AG: Most '85 murder defendants likely to get pardons

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BY CARA PESEK / Lincoln Journal Star

Five of the six people who were wrongly convicted in the 1985 rape and murder of a Beatrice woman will likely receive pardons in January, Attorney General Jon Bruning said.

Paperwork requesting pardons for Thomas Winslow, JoAnn Taylor, James Dean, Kathy Gonzalez and Debra Shelden, who all pleaded guilty to charges associated with Helen Wilson’s 1985 death, is close to complete, Bruning said.

The five, along with Joseph White, who maintained his innocence but was convicted of first-degree murder by a jury, were all effectively exonerated after DNA found in Wilson’s apartment the night of her death and preserved by the Beatrice Police Department failed to match the DNA of White and Winslow, who were convicted of raping her.

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Attorney General Jon Bruning

Attorney General Jon Bruning

The DNA was later linked to a man named Bruce Allen Smith, who was visiting Beatrice at the time of Wilson’s death and who died of AIDS in Oklahoma City in 1992.

Bruning said he expected the pardons requests to be filed in time for the Pardons Board’s next meeting, on Dec. 8.

At that meeting, Bruning said, the pardons applications would be taken under consideration and scheduled for a formal hearing sometime in January.

White was technically cleared of his felony record when Saline County District Judge Vicky L. Johnson ordered a new trial for him in October, Bruning said.

The pardons would clear the charges associated with Wilson’s death from the remaining five men’s and women’s records. Having those felony convictions cleared from their records would allow them to hold public office and apply for passports, in addition to other liberties. Winslow, who also has a felony assault conviction unrelated to Wilson’s death, would only be pardoned for the convictions related to Wilson’s death.

Bruning, who sits on the Nebraska Pardons board with Gov. Dave Heineman and Secretary of State John Gale, said he was confident that a majority of the board would vote in favor of granting the  pardons.

“I believe without a doubt that these six people are completely innocent,” he said.

That innocence, though, puts the Pardons Board in unchartered waters.

Bruning said he couldn’t recall a time when the board members granted a pardon to someone they believed was innocent. Nor, he said, could he recall a case in which a pardon was granted to someone who had been convicted of rape or murder.

Typically, Bruning said, pardons are granted to people who were convicted of relatively minor crimes many years ago, and who haven’t had any further trouble with the law, have shown remorse for their crimes and have made an effort to lead a straight life in their years after prison.

The pardons board doesn’t have any hard and fast rules about who can apply for a pardon, he said. But the board typically doesn’t grant pardons for misdemeanor offenses until three years — for felonies, 10 years —  after the convicted’s release from prison or completion of probation.

But in this case, he said, those guidelines don’t apply.

“This is an extraordinary case, and I have never dealt with one like it,” he said.

Reach Cara Pesek at 473-7361 or cpesek@journalstar.com.