Carter Murder Case

Police conduct during the Carter murder investigation was far from ideal. The police did not follow appropriate procedures when conducting interviews and interrogations and they harassed Williamson and Fritz for four years when, at the time, they did not even have fabricated evidence. The prosecution and police then fabricated evidence against the two men, implicating them in the rape and murder when no true evidence pointed to them and, in fact, much of the evidence pointed against them. in regards to confessions, police conduct was unprofessional at best and illegal at worst. In November of 1983 Williamson agreed to a polygraph exam. He was interrogated beforehand and adamantly denied having killed Carter. The entire proceedings were videotaped. In 1987, Williamson was interrogated again. This time the interview was neither videotaped nor recorded. Although Williamson was literate he was not asked to write his statement. Police did this for him, and neither read it to him nor showed it to him. Williamson did not sign it.
The court conduct was equally as bad. A competency hearing was repeatedly …show more content…
The palm print was shown not to match her, Williamson, or Fritz. Gore’s handprint was not examined for a match. After several years, when the Ada police began to feel they had to close the case, Carter’s body was exhumed. Her palm print was again taken and this time (name), (job), decided it matched. Williamson and Fritz were still considered prime suspects, if the palm print belonged to Carter herself. Glen Gore was again not only not considered, but downright excluded. The palm print is one of many examples in which the original investigation turned up one result, the investigators and prosecution wanted a different answer, and then, suddenly, the analyst realized years later that they had made a mistake and changed their opinion to suit the