Murder of Stephanie Crowe

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Murder of Stephanie Crowe
The murder of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe took place in her bedroom in Escondido, California, during the night
of January 20, 1998. Her older brother and two of his friends were initially charged with her murder, but were
eventually declared to be factually innocent by a judge. Their confessions under police interrogation are regarded as
classic examples of false confession. A transient who was seen in the neighborhood on the night of her murder was
eventually convicted of manslaughter, but the conviction was overturned. A November 2013 retrial acquitted him of
all charges.
The crime
Stephanie's parents and grandmother found her body on the floor of her bedroom on the morning of January 21,
1998. She had been stabbed nine times. There was no sign of forced entry. Stephanie's window was found unlocked,
but a screen was in place and there was no disturbance of accumulated grime and insect traces. A sliding glass door
in her parents' bedroom was also unlocked. No knives were found at the scene that seemed consistent with the
murder weapon, and no bloody clothing was found despite an exhaustive search.
The investigation
All of the Crowe family members were questioned, their clothing was confiscated, and their bodies were examined
for injuries. The parents were then put up in a motel, while the two surviving children were taken to the county's
shelter for children, and were not allowed to see their parents for two days. During that time police interviewed both
children, unbeknownst to their parents. They took Michael Crowe, Stephanie's 14-year-old brother, away to the
police station for questioning on several occasions.
Michael Crowe became the police's main suspect for the murder. He was singled out by Escondido police because
the crime scene seemed to suggest an inside job, and because he seemed "distant and preoccupied" after Stephanie's
body was discovered and the rest of the family grieved. Police interrogated him multiple times without his parents'
knowledge and without an attorney present. During the interrogations police falsely informed him that they had
found physical evidence implicating him, that he had failed an examination with a so-called "truth verification"
device, and that his parents were convinced he had done it. After an intense 6-hour interrogation, he gave a vague
confession to killing his sister, providing no details and saying that he couldn't remember doing it. The interview was
videotaped by police; at times Michael is heard saying things to the effect of, "I'm only saying this because it's what
you want to hear." He was arrested and charged with murdering his sister.
Police from Escondido and nearby Oceanside also questioned Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser, two 15-year-old
friends of Michael Crowe. Houser had a collection of knives; one of them was reported missing by Houser's parents.
It turned up at Treadway's house; he said he had taken it from Houser. Police took Treadway to police headquarters
and questioned him continuously from 9 pm until 8 the following morning, telling him that they believed his knife
was the murder weapon. They interrogated him again two weeks later, a 10-hour interview during which Treadway
gave a detailed confession to participating in the murder with the other two boys. Treadway was then arrested.
Aaron Houser was then arrested and questioned. He did not actually confess and steadfastly denied any involvement,
but he did present a "hypothetical" account of how the crime might have happened, under prompting by police
interrogators using the Reid technique. All three boys subsequently recanted their statements claiming coercion. The
majority of Michael Crowe's confession was later ruled as coerced by a judge because Escondido investigators
implied to Michael that they would talk to the district attorney and recommend leniency. Treadway actually
confessed twice, the first to Oceanside detectives and a second, identical confession, to Escondido officers. The court
ruled that the two confessions were redundant and ordered that the first be suppressed. The second Treadway
confession remains admissible. Houser's statements to police were suppressed because police did not sufficiently
Murder of Stephanie Crowe
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advise him of his Miranda rights. However the court also ruled if Houser took the stand then the DA could use the
statement against him.
On the day the body was discovered police also interviewed Richard Raymond Tuite, a 28-year-old transient who
had been seen in the Crowe's neighborhood on the night of the murder, knocking on doors and looking in windows,
causing several neighbors to call police reporting a suspicious person. Tuite had a lengthy criminal record, habitually
wandered the streets of Escondido, and had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. Police questioned Tuite, confiscated
his clothing, and noticed scrapes on his body and a cut on his hand. However, they did not consider him a suspect,
since they considered him incapable of murder and they had already focused on Michael Crowe as their prime
suspect.
Legal proceedings
The three teenage boys were charged with murder and conspiracy to commit murder. A judge ruled that they should
be tried as adults. They were incarcerated for six months as prosecutors prepared to try them. However, as
Treadway's trial was about to begin in January 1999, belated DNA testing found three drops of Stephanie's blood on
a shirt belonging to Tuite. Based on the new evidence, the charges against the boys were dismissed without prejudice
(which would allow charges to be reinstated against the boys at a later date).
Embarrassed by the reversal, the Escondido police and the San Diego County District Attorney let the case languish
without charges for two years. In 2001 the District Attorney and San Diego County Sheriff's Department asked that
the case be taken over by the California Department of Justice. In May 2002 the Attorney General charged Tuite
with murdering Stephanie. The trial began in February 2004. On the first day of jury selection, Tuite walked away
from the courtroom holding tank during the lunch hour by freeing himself from handcuffs; he left the courthouse and
boarded a bus. He was caught hours later. At trial, the prosecution linked Tuite to Stephanie's killing by presenting
circumstantial evidence, including evidence that Stephanie's blood was on his clothes. Tuite's defense team argued
that the boys had killed Stephanie, and that Stephanie's blood was found on Tuite's clothes as a result of
contamination caused by careless police work. On May 26, 2004, the jury acquitted Tuite of murder but convicted
him of the lesser included offense of voluntary manslaughter. The jury also found that he used a deadly weapon, a
knife. The trial court sentenced Tuite to thirteen years in prison. He subsequently had four more years added onto the
sentence due to his flight attempt.
The families of all three boys sued the cities of Escondido and Oceanside. The Crowes reached a settlement of $7.25
million in 2011. In 2012, Superior Court Judge Kenneth So made the rare ruling that Michael Crowe, Treadway and
Houser were factually innocent of the charges, permanently dismissing the criminal case against them.
Tuite appealed his conviction to the California Court of Appeal and raised several claims, including a claim that his
Sixth Amendment rights were violated because he was precluded from fully cross-examining a prosecution witness.
On December 14, 2006, the Court of Appeal affirmed in a lengthy unpublished opinion. The court found that the trial
judge had committed constitutional error in limiting the cross-examination, but held the error to be harmless and
affirmed the conviction. The Supreme Court of California denied review. The federal district court denied Tuites
petition for habeas corpus. On September 8, 2011, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted
2-1 to overturn Tuite's manslaughter conviction, ruling the trial was unfair because the trial judge limited
cross-examination of a prosecution witness. The panel stated in its opinion, "Given the lack of evidence tying Tuite
to the crime, the problems with the DNA evidence, the jury's deadlock and compromise verdict, and the weight and
strategic position of McCrary's testimony, this case is one of those 'unusual' circumstances in which we find
ourselves 'in virtual equipose as to the harmlessness of the error.' O'Neil v. McAninch, 513 U.S. 432, 435 (1995). We
must treat the error as affecting the verdict, and we are compelled to grant the writ." Tuite v. Martel, No. 09-56267. It
was noted that during the trial the prosecution could not produce any trace evidence of the house on the defendant's
clothing or person nor was any trace evidence of the defendant's person or clothing found in the house, facts that the
Court of Appeals cited which led to the Court's determination of lack of evidence.
Murder of Stephanie Crowe
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Tuite was granted a retrial, which began on October 24, 2013. On December 5, 2013, the jury returned a verdict of
not guilty.
Impact
The attempted prosecution of the three boys was partially responsible for San Diego County District Attorney
Paul Pfingst's loss to Bonnie Dumanis in the 2002 election.
A TV movie called The Interrogation of Michael Crowe was made about the case in 2002.
The 2003 book Who Killed Stephanie Crowe?, written by Paul E. Tracy, a criminology professor at the University
of Texas at Dallas, in collaboration with two of the original detectives, raised questions about Tuite's guilt.
The 2006 book Shattered Justice: A Savage Murder and the Death of Three Families' Innocence by John Philpin
focuses on the impact of the crime and the criminal charges on the three boys and their families.
References
Article Sources and Contributors
4
Article Sources and Contributors
Murder of Stephanie Crowe Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=594001457 Contributors: Aatomic1, Armbrust, Basement12, Epbr123, FeanorStar7, Good Olfactory,
Harper41, Hugo999, Jason Palpatine, Jeepday, Jesse V., Jim Michael, Johnpacklambert, Ken Gallager, LindsayH, MelanieN, Mogism, Norvy, Ohnoitsjamie, Rjwilmsi, Sarrazip, ShelfSkewed,
Vrenator, Waacstats, Wavelength, 40 anonymous edits
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