1997 Child Murder in So. Illinois featured in New York Times Magazine

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10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick was murdered in the early morning hours of October 13th, 1997, at the home of his mother, Julie Rea in Lawrenceville, Illinois.  Rea told police she discovered an intruder and struggled with the man, who then fled the scene.  But in 2000, after a lengthy investigation, it was Rea was charged with killing Joel. She was convicted of first-degree murder in 2002. Four years later, Rea was acquitted at a retrial. The entire ordeal and the lasting effects are the focus of a recent New York Times Magazine article. 

  The article says that today, Rea belongs to a growing community of victims: Americans who were wrongly convicted with the help of forensic disciplines allowed into courtrooms despite little to no proof of their reliability. Of the 362 people who have been exonerated based on DNA tests in the United States, faulty forensics contributed to almost half of the underlying convictions.

  Rea told the New York Times that being branded a child killer “separated her from society,” and she will always have a scarlet letter. Nothing she says will ever make that go away.

Read the full article here