Woman mistaken for murder finally freed after 8 years in prison - Polidicks

[quote] ELKHART (Indiana) - A woman who spent eight years behind bars for the killing of a blind 94-year-old woman has been freed after a fingerprint that was prosecutors' crucial piece of evidence against her was found not to be hers. Ms Lana Canen, 53, was released Friday from jail after a judge who overturned her 2005 murder conviction in the Thanksgiving Day 2002 slaying of Helen Sailor ordered her freed, WSBT-TV and WNDU-TV reported. Ms Canen maintains that she had nothing to do with killing Sailor. At her trial, prosecutors said she conspired with her co-defendant, Andrew Royer, to rob Sailor, and that Royer strangled the woman. Both were convicted and given 55-year prison sentences. Ms Canen appealed her conviction and earlier this year an Arizona fingerprint expert discovered that a sheriff's detective, Dennis Chapman, had misidentified a fingerprint found on a pill bottle in Sailor's apartment as Ms Canen's. Prosecutor Curtis Hill said the fingerprint was a central part of the case against Ms Canen and that without it, he could not prove she was involved. "There's just not an ability for me in good conscience to go forward and suggest that we have a sufficient amount to support a prosecution," Mr Hill said. Mr Hill said the only way Ms Canen could be charged in Sailor's death again is if investigators find other evidence against her. When asked whether he thought Ms Canen was innocent, Mr Hill responded: "That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I can't prove it." Ms Canen said after her release Friday that since her 2004 arrest, she had not seen her now 10-year-old grandson, her daughter and other relatives. Now free, she said even car exhaust smelled "good". She told WSBT-TV she had nothing to do with Sailor's killing. "That's what's hard to think (is) that people would think I'm that kind of a monster that would do that to a 94-year-old blind woman," Ms Canen said. Mr Chapman, who admitted that his fingerprint test results were wrong, was disciplined and still works at the sheriff's department. AP[/quote] [url]http://www.todayonline.com/World/EDC121104-0000008/Alleged-US-murder-accomplice-freed-over-error[/url] Fuck that's 8 years of your life taken away. Poor lady.

These stories are always really horrible. I'm glad she's released though.

8 years because they failed to actually check fingerprints correctly? Heads will fucking roll for that I bet.

I can barely imagine how bad that has to be one's mental health. 8 years of crude punishment for something you never did.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;38310395]I can barely imagine how bad that has to be one's mental health. 8 years of crude punishment for something you never did.[/QUOTE] No one would think less of you for coming away from that experience a little bitter.

[QUOTE][B]Mr Chapman, who admitted that his fingerprint test results were wrong, was disciplined and still works at the sheriff's department.[/B][/QUOTE] What a fantastic fucking job you did, sheriff!

This is one of the main reasons why im against the death penalty for crimes such as murder. The detection of a criminal isn't 100% accurate and some people can make huge mistakes like this.

She's going to be getting a lot of compensation that's for sure.

[QUOTE=Spagetto;38310483]What a fantastic fucking job you did, sheriff![/QUOTE] There is still the possibility that they have plenty of reason to believe that she's the murderer, just that they have no evidence. It could be for this reason that he's still working in the department, and would explain his reluctance to call her innocent. She probably had to be a suspect initially too if they were looking around in her pill bottles in her apartment.

A whole eight years gone for nothing. Really dreadful to think of that happening.

It's fucked up to know you are going to jail for something you didn't do and there is nothing you can do or say to get out of it. The only positive thing I can think of is that maybe she's a changed person and that her view on life improved

[QUOTE=Spagetto;38310483]What a fantastic fucking job you did, sheriff![/QUOTE] What a Chap he is! But now seriously... 8 years for a mistake. 8 fucking years...

reminds me [url=http://tr.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/107jib/iam_damien_echols_death_row_survivor_ama/]of this[/url]. absolutely tragic what these people live through, and for nothing!

If this ever happened to me, I would make sure I got a large compensation of money depending on how many years I was in there.

Couldn't she sue for this?

I would sue the SHIT out of them for false imprisonment. You could make quite a hefty sum of money for that plus punitive damages, plus other things like the trauma of being in there, losing your reputation, life, family, etc...

At the very least, now ALL cases involving evidence found by that detective should be re-examined.

Fingerprints are a notoriously unreliable form of evidence, this has been known for quite some time. Hopefully as newer forensic examination like DNA analysis becomes more prevalent, the occurrence of these sorts of cases will diminish.

She deserves 10 million in compensation.

[QUOTE=Spagetto;38310483]What a fantastic fucking job you did, sheriff![/QUOTE] LEOs are rarely disciplined for mistakes, even extreme cases they get a slap on the wrist at most.

give her a million for every year she was in prison

If she had been on death row she could already be dead. Average time on Death Row is about 10 years (getting longer as time goes on however).

man, i was only in elementary when she first went to jail... imagine what she could have done in that time