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Barbara Jean Horn

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Barbara Jean Horn

Barbara Jean Horn

Real Name: Barbara Jean Horn
Nicknames: Barbara Jean Fahy
Location: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Date: July 12, 1988

Case[]

Details: Four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn was the only child of Sharon and John Fahy. In September 1987, they moved to 7245 Rutland Street in Castor Gardens, a neighborhood in the northeast section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was a relatively quiet, crime-free, middle-class area. Barbara Jean quickly became friends with the neighborhood children. She loved dancing, singing, playing with dolls, and watching television with her parents.
On Tuesday, July 12, 1988, John watched Barbara Jean while Sharon was at work. After lunch, she went outside to play. He periodically checked on her. At around 3pm, while he was cleaning the refrigerator, she came in and asked if he needed help. He told her he did not. He then told her to go back outside and play. She then went into the front yard.
About forty-five minutes later, at 3:45pm, John realized that Barbara Jean had been outside for a while, so he went to check on her. He saw her toys on the front sidewalk, but she was nowhere to be found. He called out her name and then went to the houses of two of her friends. He searched the area and checked with other neighbors. One neighbor said she had stopped by his house around 2:30pm.
When John did not find Barbara Jean, he went back home, figuring she would return for dinner. However, when she still had not returned by 4:55pm, he became frantic. He called Sharon and told her Barbara Jean was missing. She told him to keep looking and that she would come home. Sharon's sister helped John search. She encountered a police officer and told him about Barbara Jean's disappearance. The officer sent a police car to Barbara Jean's house. John then reported her missing. The police began to search the neighborhood.
Over two hours after Barbara Jean was last seen, at around 5:30pm, a woman noticed a cardboard box next to trash cans in front of her house at 1409 Saint Vincent Street, approximately two blocks from Barbara Jean's house. She thought that was odd because trash had already been collected on their street earlier that day. She told her husband about the box, and he went outside to look at it. He found Barbara Jean's body stuffed inside.
Barbara Jean was nude, in a fetal position, lying on her right side, and was covered by a green trash bag. Her hair was wet and matted with blood. She had been bludgeoned to death. She also had bruises on her back and shoulders and a gash on her head. Sharon and John identified her body the next morning. The medical examiner theorized she died between 3:30 and 4:30pm. The police believe she was killed somewhere in the neighborhood.
The cardboard box was for a thirteen-inch color Hitachi television set, model #CT13X2. The police determined that the television had been purchased from a Silo Electronics store. They searched store receipts and found the serial number that matched the one on the box. The Ward family had purchased it in 1984. They lived at 7208 Rutland Street, down the street from Barbara Jean's house.
The police canvassed the neighborhood. On the afternoon of the murder, four witnesses observed a man near the intersection of Saint Vincent Street and Castor Avenue carrying a cardboard television box. At around 5pm, car salesman Michael Massi was sitting in his office at the corner of Saint Vincent and Castor when he saw a man carrying a box walking north on Castor's west side. The man crossed the street and set the box down in front of St. Luke Lutheran Church at 7200 Castor. He stood there for about fifteen seconds to catch his breath. He then went up Saint Vincent, dragging the box by a plastic bag that was sticking out of its bottom.
At around 5:12pm, Firefighter David Schectman and his wife, Lorraine, were outside their house at 1429 Saint Vincent Street when they saw a man walk past St. Luke Lutheran Church and approach them. He was alternating between carrying and dragging a cardboard television box. When he walked up David's steps, David told him not to leave the box because their trash had already been picked up. The man said he thought Wednesday was trash day, but David told him it was Tuesday.
When David asked what was in the box, the man said, "Some old junk." He walked up the steps that went to David's backyard. He tried to go behind the house, but he turned around when he noticed that David and a paperboy, Chris Kochan, were watching him. He then continued down the street. David last saw him at around 5:23pm, when his children came home. At around 5:25pm, David drove down the street and saw the box in front of 1409 Saint Vincent Street. A short time later, Barbara Jean's body was found in the box.
The police distributed a composite sketch of the man throughout the neighborhood. They have received over 1,000 calls regarding it. They believe the killer is still in the area. They hope to find more witnesses who may have seen him. They also want to find someone who fits his description, was engaged in criminal activity against children, and was in Philadelphia that day.

Composite sketch of Barbara Jean's killer

Composite sketch of Barbara Jean's killer

Suspects: The man seen carrying the cardboard box has been described as being tanned, white, approximately twenty-five to thirty-five years old, 5'6" to 5'9" tall, and weighing 160 to 180 pounds. He had a slight mustache and sandy brown hair with some blonde in front. He was wearing a white t-shirt with unknown writing and cutoff blue jeans or khaki shorts. One witness said he had a lit cigarette.
The police initially considered John Fahy a suspect, since he was the last person to see Barbara Jean alive. He also somewhat matched the suspect's description: he was in his late twenties, 5'7", weighed 160 pounds, and had short brown hair. Sharon said they had problems in their marriage; he had a drinking problem, was "irresponsible," and had pushed her around when he was drunk. However, she did not think he killed Barbara Jean.
Several witnesses, including a police officer who lived nearby, recognized the man in the composite sketch as Ross Felice. He lived with his brother and mother in an apartment at 7061 Castor Avenue, near its intersection with Saint Vincent Street. He often played basketball with the neighborhood children. On the evening of the murder, he asked people near the crime scene what happened to Barbara Jean and if the police had any suspects. However, when the composite sketch was released, he stopped asking about the case. One witness identified Felice as the man they had seen carrying the box. Felice claimed he was at work that day.
Another potential suspect was Wesley Ward. Barbara Jean's body was found in the box that previously contained his family's television. They lived on the same street as her. He was the only person home that day. He claimed he was in class at Temple University that afternoon, but the police could not verify his alibi. They searched the Wards' house and found handcuffs, child pornography, and a billy club (which could have caused the injuries on her body).
Extra Notes:

  • This case first aired on the November 16, 1988 episode.
  • This was a unique segment where the case's investigating officer, Lieutenant Arthur Durant of the Philadelphia Police Department, was interviewed directly on camera by host Robert Stack. It also featured no re-enactments.
  • John Fahy was Barbara Jean's stepfather, but he raised her as his daughter.
  • It was also documented on Death Row Stories, Dateline, the NBC10 docuseries, Who Killed Barbara Jean?, and The Trail Went Cold podcast. Tom Lowenstein wrote and published the book "The Trials of Walter Ogrod" in 2018.
  • Some sources state that: Barbara Jean asked John if she could play with a friend down the street; she was last seen at 2pm; she was seen walking down her street toward Cottman Avenue holding a man's hand at around 3:30pm; John started looking for her at 3pm and reported her missing at 3:30pm; she was sexually assaulted; her body had been washed; she lived a block or a block and a half away from where her body was found; Michael Massi saw the man between 3:30 and 4pm; and the man was twenty to twenty-five and had dark brown, dark blonde, or dirty blonde hair.
Walter Ogrod after his 1992 arrest

Walter Ogrod after his 1992 arrest

Results: Unresolved. In November 1989, the police and the District Attorney's Office submitted Barbara Jean's case to an investigative grand jury. The grand jury focused on suspects Ross Felice and Wesley Ward. In July 1990, they completed their investigation. No arrests were made, and the case grew cold.
In February 1992, Barbara Jean's case was turned over to the Philadelphia Police Department's Special Investigations Unit. Sergeant Laurence Nodiff assigned veteran detectives Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell to the case. They reviewed the case file, spoke to the original investigators, re-interviewed witnesses, and canvassed the neighborhood.
Detectives Devlin and Worrell questioned John and Sharon Fahy separately for over four hours. They accused John of murder and Sharon of withholding information. John and Sharon denied any involvement and suggested that the murder happened across the street at 7244 Rutland Street. Sharon described the house as filthy, with people always coming and going from it. She did not want Barbara Jean to go over there.
The Ogrod family owned the house. Greg Ogrod dealt drugs and held parties there. Two years before Barbara Jean's murder, on the night of July 31, 1986, he and his girlfriend, Maureen Dunne, were attacked in the basement. Maureen was stabbed to death, while Greg survived. Four men were later convicted of the crime. After the attack, Greg moved out of the house, but his brother, Walter Ogrod, stayed.
At the time of Barbara Jean's murder, Walter was twenty-three and living in the house with Charles and Linda Green and their children, six-year-old Charlie Jr. and thirteen-year-old Ingrid. Charlie Jr. and Barbara Jean were best friends and often played together. A year after her murder, Walter and the Green family were evicted. Walter moved into an apartment in nearby Glenside and found work as a bakery truck driver.
On March 30, 1992, Detectives Devlin and Worrell re-interviewed the Green family. Charles said that he and Linda were home on the day of Barbara Jean's murder. Linda saw Barbara Jean outside around 2pm. The detectives went to interview Walter at his apartment. He was not home, so they left their cards with his landlord. On the afternoon of April 5, he went to the Police Administration Building to be interviewed as an "informational witness." He had worked a double shift the previous night, so when he arrived there, he had been awake for about thirty hours.
According to Detectives Devlin and Worrell, the interview began around 6pm. They asked Walter if he knew Barbara Jean, and he said he did. They asked if he had seen her on the day of her murder. He said she had come to his house between 1 and 3pm looking for Charlie Jr. He did not know where Charlie Jr. was, so he told her to talk to Linda. He then went upstairs.
Detectives Devlin and Worrell asked Walter where Linda was when he answered the door. He said she was in the dining room. They asked if he had seen Linda talk to Barbara Jean, and he said he did not. Knowing the house's layout, they told him he should have seen Linda if she were in the dining room. He then said she may have been in the kitchen. Detective Devlin said, "You're not telling us the truth, are you, Walter?" Walter then put his head in his hands and cried profusely. They let him take a twenty-minute break.
According to Detectives Devlin and Worrell, Walter returned at 7:10pm and said he was going to tell them something he had "never told anyone before." They read him his rights, and he said he did not want an attorney. He then gave a detailed confession to Barbara Jean's murder. He said that when she came to his house that day, he asked her if she wanted to play "doctor," and she said yes. He took her to the basement and removed her clothes.
When Walter tried to rape Barbara Jean, she screamed. He held her down and struck her at least four times in the head with a pipe, possibly the iron pull-down bar from his weight set. He then realized she was not moving. He took her to the laundry tub and tried to rinse off the blood. He left her in the tub and went to the garage. He found a blue plastic trash bag and wrapped it around her. He then carried her into the garage and covered her in clothes.
Walter searched for a container to hide Barbara Jean's body and found the cardboard television box in the alley behind his house. After he put her in the box, he planned to throw it in a nearby dumpster. However, people were nearby, so he went down Rutland Street and turned right onto Saint Vincent Street. He went back and forth on Castor Avenue, looking for a place to leave the box. However, there were too many people around.
Walter turned left onto Saint Vincent Street. By then, the box was too heavy, so he placed it on the ground. He then picked it back up and walked up the street. Finally, he put the box next to some garbage cans. He then returned to his basement, cleaned up the blood, threw away a bloodstained rug, and hid Barbara Jean's clothing in either an air vent or a crawl space. When shown a picture of the box she was found in, he identified it as the one he had used.
Detective Devlin wrote out the confession verbatim, and Walter signed all sixteen pages of it. At 12:04am, it was faxed to the District Attorney's Office. Detectives Devlin and Worrell searched Walter's former house but did not find Barbara Jean's clothes or any other evidence. At 7am, he was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, attempted rape, and attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
Shortly after his arrest, Walter recanted his confession, claiming it was involuntary and coerced. He called an attorney, Peter Blust, and said the police told him he had killed a girl, they knew he did it, and he had a mental block about it. He wanted to call Blust earlier, but the detectives told him they would arrest him and put him in general population, and when the story hit the news, "they would kill him in general population." He also called his friend, Heidi Guhl, and said, "I didn't do this; they're railroading me." His arrest shocked his friends. They described him as a "gentle giant" who would not hurt anyone. He had no prior criminal record.
In October 1993, Walter went on trial for Barbara Jean's murder. Assistant District Attorney Joe Casey prosecuted the case, and his main evidence was the confession. A medical examiner and a forensic neuropathologist testified that her injuries were consistent with the pull-down bar mentioned in the confession. Photographs taken in 1986 during the investigation of Maureen Dunne's murder showed the weight set in the basement of Walter's house.
Walter's defense attorney, Mark Greenberg, noted that there was no physical evidence linking him to the murder. Fingerprints on the cardboard box and trash bag did not belong to him. No clothing or blood was recovered from his basement. No evidence of sexual assault was found on Barbara Jean's body.
Walter testified he had been coerced into confessing by Detectives Devlin and Worrell. He said he was sleep-deprived from working an eighteen-hour shift the night before. He arrived at the police station at 1:30pm, but his interview did not begin until 5pm. After about half an hour, the detectives said they were done. Walter got up to leave, but Detective Devlin stopped him, telling him they thought he might have killed Barbara Jean and blocked the memory. They said neighbors had seen him let her into his house that day. He insisted he was innocent.
Walter claimed that Detectives Devlin and Worrell kept showing him pictures of Barbara Jean's body. They shoved the pictures in his face and hounded him with questions. They told him he was "sick" and needed help. He repeatedly denied killing her. When he said he wanted to talk to a lawyer, they threatened to put him in a holding cell and tell the other prisoners what he had done to Barbara Jean. They locked the door and refused to let him leave. They also gave him coffee to keep him awake.
Walter said that after eight hours of being pressured by Detectives Devlin and Worrell and being told that he had killed Barbara Jean and blocked the memory, he began to believe them. He confessed, using information from them and newspaper articles. They told him he wanted to "have fun" with her. They showed him pictures from his basement and said he used something from his weight set to kill her. They drew a map and told him to show them the route he took to discard the box. When he got something wrong, they would order him to start over, or they would grab his hands and point him in the correct direction.
According to Walter, Detectives Devlin and Worrell handcuffed him to his chair. They read the written confession to him and told him to sign every page. They again threatened to put him in a holding cell with other prisoners if he did not sign the confession. He was then arrested. By then, it was 7am, and he had been interrogated for fourteen hours.
Defense Attorney Mark Greenberg described Walter as a "follower" who was easily manipulated into confessing. His psychiatrist testified that the confession was not in his style of speaking. The psychiatrist also found evidence that he had a limited ability to cope with stress, was suggestible, and had attention deficit disorder, mixed personality disorder, a lack of a sense of self, and a low IQ. He had also attended a school for children with learning disabilities.
On cross-examination, ADA Casey pointed out that Walter had testified that he had read in a specific local newspaper that the man carrying the box had tried to put it in a dumpster. ADA Casey had the reporter who had written about the case for the newspaper testify that she did not mention the dumpster in any of her stories. ADA Casey claimed that this meant Walter knew something only the killer would have known.
Walter's roommates, Charles and Linda Green, testified that they did not hear anything suspicious that day, despite the house being small and the basement steps being loud and creaky. Greenberg noted that none of the witnesses identified Walter as the man carrying the box. One witness, David Schectman, testified that he had previously identified another suspect, Ross Felice, as the man he had seen.
Walter also did not resemble the composite sketch of the man carrying the box, nor did he match the suspect's description. At the time of the murder, he was a "young-looking" twenty-three, 6'0" tall, weighed 220 pounds, and had dark hair. The man was twenty-five to thirty-five, 5'6" to 5'9" tall, weighed 160 to 180 pounds, and had sandy brown hair.
On November 1, 1993, Walter's case went to the jury. The next day, the jury told the court that they could not reach a unanimous verdict. The judge told them to keep trying. Two days later, on November 4, they told the court that they had reached a verdict. However, when asked if all twelve jurors agreed to the verdict, juror Alfred Szewczak said, "No. I don't agree with the verdict." The judge then declared a mistrial.
Immediately afterward, Barbara Jean's stepfather, John Fahy, jumped from the front row and lunged at Walter, trying to grab his throat. Police and sheriff's deputies grabbed John, handcuffed him, and led him out of the room. He was later released without charge. It was soon revealed that the jurors had voted to acquit Walter. Szewczak had initially agreed to vote not guilty because he wanted to go home. However, when they entered the courtroom, he realized he did not want to let Walter "get away."
According to jury foreman Charles Graham, the jurors believed Walter's confession was coerced. They felt that while testifying, he was not articulate and could barely "string four words together." Yet, his confession seemed elaborate, fluent, sophisticated, and well-spoken. They believed the confession should have been recorded on video. They were surprised by the lack of physical evidence linking him to the crime and that he did not fit the description of the man carrying the box.
In December 1994, while at the Philadelphia Detention Center awaiting retrial, Walter was approached by John Hall, a jailhouse informant with a long criminal record. He was known as "The Monsignor" because so many inmates had reportedly confessed to him. He was facing twenty-five years in prison for charges related to a high-speed police chase and assaulting an officer. He introduced Walter to another inmate, Jay Wolchansky.
In January 1995, Hall told detectives that Walter had confessed to killing Barbara Jean. According to Hall, Walter had planned the murder for months and tried to kidnap her on two prior occasions. He was in love with her mother, Sharon, and wanted to get her stepfather, John Fahy, out of the way. He thought John's brother was in prison for strangling a girl with an extension cord, so he planned to do the same thing to Barbara Jean and let the suspicion fall on John.
On the day of the murder, Walter put an extension cord, gloves, and a trash bag in his basement. He lured Barbara Jean into his house by making "kissing noises" and offering her candy. He took her to the basement and tried to rape her, but she fought back. When he could not find the extension cord, he beat her to death and put her in the trash bag. He hid the bag on Saint Vincent Street, returned home, and grabbed the cardboard box. He then went and put her body in the box. After that, he threw away the gloves and bag in a dumpster.
Later in January 1995, Wolchansky wrote to the District Attorney's Office, claiming that Walter was "talking all the time" about how he killed Barbara Jean. Wolchansky also sent a five-page letter to the district attorney, which included Walter's alleged confession. It was almost identical to the one Hall had told detectives about.
On September 30, 1996, Walter was tried again for Barbara Jean's murder. Prosecutor Judith Rubino decided not to use Hall as a witness due to credibility issues. Instead, Wolchansky testified about Walter's alleged confession. However, defense attorney Mark Greenberg noted that this confession differed from the one Walter allegedly gave to Detectives Devlin and Worrell. Also, some details in the confession did not match the known facts of the case.
Greenberg alleged that Hall and Wolchansky lied in exchange for reduced sentences. Hall was facing twenty-five years in prison but received a nine-month sentence. Wolchansky was facing thirty years but received an eleven-month sentence. On the stand, he denied getting a deal for his testimony. Greenberg also brought up many of his arguments from the first trial.
On Greenberg's advice, Walter did not testify at the retrial. On October 8, 1996, after deliberating for two hours, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder and attempted involuntary deviate sexual intercourse. They acquitted him of attempted rape. On November 8, he was sentenced to death. He appealed his conviction several times, to no avail.
In July 2003, criminal justice journalist Tom Lowenstein contacted Walter, wanting to interview him for a book about the death penalty. He said he was innocent. Lowenstein corresponded with him and also talked to people who knew him. They described him as an intellectually limited person who could not have killed Barbara Jean.
Lowenstein became convinced of Walter's innocence after interviewing him for three days. He noticed that Walter had a speech impediment and was unable to express emotion. This was in contrast to the emotion shown in his alleged confession to Detectives Devlin and Worrell. Lowenstein described the confession as a "flowing monologue of thought, process, and description" that Walter was not capable of. He believed Walter was on the autism spectrum.
Walter told Lowenstein that he never confessed to Hall or Wolchansky. Lowenstein found evidence that undermined Hall's credibility. He learned Hall was a cooperating witness in twelve homicide cases and had admitted to lying in at least one case: the murder of Kimberly Ernest. He had told the police that his stepson, Herbert Haak, had confessed to her murder. However, he later admitted to a detective that he lied about Haak's involvement and planned to plant a necklace in Haak's jail cell. Haak was acquitted of murder.
Lowenstein found letters written by Hall that described his "snitching system." First, he approached an inmate, befriended them, and convinced them to talk about their case by offering legal advice. Next, he contacted someone outside of prison and asked them to research the inmate's case. After that, he combined the outside research with the inmate's story to create a confession with details that "only the killer knew." He then had his lawyer present the confession to prosecutors in exchange for leniency on his case.
Lowenstein contacted Hall's wife, Phyllis. She said Hall lied to the police in several cases, including Walter's. She admitted helping him with his "snitching system." She researched cases and sent information to him. She claimed that detectives and the district attorney also gave him information on cases.
Hall told Phyllis that Walter never confessed to him or Wolchansky. She told Lowenstein that she sent Hall newspaper clippings about the case. However, the clippings did not have enough information, so she wrote letters to Walter to get more details from him. Hall then used that information to create a detailed, fabricated "confession" that he gave to Wolchansky. He told Phyllis that he had given the case to Wolchansky because he needed the help.
Hall later provided a statement to Walter's attorneys in which he admitted providing all the details in the confession to Wolchansky. He and Wolchansky both died in 2006. After Hall's death, Phyllis found letters that contained everything Wolchansky had testified to at Walter's trial. Lowenstein believes Hall and Wolchansky worked together to provide fabricated confessions to the District Attorney's Office in exchange for deals on their sentences.
Lowenstein also identified another potential suspect in Barbara Jean's case: Raymond Sheehan. Shortly after the murder, witness David Schectman identified Sheehan from a photo lineup. However, Sheehan denied any involvement in the case. In the summer of 2003, he was arrested after DNA evidence linked him to the murder of ten-year-old Heather Coffin. She had been raped and strangled in her Frankford house in 1987. He later pleaded guilty to her murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
In June 2004, Lowenstein published the article "Snitch Work," which detailed his research into Walter's conviction. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania upheld Walter's conviction and death sentence. By 2005, he had exhausted his appeals, and he was scheduled to be executed in August 2005. However, a judge granted him a stay of execution.
In June 2005, Walter filed a petition seeking relief under the Post-Conviction Relief Act. Among other things, he alleged he received ineffective counsel. His petition noted that his trial attorneys did not rebut the confession testimony or challenge the claim that his pull-down bar was the murder weapon. Several attorneys, including James Rollins, took on his case, attempting to overturn his conviction. They tried to have DNA testing conducted on evidence in the case, but the District Attorney's Office and the courts rebuffed them for years.
In February 2018, newly elected Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner had Walter's case transferred to his office's Conviction Integrity Unit (or CIU). Assistant District Attorneys Carrie Wood and Patricia Cummings were assigned to review the case. In October, they agreed to conduct DNA testing on all available evidence. Walter's attorneys were also allowed to review the office's case files. They uncovered previously undisclosed exculpatory documents.
In 2019, the CIU sent biological material collected during the initial investigation to Bode Technology, a private forensics company. They examined the material but found that the only evidence suitable for DNA testing was a sample of the wash used to clean Barbara Jean's body on the autopsy table. From the wash sample, a full male DNA profile was recovered. They compared the profile to Walter's DNA, and it was not a match. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy was also not a match. The DNA profile was uploaded to local, state, and national DNA databases. However, no match was found.
The CIU asked forensic neuropathologist Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic and biomechanical engineer Dr. Kirk Thibault to review Barbara Jean's autopsy. They found gashes on top of and on the back of her head. However, no skull fractures were found. They determined that something as heavy as a pull-down bar could not have caused the injuries to her head without also causing skull fractures. They concluded that the object that caused the injuries was light and thin. Dr. Hoyer, who had conducted the original autopsy, agreed that it was unlikely that the pull-down bar was the murder weapon.
Dr. Dragovic and Dr. Thibault concluded that Barbara Jean died of asphyxiation, either by drowning or by her mouth and nose being covered. Dr. Ian Hood reviewed the case file and agreed with their conclusion. ADA Cummings noted that the new cause of death cast doubt on Walter's confession and suggested that Detectives Devlin and Worrell had told him she was beaten to death, since that was the official cause of death at the time.
The CIU interviewed Walter's former roommates, Linda and Ingrid Green. They claimed that Detectives Devlin and Worrell used "abusive tactics" when they were questioned about Barbara Jean's murder. They did not notice any blood or signs of a struggle in the basement after the murder. Linda said there were no rugs in the basement, which contradicted Walter's confession.
Ingrid told the CIU that a burnt-out car and other debris behind the house prevented them from using the basement door. The CIU found that a detective had written in a 1986 report that the basement door was nailed shut and blocked by a car's transmission from the outside. This contradicted Walter's confession, which stated he used the door to go to the garage. The 1986 report was not given to Walter's trial attorneys.
The CIU asked a retired detective and two "false confession" experts to review Walter's confession to Detectives Devlin and Worrell. They found it was similar to confirmed false confessions and included information inconsistent with known facts. They concluded that his confession was not reliable and was almost certainly coerced.
The CIU found significant issues in Walter's alleged confession to Hall and Wolchansky. They found many similarities between Hall and Wolchansky's statements. They also discovered that most of the information came from media reports. They concluded Hall fabricated Walter's confession with the help of his wife, Phyllis, and then gave the confession to Wolchansky.
The CIU also found a report that included interviews with several of Walter's former teachers. They described him as complacent, socially inadequate, a follower, unable to decide for himself, and a people pleaser. These interviews were not disclosed to Walter's trial attorneys. They found other documents that were not given to Walter's attorneys, including a detective's notes that stated that the murder weapon was a "2x2 or 2x4, something lighter than a baseball bat or tire iron," and prosecutor Judith Rubino's notes, which indicated that a medical expert had concluded that Barbara Jean had died of asphyxiation.
In February 2020, District Attorney Larry Krasner asked a judge to vacate Walter's murder conviction. His office stated that Walter was "likely innocent" and was convicted on flawed, hidden, or corrupt evidence. They believed his confession was false and coerced by Detectives Devlin and Worrell. They stated that Hall and Wolchansky were not credible and had colluded against Walter by falsely claiming that he confessed to them.
The District Attorney's Office accused trial prosecutors of violating the "Brady rule" by illegally withholding evidence that could have helped Walter's defense. They said prosecutors did not disclose to the defense that Wolchansky had "severe" mental health problems, Hall cooperated in other cases, and he and Wolchansky received leniency for their cooperation. They said that after discounting the evidence they no longer find reliable, "there exists no credible evidence to prove [Walter] Ogrod was the person who murdered Barbara Jean."
Walter was due in court on March 27, 2020, where a judge was expected to decide whether to vacate his conviction. However, this was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-March, his attorneys and the District Attorney's Office filed emergency motions to have him taken to a hospital, as he was experiencing coronavirus symptoms. A judge signed off on it, but the Department of Corrections refused to release him. Fortunately, he recovered.
On June 5, 2020, Judge Shelley Robins-New vacated Walter's conviction. He was released on bail and granted a new trial. He was then reunited with his family and friends. Five days later, on June 10, Judge Leon Tucker agreed to let the District Attorney's Office withdraw all outstanding charges against him. As a result, he was legally exonerated. He had spent twenty-eight years in prison, twenty-three of them on death row.
In August 2021, Detective Devlin and two other detectives were charged with perjury and coercing a confession from Anthony Wright for the 1991 murder of Louise Talley. Wright claimed that Detective Devlin and the other detectives had physically and mentally abused him and forced him to sign a false confession. He was convicted of murder. Then, in 2016, he was exonerated after DNA evidence excluded him.
It was discovered that Detectives Devlin and Worrell were involved in other cases that have since ended with exonerations. The exonerees claimed that the detectives physically abused them, threatened them, and fed them information during interrogations. The District Attorney's Office is currently reviewing other cases that Detectives Devlin and Worrell worked on.
In May 2021, Walter and his attorney, Joseph Marrone, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia and several detectives, accusing the city of wrongful prosecution and the detectives of framing him. Marrone also hired a forensic scientist to review the evidence in the case. The scientist found a partial male "touch DNA" profile on the plastic bag that covered Barbara Jean's body. Walter was excluded as the source of that DNA. Marrone asked the police to test the DNA, but it is not known if that was ever done.
On November 2, 2023, the city of Philadelphia reached a settlement in which it denied all wrongdoing while Walter received $9.1 million. After the settlement was reached, Marrone stated that Walter was committed to fighting for inmates who were wrongfully convicted.
Barbara Jean's real killer has never been found. However, the District Attorney's Office has identified two potential suspects in the case. One has recently died, while the other is serving a life sentence in another state for sexual assault and murder. In September 2021, the Philadelphia Police Department's homicide unit reopened its investigation into the case. Two cold case investigators have been assigned to it.
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