A serial killer's jailhouse confession to murder isn't enough to free two people already serving time for the crime, a judge ruled.
More evidence is needed to warrant releasing LaVerne Pavlinac and John Sosnovske, despite "troubling" evidence implicating the man dubbed the Happy Face Killer, Circuit Judge Paul Lipscomb said Monday.Tom Phelan, attorney for the man who has confessed to the slaying, Keith Jesperson, called the ruling "absolutely astounding."
"In my mind there is no room to believe that these two people, Pavlinac and Sosnovske, had anything to do with the murder of Taunja Bennett," he said.
Even District Attorney Michael Schrunk told the judge last week there is considerable evidence that Pavlinac and Sosnovske were wrongly sentenced in 1991 for raping and strangling Bennett, 23.
Implying that his decision isn't final, the judge said Pavlinac, 62, and Sosnovske, 42, can request a hearing, and noted that Gov. John Kitzhaber can release the pair. A spokesman said the governor's lawyers were reviewing the case.
The judge said he can overturn a conviction only in a case where new evidence implicating another person was known to the prosecution and wrongfully withheld from the defense, or when the defense should have learned of the evidence but did not. He found neither in this case.
Jesperson, who claims to have killed eight women in the past five years, gave police details only the killer could know, Schrunk said. He even helped find Bennett's purse.