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Showing posts from January, 2012

SIU School of Law Students Work to Exonerate Man

Southern Illinois University School of Law students and the Downstate Illinois Innocence Project are working to exonerate Grover Thompson.  Thompson died in prison in 1996 while serving a 40 year sentence for the 1981 stabbing death of Ida White in Mount Vernon, Illinois.  Below is an article from The Southern about the case.  Timothy Krajcir, who has pleaded guilty to murders in Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Pennsylvania, claimed responsibility for the stabbing, though some investigators question the validity of his admission. The project will present the case to the Illinois Prisoner Review Board on Wednesday in Springfield.   Nichole LaForte, a third-year SIU law student from Indianapolis, said she came across the case during her Public Interest Externship. She and a fellow student attended a book signing and mentioned her interest to Paul Echols, a retired lieutenant with Carbondale Police Department whose investigations into the local cold case of the 1982 murder of Debora