Fall Guys: False Confessions and the Politics of Murder - Hardcover

Fisher, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 080932069X ISBN 13: 9780809320691

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Pr, 1997

Synopsis

In this story of criminal detection, the author - a former FBI agent - presents an inside look at how a malicious detective framed two boys in a pair of unrelated murders in 1956 and 1958. In ths first case, 11-year old Charlie Zubryd confessed that at the age of eight, he murdered his widowed mother. Following intense police questioning, Charlie confessed to the crime in March 1959, a full 28 months after the murder of his mother. The second murder occurred in 1958. Thirteen-year old Jerry Pacek endured 41 hours of police grilling before confessing to raping and killing 50-year old Lillian Steveck as she walked home one evening. Pacek told the same Detective who had framed Charlie Zubryd that he had killed the woman with a variety of blunt objects, none of which were ever found. The author's investigations cleared the names of the wrongfully accused boys. The Zubryd case was reopened, which led to the identification of a vicious killer. In 1991, Jerry Pacek was granted a full pardon after serving ten years in an adult prison as a teenager for a murder he had not committed.

About this title

About the Author

Jim Fisher is a professor of criminal justice at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. His other books include The Lindbergh Case. He was a special agent for the FBI from 1966 to 1972.

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080932069X
• ISBN 13: 9780809320691
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352