Grover Thompson may be 10th victim of SK Timothy Krajcir

[ells9824]

Grover Thompson died in prison while serving time for stabbing a 72-year-old woman in Mount Vernon, Ill. It's a crime Krajcir recently confessed to committing.

Yet Mount Vernon police are standing by the investigation that led to Thompson's conviction. They question whether Krajcir is telling the truth about raping many women and murdering nine of them across four states. One of those cases is the killing in 1977 of Lindbergh High School graduate Sheila Cole.

(excerpt)
At trial, inconsistencies surfaced.

Bates testified that the attacker's shirt was red and orange.

White testified that her attacker had said, "I will kill you and all the white people here," but she never identified Thompson as her assailant.

A forensic expert said a sock print on the toilet seat in White's apartment did not match Thompson's. And the blood spot on his pocket knife was so small, it could only be identified as human.

Thompson's public defender, Stephen Swofford, argued that the identification was suggestive, because Thompson was alone in the police lineup. He tried to ask White about a confrontation she had with a black man at her apartment building about a week before the attack. The judge silenced Swofford on both issues.

Swofford remembers watching Thompson shuffle to the witness stand, hoping the jury would see he was physically incapable of climbing in and out of White's window.

Thompson had trouble walking since the early 1970s, when a car hit him and shattered his legs, his nephew recalled. He was homeless and the streets were his home.

As for the blood on his knife, Thompson told the jury he had picked a sore with the blade. He said he had torn his shirt while rushing to catch his bus earlier that day.

The all-white jury took four hours before delivering a guilty verdict. Thompson was sentenced to 40 years. It was 1982.

Swofford said his client looked as lost that day as he did when he met him about four months earlier.

"He looked weathered and beaten, and his eyes looked old and tired," Swofford said. "He had limited mental function; he wasn't very articulate. He was guarded, baffled and confused. He was 46 going on 60."

Thompson had a 10th-grade education and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to court filings.

"He did have a double personality, but it was never hurtful," Jamison said.

Jamison said most family members couldn't afford to travel to Mount Vernon for the trial. Some, like his mother, were ill.

"We felt a helplessness at the time," Jamison said.

In 1996, Thompson died of natural causes. He had served nearly 14 years in prison.
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Mount Vernon police are balking at re-opening the White case, saying they had their man. The Task Force investigating Krajcir's case would like to look at dna evidence in the case because everything else Ol' Tim has confessed to has panned out. It could give a dead man's family some justice....

http://tinyurl.com/2psq64

[Whisper]

Grover Thompson in Menard Prison in 1993, three years before his death.

CARBONDALE, IL (KFVS) -
[...]
SIU law students and the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project picked up on Grover Thompson's case last year. The group conducted an investigation and put together a formal petition for clemency filled with sworn affidavits and case histories that they hope will prove to the Illinois Prison Review Board and Illinois Governor Pat Quinn that an innocent man was wrongly convicted decades ago.

"I've thought since 1982 this was an innocent man," said Franklin County Assistant State's Attorney Stephen Swofford, who signed an affidavit of support for Grover Thompson's clemency.

Swofford was a young public defender 30 years ago when he represented Thompson in a Jefferson County courtroom when he was on trial for the brutal stabbing of Ida White, 72, of Mt. Vernon.

"It was a terrible crime," Swofford said. "And you had a very sympathetic victim and I think because of the identification procedures used early in the investigation there got to be a steam roller going. The jury wanted to convict someone. In my opinion, they just convicted the wrong someone."

A Mt. Vernon Register-News report from December 10, 1981 says it took just three and a half hours for the jury to find Thompson guilty. Thompson lost his appeal, was sent to Menard Prison, and died there in 1996.

Twelve years later, serial killer Timothy Krajcir confessed to nine murders, numerous rapes, and a stabbing in Mt. Vernon. He tells police he thinks someone else may have taken the fall for the stabbing that happened in a basement-level apartment across the street from the Mt. Vernon Post Office.

"If someone is truly innocent, that means the guilty person got away with it," said Retired Carbondale Police Lt. Paul Echols. "The crime of stabbing Ida White should be transferred to Krajcir."

In January 2008 Heartland News went to the Mt. Vernon Library and started digging through old microfiche. We found an old newspaper article that eerily matched Krajcir's account of the crime.

"It was four years ago I first heard Grover Thompson's name," said Echols. "Here we are four years later and hopefully we'll get the chance to convince the governor to grant clemency."

The Downstate Innocence Project, police officers and members of Thompson's family will travel to Springfield to make the case to clear Grover's name.

"For me personally, it's about correcting an injustice," said third year SIU law student Nicole LaForte. "When Grover was arrested, they found a pocket knife with blood on it. But the amount of blood was so small they couldn't even determine what blood type it was.

When they tested it again in 2008, there was no blood to be found on that knife and no physical evidence tying him to the crime.

For Lt. Echols, it's about finding justice for the man he considers Krajcir's tenth victim.

"He spent 15 years of his life in prison and died in prison for a crime he did not commit," said Echols. "It's just the right thing to do to clear his name."

The Illinois Prison Review Board will hear the clemency request Wednesday, January 11. The board will then make a recommendation to Governor Quinn to either grant or deny the request.

http://www.kfvs12.com/story/16448901...es-to-stabbing