How Is Eva Patterson Accused

Phillip Bivens was found notorious of aiding in the murder and rape of Eva Gail Patterson in the city of Hattiesburg, Mississippi in 1979. However, the conviction of Bivens was at the hands of two investigators that they believed to be a friend of the original convict, Larry Ruffin, along with Bobby Ray Dixon (Sherrer). Due to interrogation, Ruffin was coerced to confession in order to prevent from a direct death penalty, but with the risk of a full life sentence without parole (Robertson). Meanwhile, Bivens was at his home in California, where which he lived, and was there arrested to be sent to Hattiesburg for trial through air travel, which he seemingly noted that he has never rode on an airplane before (Robertson). What is more, the only eye-witness to the crime was Patterson’s four-year-old son, to which he actually denied in the identification of all three convicts as the murderer (Sherrer). …show more content…
Before the trial initially took place, the three of them were questioned and told their own stories to investigators, in which were all inconsistent and factually incorrect (“…New Orleans”). In reality, the investigators did not have any real evidence other than an unreliable eye-witness account of the victim’s four-year-old son and stories from the three convicts that are not consistent with each other. In addition, the only reason that they were given life sentences was due to the fact that they were forced into making confessions; otherwise, the penalty would be direct