I cried while watching the Dean Lyons story on RTEs excellent Scannal programme yesterday.
The tears were provoked by the dignified but anguished words of Dean Lyons’ mother as she pleaded for justice for her son and family. The tears were coupled with a deep anger at the realisation that she will never get justice because she lives in a corrupt state, a state that utilises all its powers and spares no expense in protecting itself against citizens who demand and deserve justice. It is a state whose police force is totally discredited and yet still enjoys the full support of all the main political parties.
Dean Lyons was an innocent man set up by the police. While they were pursuing Mr. Lyons for a double murder he did not commit another two people were brutally murdered by a man who is almost certainly the real killer. This man, Mark Nash admitted to the first two murders and was able to give exact details to the police that only they and the killer could have known.
Dean Lyons, a well known Walter Mitty character, only gave details after he was led on by the investigating police. But even after obtaining the confession from Mark Nash the police still pursed the innocent Dean Lyons.
As Jim Cusack, the then security correspondent of the Irish Times, said on the programme:
“There’s an extraordinary degree of arrogance and even stupidity at a high level in the force and there are people there who are making ridiculous decisions and instead of confronting the reality of what happened, their preference was to try and ignore it and hope it would go away.”
The families of the four murdered people lost out, the family of Dean Lyons lost out, the credibility of the justice system lost out, the body politic lost out because of its failure to demand an acceptable level of professionalism from our police force and the State itself lost out through its inability/unwillingness to provide a basic justice system for its citizens.
But in true banana republic fashion, the State has promoted all the senior police officers connected with the case. There are times when all you can do is cry.
I read your blog and thought you may be interested in this other story
Dennis Fritz The Other Innocent Man in John Grisham’s Book The Innocent Man.
Dennis Fritz writes his own story. Endorsed on Jacket by John Grisham and States on Jacket Compelling and Fascinating
A Companion book to The Innocent Man, Journey Toward Justice by Dennis Fritz. True Crime, Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. Journey Toward Justice is a testimony to the Triumph of the human Spirit and is a Memoir. Dennis Fritz was wrongfully convicted of rape and murder after a swift trail.
The only thing that saved him from the Death Penalty was a lone vote from a juror. Dennis Fritz was the other Innocent man mentioned in John Grisham’s Book. which mainly is about Ronnie Williamson, Dennis Fritz’s co-defendant. Both were exonerated after spending 12 years in prison.
The real killer was one of the Prosecution’s Key Witness. Read about why he went on a special diet of his while in prison, amazing and shocking. Dennis Fritz’s Story of unwarranted prosecution and wrongful conviction needs to be
heard. Look for his book in book stores or at Amazon.com , Journey Toward Justice by Dennis Fritz, Publisher Seven Locks Press 2006. ..
Read about how he wrote hundreds of letters and appellate briefs in his own defense and immersed himself in an intense study of law. He was a school teacher and a ordinary man whose wife was brutally murdered in 1975 by a deranged 17 year old neighbor. On May 8th 1987, Five years after Debbie Sue Carter’s rape and murder he was home with his young daughter and put under arrest, handcuffed and on his way to jail on charges of rape and murder.
After 10 years in prison he discovered The Innocence Project, a non-profit legal organization. With the aid of Barry Scheck and DNA evidence Dennis Fritz was exonerated on April 15,1999 Since then, it has been a long hard road filled with twist and turns and now on his Journey Toward Justice. He never blamed the Lord and solely relied on his faith in God to make it through. He waited for God’s time and never gave up.