softheart
05-29-2004, 01:12 PM
How many innocent people after many years in prsion are we going to have to release before we wake up and figured out that our system is seriously broke??????
I just want to stand on something High and Yell WAKE UP America.
softie
May 29, 2004
Illinois
Inmate free after 17 years
`Air is sweeter,' ex-prisoner says
By Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune
DANVILLE, Ill.. -- After more than 17 years behind bars--12 of them on
Death Row--Gordon "Randy" Steidl stepped into freedom Friday with a plan
to enjoy the simple pleasures most people take for granted.
"First thing I noticed was the air was much sweeter on this side," Steidl
said outside Danville Correctional Center. "I haven't slept in a month,
waiting for this day."
Clad in khaki cotton pants, a white polo shirt and brown wingtips, a
fit-looking Steidl, 52, was looking forward to a quiet dinner with his
family, time with his wife, Patty--whom he married in prison last
September--and going to the Indy 500. After that, his first order of
business is to get a job.
He was freed days after prosecutors declined to pursue a retrial in his
case and four years after an Illinois State Police investigation concluded
he was innocent.
Steidl and Herbert Whitlock, 58, were arrested in February 1987 and
convicted of murdering Dyke and Karen Rhoads, who were stabbed dozens of
times before their home in Downstate Paris was set on fire on July 6, 1986.
No physical evidence linked Steidl or Whitlock to the crime. The main
witnesses at their initial trials later recanted.
Whitlock's case was not affected by Steidl's appeals, and Whitlock remains
in prison.
"He's just as innocent as I am," Steidl said.
"They used the same perjured evidence against him."
Steidl said authorities should pursue the real killers. "Justice is not
just to free the innocent," he said.
"It's putting guilty people behind bars."
Steidl's half-brother, Rory Steidl, expressed concern for the victims'
families.
"They suffered a brutal and heinous death," he said.
"Their families and friends will always suffer the unspeakable effects of
trying to cope with their murder, and we recognize that today they are
left with unanswered questions."
That sympathy, however, did not extend to the police and prosecutors who
sought to execute his brother.
During his 17 years behind bars, Steidl was treated for smoke inhalation
after a fire near Death Row, received 36 stitches when an inmate slashed
him with a razor because he refused to join a gang and missed many of the
formative years of his two children, said his mother, Bobbie Steidl.
But he also got reacquainted with his wife, whom he first dated in the
'70s, when she began to write to him four years ago. Thinking Steidl would
be free by last September, they set a marriage date and later decided they
had "waited long enough," said Patty Steidl, 54.
Bobbie Steidl, 74, said she never lost faith that the record would free
her son. "I knew this day would happen," she said. "I just didn't know it
would be this many years."
---
Source : Chicago Tribune
I just want to stand on something High and Yell WAKE UP America.
softie
May 29, 2004
Illinois
Inmate free after 17 years
`Air is sweeter,' ex-prisoner says
By Hal Dardick, Chicago Tribune
DANVILLE, Ill.. -- After more than 17 years behind bars--12 of them on
Death Row--Gordon "Randy" Steidl stepped into freedom Friday with a plan
to enjoy the simple pleasures most people take for granted.
"First thing I noticed was the air was much sweeter on this side," Steidl
said outside Danville Correctional Center. "I haven't slept in a month,
waiting for this day."
Clad in khaki cotton pants, a white polo shirt and brown wingtips, a
fit-looking Steidl, 52, was looking forward to a quiet dinner with his
family, time with his wife, Patty--whom he married in prison last
September--and going to the Indy 500. After that, his first order of
business is to get a job.
He was freed days after prosecutors declined to pursue a retrial in his
case and four years after an Illinois State Police investigation concluded
he was innocent.
Steidl and Herbert Whitlock, 58, were arrested in February 1987 and
convicted of murdering Dyke and Karen Rhoads, who were stabbed dozens of
times before their home in Downstate Paris was set on fire on July 6, 1986.
No physical evidence linked Steidl or Whitlock to the crime. The main
witnesses at their initial trials later recanted.
Whitlock's case was not affected by Steidl's appeals, and Whitlock remains
in prison.
"He's just as innocent as I am," Steidl said.
"They used the same perjured evidence against him."
Steidl said authorities should pursue the real killers. "Justice is not
just to free the innocent," he said.
"It's putting guilty people behind bars."
Steidl's half-brother, Rory Steidl, expressed concern for the victims'
families.
"They suffered a brutal and heinous death," he said.
"Their families and friends will always suffer the unspeakable effects of
trying to cope with their murder, and we recognize that today they are
left with unanswered questions."
That sympathy, however, did not extend to the police and prosecutors who
sought to execute his brother.
During his 17 years behind bars, Steidl was treated for smoke inhalation
after a fire near Death Row, received 36 stitches when an inmate slashed
him with a razor because he refused to join a gang and missed many of the
formative years of his two children, said his mother, Bobbie Steidl.
But he also got reacquainted with his wife, whom he first dated in the
'70s, when she began to write to him four years ago. Thinking Steidl would
be free by last September, they set a marriage date and later decided they
had "waited long enough," said Patty Steidl, 54.
Bobbie Steidl, 74, said she never lost faith that the record would free
her son. "I knew this day would happen," she said. "I just didn't know it
would be this many years."
---
Source : Chicago Tribune