The Most Famous Man In The World

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hipo2One of the hardest things about attracting support for wrongful conviction is that it makes people uncomfortable. Stories of wrongful conviction are unsettling and full of things that human beings like to turn a blind eye to. Murder. Evil. Corruption. No one wants to think about innocent people persecuted and guilty men free. It makes us fear our neighbors and shakes our view of justice. No one finds comfort in considering that the world may be very different than it appears to be – that perhaps the people and institutions we have been led to believe are good and trustworthy are sometimes dark and corrupt. In general, people turn away from the troubles of others when they are afraid to turn toward them.

Wrongful conviction is also not familiar. It is easy to raise money for hungry children. Everyone can relate to the plight of a hungry child. It is fun to raise money for education. Nothing unsettles us about a bake sale for a field trip, or a car wash for new cheer leading uniforms. Wrongful conviction is a very important social issue, but one most people turn from in discomfort. You don’t see many wrongful conviction bakes sales and car washes. We would like to change that.

Through months and months of raising awareness about the case of the Fairbanks Four we have often wished for a way to make wrongful conviction familiar so that the general population could understand how terribly important it is and could relate. We even wished for a famous example of wrongful conviction or imprisonment…..more famous than Gandhi, more understood than even Martin Luther King. It just seemed like if there was a wrongfully convicted person whose story was well-known – whom billions believed absolutely was innocent, whose story was woven into the fabric of society – that perhaps people be more willing to take a stand on wrongful conviction. And then, we remembered someone. Guess who?

Here are a few hints:

  • 24.9 million people search his name on Google in an average month.
  • About 40% of the books printed in the history of the world are about him.
  • There are 7 billion people on the planet. It is estimated that greater than 6 billion of these people know his life story. 2.3 billion of them worship him.
  • 76% of Americans participate in a religions whose primary objective is to learn from this man’s life and lessons.
  • He was wrongfully convicted of a crime by a corrupt court.
  • He was found guilty, in part, with the false testimony of an associate of his who had some small thing to gain with the lie.
  • One of his closest friends denied knowing him to avoid being associated with the situation.
  • He was beaten, tortured, and executed.
  • He was then exonerated. He rose back up from his execution. All of this, according to the Bible, to teach the people on Earth. Lessons on judgement, kindness, compassion, and justice. Ultimately, to teach them that it is important not to turn away from suffering and injustice but to live a life that opposes it.

jesusThe most famous man to ever walk the Earth is Jesus Christ. He was also a wrongfully convicted man. His wrongful conviction is not an aside or interesting plot twist – it is the central event in the story. If a story that 76% of America studies and believes is literally a story of wrongful conviction, it is a fascinating hypocrisy that most of his modern-day followers turn in disgust when the same story plays out.

So, am I comparing the Fairbanks Four to Jesus? Yep. Isn’t that the point? That Jesus was only a human being, sent here to suffer through the worst trials and pains a human being can encounter? And wasn’t all of this suffering deliberate and intended to make the world and its people better able to live just and kind lives through the understanding of his life?

In his time, Jesus was simply a wrongfully convicted man. Most who witnessed his unfair trial stayed quiet or looked the other way. Much of the crowd cheered at his crucifixion.

Today, many of his jesustrialfollowers say things underneath articles about the Fairbanks Four case in the local Fairbanks Daily Newsminer like, “they had a trial, let them rot.” Or, “bypass Fairbanks if you are ever release,” or, “These men should be hung…scratch that, the electricity it would take to put them in a chair would be less expensive. They aren’t worth the rope it would take to hang them,” or, “I’m going to start my own website, ‘Fry the Fairbanks Four.” A recent one read, “I pray these men never see the light of day and suffer ten times more than the victim, in Jesus’ name.” Wow, I bet Jesus really dug that.

The examples are endless.

These people are statistically very likely to be self-identified Christians. As a matter of fact, 80% of Alaskans identify themselves as followers of Jesus Christ.

The great tragedy of organized religion is its complete departure from the tenants on which it was founded. The great tragedy of humanity is that we almost always choose inaction when we encounter the kind of suffering that makes us uncomfortable.

Nearly every person in Fairbanks, Alaska who has taken the time to wish the Fairbanks Four dead, send death threats to their supporters, refuse to look at the facts, and insist that wrongful convictions are not real, also profess to believe that the most important story ever told was that of a wrongfully convicted man and that understanding it the key to heaven. How ironic. How typical. How sickening.

If the Fairbanks Four had been drug through the streets of Fairbanks, tortured, beaten, and crucified in 1997, much of the crowd would have been cheering. Most of the crowd would have been self-proclaimed followers of Jesus Christ literally cheering at a crucifixion.

jesusdeadThis post is not in any way meant to be an attack on religion. Many of our supporters are Christian people who DO see the importance of taking a stand against injustice. This post is, however, intended to call out the members of our community who show sickening racism, hate, ignorance, or an unwillingness to acknowledge the existence of wrongful conviction while worshiping a wrongfully convicted man. We hope you will take some time to think about that. We hope the church leaders who offer support in private but are afraid of offending their congregations by talking about wrongful conviction from the pulpit will consider that every single one of those people is coming to church to hear a story of wrongful conviction.

Maybe it’s time to tell a new one.

Maybe it’s time to talk to your church leaders, or seek church leaders who walk the walk and talk the talk.

We hope that this post reaches the 80% of the Fairbanks population who, apparently, should be very familiar and comfortable with the injustice of wrongful conviction. And the next time any of you want to condemn these men, or take no action, think for a moment how familiar your role in the story is. Anyone who professes faith in Jesus should be ready to acknowledge the existence, importance, and injustice of wrongful conviction.

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Injustice in Black and White

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blog2In the end, you always return to the beginning. It’s human nature, I think, to attempt to understand things by walking through them over and over.

It is hard not to still sit back and wonder how something this awful happens. There are of course a lot of decisions, a lot of coincidences, a lot of ordinary things that add up to an extraordinary outcome.

We have a box of photocopied stories from the newspaper about the Fairbanks Four case. Marvin’s sister Sharon diligently saved every clipping, every single word that filled the outrageous life-altering days that followed her brother’s arrest. I can imagine her collecting these pieces, trying to make sense out of something that did not make sense. Hoping it would be over soon. Not knowing these days would always elongate, stretch, grow to span a decade and a half.

On October 22, 1997 the Fairbanks Daily News ran an article about the four men pleading innocent. They had been marched into the courtroom the day before wearing orange jumpsuits and chained together. It was not standard for FCC prisoners to wear orange, or for defendants to be chained. The only private defense attorney present, Ken Covell, objected immediately, calling it grandstanding. And at that point, it was already all a play. The case against the four never added up. Nothing was corroborating the confessions, the dozens of people contacted all gave timelines that chipped away at the theory that these boys had committed a murder. In retrospect it is easy to see the case as troubled and insubstantial even in those first days. But at the time the public sentiment was not skeptical. The public was outraged and hungry for justice. The response to the innocent plea of the four men was indignation and disgust.

In the stack of clippings from October 22nd was a page from the paper that seems like a very poigniant, albeit accidental, commentary on the climate of Fairbanks in 1997. It’s a back page, where the headlines are continued. The words in bold are Prepare for Racial Incident. DEATH: pleas, HOLOCAUST, Natives:Meet. Prepare for Racial Incident.

Accidental poetry.

Prepare for Racial Incident. There had been a study of the racial climate in Fairbanks area schools in early 1997, and the results just released revealed that most of the students and staff in the school district rated the level or racism inside the schools as high. The district discussed its plan, which was not focused on responding to racial incidents, but to teach respect and tolerance. The social climate of the time likely contributed to the arrest of the four, and the public’s willingness to immediately accept their guilt with little to substantiate it. What if the policy back then had been that an openly known highly racist culture was not okay and that incidents should be responded to? What if we were, actually, prepared for a racial incident?

NATIVES: Meet. The Alaska Federation of Natives met that week, and the article on the convention talked about the availability of books on Native culture, and announced the meetings on Native youth issues. The largest and best federation of indigenous Alaskans did not discuss this case. They did not discuss the increasingly apparent problems within the justice system, or the accusations piling up against a few investigators in the Interior. It would be ten years and more before they did. What if they had?

DEATH: pleas. John Hartman had died in one of the most brutal and memorable murders in Fairbanks history, and the four men accused of the crime appeared in court and spoke only their names, and their plea: INNOCENT. His death and their pleas went unanswered. What if they had been heard?

HOLOCAUST. It is defined many ways, one is the great destruction of humans by humans, resulting in massive loss.

That Wednesday back page of the local paper is a snapshot of Fairbanks circa 1997. That is who we were in 1997, and that is the town in which this wrongful conviction was born.

An Open Letter to Chris Stone

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When people first appraoch the story of the Fairbanks Four they are inevitably left with many questions. If there is one thing that inspires the most theories, emails, and conversations, it is the role that Chris Stone played in the investigation and the fateful evening that John Hartman was killed. Read a timeline of that night and the puzzling role Stone played in it HERE.

There have been tremendous inconsistencies in his statements over the years. In his last media interview he ultimately stated that anything could have happened that night, that he remembered it like a bad dream, all a “blur.”

 In the last few days we have been innundated with emails asking about his role, the inconsistencies, and a lot of offers to contact him directly. We ask that supporters of the Fairbanks Four be suportive of the official effort by Alaska Innocence Project to exonerate the four and do not contact Chris Stone or his family, but leave that if or when it becomes necessary to the legal experts working hard on this case. That said, we understand the desire to reach out and have decided to make an open and lasting request of Chris Stone directly here on this post. If any reader knows him, please pass this along with kindness.

Dear Chris,

How to begin? Let us begin by saying that we believe in you. That we understand that you were only a kid in 1997, and that clearly life was hard on you. That the story about your life that came out of all of the pages and pages and pages of interviews and trial transcripts and newspaper articles – it was a sad story. That we are sorry about that.

We sorry you were hurt. By people that were close to you, by strangers, by a lot of people. We are sorry that you lost things. Childhood, innocence, time, freedom, your friend. We are sorry that you were scared, by police, by bad people that hurt you, by proximity to a murder, by a beating, by a world that can be harsh.

Sometimes life throws hard things your way for a reason. We don’t know why life was so hard on you, we don’t know how our paths crossed with yours, and we don’t know the higher purpose, but this much is clear – you know  a lot of loss, of betrayal, of pain, and of fear. You know a lot more than a person your age should know about suffering. So did many of us, so do the four men in prison, and that is where our compassion for you comes from. You have suffered greatly, which means that you have an incredible capacity for compassion. That you understand what it is to suffer, and that someday, hopefully some day very soon, what will rise from all of your suffering is compassion is bravery, courage, and a willingness to stop suffering in this world when you can.

It seems - it has always seemed - that you know more about what happened to your friend John Hartman than you have ever said. It haunts other people, you know, troubles their sleep, this idea that you might hold a key – that you might know or suspect who really killed your friend. John’s mother, in her nightmares you stood between her and her knowing who had hurt her son. Marvin’s mom, George’s mom, Kevin;s mom, Eugene’s mom – you are in their dreams too. You are in the dreams they have when someone comes forward and reveals the truth about this case. You are the hero of those dreams, when their sons are set free, when John Hartman is finally allowed to rest in peace because his true killers are behind bars.

You are in the thoughts of Marvin, Kevin, Eugene, and George as well. You are in the thoughts and prayers of them and those that love them. You are in the thoughts and prayers of many people, and we pray this – that if, as it seems, you know more than you have said, that someday these prayers will reach you, heal you, give you courage. That you understand that you were forgiven long ago. That many people believe in you, believe you will come forward someday, and wait for the gift of truth from you.

“There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth…..not going all the way, and not beginning.”

Only you know your truth, only you know if you made any mistake, and if you did if it was the mistake of not beginning or not going all the way. But please, if it is within your power, be the hero of this situation. We KNOW that the truth will someday set Marvin, Kevin, Eugene, and George free, from their prisons of concrete and barbed wire. But concrete and barbed wire cannot prevent the love and faith of many from reaching them, and in some ways we understand your prison is colder, lonelier. The prison that you live in is a different kind of prison, but we think the truth could set you free from your cage as well. Until that day, please just remember that we have waited a long time, we will wait as long as we need to, but even if you don’t believe in yourself, we do. And when you come forward we will be grateful and proud.

You can call Bill Oberly at the Alaska Innocence Project anytime at 907-279-0454. You can write a letter, send an email, send a facebook message – do anything you like. We hope and believe you will.

Love,

Many thousands of people still believing in you and the innocence of the Fairbanks Four

The Times They Are A Changin’ – Eugene Vent Granted an Appeal Today

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“I praise the ones who persevere in seeking justice through the law. I caution there are those who felt abandoned and betrayed by what they saw. Some stood in halls of silence, with icy hints of violence, when they went to seek justice from the law.” – Dar Williams, from the song “Write This Number Down.”

This morning the State of Alaska Court of Appeals has ruled that Eugene Vent should receive a new hearing based on his claim of ineffective counsel. The ruling comes just two short days after Eugene was featured on KTUU’s 49th Report: The Fairbanks Four.

Eugene had argued in an appeal that his attorney was ineffective in arguing to allow an expert in false confessions and the Reid Method of interrogation to testify at trial. (Read about Eugene’s interrogation HERE and the Reid Method HERE) His appeal was denied when it was presented in Fairbanks Superior Court to Judge Ben Esch. The Alaska Court of Appeals ruled today that judge Esch erred in making that ruling, and cautioned that the denial created the “appearance of partiality.”

We agree. Big time. Judicial conduct in the cases of the Fairbanks Four has created the appearance of partiality. It has contained actual partiality toward the prosecution, and conduct which unbecoming of any public servant or person on God’s Earth, and sometimes conduct which reaches far beyond partiality into corruption. (Read about some concerning conduct HERE)

The ruling is welcome news, and a step in the right direction. We caution all that it is one small step, but in the right direction. It is also a reminder why we fight INSIDE the justice system even though we have seen it fail. The justice system is ours. It is as imperfect as we are, as vulnerable, as corrupt, as sinful. But it is also just as capable grace. Peppered amongst the worst and most biased rulings in this case have always been rulings that contained strength and independence of intellect.

We have said many times over, echoing Martin Luther King, that we know the moral arc of the universe to be long, but also that it bends toward justice. Someday, maybe in a series of events that begins with today’s ruling, and maybe not, our system will bend toward justice in the case of the Fairbanks Four. It will bend toward justice because of the goodness of people. People like all of you. Reporters like Brian O’Donoghue, Rhonda McBride, Steve MacDonald – members of the press who remember their calling as bearers of the truth. It bends because of people like you who have given time in prayer, work, donated a dollar, and hour, or a thousands of each. The list of names would be so long that I could never write it out. Long enough to change the moral direction of our community and court system. So, thank you, all of you, for today’s ruling.

At the conclusion of the ruling the court states that:

“We conclude that vacating the judgment in this case will promote justice in future cases: It will clarify the proper scope of judicial notice and encourage judges to avoid ex parte investigations that may create an appearance of partiality.“We also conclude that, when a judge reaches outside the record to marshal evidence that benefits one party, the unfairness of the resulting decision is apparent. A failure to act in these circumstances could undermine public confidence in the judicial process.”
We could not agree more.

The Fairbanks Four in the Press: the 49th Report

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ImageThe story of the Fairbanks Four was seen for the first time by many in Anchorage tonight on a KTUU Channel 2 Special called :”The 49th Report: The Fairbanks Four.” This thoughtful program did a good job of scratching the surface of the story of the Fairbanks Four. We hoped that this program would inspire many people to dig deeper, and it did. Over 2,000 people have visited this site in the hour since the program ended.

Because the program led so many new readers to our blog we wanted to take a moment tonight to welcome you. and to express a deep an sincere appreciation of you and your willingness to dig deeper. Justice depends upon the ability of the common man to act on curiosity. To ask questions. To seek the truth. To have watched the program and come to this site shows that you have that ability.

We would also like to ask something of you:READ THIS BLOG. Start at the first posts and read this story.

Later tonight we will repost our very first blog entry. In it we said that we believed that the truth, if spoken, would travel. That people would come to it. That people feel the truth, and see injustice, and that everyday people can indeed be trusted with the truth, and that through their actions, their reading, their gathering, their storytelling, their facebook posts, their phone conversations with friends, simply through their existence, that the truth would travel with them, beyond us, and would ultimately right a terrible injustice.

We still believe that. We KNOW that.

Thank you for coming, for reading, and for carrying with you a truth that will someday defeat thousands of lies.

Let the Circus Begin – The First Days of the Hartman Case in the Press

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For those of you that have read this blog from the beginning, consider for a moment that most of the events we have discussed here represent mere hours of real-time. If this blog took place in real-time, the victim in the crime would still be on life support in ICU, not yet identified. The evening news would come on with a picture of his badly beaten face, identifying him only as John Doe, and pleading with residents of Fairbanks to help identify the boy.

Eugene would be in Fairbanks Youth Facility, just beginning to sober up, no doubt terrified and confused from many hours of interrogation with the Reid Method. He would be spending the first of the more than 5,300 nights in jail to come.

George would still be in interrogation. Later that night he would go home, tell his girlfriend’s brother about the interrogation, how terrified he had been, that he felt like they had made him agree to a crazy story, that he was afraid. Then he would  lay down and let his small daughter fall asleep beside him for the last time.

Marvin would be at home with his mother, bewildered and shaken by his interview with police but confident that the ordeal was over, and with no idea that the police were coming to arrest him in mere hours.

Kevin would be at home with his mother and girlfriend, watching that broadcast, not yet aware that the police were already using his name in their theories and as a device in interrogations of others.

And in the press room of the local Fairbanks Daily Newsminer, the first articles about this case were being checked for typos. Headlines were being written. And as those first words went to press, the saga of the Fairbanks Four began in earnest, as did the decades long role of the media in this case.

Our next posts will be copies of the original newspaper articles in the case.

“In a sense, words are encyclopedias of ignorance because they freeze perceptions at one moment in history and then insist we continue to use these frozen perceptions when we should be doing better.”
- Edward de Bono

The first newspaper article on the case appeared on Monday, October 13th. The front-page article was titled “Teen dies in hospital after downtown attack” and contained little information. It said that four men and one juvenile were being held on $1 million bail, and that the motive for the attack was unknown. They promised details would follow the next day.

The next day, on October 14th, the case was front page news again, this time with details that ignited a deep and widespread rage throughout the small Alaskan city. Most of the details would prove to be fiction in the days and weeks to follow, but the damage was done. These details would be the ones that Fairbanks residents remembered about the case forever – these details would inspire randomized attacks on Native Alaskans with crowbars downtown in the days to come. These details would create a divide that may never be healed.

The headline of that article was “Attack called “random violence” and beside it was a picture of John Hartman, aged 13 in the photograph, kneeling in his Redskins Youth Football League Uniform.The caption of the photo was “Random Victim John Hartman.”

The article began with a sentence that no doubt made most readers shudder: “The 15-year-old boy beaten to death by four assailants early Saturday was kicked in the head at least 15 times and then sexually assaulted in what the police say was an act of ‘random street violence.’ “

The article goes on to say that the four had attended a wedding reception, and that a string of random violent assaults began there and culminated with the fatal beating and sexual assault of Hartman. The article insinuates that the four were together, began a string of violent attacks at the wedding reception, attacked Hartman, and then attacked a hotel clerk. The article is short – very short  – with an astounding number of inaccuracies and contradictions. Among the most important:

1. The victim was “kicked in the head at least 15 times and then sexually assaulted.” In reality, there was no confirmation of any kind that there had been a sexual assault. The manner of death remained unknown, and the number of blows suffered remained unknown. The victim had been found with oversized pants near his knees(belonging to Chris Stone, the last person to see him alive), creating speculation among hospital staff that he may have been sexually assaulted.  Ultimately the medical examiner would state there was not evidence of a sexual assault. Other experts to review the report would agree that there had been no sexual assault.

2. “Paramedics found him lying in a pool of blood.” Although this is likely true, and corroborated by the statement of the college student Calvin Moses who found the victim, no photographs were taken of the scene. Police would later claim that there was almost no blood, or an “insignificant” amount of blood, and offer that as the explanation as to why there was no DNA evidence of any kind to tie the accused to the crime.

3. “The suspects confronted the victim shortly before 3 am as the teenager walked home from a friend’s house.” No one had described any circumstances surrounding the attack – there was no indication of any kind of confrontation. The victim was walking with a friend, and was not walking home from a friend’s house. More importantly, the assault took much earlier, near 1:30 am, and at a time the men had alibis. Read about that HERE.

4. “A key break in the Hartman investigation came when a hotel clerk reported he had been assaulted by three males in a hotel room.” Although the hotel clerk Mike Baca rapidly confessed to having fabricated the story of the gun-weilding attack, even in his original fictitious report he did not describe being assaulted by three males in a hotel room.

5. “One of them was Vent, who pulled out a handgun.” Eugene Vent did not have any altercation with the hotel clerk. No one pulled a gun on the hotel clerk. The hotel clerk admitted that he made up the story in an effort to get police to respond to a loud and out of control teenage party at his hotel. Security cameras confirmed there was no assault, and no gun. Read more about that HERE and directly from Eugene about that night HERE.

6. “Vent told police he participated in the Hartman assault…..” Read about Eugene’s interrogation and read the transcript of the interrogation HERE.

7. “Frese corroborated Vent’s statement…” Read about George’s interrogation HERE. Hear about that night from George directly HERE.

8. “No one tried to intervene but police have witnesses who heard the assault.” The second title of the story was “FATA:L ASSAULT: Witnesses.” No witnesses had come forward, and witnesses (plural) never did. One ultimately would, but her time-specific testimony would be upending to the police timeframe and theory. Read about her HERE.

9. The four suspects were “probably drinking.” Police knew that Eugene and George had been extremely intoxicated during interrogation, and also  knew that Marvin had been sober the night in question. The insinuation that they were “probably drinking” insinuates that they were together, drinking together, and indicates intoxication as a motive even though the police know it was not a factor that night for all four men. It also reinforces sterotype.

10. “All four defendants…attended a wedding reception at the Eagle’s Lodge.” In reality, only Marvin attended the reception. George was in the parking area at one point, Kevin was in a car that stopped at the reception, and Eugene walked through the reception briefly looking for a friend. The four did not attend the reception together, and three of the four did not truly attend at all. For more information, read their timelines.

11. “The first in a string of assaults occurred in the lodge parking lot.” No assault occurred at the lodge or in the lodge parking lot. Frank Dayton walked to the parking lot of the busy lodge after he was assaulted to get help. Read about that HERE. That said, there was a troubling amount of violence that night, with a car and suspects that did not match the description of the four accused. Read about them HERE.

12. “Some of the people at the reception attended a separate party at the Alaska Motor Inn.” This information is attributed to the hotel clerk, who would not have known if the hotel room party and reception were connected. They were not connected events. One was a wedding reception for a respected and responsible family, the other was simply a teenager’s party.

13. “20 people were drinking in one of the rooms.” There was never any indication that 20 people were present at Alaskan Motor Inn.

14. The article went on to identify Hartman as home schooled (in reality, he was not enrolled in school) and as a football player (he had not played on any sports team for more than a year). The picture used was out of date, exaggerating the contrast between the accused and the victim.

Ultimately, the article was little more than a fictional yet sensational story that would be repeated over and over in the community of Fairbanks until it was universally accepted as true. It was easy to accept that it was true, even though nearly all of it was embellished, because the story woven from half-truths and lies took advantage of racial stereotypes hundreds of years older than any of the people writing or reading it. Four drunk Native men killed a white all-American boy and raped him for no reason, he just happened to be in the way on a night when they were on a spree of random violence. Savage. Attacking children, white children, for no reason. Four on one. Merciless.

America created itself with the Declaration of Independence, which contains the following sentence: ” the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

The first newspaper articles on this case printed lies. Lies told by a bored hotel clerk named Mike Baca and  police Lt. Keller who was desperate to solve a crime and save face. The sensational plot line was never plausible, accurate, or backed up by facts. Yet, this story was accepted because it had already been written into this town. Into this country. In newspapers, hearts, minds, souls, history, the future. It struck a chord in a population with a bias, and in shock over a brutal crime, that bias blinded them.

The Fairbanks Four were tried and convicted in the newspaper October 14, 1997.

They were not innocent until proven guilty.

They would be convicted with lies and sensationalism a hundred times in the press before they were convicted with lies in a courtroom that had made its mind up long ago.

In a few short months, newspaper articles would begin to unearth inconsistencies in the case. Ten years after the murder the first ray of hope – the largest and most serious effort to expose the injustice the Fairbanks Four had suffered would be a series of articles, covering the front page of the Fairbanks Daily Newsminer for weeks in a row, just as the case had in those early days. But this series would focus on the many indications that the Fairbanks Four had been wrongfully convicted.

Perhaps they will be exonerated in the press a hundred times before they are exonerated in a courtroom, just as they were convicted first in the press.  Either way, the local press is one of the most compelling characters in this story, one that plays a fascinating and always-changing role – a character we introduce in this post and will write about many times before this story is over.

Who Killed John Hartman?

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That is a question that I cannot answer. But it is a question that many people in our town can answer, and this post is for them.

The truth is a simple thing. Funny how it is always the simplest things that make life complicated.

I know many truths about the Fairbanks Four. Lots of small ones, and some big ones.

The way that Marvin loves his mother and sister as if there was only ever them on the Earth, how when he speaks about them every aspect of him softens.

I know Eugene’s easy laughter – so genuine and enthusiastic that it can brighten any day.

I have seen the depths of grief Kevin reached when he lost his mother, the piece of her that will always linger with him.

I know, for example, the way that George’s eyes light up for a split second before he cracks a joke, the sadness that flickers there when he hugs his daughter goodbye.

I know that one night, in what has come to feel like a time very long ago and far away, these four spent a snowy night in the company of friends. I know where each of them were the moment that a boy none of them had ever seen lay dying, the last of him ebbing out of this cold world. I know the names of the girls Marvin danced with at a wedding reception with hundreds of guests as that boy died. I know faces of the boys, now men, that walked drinking and laughing against the cold alongside George on the snow-packed sidewalk at that moment. I know the license plate number of the borrowed mini van that Kevin and Eugene rode in; the corners and turns and pot holes that they passed over in those fateful minutes.

I know, I think, more than I ever wanted to about these four men. I wish that they could have aged with the rest of us out of the October night and into adulthood. Into the time in life when children clamber at your feet, and the bills are barely paid, and you share meals with people you love more often than you appreciate. The age when you come home tired every night, and the passage of time begins to show itself white at your temples and in creases around your eyes. When your years number into a trinity of decades and you begin to accept the rhythm of the every day. The rise, the fall. Still young enough that you mostly fail to be grateful for the endless tiny blessings, yet live your life so surrounded by them. An age where restlessness fades and who you were as a teenager on some October night long ago is nearly forgotten. When the names and faces of the girls you danced with then are blurred, like a photo taken in dim light from too far away. Because if they had not been interrupted there, in that early hour of life, the details of their movements on October 10th of 1997 would not matter. They would have been forgotten. Probably, that they ever corresponded to a time when a boy much like them lost his life would be unknown. These details, minutes, names, faces, temperatures, routes, guest lists……they would be absorbed into the anonymity of long ago, where they belong.

But, it didn’t happen that way, so here in my mind, and in these pages, are many small truths which all add up to one large truth. A truth that must be borne by any who possess it: Marvin, Eugene, Kevin, and George are innocent men, wrongfully imprisoned. Unfairly interrupted. I know that much is true. More importantly, I want you to understand that I wish I didn’t know. Partly because I wish it wasn’t true at all, and partly because it is a burden. Because to hold that truth means I will be held responsible for what I did with it, and because doing what I know is right is both exhausting and scary. But I, and so many others, are doing our best with the truths we have, which is what gives us the right to ask the same.

For all the things that I know about the boys who were convicted of killing him, there is little that I know about the 1997 murder of John Hartman. That is not my truth to carry. But it is someone’s.

There are people who know the details of that killing because the moment that boy began to die they were becoming something else, too – murderers. And more likely than not, those truths are ones they wish so badly to cast off of themselves that they will never speak them aloud and accept judgement. We foolishly fear things in the places they are most harmless – to fear judgement here on Earth is like fearing shark attack in a hotel pool. Life is like that. The truth is like that.

But there are others. There are people among us who know the names and the faces of the men who killed John Hartman. There are people who know the truth about those men, and the truth about how they killed that boy. And I bet they wish they didn’t know. I imagine they wish that they had never heard the details, heard the rumor, seen the faces. But we often are born for burdens that we would never wish for, and that truth is in their possession because it has to be. Is meant to be.

The truth that they hold could set these four innocent men free and being the peace to dead boy’s family that they deserve. The silence that they choose is the prison in which these men live.

The opposite of love is too often considered to be hate. But I have heard it said, and believe completely, that the opposite of love is apathy.

Likewise, the greatest enemy of the truth is not a lie. It’s silence.

All great men begin simply as the bearers of a truth that overwhelms them. A truth that feels like a burden. They become heroes when they listen, and understand that to hold the truth is already a form of greatness. A test. In silence, many transform that greatness into a great evil. In courage, with the wisdom to bear witness to the truth they hold, some become heroes.

I wish I could choose for you – for those of you that know the truth about who killed John Hartman. I wish I could implore you, trick you, cut away your story and steal your truth because I believe myself to be more capable of using it wisely. Yet the universe believes otherwise. I know, and you do too, that is not how life is. I hold my truth, and you hold yours, and that is one of those simple things we all know about life.

I say to you, and only because I am certain that I have earned the right, do what you were sent for. Become what you were born for. Be worthy of the burden you carry. It will not be easy. It may not be safe. It may cost you all and earn you nothing.

Do it anyways.

The reward is now over $35,000 for information leading to the exoneration of the Fairbanks Four. You can call in to (907) 279-0454 with any information.