Posted on 08/19/2007 1:44:37 PM PDT by neverdem
At the Keen Mountain Correctional Center, a gray complex of poured concrete in rural southwest Virginia, Joseph Jesse Dick Jr. sits behind the thick glass pane of a prison interview booth like a specimen in an oversize shadow box. A man of delicate bearing with receding reddish brown hair, a sparse mustache and rectangular prison-issue glasses a bit wide on his long, gaunt face, Dick is here because he pleaded guilty to the 1997 rape and murder of his neighbor Michelle Moore-Bosko — a crime he now says he didn’t commit. And maybe he didn’t. Such proclamations of innocence are no longer surprising. The imprisoned man exonerated by DNA evidence or a belated confession by the actual killer or the emergence of a credible alibi witness is a narrative of increasing familiarity. But even in the upside-down world of wrongful convictions, the extravagant case of Joseph Dick and his supposed partners in crime is in a class of its own.
To conclude that Joseph Dick is innocent, you must first believe that the tape-recorded confession he gave to the police was untrue and, second, that three other men who said they committed the brutal crime with Dick also falsely confessed. In addition, you must believe that Dick perjured himself when he helped convict two of those co-defendants by testifying against them at their trials for rape and murder, lied when he named five other accomplices and lied moments before a judge gave him a double life sentence when he apologized to the parents of Michelle Moore-Bosko, declaring, “I know I shouldn’t have done it; I have got no idea what went through my mind that night, and my soul.”
This is a lot to accept. But perhaps the most astonishing aspect of this case is that these may be the...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
What a mess. I hope this gets straightened out. I don't completely trust the Times to give a fair version of events -- they'll gladly cherry-pick certain facts and twist the truth to fit a "narrative" that they want to tell. But I also don't have a lot of faith in the justice system sometimes, and I think it's entirely possible that these men (except for Ballard) are innocent.
Anyone who falsely accused others of participation in the crime should get a lot of jail time for that crime -- if that's what Joe Dick and Derek Tice did then apologies aren't enough. A rape accusation is devestating, and if it's false it deserves to be punished.
“Alan Berlow is a freelance writer living in Maryland and the author of 'Dead Season: A Story of Murder and Revenge.'”
I don't know if freelance writers give the Times an editorial license.
Well I read it all and two things:
The NY Times lies. You can’t trust them. Hey, maybe in this case it’s all true but that’s the price you pay for being....the NY Times.
I simply do NOT believe that what? Seven men now confessed to this crime? Nah. You’re asking me to suspend my disbelief a little too much.
I’d believe maybe one...possibly two ...misfits would falsely confess although most false confessions beyond the nut cases are almost always true...this factoid is even mentioned in the article. But SEVEN guys confess to a crime they did not commit? And the reason they falsely confessed is because they were in the military and used to taking orders? So when the detective said CONFESS, they all, boom, no problem, DID?
Please stop peeing upon my feet and telling me it’s raining.
It sounds to me like they grabbed this victim all of a sudden one night and with no forethought they all morphed into a gang mentality. It sounds like everyone heard the crime in process and all the gang stopped by to join in on the fun. I’m not convinced any one of this group of thugs knows who the hell was stabbing and raping as it looks like it all came down quick. Likely they only remember their crime buddies as they were fellows standing on the corner or nearby. The scene in the apartment must have been chaotic, like a corner of hell.
The jury, as the article quotes, heard of this information, the jury knew about the DNA issues, the jury knew about all the details and questions about who was there.
I’m not about to believe the NY Times and a bunch of fellows who confessed to a crime.
Would YOU confess to a crime you did not commit?
Yeah, well the way vast majority of people wouldn’t either.
I wasn’t going to give the Times any credence at all, and I completely wasn’t going to believe all those men who confessed. But I have to say, this looks like a Nifong type set up.
And they are some dumb ass sailors.
There will be a warm place in hell for the Nifongs and police of this country who are responsible for sending innocent people to prison.
Thanks for the summary. You make some good points.
"the truth/facts, and only the truth/facts" BUMP
.....it seems, anything from "Dead Tree" Media esp. when connected to the NYT, is worthless....not even acceptable as a birdcage liner/fish-wrapper.
thxs, for the report. :)
The victim’s friend that was out with her the night before....... she knows who the real killer is or is related to him in some way. JMO
I do believe these four have been Nifonged.
Sounds like Detective Ford and the prosecutors need to be swapped into those prison cells to do life sentences in place of the guys they railroaded. They took advantage of some borderline mentally retarded guys to cover for their own inability to find and prosecute the real rapist/murderer.
You’re welcome.
I mean, even disposing of the body....every different one tells a different story. I think this was a spur-of-the-moment crime and various and sundry assholes joined in if the opportunity arose. Which is why the original ones who confessed didn’t at first implicate the others....because there was no benefit in it to name other accomplices and hey, I’m betting none of those guys knew who was there and who wasn’t.
Now you take a chaotic scene like that and later, as was done with the NY Times and the original confessors, you, boom, take what is now known about the crime, such as no DNA found on the victim, an odd thing I admit. But point being NOW these confessors know what the police have and all the time in the world to sit and change their story to match the facts that they didn’t know then.
The big sticking point for me is that they all confessed. Why on earth would anyone confess to a crime like this? Because they’re not very intelligent thugs and because they did it.
Agreed, on both counts.
There was DNA found on the victim, it just didn’t match any of the alleged perpetrators. Plus the tight grouping of the stab wounds indicates one killer. And the absolutely clean tidy apartment with no prints.
This was not the scene of a group rape and killing.
The friend who was out with her the night before knows more than she is telling. The victim came into contact with her killer the night of her murder (duh!) but Tamika Taylor was with her until 11:30 that night, so where did they go and whom did they meet up with?
These other guys were Nifonged.
Well you sucessfully reiterated what was already in the article.
I just don’t buy it.
I will point out that this “Nifonging” you refer to is a little bit off the money. First, Nifong didn’t get to the point of trial with those boys, whereas this prosecutor, or prosecutors as I think there was more than one involved, had this case in trial in front of a jury.
Not quite the same thing as Nifong so your cute verbalization is untrue.
It’s the NY Times! The NY Times trying to tell us that all of these fellows confessed to a crime because they USED TO BE IN THE MILITARY.
You don’t find that at all odd? Plus my other arguments up thread.
Hey, whatever floats your boat.
One of them is very low IQ, actually I’m willing to bet most of them are as dumb as a box of rocks.
The low IQ one has a CO who swears he was shipboard at the time of the murder but he was never contacted to testify and records were never requested because Joe Dick made a plea deal in exchange for testimony that convicted the others.
What I’m not buying is a group rape/murder in a 700 sq foot apartment that left no physical evidence and no DNA of any of the alleged perpetrators and no mess. The lady was killed by someone she knew and let into her home. And her girlfriend knows who that someone is.
I think the orginal investigator was a lazy bully who did crap police work.
IIRC, Virginia still has capitol(sp?) punishment. They confessed to avoid it. DNA comfirmed the real killer, and should have exonerated the rest. The were intimidated by that POS cop, who should be prosecuted. It could be a coincidence that they were all dimwits, but they all gave different stories.
The scene in the apartment must have been chaotic, like a corner of hell.
Oh my dear Lord. It must have been for their victim.
I wouldn't go quite that far. The NY Times does good work sometimes. For example, I can't stand Bob Herbert most of the time, but I've got to give him credit for exposing some real serious police misconduct in Tulia, Texas. Innocent people are free because of his good work.
Okay, I’m going to write out some warnings here before yon posters go making fools of themselves.
First, I am a true crime buff and write extensively about it on my Blog. Not that I’m necessarily proud of that but been intrigued by the subject since a young woman.
Right here and now, first rule of True crime 101, you have the NY Times on a mission. Defense lawyers often go on a mission and distort and twist the facts. So too does a biased media.
If you believe that this crime came down in the matter that it is presented in this article, then I’ve a bridge in Brookly to sell you right cheap. Two signs that should make you go “hmmmm”. First, if a defense lawyer is the source. Second, if it’s in the NY Times and they’re somehow, however a stretch, blaming the military. It is defense lawyers who are giving this story to the NY Times so right there, two strikes.
We don’t know how this crime happened. One could, and if I were doing a Blog post on this I would, look up more details on the crime. We don’t know if this woman was murdered outside then drug back in to her apartment after she was already dead. Evidently this was some sort of gang thing and open your mind. Gang rapes and murders are all the rage. Just recently four young people were killed execution style in Neward NJ. Shortly before this, a family was brutally terrorized in Connecticut by two Amos and Andy crooks who got carried away by the moment. Down south in Florida way, TEN cheap adolescent thugs raped a woman and brutalized her son.
Gangs of thugs act crazy is what I’m saying here. This murder sounds like this very thing. I can almost guarantee that further investigation into the facts will reveal things not revealed in the article.
I read the story about how that first guy was supposed to be on a ship, how absolutely certain this ONE person was that he was on board the ship. Reading on, my, how convenient that the paperwork to prove this has been destroyed. Seriously, does anyone really destroy paperwork anymore? Don’t they have cards or things you just swipe and an electronic record is created? Which is another clue for you true crime buffs learning the ropes. Once you read that records to prove an alibi have been destroyed, get suspicious. Sure, it happens. It’s also very convenient. It’s also very convenient that only ONE fellow on this entire planet saw this perp on the ship that night. What, no one else was on the ship?
They’re LYING to you. I know you find it hard to believe that the NY Times would lie. Whatever you do, don’t leave your common sense at home. The true story is out there. There’s details of the trial. A jury somewhere listened to all the facts. A jury found these people guilty. Because of the many participants in this crime, there’s been several prosecutors involved in this. Are you going to tell me the jury and prosecutors got it all wrong and only the perps and their defense lawyers have the story straight?
They HOPE you will read just what they present and they hope you will get angry and do their bidding. If enough fools believe, maybe we’ll get a new trial, maybe the perps will walk, maybe the defense lawyers will wrack up nice attorney fees. Maybe the NY Times will make the military look stupid.
Way I figger, if all these ex-military men are so ready to confess to crimes what with their training in the military teaching them to confess to crimes they did not commit, hey if I was a prosecutor I’d go out and find me some ex-military guys first time an unsolved crime happens in my area. I’d get them in the interview room and boom, they confess quick, no problem. There should never be an unsolved crime anywhere in this country, my goodness.
I don’t believe a word of this thing but I’m not going to bother checking it out. All these people confessed and a jury convicted them.
Hey, I can take any crime of this century and write up an article that, with the right slant and by leaving out enough detail, boom I can make anybody look innocent.
I’m done and don’t intend to comment any more. Believe what you want.
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