Kenneth Hansen,arrested in 1994 for the 1955 mass murder of THREE boys in IL,found Guilty & sentenced to Life in prison,has his conviction OVERTURNED by appeals court,but still faces RETRIAL,even though it is IMPOSSIBLE to get fair trial,45 yrs later
Joe1orbit
Interesting item out of Illinois, on a convicted serial/mass hybrid BOY
killer, who MAY be completely innocent and may have UNJUSTLY spent the past 5
years in prison. WAY back in 1955, believe it or not, three boys, aged 14, 13,
and 11, the younger two were brothers, were found MURDERED, their bodies dumped
in a forested area of IL. The three luckless boys were apparently TOGETHER,
hitchhiking, they they had the bad luck to get picvked up by a SERIOUSLY
enraged societal victim, who managed to kill ALL three.
NOBODY was EVER arrested or charged in this case, for FOUR DECADES. Only in
1994 or '95, 40 years AFTER the triple murder, was a fellow named Kenneth
Hansen arrested, charged with the 1955 boy massacre, and CONVICTED. He was
sentenced to LIFE in prison. In a SANE society, the Statute of Limitations
laws, REALIZING that there is NO WAY that Kenneth could have received a fair
trial 40 YEARS after his alleged crimes, would have applied, and Kenneth NEVER
would have even been put on trial, for these 3 murders.
We learn below that an appeals court has just THROWN OUT the ENTIRE
conviction, but only to order a new trial, for Kenneth. The FACT is, Kenneth
could NOT get a fair trial the first time around, and he won't be able to get a
fair trial this second time, either. This is because DESPITE what your society
CLAIMS as it's judicial operating mandates, a PRESUMPTION of GUILT, not of
INNOCENCE, is imposed upon Kenneth, from the MOMENT the trial begins. He has to
PROVE his INNOCENCE to the jury, in order to stand a real chance of being
acquitted. And the PASSAGE of FORTY-FIVE years of time, means that ALL of
Kenneth's alibi witnesses are likely dead, or have TOTALLY forgotten what
occured on any specific day, 45 years ago. Kenneth is literally CRIPPLED,
literally UNABLE to defend himself at trial, while prosecutors are allowed to
RELENTLESSLY demonize him & coerce the jury, which ALREADY PRESUMES Kenneth
guilty prior to trial, into convicting him.
Speaking for the 2-1 majority, the appeals court judge declared that: "The
trial court erred in allowing testimony regarding the defendant's practice of
picking up young male hitchhikers and sexually assaulting them. Improper
evidence of a defendant's sexual conduct with children is so prejudicial as to
normally require reversal." YES, I agree, not only was this reversal absolutely
MANDATED, but for Kenneth to have SPENT the past 5 YEARS in prison, with such
blatantly prejudicial "testimony" having been allowed into evidence, that has
NOTHING to do with establishing the TRUTH of whether or not Kenneth committed
this triple murder, is the SEMINAL proof of how BLATANTLY your judicial system
goes out of it's way to ALLOW and foster the demonization of defendents,
denying them the fair trials and the PRESUMPTION of innocence, they deserve.
Here of course, there are NUMEROUS OTHER reasons why this case should NOT be
allowed to go to trial a second time, first and foremost, the passage of 45
years of time, making a fair trial IMPOSSIBLE, and running a close second, the
OUTRAGEOUS fact that Kenneth has ALREADY been subjected to 5 YEARS of
undeserved, illegally obtained by the State, punitive punishment.
This case is of course intriguing on MANY levels. Our mass/serial hybrid
child-killer, WHOEVER he is, seems to definately have GOTTEN AWAY with this
1955 massacre, for at least FORTY years. Did he claim MORE victims, before or
afterwards?? He certainly seems to have had a LOT of CONFIDENCE in himself, to
pick up THREE boys, apparently at the SAME time, and kill them all. Would have
been SAFER to target one boy at a time. If you go after three, the odds are
HIGHER that at least one or two MIGHT manage to ESCAPE his clutches, since
logic dictates that he has to DIVIDE his attention, to some degree, when
dealing with three victims at the SAME time. So, this suggests to me that our
child killer had SOME previous killing experience, or at least was likely to
try and commit MORE such crimes in the future, if he wasn't CAUGHT, and
indications are that he was in fact NEVER caught, until 1995 at the earliest,
if you accept the notion that Kenneth is the killer.
At the 1995 trial, "witnesses testified that Hansen had spoken on several
occasions over the years of killing the three boys." Well, WHY didn't they come
FORWARD back then?? Their claims have ZERO credibility, and should be
considered inadmissable. It was apparently THEIR word, against Kenneth's word.
Since he enjoys a PRESUMPTION of INNOCENCE, to convict him based upon the
UNVERIFIED verbal CLAIMS of "witnesses", 40 YEARS after the actual crime
occured, is outrageous. One witness QUOTES Kenneth as saying: "One of the older
boys came into the barn while I was having sex with the youngest, and
threatened to tell. So I strangled that boy and then killed the two others to
silence them." Is this "confession" RECORDED?? Were there OTHER people who
confirm that it was made?? No! And even if there WERE, it's still
circumstantial evidence that can NEVER be said to PROVE Kenneth Guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt, and he DESERVED to be acquitted, if the Statute of
Limitations laws, which DESERVED to apply and protect Kenneth from even facing
trial, were not applied.
You can view a nice police facial photo of Kenneth, APPARENTLY taken back in
1995 soon after his arrest, over at:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/overturned000519.html
In the photo caption, Kenneth's AGE is listed as 61, but it's NOT totally
clear if that was his age back in 1961, or if it's his age TODAY. Regardless,
he was a VERY young fellow 45 years ago, when this triple murder occured. I
will ASSUME he is not 61, but rather 66 or so years old today. Even so, he was
still just 21 years old, when this triple murder occured. Looks like your evil
society did a NICE job of BRUTALIZING this child-slave, back in the 1940's era.
Whoops, just found a more detailed article that confirms Kenneth is now 67
years old, so was 22 or so at the time of this triple harvesting.
You can view a 1994 photo of Kenneth being led by police to prison,
apparently RIGHT after being arrested, over at:
http://www.chicago.tribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,ART-44887,00.html
At least Kenneth got to live out the BEST years of his life, as a FREE,
genuine MASS murderer, IF in fact he IS the killer here. No INDICATION that
police SERIOUSLY suspect him of committing any OTHER murders, so maybe he was
satisfied to stop, after harvesting these three?
Stay Strong, Kenneth!
Take care, JOE
The following appears courtesy of today's Associated Press news wire:
Conviction Overturned
1955 Triple Murder Conviction Overturned on Appeal
By Mike Robinson
The Associated Press
C H I C A G O, May 19 — When Kenneth Hansen was convicted in 1995 of killing
three boys whose bodies were found in a forest preserve, it seemed the crime
that had haunted the Chicago area for decades might finally fade into history.
But the case of “the Schuessler-Petersen boys,” which stunned Chicago when it
occurred in 1955, is lingering into a new century.
In a 2-1 decision, the Illinois Appellate Court on Thursday ordered a new
trial for Hansen, who was convicted by a jury four decades after the triple
murder occurred.
The onetime stable owner is currently serving a 200-year sentence.
Bob Benjamin, a spokesman for Cook County State’s Attorney Richard Devine,
said that prosecutors would ask the appeals court to reconsider or if necessary
take the case to the Illinois Supreme Court. He said that prosecutors would
fight any attempt by Hansen to be released on bond.
“We disagree with this decision,” Benjamin said.
The Crime
Those killed were Robert Petersen, 14; John Schuessler, 13, and his brother,
Anton Schuessler, 11. They are believed to have met their killer while
hitchhiking after leaving a bowling alley.
While the case baffled police for four decades, Hansen was finally charged
and brought to trial in 1995.
At the trial, witnesses testified that Hansen had spoken on several
occasions over the years of killing the three boys.
Hansen was quoted by one witness as saying that one of the older boys came
into the barn while he was having sexual relations with the youngest, and
threatened to tell on him. He strangled that boy and then killed the two others
to silence them, according to the account.
Decision to Overturn
In his 24-page opinion reversing the conviction, Justice Thomas Hoffman said
that testimony plus other accounts of admissions by Hansen might have been
sufficient to result in a guilty verdict.
Hoffman also said, however, that the trial judge wrongly allowed six
witnesses to tell the jury how Hansen had boasted of habitually picking up
youthful hitchhikers and having sexual relations with them. Justice Leslie
South concurred while Justice Shelvin Louise Hall dissented.
The opinion said that testimony concerning Hansen’s habitual picking up of
male hitchhikers for sex “is certainly not sufficiently specific to allow us to
determine whether those crimes shared, either with each other or with the
sexual assault of the victims in the instant case ... to establish the
existence of a modus operandi.”
It did say one account of relations between Hansen and a 15-year-old boy
was somewhat more specific. But he said it didn’t share “sufficient
similarities with the sexual assault of the victims here to justify a
conclusion that both were committed by the same person.”
Therefore the trial court should not have allowed testimony “regarding the
defendant’s practice of picking up young male hitchhikers and sexually
assaulting them,” the opinion said.
“We cannot say that they error was harmless,” it said. “Improper evidence
of a defendant’s sexual conduct with children is so prejudicial as to normally
require reversal,” it said.
In a three-page dissent, Hall said that the accounts of Hansen’s practice
was admissible and did include specific detail.
She also said that the “strong evidence in this case including the
defendant’s admissions to four witnesses that he killed the boys renders
harmless any error that may have occurred in admitting this other-crimes
evidence.”
---------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 5/19/00 online edition of The Chicago
Sun-Times newspaper:
Murder conviction tossed
May 19, 2000
BY ABDON M. PALLASCH STAFF REPORTER
One of the proudest achievements of local law enforcement in recent years came
undone Thursday as a state appeals court threw out Kenneth Hansen's 1995
conviction for the 40-year-old murders of the three Peterson and Schuessler
boys.
Two members of the divided panel said the trial court judge should not have
allowed prosecutors to present evidence that Hansen routinely picked up young
boys for sex.
The third member of the three-judge panel dissented, saying other evidence of
Hansen's guilt would have been overwhelming enough to convict him even without
the testimony about the other boys.
Former Cook County State's Attorney Jack O'Malley had singled out Hansen's
conviction as an example of great police work and prosecution. The naked bodies
of the three boys, ages 11, 13 and 13, were found in the forest preserves in
1955, and their murders had remained unsolved.
Picking up on a cold trail 40 years later, police tracked down Hansen, a former
stable hand at Silas Jayne's Idle Hours Stable, and found witnesses connecting
Hansen to the murders.
Hansen has been serving a 200-year prison sentence. He could get a new trial.
His attorney Leonard C. Goodman said Thursday he hopes prosecutors will pick up
on leads to other suspects that have arisen since Hansen's conviction and opt
not to retry him.
"There's a lot of information that has come to light since they tried him the
first time," Goodman said. "I think that there's a real question as to who
committed these murders."
But a spokeswoman for Cook County State's Attorney Richard Devine said Thursday
that prosecutors still are convinced they have the right man.
"We're going to petition the Appellate Court for reconsideration, and if that
doesn't work, we're going to go directly to the Supreme Court," spokeswoman
Patti Simone said.
------------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 5/19/00 online edition of The Chicago
Tribune newspaper:
'55 triple-killing conviction voided
By Robert Becker
Tribune Staff Writer
May 19, 2000
The horseman convicted four decades after one of the most infamous triple
homicides in Chicago history won a new trial Thursday in the 1955 slayings of
three boys whose bodies were found on a bridle path on the city's Northwest
Side.
In a split decision, the Illinois Appellate Court overturned the conviction of
Kenneth Hansen, 67, because the jury at his 1995 murder trial was allowed to
hear improper testimony that Hansen molested other boys in the years after the
murders of Robert Peterson, 14, John Schuessler, 13, and John's brother Anton,
11.
The ruling resurrects a case that shocked Chicago in the 1950s.
The boys had been headed downtown to see a movie but never returned. Two days
later, their naked, battered bodies were found in the Robinson Woods forest
preserve on the Northwest Side, prompting area residents to bolt doors that
were rarely locked in those days, out of fear for their children's safety.
It took authorities nearly 40 years to bring Hansen to trial and a jury two
hours to convict him. A judge sentenced him to 200 to 300 years in prison, but
Hansen has steadfastly maintained his innocence.
Justice Thomas E. Hoffman, writing for the majority in Thursday's ruling,
rejected prosecutors' attempts to establish a motive for their contention that
Hansen murdered the boys at the Idle Hour Stable on Oct. 16, 1955.
Specifically, the justices objected to the introduction of testimony from
witnesses who said that Hansen frequently picked up young male hitchhikers and
took them back to the stable for sex.
Hoffman wrote that most of the evidence of Hansen's sexual activities "pertains
to incidents which occurred well after the victims' murders." Therefore, the
judge continued, Hansen can "hardly be said to have been motivated to kill the
victims in 1955 to prevent the discovery of acts of pedophilia he committed in
the 1960s and 1970s."
Additionally, the justices said the lower court erred in allowing into
testimony portions of statements of key witnesses who recounted Hansen's sexual
activities.
"We cannot say that the evidence that the defendant sexually assaulted
innumerable young boys over a period of 20 years did not influence the outcome
of this trial," Hoffman wrote.
But in a dissent Justice Shelvin Louise Hall argued that the "other crimes"
evidence was admissible because it showed Hansen's patterns of assaulting
minors. More significant, Hall wrote, is the "strong evidence" in the case,
which includes Hansen's admission to four witnesses that he killed the boys.
That, Hall wrote, "renders harmless any error that may have occurred in
admitting" the evidence about Hansen's sexual activities.
Cook County Circuit Judge Michael Toomin, who presided over Hansen's trial,
could not be reached for comment.
Attorneys for Hansen, who remains in Pontiac Correctional Center, said they
were thrilled by the decision. Hansen is "speechless, just choked up with
emotion," said Leonard Goodman, one of the attorneys.
The Cook County state's attorney's office vowed to appeal to the Illinois
Supreme Court.
Renee Goldfarb, who heads the prosecutor's criminal appeals division, took
issue with the court's finding that it was wrong to admit evidence of Hansen's
later sexual activities.
"The critical issue is whether or not there was enough evidence to establish a
common pattern," Goldfarb said. "We believed that we had established that, the
trial judge who allowed the evidence in believed that we had established it and
so did Justice Hall."
The reversal represents the latest twist in a case that mesmerized the public
and stymied law enforcement officials for nearly 40 years.
It is a case that stretched over 43,000 interviews and became intertwined, for
a time, at least, with another famous Chicago murder, that of horseman George
Jayne.
In one of the most spectacular twists, Hansen was granted a rare court hearing
in 1998 to determine whether he should get a new trial when two Hanover Park
women came forward to testify that a relative—dead for nearly two decades—had
confessed to the boys' murders. But Hansen was denied a new trial at that time.
His arrest in 1994 marked the end of a case that had begun when the boys'
bodies were discovered in the forest preserve near East River Road and Lawrence
Avenue on October 18, 1955. They had been strangled.
The slayings spawned one of the biggest manhunts in Chicago history, and the
last hours of the boys' lives were reconstructed up to the moment when they
were last seen, hitchhiking in a chilly drizzle near the intersection of
Milwaukee and Lawrence Avenues.
In hindsight some experts suggested that the investigation could have been
damaged at the start as investigators, reporters and photographers trampled the
crime scene. There was also a failure to fully follow up on a witness' claim of
hearing at least two blood-curdling screams coming from the direction of the
Idle Hour Stable, 8600 W. Higgins Rd., on the night the boys disappeared.
The investigation eventually sputtered to a halt until 1993, when William "Red"
Wemette, a longtime federal informant, told federal agents that he had had a
homosexual relationship with Hansen. During that relationship, Wemette said,
Hansen admitted killing the boys at the stable, where Hansen worked at the
time.
Another significant development occurred after Hansen was arrested in August
1994 near his Country Club Hills home.
That was when Herb Hollatz, a former stable hand who had moved to Arizona, saw
Hansen on a television news report. A few days later, Hollatz told authorities
that Hansen had admitted the killings soon after the bodies were found.
On the witness stand at Hansen's 1995 trial, Hollatz proved a poignant example
of why the crime had remained unsolved for so long.
Claiming he had been sexually involved with Hansen, Hollatz said he never told
anyone about the confession—including his father, a Chicago police
officer—because he feared that shame and disgrace would accompany the
disclosure.
Despite Hansen's conviction, the details of what happened that Sunday night in
1955 remain murky because the accounts of the four witnesses who testified that
Hansen long ago had told them about the murders differed on some points.
What remained consistent throughout the testimony was Hansen telling them about
picking up the boys while they were hitchhiking and taking them to the stable,
where he molested Anton Schuessler. Discovered by the other boys and confronted
with threats to inform on him, Hansen panicked.
According to the testimony, he told one associate, "It was them or me. In 1955
to be gay was unacceptable; society wouldn't take it."
Another witness said Hansen had told him that Silas Jayne, his employer, who
would later go to prison for conspiring to murder his brother George,
discovered him with the bodies and went berserk with anger, then helped him
dump them in the forest preserve.
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