturing would not be necessary. The main lesson from all the lying that the police did during the interview is that a person should be careful with their results. They may have stumbled blindly on the truth, but there also may be something else going on.
Conclusion A person would have to check the actual autopsy reports and if they match up with his scenario e.g. head shots etc then he probably did commit the murders, 99%+.
If they do not then the chance of him being guilty drops to around 50%. Generally if there is a discrepancy in this sort of thing the police will hide it, so the only way to research that is to look at the original report filed with the medical examiner.
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2) Sabrina Zunich /99.9999% guilty, but questionable responsibility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrhBmcKS_-w
https://heavy.com/news/sabrina-zunich-today/
The main lesson from this story is that if you create a murderer then you get a murderer. Sort of like any recipe. If you put flour and water and yeast in a bowl and mix it then cook it, don't be surprised if you see a piece of bread after a while.
The foster care system carefully messed up her mind then put her in a house where the 'father' was using her for sex and told her to kill the 'mother' of the house. She did exactly what she was supposed to do, exactly what society trained her to do.
She received exactly the same sentence as her most recent teacher, life in prison with parole after 30 years.
In some places she would be considered not guilty, but she did stab the victim and in the United States that means that unless she is wealthy or connected she is guilty regardless her age or history.
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3) Brandon Spencer
Here is a Youtube video "5 guilty teenage convicts react to life sentence"
Googling one of their names /
https://www.change.org/p/free-brandon-spencer
And a paywalled article that probably has info https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-02-24/brandon-spencer-40-year-sentence
It isn't clear what the evidence is.
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4) Jhenea Pratt
A woman and her boyfriend were caring for a child. Somebody put fentanyl in a 'sippy cup', probably to put the kid to sleep, but the kid died.
This is the rare interrogation video where the interviewer is competent and polite and is doing his job properly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwwLvbFZglg
If there were any reason to believe that the killing was deliberate there might be reason to push it further, but it looks like one of two people are guilty of using a less intelligent way of putting their kid to sleep, and it could reasonably be called an accidental death.
There is a 50% chance the woman is guilty and a 50% chance the boyfriend is guilty.
She lost her child and got 10 years for there being a 50% chance she accidentally killed her child. If they had tested her for fentanyl use and if she did use fentanyl then it might be closer to reasonable. Lots of educated people give something to children to help them sleep, small amounts of brandy, benadryl etc and her or his intention was the same as those people, all that was lacking were a few iq points.
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5) Bever Brothers / pretty nearly 100% that they are guilty / added to balance other cases that are less than 100%
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i6zNgBxHbQ
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_Arrow_killings
Another rare competent interviewer. The boys were obviously playing social roles and were exactly the same as most boys that age, the only difference being the specific roles they chose. If they had decided to join the army so they could kill the enemy du jour they would have been on more solid social ground. In either case they would eventually regret their actions but in this case the regret came sooner because there was no social payoff and they had a natural revulsion to what they did.
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6) Timmy Brent Olsen / about 5% chance he is guilty of murder / additional 100% cases will be added later to balance this outlier
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Kiplyn_Davis
https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-10th-circuit/1274680.html
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7) Sean Riker / Guilty of enough, regardless what it is / 95%+
This person has at least two Twitter accounts by one or more people claiming he is innocent, so a person has to consider it possible.
https://twitter.com/riker_sean
https://twitter.com/Seanrikergirl
There are some legal appeals online that seem to have enough evidence that, at the very least, he should probably not be living with his wife and kids.
https://law.justia.com/cases/wisconsin/court-of-appeals/2015/2013ap002541-cr.html
It could be that he is claiming to be innocent of a previous conviction which was for bombing a store, a school and another business.
https://www.wrn.com/2009/11/wind-lake-man-accused-of-terrorizing-family/
https://archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/ci_13775230
https://www.wrn.com/2009/11/wind-lake-man-accused-of-terrorizing-family/
https://www.ksl.com/article/8641341/man-convicted-in-utah-bombings-arrested-in-wis
The first priority in that case would be some kind of psychological research that would have to precede any research on the particulars of the bombing conviction. It is very possible the bombing conviction was improper, maybe a 10% or greater chance, but even if he didn't do the bombing there are many thousands of people who would be further ahead in any line to get reviewed.
Every case where anybody claims to not be guilty should be reviewed, including this one, but this one would be a lower priority than most.
There may be a slim chance of some exaggerations in charging him though, since the comments made by the appeal judges involving the shotgun are not sensible. If the shotgun was not loaded, and if everybody there knew it was not loaded, then he committed a crime, but a lesser crime, in that one incident. A person should treat any gun as loaded, but an unloaded gun is not in the same category as a gun that misfires regardless what those judges want people to pretend.
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8) Dalia Dippolito / Quite guilty / 99%+
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JttwV6XZ_I
That video is interesting for a different reason though. The channel is called "JCS Criminal Psychology", but the focus is not actually psychology.
An interesting bit from 29 minutes 20 seconds "What Dalia is doing here is gaslighting, a textbook type of manipulation used by psychopaths, sociopaths and all those with narcissistic personality disorder", then the host says "She is trying to cultivate doubt in his mind by...etc".
The first part of that statement is nonsense mumbo jumbo, which is then 'legitimized' by adding a simple fact which is true.
Loaded words like 'psychopath, sociopath, narcissistic personality disorder' have nothing to do with psychology. They are fantasy gang phrases one group of people use to make themselves appear superior to another group. Perfectly appropriate for judges and legal types paid to do that, but that is not psychology.
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9) April Rose Wilkens / Guilty of what? / ?%?
https://aprilwilkensblog.wordpress.com/2022/02/12/timeline-of-events/
If a person looks at the timeline, there is not a lot of doubt that the killing was reasonable.
A person could argue that she provoked him to some extent in certain situations, as he argues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_d7mc2wT4M
But at the end of the day if the only thing left in your pocket is a gun then you should use it.
Those who support her having been charged, and remaining in prison, should articulate their position clearly in public. It may be that there is some other crime she committed or some unknown justification, but it looks unlikely.
https://twitter.com/FreeAprilW
https://aprilwilkensblog.wordpress.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Rose_Wilkens
Prosecutors and judges are paid a lot of money, and supposedly work for the public.
If they take x dollars per hour to put people like that in jail they should also be willing to answer questions about their decisions for the same amount of money.
In many cases, such as this one evidently, the success of the prosecution depends on its lack of accountability and its immunity from scrutiny.
In this particular case, a big factor may be political corruption. In the United States criminal cases which are skewed by corruption are virtually immune from scrutiny because law enforcement bureaucrats do not want to harm the public image of their colleague bureaucrats in other branches.
An interesting contrast to the United States is China, where corrupt officials know that they may face scrutiny and accountability from other bureaucrats. This is probably a key part of China's growing power since it has lead to a significant portion of the Chinese population supporting and trusting their bureaucrats, something virtually non existent in the U.S.
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10) Chanel Lewis
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM7d_pvZsoU
https://www.google.com/search?q=Karina+Vetrano
Discussed further on 'Identifying False Confessions' page.
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11) Donald Eugene Younge
This could be another case of prosecutors playing with DNA evidence, but he is probably guilty of something.
Deseret News Nov 24, 2009 https://www.deseret.com/2009/11/25/20354855/witness-describes-99-killing
SLTrib November 7, 2012 https://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=55220878&itype=CMSID
"Donald Eugene Younge, 46, was originally charged with capital murder and eight other felonies in connection with the stabbing death of 22-year-old Amy Quinton, but on Monday, Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill filed a one-sentence order asking for all of the charges to be dismissed without prejudice, meaning prosecutors can file charges against Younge in the future in connection with Quinton's death.
Gill said there were "evidentiary issues" that caused concern, and that as the case progressed some inconsistencies arose, particularly dealing with suppression issues and issues dealing with identification."
For a case like that to be dismissed in Salt Lake City it has to have some big problems.
Most likely it was dismissed in exchange for something about police or prosecutors not being given to media.
An interesting side note about one victim in those cases, Amy Quinton.
https://bci.utah.gov/coldcases/amy-quinton/
In 1978 Salt Lake City had two unsolved murders and one missing person's case involving people over 7 feet tall.
https://bci.utah.gov/coldcases/
So it's possible some of their problems stem from entering inaccurate information into databases.
Amy Quinton is one of many unusually tall people murdered in that area.
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