Dallas D.A.'s Office Looking Into Whether Richardson PD Put Wrong Man in Prison in '93

This morning, the Associated Press tells the tale of Stephen Brodie, a deaf inmate serving time in the TDCJ's Estelle Unit till 2012 -- and, quite possibly, yet another innocent man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. In 1991, Richardson police detained a 19-year-old Brodie for "stealing quarters from...

By Robert Wilonsky

July 14, 2010

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This morning, the Associated Press tells the tale of Stephen Brodie, a deaf inmate serving time in the TDCJ's Estelle Unit till 2012 -- and, quite possibly, yet another innocent man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. In 1991, Richardson police detained a 19-year-old Brodie for "stealing quarters from a soda machine," writes the AP's Jeff Carlton. At which point they began peppering him with questions concerning the sexual assault of a 5-year-old girl. And they did so for 18 straight hours, with and often without an interpreter. And so he confessed -- not only to that crime, but others made up by police just to test the kid.

There was, however, nothing to tie him to the crime scene -- not even the hint of evidence. Eventually, police would discover on the girl's windowsill the fingerprint of another man -- a man who would eventually plead guilty to sexual assault on a 15-year-old girl. Police dismissed it as coincidence. That man has served his time; meanwhile, Brodie, who began serving his sentence in '93 and was re-incarcerated for failing to register as a sex offender, awaits word from the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, which is investigating Brodie's claims of innocence. Says Brodie, if he gets out of prison, "I'm getting out of Texas."

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