The Wrong Guys, Murder, False Confessions and The Norfolk Four by Tom Wells and Richard A. Leo; 2008; 342 pages; The New Press, New York, NY; 978-01-59558-401-4; 4/7/09-4/11/09

In July of 1997, Billy Bosko returned home from Naval cruise to find his wife Michelle, raped and stabbed in their bedroom.  When the police were called an initial witness named another sailor across the hall as the most likely suspect.  Detective Glen Ford latched onto him like a dog on a bone and wouldn’t let go.  He forced a false confession from him and submitted his DNA, when it came back that the suspects DNA did not match that found at the scene.  So instead of starting over he coerced his initial suspect into naming a co-conspirator.  He arrested the new suspect and coerced a confession out of him and submitted his DNA.  When it came back excluding the suspect, he coerced the suspect into naming more suspects.  At one point there were 7 indicted co conspirators, none of whoms’ DNA matched that of the DNA found at the scene.  Yet the detective and prosecutors continued there prosecutions.  When an 8th suspect was indicted and confessed that he raped and murdered the victim by himself, the authorities just lumped him in with the others.  One of the victims served his sentence, 3 were released with trials, the actual killer is still in jail and the 4 on the book cover are all serving at least life sentences.  Pardons are being pursued in all of their cases, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine is currently considering their petitions for pardon.  If you don’t get angry reading this you are obviously not paying attention.  There were times during my reading that it was incredibly luck that the detective wasn’t in the same room because I would have really laid into him.  RRRR