There was no hard evidence linking the four sailors to the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko. The men were convicted on the basis of confessions obtained under high-pressure interrogation, which included threats that they could be given the death penalty if they did not confess.
Photos courtesy of Norfolkfour.com
March 22 (UPI) -- The "Norfolk Four" -- sailors wrongly convicted of rape and murder in 1999 -- were given absolute pardons by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe.
Danial Williams, Joseph Dick, Derek Tice and Eric Wilson, were serving in the U.S. Navy in 1997 when 18-year-old Michelle Moore-Bosko was murdered. She had secretly married her high school boyfriend less than a year after graduation and moved from Pittsburgh to Norfolk, Va. Three months later, while her Navy husband was out at sea, she was found raped and stabbed to death in her apartment.
The four men confessed to the crime after they were threatened with the death penalty using high-pressure interrogation methods. Williams, a neighbor of the victim, eventually confessed, saying he beat Moore-Bosko with a shoe, although a knife was found at the crime scene. Williams implicated other sailors, including Tice, Dick and Wilson, although there was no evidence, including DNA or fingerprints, tying the men to the crime.
Williams, Tice and Dick were convicted of rape and given life sentences. Wilson was convicted of rape. Subsequent investigations indicated the men were coerced into admitting guilt, and in 1999, inmate Omar Ballard, whose DNA matched that found at the crime scene, admitted he committed the crime. Norfolk police detective Glenn Ford, who led the investigation of the four sailors, was convicted in 2010 of receiving payments from criminals to reduce sentences and getting them freed on bond, and was sentenced to 12-and-a-half years in prison.
The approval of pardons on Tuesday by McAuliffe, a Democrat, comes after his predecessor, Gov. Tim Kaine, also a Democrat, granted them conditional pardons in 2009. Williams, Tice and Dick were released from prison at that time, and Wilson had already been released, but the men continued to work to clear their names and were required to register as sex offenders. U.S. District Court Judge John Gibney, after exhaustive research, concluded in 2016 that the four men were innocent.
