Sandra Hemme’s murder conviction was overturned after 43 years. Why is she still behind bars?

Sandra ‘Sandy’ Hemme was sitting in a psychiatric hospital the night of her arrest.

It was one in a string of hospitalizations that began when she started hearing voices aged 12. A year later, she tried to kill herself by overdosing on cocaine, court records show.

Heavily sedated with her eyes rolling to the back of her head, the Missouri resident gave “monosyllabic” responses to police officers’ questions, until finally, Hemme confessed to being a murderer. She was later sentenced to life in prison.

But earlier this week, more than 43-years later, that conviction was overturned. She has served more time than any other wrongly incarcerated American woman, according to her legal team at the Innocence Project.

Patricia Jeschke, a 31-year-old librarian, went missing on November 13, 1980.

Her mother climbed through the window of her apartment to find her bound, nude corpse lying in a pool of blood. She had a pair of pantyhose and a telephone cord wrapped around her neck, while a knife lay behind her head.

Hemme was linked to the murder two weeks later when she arrived at the home of her former nurse wielding a knife. Initially refusing to leave, she was later returned to St Joseph’s State Hospital, where she was interrogated about Jeschke’s killing — it had happened close by and also involved a knife — and confessed.

Hemme pleaded guilty to murder to avoid the death penalty in April 1981.

“Well, I killed Pat, you know,” the then 21-year-old told the court. “I stabbed her in the head and I choked her, you know, and I hit her a couple of times in the head. I don’t know why.”

On June 5, 1985, she was sentenced to life imprisonment in a one-day trial lasting just three and a-half hours, featuring no major evidence bar a confession.

Evidence ‘ommitted’

Now, her attorneys have established “clear and convincing evidence” of “actual innocence,” a judge ruled.

Hemme had been discharged from hospital and hitchhiked out of town on the day Jeschke was last seen alive. That evening, she was reportedly at her parents’ home, more than 100 miles to the east of the slain woman’s apartment.

An extensive review found that Hemme was in a “malleable mental state” when she was probed by investigators before her confession more than four decades ago.

The psychiatric hospital treated her with antipsychotic drugs that triggered involuntary muscle spasms, and detectives said she appeared “mentally confused”, her attorneys argued.

Her lawyers claimed that she was “unable to hold her head up straight”.

The prosecutor’s main thread of evidence was Hemme admitting to the murder, her lawyers said. The lawyers believe that her confession was false.

Forensic psychiatrist Judith Edersheim recently determined that Hemme’s “underlying psychological vulnerabilities” increased the likelihood that she falsely incriminated herself.

Police also allegedly omitted a vital piece of evidence: a fellow oficer was also a suspect.

Discredited St Joseph police officer Michael Holman’s pick-up truck was seen outside Jeschke’s apartment.

Holman also allegedly tried to use her credit card to steal more than $600, while her earrings were found in his home.

FBI informed local police in 1981 that “clearly and completely recorded” prints of Holman were needed to rule him out as a source, as palm prints were found on a TV antenna cable in Jeschke’s apartment, records show.

Hemme’s lawyers say that police sent off Holman’s prints for analysis.

A hair found on the victim’s bed sheet had “microscopic characteristics similar to Holman’s head hair samples and he could not be eliminated as the source,” according to an FBI report.

Before Hoklman died in 2015, he denied killing Jeschke.

‘Draconian outcome’

Jurors in Hemme’s trial never heard these details – along with others – because police never shared them with prosecutors, the judge found.

Last month, Missouri Judge Ryan Horsman found the 64-year-old innocent and declared officials at the time forced her to make false statements.

“This Court finds that the evidence shows that Ms. Hemme’s statements to police are so unreliable and that the evidence pointing to Michael Holman as the perpetrator of the crime [is] so objective and probative that no reasonable juror would find Ms. Hemme guilty,” Horsman concluded.

The wrongfully accused woman must be freed within 30 days unless prosecutors decide to retry her. That 30 days ends this Sunday, but local politicians are trying to ensure she is kept in prison.

Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey is trying to keep Hemme behind bars as the case is reviewed. His office is also arguing that a decades-old sentence for prison violence should start being served now — and they’re taking the case to the state supreme court.

Hemme’s lawyers said that any further time served would be a “draconian outcome”.