Trials of Walter Ogrod: The Shocking Murder, So-Called Confessions, and Notorious Snitch That Sent a Man to Death Row

09/23/23 • 55 min

The horrific 1988 murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn shocked the citizens of Philadelphia. Plucked from her own front yard, Barbara Jean was found dead less than two and a half hours later in a cardboard TV box dragged to a nearby street curb. After months of investigation with no strong leads, the case went cold. Four years later it was reopened, and Walter Ogrod, a young man with autism spectrum disorder who had lived across the street from the family at the time of the murder, was brought in as a suspect.
Ogrod bears no resemblance to the composite police sketch based on eyewitness accounts of the man carrying the box, and there is no physical evidence linking him to the crime. His conviction was based solely on a confession he signed after thirty-six hours without sleep. "They said I could go home if I signed it," Ogrod told his brother from the jailhouse. The case was so weak that the jury voted unanimously to acquit him, but at the last second—in a dramatic courtroom declaration—one juror changed his mind. As he waited for a retrial, Ogrod's fate was sealed when a notorious jailhouse snitch was planted in his cell block and supplied the prosecution with a second supposed confession. As a result, Walter Ogrod sits on death row for the murder today.
Informed by police records, court transcripts, interviews, letters, journals, and more, award-winning journalist Thomas Lowenstein leads readers through the facts of the infamous Horn murder case in compelling, compassionate, and riveting fashion. He reveals explosive new evidence that points to a condemned man's innocence and exposes a larger underlying pattern of prosecutorial misconduct in Philadelphia.
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Previous Episode

Lynn Crook - False Memories - The Deception That Silenced Millions

Lynn Crook - False Memories - The Deception That Silenced Millions
Ed Opperman’s guest today is Lynn Crook. False memory syndrome is a go-to diagnosis for memories which, when recovered, seem to have no corroborating evidence. There’s a whole world of research into False Memory Syndrome, the causes and effects of ‘remembering’ things which never happened. But the syndrome has also become a useful tool in discrediting those whose recollections are clear enough, yet lack substantive evidence.
From Her Amazon;
When states allowed adults who were molested as children to sue for damages, accused parents went on the offense. The parents claimed the accusations were false memories implanted by therapists. The parents established a non-profit and invested millions in a PR campaign to promote themselves as falsely accused, and to dismiss crimes committed against children as false memories. As evidence, they offered the story of an older brother who convinced his younger brother he was lost at a mall. The false memory story went viral. The popular press and psychology textbooks failed to challenge false memory claims. Individuals who challenged false memories were silenced. The author explains how her successful lawsuit against her parents helped her uncover the rest of the false memory story.
Lynn Crook, M.Ed., has a Master's Degree in Educational Psychology from the University of Washington (1970). Lynn was herself a therapist when she recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse. Lynn Crook, MEd, successfully sued her parents for damages in 1994, based on a corroborated claim of childhood sexual abuse.
Book: False Memories - The Deception That Silenced Millions
https://amzn.to/3RsvSyJ
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-opperman-report--1198501/support.