Dale Budziszewski รีทวีตแล้ว
THE DAY A CHILD KILLER WALKED FREE
The best I can figure, 20 years ago a cop messed up some paperwork.
And this afternoon, a fat little bastard who set a house on fire and killed an eight-year-old girl walked free.
She was Savannah Streber and he is Timothy Kuhn. And you ought to be pissed. Justice got cheated. And anger at this situation is natural and justified.
Anger at the situation is natural and justified.
But anger at a person is not.
It wasn’t the judge, it wasn’t the prosecutor, it wasn’t the cop back in the day. It was one of those stunning reversals that will sometimes happen in a society of order and laws, in a society where the good people follow the rules, even when the bad people don’t.
More about that in a bit. First, what happened back in the day.
It was late February 2004, about midnight on a Saturday, and he threw the glass bottle full of gasoline on the back porch and into the house, up on Yates Street, a rag stuffed in the top, already lit, and it went up in an instant. Savannah was asleep in her bed, so was her little sister, Alex. Dad lived across town, mom was waiting tables at Alfano’s, and Shonda was there babysitting, with her boy, Teddy.
It was Teddy who saw the flame and alerted his mom. Shonda sent him next door to get help, and she woke up Savannah and Alex, leading them outside.
But then Shonda didn’t see Savannah. She frantically searched the outside of the house and screaming ran back into the burning building, calling the little girl’s name.
Shonda was burned in the effort, badly, but was unsuccessful. When the fire department got the house out, and they searched its charred rooms, they found the little girl in her mother’s bed. She hadn’t known Mom was at work, and she thought she was inside, still asleep, in danger from the flames, and eight-year-old Savannah Streber went in to get her, to save her mommy.
That would be Lisa Routier. Who was working at Alfano’s. An Italian place up by Ridgeway and 390. Long since closed.
That’s who he was trying to get.
They had been seeing one another, she called it off, he went creepy, like the little bastard he is. She had to get a restraining order.
And that’s when the house was torched.
And that’s when an innocent little girl lost her life.
And that has led to some 20 years of uncertainty and sorrow for her family, and a burning, redoubling desire on the part of the Rochester Police Department to get justice.
Timothy Kuhn was a suspect from the start. Back when they worked it fresh, and 15 years later when they reopened it, and a couple of years after that when they reopened it again. They being largely Dave Joseph. One of the murder police in the Major Crimes Unit. He’s from a cop family, and he’s tenacious, and finally, almost two years ago, he had the last piece, and he put cuffs on Timothy Kuhn. Fat boy was down in Florida, living the life.
And the trial was supposed to start today. After two years in the county jail, Timothy Kuhn was finally going to stand before the bar of justice. The family of Savannah Streber would have its two decades of faithfulness pay off. Years of TV interviews and Internet campaigning culminating in a hardwood paneled courtroom.
And then it didn’t.
It was an alert that thundered across the region’s cell phones. The incomprehensible news that the case against Timothy Kuhn, who confessed at least once, was dismissed. He was free to walk out the door, to return to whatever remained of his pathetic life.
The prosecutor, a mother who fights like hell in the courtroom to get justice for kids, is despondent. She feels like she let Savannah down. The Major Crimes Unit is devastated and enraged, horrified that its work has come to naught, sick at its stomach at the outcome. The death threats against the judge and the prosecutor started almost immediately.
And anger is understandable.
But not directed at a person.
Because there are no bad guys in this, not beyond the guy who threw the Molotov cocktail.
What happened is this: More than 20 years ago a detective forgot to turn in some of his notes. That’s really it. It was an oversight. A dumb move. But an innocent one. Notes about somebody said Timothy Kuhn told him that he’d set the fire. Notes that should have been part of the file that got handed over when he retired, but weren’t. Notes about some guy who probably wasn’t credible but claimed Kuhn had confessed to him. Notes that didn’t go in the file.
And when the notes were found recently, the cops and the prosecutors did the right thing. They told the court, they told the defense. They did the right thing.
Even though they must have sensed which way it could go.
Because if those notes had simply disappeared. If they had gone into somebody’s trash can or been burned up in the charcoal grill, we would have had jury selection today, opening arguments tomorrow and a verdict by Friday. A guilty verdict.
It’s called a Singer issue. The accused has a due-process right, beyond the speedy trial right, which basically says he can’t be prosecuted after an “unreasonable delay.” Back in the day, the notes that didn’t get turned in, arguably had enough evidence to prosecute Timothy Kuhn. But the failure to prosecute back then is an unjustifiable delay from the perspective of the law. The defense lawyer pointed that out, and the judge had to agree.
The judge had to agree.
Not because he doesn’t care about little girls. Not because he likes to see killers go free. Not because he wants to be vilified by an angry community. Not because he wants to break the hearts of Savannah’s family.
But because he took an oath. Because he is fair. Because the law is clear.
Because the law doesn’t see tears or feel pain. Because the law is rigid and inflexible. Because the law is the thing that keeps us free and civilized. Because ignoring the notes would be the same thing as finding a tree and a rope and taking care of this thing without all the niceties.
But that’s not who we are.
And with the dismissal of this case, a high price of integrity was extracted. A bomb blew up in the lives of a family and in the offices of the police department and the district attorney. I can’t begin to imagine the anger, pain and disappointment of the family, or how the cop who took the notes must feel, or how the prosecutor and the detectives will get up tomorrow and go forward unchanged, or how nauseated the day has made the judge.
It is a hell storm. A lose-lose for everybody.
Except that fat little bastard who killed Savannah Streber.
But he will answer to a higher court someday, in a place where you don’t get off on technicalities.
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