[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: Jasper
Date: 9/7/03
Time: 12:03:36 PM
Remote Name: 68.74.28.171
Charlie,
I wonder if this story has anything to do with Fuhrman’s decision to write his new book.
Murder in Greenwich, page 136: “A male negroid hair was found in the sheets that Charles Danks wrapped around Martha’s body. That evidence was quickly eliminated, because the police decided that it must have come from Dan Hickman, to only black officer close to Martha’s body at the crime scene. How did they know this hair was Hickman’s? I don’t understand why they would immediately this possible piece of evidence. At this point, the police supposedly thought the killer must have been somebody from outside the neighborhood. Here was to one piece of evidence that might have supported the Turnpike Transient Theory, and the police dismissed it.”
At the very least, this passage from Fuhrman’s Murder in Greenwich gives him an out if tit turns out that the new witness’ story has some truth in it. He can claim that he got it wrong because the police misled him and that he was still responsible for “a good arrest” based on the information he had. He can also claim that his mistake proves conclusively that he is not a racist because he did not pursue a black suspect.
I’ll have to hear much more from the witness before I can decide anything. As you know, I did not believe that Martha was the victim of a rage killing. I believed that she was killed because her attacker caught him stealing golf clubs (only one club from Ann Skakel’s Toney Penna set was ever recovered. Greenwich police detectives found a four-iron in the house. In his book, Fuhrman said it was a five-iron. In his movie, the detectives found a complete set minus the six-iron that was used in the killing. Ken Littleton (Morris Banks in the movie) was a petty thief and there were several other things about him that match up to killer, including his access to the clubs.
This is where I have trouble with the witness’ story. If a hair from his head was found in the sheets that Martha’s body was wrapped in, he couldn’t have been in a car while his associates where committing the murders. He had to have been right there with them. He could have acted alone and the Caucasian hairs found with the body might have belonged to a cop.
I see other problems with the new guy’s story. The Toney Penna clubs were not necessarily kept in one place. The Skakels had many sets of clubs and some clubs from one set were mixed in with clubs from other sets. All of the clubs were kept in the house and it had been weeks since the Toney Pennas had been used outside (at a party). Whoever stole the clubs got them from inside and had to hunt them down one by one.
Furthermore, Bell Haven was a gated community. You had to pass a guard to get in our out in a car. There couldn’t have been many black visitors to Bell Haven. The guard would have noticed one that didn’t live there. On the other hand, maybe the guard did notice one, which would help explain why they originally thought that the killer was an outsider. But if that were true, why did they assume that the Negroid hair belonged to the black Greenwich cop? We’ll have to see. --Jasper