Criminology - Barbara Jean Horn

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

On July 12th, 1988, in Philadelphia, 4-year-old Barbara Jean Horn went outside to play. She was trying to find some of her friends to play with, but no one was home. This seemingly normal day turned into a nightmare when she went missing. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the disappearance and murder of Barbara Jean Horn. A witness saw her walking with a man who seemed to be leading her by the elbow. Less than two hours after she was officially listed as missing, her body was found inside a television box which had been set next to someone's trash cans. There have been a few suspects through the years but so far no one has been held accountable for Barbara Jean Horn's murder. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital production

Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 326 of the Criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford, how are you doing this week? I'm doing good. I, you know, just once I got you up and was able to get you on the, to record here.

I, yeah, I had a little, uh, fall back asleep. moment. I'm sure a lot of people listening have had that and can relate, but, you know, my alarm clock went off at eight. I was up. Well, not essentially up. I was laying in bed. I was awake. And I thought, okay, it feels nice just to lay here for a little bit. Next thing, I know you're calling me because an hour has gone by and I'm late. Yeah, sometimes you close your eyes and that's it. You're out. Yeah, it happens. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon. shoutouts. We had Andrea McGahey and Tracy Anderson Gribble. So some great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah. Thanks so much for that support. It really helps us out. And for anyone else that

would like to help the show, you can head over to patreon.com slash criminology. All right, buddy, let's jump into this episode. And we have an especially tough case to explore. You know, none of the murder cases we discuss are easy, but it's especially difficult when we talk about the murder of a child, which is what we're doing in this episode. It's a brutal crime that needs to be talked about, though, because it's still unsolved. And this little girl and her family deserve justice. The person who murdered her has not been held accountable for what happened. For many years, this case was thought to have been solved. There was even an arrest and a conviction in the murder and an innocent man was almost put to death. This is a case out of Philadelphia.

that is reminiscent of that city's infamous boy in the box case. We're talking about the 1988 murder of Barbara Jean Horn. The family of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn thought that July 12th, 1988 would be another normal day. The family lived together in a row house at 7245 Rutland Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To get a clear understanding of what happened that day, we need to look closely at the timeline. At around 7 a.m. that morning, Barbara's mother, Sharon Fahey, hugged and kissed Barbara, as she always did, before she left for work that morning. Sharon had to be at work by 8 a.m.

and had to leave early because she took the bus and didn't want to miss it. John Fahey, Barbara's stepfather, would be home to watch her. Sharon and John began dating while she was pregnant. Her ex-boyfriend didn't want children, but she did. So they split, and John and Sharon started dating. As far as John and Sharon were concerned, John was Barbara's only father, but they were unmarried when Barbara was born, so she was given Sharon's maiden name, Horn. The family was so close that most people didn't even know John wasn't Barbara's biological father. That morning, Barbara let John sleep in until about 8.30 when she started jumping up and now on the bed.

For breakfast, they had lucky charms, and then they watched some TV together. It seemed like any other day. at 9 a.m. Sharon called home to make sure their morning was going well and everything was fine. There was one air conditioning unit in the window in the living room. So the three slept in front of the house together to stay cool in the summer. Instead of one of the three upstairs bedrooms, one of which was a dedicated playroom for barber. The high the day before had been 100 degrees and it was set to be another scorcher. Sometime between 10 and 10.30 that morning, Barbara decided to go play outside. She first went to try and visit her friend, 9-year-old Nicole.

Things were busy at Nicole's house, and her grandpa had a crew there installing a new porch. Barbara sat and watched them for a while before heading home. At around 11 a.m., Sharon called home again. Barbara asked her mom if she could have a popsicle, but was told that she'd need to wait until after lunch. When she was done talking to her mom, Barbara gave John the phone and headed back out. outside to play with her friend, Charlie Green Jr., who lived directly across the street. Six-year-old Charlie was her best friend. Around noon, Barbara and John walked up to the neighborhood store, Yang's grocery, and purchased milk, dinner rolls, and cigarettes. Back at home, John made

a tuna sandwich and poured Barbara a glass of milk. They ate lunch together, watching TV in front of the air conditioner. Bored and full of energy. Barbara tried to get John to play with her, but he still had things he needed to finish around the house. So he told her to go upstairs and watch TV in her playroom. Barbara wound up going back over to see Charlie, but he and his sister, Ingrid, left for the public pool around 1 p.m. So they weren't home to play with her. Around 1 or 1.30, Barbara went back down to Nicole's house, but she just stayed in the art, quietly picking blades of grass. Nicole's mother Margaret tried to go outside to talk to her, but before she could, Barbara walked away. Next, Barbara played in her own front yard. For a while, there was a kiddie pool set up to try and help

her beat the heat. At around 2 p.m., Barbara went back across the street to see Charlie, but he still wasn't home. She decided to try friends at another home, a few doors down where her friends, Casey, and Shannon lived, but their mother wouldn't let them come outside to play. And around 3 p.m. Sharon called home again to remind John to clean out the fridge. When they hung up, he got started on the task. Barbara asked John if she could help, but he knew it would be easier and faster if he did it himself. So he suggested she go outside and play. John kept the TV on in the living room and listened to it in the background as he cleaned the kitchen. So there are a few things that I want to talk about more. You know, this seems like

It's one of those really hot kind of summer days where Barbara was struggling to find something to do. You know, we threw some adjectives out there. She was kind of restless. She was aimless. She was full of energy. She was having trouble connecting with her friends. But one of the things that really hit me was kind of how much freedom she had at four years old. You know, she was able to go to a number of different houses on her own.

And maybe that's the setting. You know, we said they lived in a row house. So these houses were, you know, close by. She wasn't going far. But it does sound like she was allowed to go out on her own by herself. And I don't know if it's a sign of the times, but I picture now what I let one of my kids go out when they're four years old. and even walk a couple of houses away.

I don't think I would. So again, maybe just at more of an innocent time back then where people felt safe letting their kids go down a couple of houses by themselves when they were younger. But that aimless wandering that she was doing, I can remember that well because as much as I love being out of school and love summertime, I remember days where I would just didn't know what I wanted to do,

couldn't find anyone. I'd go to somebody's house. They weren't home. So I'd go over to the next house and then just sort of not know what you wanted to do and not be able to link up with anybody. And it sounds like that's what was happening to Barber that day. Yeah, for a four year old, she really, you know, kind of had a diverse circle of friends, if you think about it. She was just struggling to catch up with any of them. But, you know, back to your point of, you know, was it a sign of the times? I still, I sometimes wonder, you know, are we more guarded because of what we do and the research that we go through? But I don't know. I think it is a different time.

I think people are more guarded now just because of the times we live. And what we know, we know more. It was at this point where the seemingly normal summer day took a turn for the worse. Nicole's mother, Margaret, saw Barbara walking with a man who seemed to be leading her by the elbow as they walked. She thought at the time that Barbara finally got her father John to take her to the mall, because she was so bored and had probably asked over and over until he gave in. We know now that this man described as wearing a navy blue shirt and work pants, who was said to have a bouncy walk, was not her father.

It was around 4 to 4.30 p.m. when John Faye called out for Barbara to come back inside. She didn't come back, so he called out to her again. She still didn't come in, and there was no reply, no whining, no press. protest. No sign of her. Barbara's sandals were near the front door, so he figured she couldn't have gone far. John went to check the yard but didn't see Barbara, but he did see some of her toys. Her plastic cars, some small dolls, and a plastic duck were lying near the sidewalk. Barbara never left her toys behind, and he became nervous. John tried not to panic as he started to search the nearby neighborhood in case Barbara had wondered a way to play with a neighbor, or saw something

interesting that distracted her, it was common for neighborhood kids to play throughout the street since their yards were so tiny. The Fahey's yard was only a few square feet of grass. He had no luck finding her, so he'd try and checking her friend's houses. The father of one friend Anthony Adair had seen Barbara earlier that morning when she came by looking for Anthony, but he wasn't home. Charlie Green Jr. had also stopped by the home, so John headed across the street to the Green's home. Linda Green, Charlie's mother, remembered seeing Barbara at 2 p.m. Standing alone in her front yard, the father of another friend, Megan O'Brien, recalled Barbara stopping by around 2.30 p.m. But Megan was also not home.

Soon, neighborhood parents and children were helping John scoured the area, but they couldn't find her. And at 4.55 p.m., John called Sharon to break the bad news to her. And I know we've talked about, you know, this moment before, but it's so scary. The moment where kind of a panic sets in because you can't find your child. Now, most of us have experienced it. Luckily, for most of us, it's a very kind of small fleeting feeling because we figure out where our children are. They're in the next aisle.

They're right around the corner. whatever it may be. But when you don't find them right away, it's hard to even fathom what that feeling evolves into and how intense it must be. And that feeling is bad enough if it's like in a store when maybe the kids are hiding around the other aisle or whatever, but this is outside in the community and, you know, in a neighborhood. So for him to enlist everyone to help and they're all scouring looking for,

Barbara, but there's no sign of her that had to be very, very frightening. Barbara Jean was officially missing for less than two hours. At 5.30 p.m., the search for the four-year-old screeched to a halt when the body of a little girl was found. The Zablocki family living at 1409 St. Vincent Street, just two blocks from the Faheyes, noticed that a cardboard box for a TV had been dumped on their property, next to their trash cans that were near the curb. Stanley Zoblocki decided to check it out. out. Upon opening the box, he found the naked body of a young child covered by a single black

trash bag. Stanley was obviously shocked by the find, and according to author Thomas Lowenstein, in the book The Trials of Walter O'Rod, the shocking murder, so-called confessions, and notorious snitch that sent a man to death row. Upon Stanley finding the girl's body, he yelled out to his wife. Oh my God, call 911. There's a baby in the box. John Fahey got back home from circling the block around 545. Five minutes later, Sharon got off her bus and started walking home. After spotting a police fan driving down the street, John became overwhelmed with the motion and punched the front door. This broke one of the glass panes.

At first, no one made the connection that this little girl must be Barbara, despite most of the neighborhood knowing she was missing, her body was well. like she'd been washed or rinsed off. And at first glance, responding officers believed they were looking at the body of a little boy. Detectives interviewing Sharon and John at their home were having a hard time doing it because Sharon and John wanted to go and help with the search, especially after hearing about the child in the box.

They were worried it was hurt. By 645, the mobile crime lab was on the scene at the Zablocki home. Shortly after that, at 6.52 p.m. The body, who police now realized was a girl and likely Barbara, was formerly pronounced deceased. Once it was verified that the girl was Barbara, police had the task of breaking the news to her parents. An autopsy would show that Barbara had suffered through at least five head wounds, and there were bruises on her neck, shoulders, and back, as well as lacerations and more bruising on her head, though her skull had not been fractured. There was no sign of sexual assault. She had been bitten by aunts after her death. there were no old or healing injuries to suggest that she had been mistreated at home.

Despite the apparent lack of evidence showing any kind of long-term abuse, according to author Thomas Lowenstein, homicide detective Frank Miller reportedly walked into the Fahey home, pointed at John and said, we found her, she's dead, and you did it. So there's a lot to break down here, Morph. Obviously, first and foremost, you have the finding of little four, year old Barbara. And I can't imagine how shocking that must have been for the Zoblocki family. I mean, how many times have all of us been outside, saw something and said, oh, you know,

I want to go check out, see what that is. And you also have to feel for the family, you know, finding something like that, a dead child in a box on your property. That's going to be something that sticks with you undoubtedly. Yeah, the knowledge of. and that sight. That's not something that's going to leave you. And then we have Sharon and John finding out that Barbara is dead. And according to the author Loenstein, it's in a way that is unfathomable. You know, detective walks in and says to John, we found her.

She's dead. And you did it. So not only are you finding out that, you know, your daughter is, dead, you're immediately being accused of having had something to do with it. And even if the detective suspected John for some reason, it seems foolish to burst through the door and just lay that out like that. But it's not like he even had any strong reason at that point to suspect John. As far as we know, there was nobody saying John, they saw John with the TV box or anything like that,

no reason to suspect him. So why would he rush to that judgment? It just seems like it was premature. Well, it had to have been premature, right? Because there's not enough time has gone by for anyone to conclusively, you know, figure out that John had something to do with this. This had to have been a gut instinct.

It just seems so strange to me, if that's the way it really happened. Now, it's standard in cases like this to look at the parents, of course, but they're generally not pointed to and blamed moments after finding out their child was murdered. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do

what had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020. Blood and water. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. In the days and weeks after Barbara was killed, Sharon and John's reputations were destroyed because they were honest with detectives. John admitted to having a drinking problem

and occasionally slapping Sharon when he was drunk. They both used crank, which John liked because it allowed him to stay away and drink more. Sharon admitted to smoking weed, but both of them denied harming Barbara in any way and denied any involvement in her death. And despite their issues, there was no proof or real reason to suspect that either of the Fahis were lying. Philadelphia Assistant Medical Examiner Paul Hoyer placed Barbara's time of death at between 3.30 and 4.30 p.m.

This timeline works with both the last time John saw. Barbara and the time she was seen following the man down the street. This also meant that Barbara died very soon after Nicole's mom Margaret saw her walking with the man. Barbara's official cause of death was due to cerebral injuries, scout lacerations and ketusians, subarachnoid hemorrhage, focal superficial brain lacerations and contusions, and mild brain swelling. The main clue police had to work with was the box Barbara had been left in. It had once held a 13-inch Hitachi color television. This was the biggest lead they had since the TV had a serial number. And if investigators found the TV, they would be able to prove it had been in that box. When police asked around,

they hit pay dirt, five different witnesses, remembered seeing a man carrying the TV box, which appeared to be heavy. One of the witnesses saw the man put the box down, but then continued dragging it down St. Vincent Street. The suspect was described as a white male. between the ages of 25 and 30. He was said to be 5 foot 8 inches tall, about 180 pounds, with Sandy brown hair. His outfit was described as a white t-shirt and cut off jeans,

or possibly khakis. Though John Fahey did generally fit this description, none of the witnesses identified him as the man. They saw, and it wouldn't have been possible for it to have been him because the man with the TV box had first been witnessed at 5.12 p.m. And by that time, John had already been out searching for Barbara. He was knocking on doors, talking to people, and others were joining him in the search. There were plenty of witnesses

that saw him searching at the same time. Other people saw the man with the TV box. Sharon never suspected John. In the book by author Thomas Lowenstein, he wrote that Sharon told detectives, if I thought for a minute he could have done it, you wouldn't have to worry. I'd kill him myself. That may be easy to jump to the conclusion that John had something to do with this. We have to remember that neighbor Margaret Cruz was the last witness believed to have seen Barbara alive with someone other than John, and multiple witnesses had got more than a passing glance at the man with the box, and they were sure it wasn't John with that box. Just to be sure, Margaret, who had seen who she thought was Barbara with her father that afternoon, was shown a

photo of John. She confirmed that it was not John, who she had seen leading Barbara down the street by the elbow. John also had multiple tattoos on his arms, and none of the five witnesses who saw the man with the TV box recalled any tattoos at all. One of the neighbors even talked to the man, asking him what he was dragging around, and he replied, some old junk. None of the witnesses recalled seeing any blood or any sign that there was the body of a little girl inside the box. all of them regret not noticing more or opening the box when the man was right in front of them. And there's that word regret, right? It pops up in a lot of cases.

You know, after the fact, a lot of people have regrets. Why didn't I do this? Why didn't I do that? But in the moment, who is going to ask to look inside of a, what appears to be an old TV box? What reason would you have for? doing so. Now, afterwards, once you know that Barbara was in that box, yeah, I understand you're going to have some regrets, but they're not really logical, but regret doesn't always

work that way. And more, you know, you used the phrase earlier, sign of the time. And we talk about a lot, right? Differences between decades. And we're talking the 1980s here. TVs were a lot different back then than they are today. First of all, who in the world today has a 13-inch television? No one. It seems like when I go to the store, the smallest TV you see is like a 32-inch or, you know, something along those lines. But in the 1980s, you know, TVs were smaller.

They were also much bigger. You know, we're talking tubes. They were heavier. They extended a lot further back to allow for all these tubes and things. You know, they didn't have the flat screens like they do today. Yeah, when you hear that term 13 inch TV box, you know, I think especially if you're younger, somebody out there might listen, might be listening wondering how could a child fit into that kind of box. You know, it's not a 13 inch flat screen like you mentioned, like a monitor.

It was a giant bulky box. to fit all that stuff and it was big enough to fit her little body. On July 21st, investigators were finally able to trace the serial number of the specific TV that had been inside the box Barbara was found in. It had been purchased four years earlier by the Ward family who lived down the street from the Pahey's on the opposite side of the street, closer to St. Vincent Street. Wesley Ward, a college student who had been home alone. the day Barbara was killed, told police that he had randomly decided to throw the box away.

Their home, 7208 Rutland Street, was searched, and Wesley was questioned at the police station. He claimed to be in class the day of the murder, but his professor didn't keep attendance, so his alibi couldn't be fully confirmed. Still, he didn't look like the sketch, created based on eyewitness sightings of the man with the TV box, And there was no other evidence linking him to the crime. He was let go without being charged. In 1991, John and Sharon moved out of their rented home on Rutland Street and ended to Sharon's sister Barb's house. After a while, John moved out and in with his mother.

Eventually, she kicked him out too. It seems like things really went downhill for Sharon and John after the murder. Detective's Devlin and Whirl from the Special Investigations Unit took over the case in 1992. They started back at square one, interrogating Barbara's parents and then blaming John Fahey. In Lowenstein's book, the author laid out how Sharon once again sternly pushed back on this theory, telling police, listen to me, if I thought he killed my daughter, I'd kill him. He'd be dead. Police didn't drop their line of questioning, though, now blaming Sharon too for covering up for John. She went on to say, get that through your head. I'm not protecting him for anything.

The two hired an attorney as soon as they left the police station. Sharon told John, if they think they're going to wrap this up in a neat little bow and pretend that you did it after all this time, they're crazy. And we talked about it, right? Both Sharon, but especially John, seemed to have some issues that they were dealing with. They admitted they did. John drank. He did drugs.

He was physically abusive to Sharon. Is that the reason? that police kept coming back to him, not because they had evidence he did anything to Barbara, but because he had other issues going on. And so, you know, they suspected it must have been him. But then later on, they started blaming Sharon as well

for covering up for John. And, you know, I really didn't understand it because by that point, they were no longer together. So what real reason would Sharon have for continuing to cover for John? They're not together. It just doesn't make sense. And she told police all along multiple times that if she found that he was responsible,

she'd kill him. So it doesn't make sense for her to be protecting him. The detectives turned to the neighborhood, looking to re-interview those who might have seen something. Neighbor Walter O'Grath lived at 72, 44. Rutland Street. Directly across from the Fahey home with the Green family, he told the first detectives on the case that he recalled John knocking to ask if

anyone had seen Barbara. O'Grad had moved since the murder and was now living in an apartment in Glenside. When detectives went looking for him, he wasn't home. So they left a business card asking him to come in for a quick interview. O'Grad, who worked as a delivery truck driver for a bakery. called detectives, but was told he had to do an in-person interview. After finishing his 18-hour shift, he stopped by the station. He arrived at 1.30 p.m. and was told he didn't need to sign it.

By 6 a.m. the next morning, Walter Ogrod had signed a 16-page confession. The statement, handwritten by Detective Devlin, claimed that Barbara was looking for Charlie, and Ogrod let her in and invited her down to the basement, where he asked her to play doctor. When she refused to perform oral sex, he hit her, which caused her to cry and made him fear that someone upstairs would hear her. So he kept hitting her with the pull-down bar from a nearby wait set. He washed her body in the laundry sink and cleaned up the scene. There were no details in the confession that had not already appeared in various articles about the case in the four years since the murder. Investors would have already been aware of a weight set in the basement from crime scene photos from a different,

unrelated murder that happened previously in that home. On July 31st, 1986, Walter O'Grath's brother, Gray, and his 16-year-old girlfriend, Maureen, were attacked in the basement of 724-Retland. Maureen, the daughter of Philadelphia Police Department Detective William Dunn, was bludgeoned and stabbed in the heart. Greg survived, and Maureen was killed.

Richard Hackett, who once lived in the home and employed Walter O'Grath was convicted for the crime. Detectives deny looking into the Dunn case prior to interrogating Walter, despite pretty much everyone on the force, knowing the history of the home. Immediately after being arrested due to his supposed confession, Walter O'Grod frantically called a friend and told them what was happening. He said he thought he would be able to go home after he did what detectives told him to do, which was signed the confession. He had been awake for 36 hours and just wanted to go home and sleep. Thomas Lowenstein described in his book that Walter O'Grod is described by pretty much everyone, except the detectives who obtain this confession, to be off or slow.

It was obvious to most people that met Walter that he was developmentally disabled. Despite not looking anything like the composite and being too tall, too heavy, and having hair too dark to fit the description given by multiple people, this confession was accepted by police. Walter also had a noticeable speech impediment, which none of the witnesses who spoke to the man with the TV box noted. The route he described in a confession had him zigzagging and doing things that conflicted with eyewitness reports.

So we have this guy, Walter O'Grath. He lived with a family across from where Barbara lived, in a home where a murder had taken place. years earlier. Now, I understand why police would want to talk to this guy. Now, we don't know if Walter was talked to during the initial investigation, but obviously detectives decided to go back and talk to him. And then you have him confessing to the murder. But you also have a lot of factors that you hear about in false confessions. The man was up for 36 hours straight.

People said that he had some developmental disabilities. And let's not forget, he doesn't fit at all. The composite developed by eyewitnesses. And there are some things in his confession that conflict with the known fact. Yeah, it just seems way too common an occurrence that in many cases, the local guy that maybe has a low IQ or learning disabilities gets looked at and all of a sudden he's signing a confession. It just seems like something we've seen time and time again and in these kinds of cases. Yeah, it's a scary thought. I mean, you know, I think a lot of people

are of that mindset that, well, if I didn't do this horrific act, there's no way that anyone could ever make me say I did it. But when you look at, some of the tactics that have been used over the years, I think a lot of people would be worn down to the point where, you know, they would confess to something they didn't do just because they want to get out of this situation. And they're being told,

you know, all you got to do is sign this and, you know, you'll be able to go home. Well, that's not the truth. Some people would know that's not truthful, but others wouldn't.

And I talked about, you know, some of the things that didn't seem to fit with Walter, but none of those things that pointed away from him mattered to police. He was charged with Barbara's murder. His trial began on October 21st, 1993. This was just three days after Barbara Jean would have turned 10 years old had she not been killed. By this time, John and Sharon were back together and eager to get justice for Barbara. O'Grath took the stand in his own defense on the 29th. The jury came back with what they said would be a unanimous verdict, not guilty. The jurors did not believe that Walter would have said the things in the confession.

He had a very distinctive way of talking. And detectives had been adamant that the confession was taken down verbatim, but nothing in the confession sounded like O'Grath. There was no other physical evidence against him. So if you didn't believe this was a true confession, a not guilty verdict was really the only way to go. So the jury seemingly came to that conclusion. However, when the jury was polled, one juror said he could not agree with the verdict and nothing could be said to change his mind. Judge Juanita Kid Stout was forced to declare a mistrial.

Overcome with anger, John Fahey lost control and lunged at O'Grath in the courtroom. Deputies were able to grab him and get him away from Walter. Prosecutors intended to retry the case, but the jury had unanimously signed the verdict for him. Walter's attorney argued that this meant he had officially been acquitted and could not be tried again for the same crime. He was held in custody until a higher court could decide who was correct. On December 7, 1994, it was ruled by the Pennsylvania Superior Court that Walter O'Grod could stand trial for a second time. Just one week after this decision, a man named John Hall was moved into Walter Ogrod's cell block. While no one has ever confessed to putting the two together,

so that Hall could try to make sure Ogrod was found guilty at his next trial, it truly seems impossible for this to have been a coincidence. Hall, who was in and out of jail often, had a reputation. According to Death Penalty Info.org, Hall was known as the Monsignor. Due to the staggering number of jailhouse confessions, he had supposedly heard. he would find himself arrested for nonviolent crimes like forging fake prescriptions or stealing cars and then used the supposed confession of other inmates as a way to get himself back out of jail.

Hall's wife Phyllis would help him research cases while he was in jail. She sent him newspaper clippings with details of the crimes and even visited the crime scenes or the victim's homes to look for details that Hall could use to make the confessions seem more legitimate. and so he could get more favors in return for his information. In the book by Thomas Lowenstein, the author lays out the multiple times, Hall supplied info that was used to crack a cold case with little physical evidence. Every time he testified against someone,

he claimed to be doing so only because he wanted to help. It was the gruesome details of the crime, or the lack of remorse from the killer that made him have to stand up, up and say something, and not the promise of drop charges, jail instead of prison time, or lenient sentences, letters of recommendation from district attorneys, and even in-person pleas for leniency from detectives, followed each of Hall's allegedly unprompted cooperations that he claimed he expected nothing in return for. Hall gave information on confessions or testified in at least.

least eight other cases. As we can look back on and see obviously now, Hall was the go-to informant when there was no other way to secure a conviction. He made up stuff to feed to police to his benefit. However, he was also giving details about a defendant and another high-profile upcoming trial, and prosecutors didn't want to use the same informant in both cases. So Hall didn't give his fake information about Walter Ogrod to police. Instead, Hall gave the details of his fabricated story to another inmate he took under his wing and was teaching how to leverage information for leniency named Jay Walshanski. It would be Walshanski who testified against Walter O'Grod at his 1996 trial. The theory behind the motive at the new trial would be that Walter, who had never met

Sharon Fahey, was in love with her and wanted to marry her. Seeing John Fahey only as an obstacle, he came up with a plan to frame him for Barbara's murder, which would also give Walter the opportunity to be supportive to a grieving Sharon. In this version of the alleged motive, O'Grad believed that John was related to a man named Henry Fahey, who had been convicted of stabbing, strangling, and sexually assaulting, 12-year-old Nicoletta Concerta in January 1981, which would make it easy for investigators.

to point the finger at John, like it must just be genetic. In this version of events, the murder weapon was again described as the pull-down bar for the weight bench, despite the fact that the injuries on Barbara's body were made by something flat and lighter than a baseball bat or tire iron. O'Grath did not testify in his own defense at this trial, but this time the jury found him guilty of the murder and sentenced him to death. The special investigations unit, which included detectives Devlin and Whirl, had an 80% case clearance rate. Attorney Paul Messing explained to the Philadelphia Inquirer

that there was a spike in violent crime in Philadelphia and elsewhere, and that enormous pressure was brought to bear on police to solve these cases, and they did it, even if they had to make shit up. This clearance rate dropped sharply after changes in policy, such as notifying suspects who are under arrest that they can leave at any time, instead of assuming they know their rights or the requirement that all interrogations must be videotaped. In 2020, the clearance rate for this squad was just 43 percent, despite advances in investigative technology like cell phone data, DNA,

and both the rise in popularity of surveillance cameras, as well as the marked improvement in the quality of their images. And let's just, you know, think about this for a minute. 80% case clearance rate. That seems unobtainable, Morf. Again, I don't work in law enforcement, have never worked in law enforcement, but it seems like a very high rate to me.

And then when you find out that once certain things were implemented, that rate dropped to, you know, somewhere in the 40s, well, then obviously it seems way too high. Yeah, I understand police want to solve these cases and they're doing everything they can to solve them, sometimes probably doing more than they should be doing. But if I'm the family member of one of these victims, I want the right person in prison for what they did. I don't want just somebody that they shoehorned into being convicted and threw them into jail and now the case is closed. I want the right person behind bars and I'm sure a lot of these families felt that way. Oh, absolutely. I agree with you. But if you're one of those family members, are you thinking that

law enforcement is making the puzzle pieces fit? Or are you assuming that if someone's going on trial, there's a really good reason for it. And they have the person. And my thought is, for most people, it's the latter. You know, we don't assume, and maybe sometimes naively, that the police are, in the words of attorney Paul messing, making shit up because that is not how it's supposed to go. But I also want to talk about the jailhouse informant for a minute. You know, I've always been leery because there's so many cases that talk about jail house informants. Okay, do some people who commit heinous crimes like DeBrek? And I would say yes.

The answer is yes. but some of these just seem too convenient. And there's always that element of there being an incentive. You know, I'm going to rat someone out because then I'm going to get less time. Well, you have to look at that. Now, these people, for the most part, are not doing it out of some sense of justice or some sense of right and wrong. And so because of. that I feel like these jailhouse confessions have to be scrutinized even heavier.

Yeah, you're dealing with people that obviously aren't of good character. So how fully can you believe in everything they're telling you? And this guy, Hall, had not one or two confessions that he had information about or cases that he was able to provide information about. He had eight, you know, for one person to have. eight different people tell him information that are later used to convict somebody that just seems very, very suspicious. Yeah, at that point, it just becomes a side gig, right? Like that, like that's his job. Yeah, his nickname was what, the Monceinor. Multiple wrongful convictions

have been overturned with full exonerations in some of these cases. And millions of dollars have been paid out in lawsuits brought by innocent men who spent. time in prison. In fact, in just four years, 22 murder convictions were overturned. Many involving detectives Devlin and Worell. According to the Philadelphia inquirer, the district attorney's office admitted that Devlin and other homicide detectives he worked with used coercive techniques during their interrogations. These tactics included physical and or psychological abuse as well as threats of incarceration. A man named Stephen Beggleman was taken into custody in relation to Barber's murder in November

1991 and subsequently filed a lawsuit due to his treatment. His story is nearly identical to Walter O'Grath's. His lawsuit was not successful, however. Over the years, Walter O'Grath's appeals were all denied on the basis that his original confession would be enough for a jury to find him guilty, despite the fact that using the evidence, a jury had been moments away from finding him not guilty based on the evidence. The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office's Conviction Integrity Unit looked into the case in 2018 and found that Walter Ogrod was not Barbara's killer. They identified two potential suspects.

Additionally, Dr. Lubisa Dragovic, an expert in both forensic pathology and forensic neuropathology, found that Barbara Jean most likely died to asphyxia and not cerebral, injuries. In January 2020, results from a DNA sample taken from Barbara Jean Horn's body, presumably from her killer, came back without being a match to Walter O'Grod. On June 5th, his conviction was vacated, and he was finally released from prison. In court, Assistant District Attorney Kerry Wood, as tears streamed down her face, told John and Sharon Fahey, I'm sorry it took 28 years for us to listen to what Barbara Jean was trying to tell us. This office has not told you the truth about what happened to your little girl for so many years.

Now, Walter O'Gra is free from prison and Barbara Jean's real killer remains unidentified. And I think we have to take a minute more just to talk about what happened to Walter O'Grath. I mean, this man spent over 20 years on death row, convicted of being a child killer. And obviously, once everything came out, it was clear how it happened. Right. It was a coercive confession. You've got the, the jailhouse informant testifying. I just can't imagine going through something like Walter went through. Yeah, it's not like any witnesses ever said that he was the man who discarded the TV box. There was no fingerprints. And then we find out DNA doesn't match him. So in every way possible, he was proven to be innocent. And it's just a shame it took that long. And you mentioned, you know, he's an accused child killer in prison. Accused child killers don't, you know, don't fare very well.

So it's, it's very fortunate that he did get out because who knows what might have happened to him in prison or ultimately he could have been put to death. And that's something that DNA has done for, you know, a lot of people conclusively proven that they weren't the person who committed a crime. Unfortunately, if you got convicted in the 80s, you had to wait a long time in many cases for DNA to come around to correct your situation. But then there's also, you know, the heartbreak for Sharon and John. They lost their little girl.

But for many, many years, they thought that the person responsible was being held accountable. And then they find out that that's not even true. Yeah, for them, that's got to put them back to square one. The person that you believed was responsible is out of prison and evidence clears him. And now you're back to wondering who did this to your little girl. So let's talk about two other possible suspect. There were actually two different men who were positively identified by witnesses as the man carrying the TV box. And they both have criminal histories.

In January 1989, witness David Schechtman identified Ross Felice as the man he saw carrying the TV box. Detectives took Schachtman to a gym to see if he recognized anyone as the man he saw carrying the box. Now, it's not clear how police became aware of Ross Felice or why they brought the witness to the gym instead of showing him photos. But one way or another, this eyewitness, David. Shetman told the Philadelphia Inquirer, I at once recognized this mail as the mail I had seen carrying the TV box west on St. Vincent Street on July 12th, 1988. After Ross Felice was identified by Shectman,

police covertly followed Felice for six months with no luck. They didn't find any clues connecting him to Barbara Jean's murder. Another witness was Jonathan Jones, who lived at 7160 Rutland Street on the day of Barbara's murder. He actually knew Ross Felice and recalled him walking around the neighborhood the next afternoon, trying to see what people knew about the situation. Jones also said that Ross Felice asked a lot of questions about Barbara's murder, and was very curious as to whether anyone had been apprehended. Ross Felice lived on Castor Street, which intersects with St. Vincent Street.

While police seemed high on Felice as a suspect, the same DNA sample from Barbara's body that cleared Walter Ogrod did not match Felice either. DNA also ruled out Wesley Ward. He was the college kid whose family owned the TV that the box belonged to. Some people to this day, though, feel it's suspicious that after holding onto the empty TV box for four years, that Ward chose to throw it out on the very day a murder child's body would be found in it. And I understand why people find it suspicious. It is very strange that, you know, just happened to decide to throw out this TV box that's four years old. But it could be a coincidence. It could just be that, you know, the killer happened to see

that box. Witness David Scheckman, who had identified Ross Felice as the man he saw carrying the TV box, apparently identified a second man as well. he somehow also picked a man named Raymond Sheehan's photo out of a lineup and said that he was the man who had been carrying the box. In 2003, 38-year-old Raymond Sheehan confessed to the murder of 10-year-old Heather Lynn Coffin. At the time he killed Heather, he was 22. He admitted to being angry at her father, Randall Coffin, for firing him, and he felt as though he owed him money. He went to the coffin home to commit burglary, but ended up sexually assaulting Heather before strangling her. A DNA match finally led investigators to Sheehan in the coffin case, and he immediately cracked.

Scrapings from Barbara's fingernails still hadn't been tested in 2019, even though they would hold any DNA from trying to fight off her attacker. There is an article from 2020 that states the DNA denials. the DNA did not match Walter O'Grath, so you have to assume. It also didn't match Sheehan since he was a suspect in the case, and they obviously would have had his DNA. It's clear to this point that none of the people we have mentioned in this episode are connected to Barbara Jean's murder based on the DNA evidence, and it seems there's been no further

movement on the case. Walter O'Grod received the $9.1 million settlement from the city of Philadelphia for his unjust 28 years behind bars. He graciously offered to pay for a private investigator for the Fahey family to help find the real killer. Loenstein's book, The Trials of Walter Ogrod is a heartbreaking and frustrating read and really lays out how his life was ruined after he lost his freedom. Man, you really do have to feel for Walter. Now, I get it, he got $9 million. But $9 million for losing 28 years of your life, I don't know how many people would take you up on that offer. Yeah, and despite evidence clearly exonerating him, there still might be some people that

still have some suspicion, his reputations ruined. You can't recover that back or the time that you spent pine bars. What happened in this case also robbed Barbara Jean and her family of justice. The neighborhood witnesses were haunted by guilt and seemingly letting Barbara's killer slip away from them. Police rushed to judgment and some things were twisted and fabricated along the way, perhaps in a rush to get this little murdered girl and her family justice. Sharon Fahey told CBS News, Living with not knowing who took Barbara Jean from us as torture every day for my family, John Fahy added,

if I had only just let her help me with the refrigerator, she'd still be here today, maybe. It's clear that that day in 1988, when Barbara Jean went out to play and didn't come back alive, haunts them. And how could it not? Right. I mean, you hear John say, if I had just let her help me with the refrigerator, you know, people in cases like this, they could probably point to a multitude of things and say, well, if I'd have only done this, if I'd have not let her, you know, go out, if I'd have kept a closer eye on her, there's, there's a lot of things that people could point to and say, if I would have done this or wouldn't have done this, then things would be different. And yes, that's going to haunt you.

There's just no way around it. I think the good thing with this case is that there is that there is, there is, is DNA evidence? Because you can't say that about every unsolved case. You know, that DNA has ruled suspects out. And hopefully one day, it will rule someone in. Because I think at this point, so many years later, that's probably what it's going to take. Right. They have DNA. They have not yet mashed it to anyone. Hopefully someday they'll be able to. Yeah, this is going to be one of those cases that I watch anticipating, you know, an identification or an arrest. I think if you are the person who killed Barbara Jean Horn and you're still alive,

you're being very careful, as I believe a lot of killers are these days, knowing the power of DNA. You're being very careful not to slip up, not to have your DNA get put in some database because it's going to expose you. And there's always the possibility that they'll be able to do genealogy as well and find this person. So hopefully, you know, that does happen. Oh, that's a great point. So yeah, there's killers out there who are secretly hoping, praying that their family doesn't decide to submit their DNA as part of some ancestry search or something like that. I'm sure there's a lot of killers.

out there that are much more afraid today than they were, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago. And the killer in this case not only got away with not paying for what he did, but also had someone else in the form of Walter pay for what he did, you know, at least 28 years of his life. So, you know, it was a real, a double whammy. Yeah, it was. But, you know, you really have to fall. some of these folks in law enforcement. I mean, it was clear, at least in the case of Walter O'Grath that, you know, things were not done correctly.

But that's it for our episode on Barbara Jean Horn, like you said, Morph. I think this is one that we will be keeping an eye on, hoping to see some news pop up that a DNA match has been made. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a rating, leave a review. Also keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle at Criminology Pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to facebook.com slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that is it for another episode

of Criminology. But Morp and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new So until then, for Mike and Morth. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.