Quote: laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law (Oliver Goldsmith)
In the news:
Man’s Name Is Frank Wetzel: Search For Him Is Intensified Over Nation (Rockingham Post Dispatch, November 14, 1957)
Patrolman’s killer named by FBI: man escaped from mental hospital (Richmond County Journal, November 15, 1957)
Court of Appeals Renders Opinion (Justia, U.S. Court of Appeals Cases and Opinions, argued June 4, 1980; decided Oct. 27, 1980)
Pardon sought for Wetzel in 28-year-old slaying: star witness says ID “prompted by pressure” (Roanoke Rapids News, March 14, 1986)
1957 Murders Leave Lingering Mystery Despite a Conviction (Los Angeles Times, February 05, 1995)
What is Frank Wetzel doing in prison after 37 years? (Herald Journal, February 12, 1995
Definitions (Oxford Concise English Dictionary):
frame-up: a conspiracy, especially to make an innocent person appear guilty
conspiracy: a secret plan to commit a crime or do harm, often for political ends
in perspective:
Frank Wetzel was 37 when he was convicted of killing two North Carolina state troopers in two separate incidents at the end of 1957, nine years before the 1966 Miranda Rule protecting the rights of the accused came into effect. The two trials regarding the killings took place after Wetzel was hunted down by the FBI in an all-states alert based on his history.
News headlines at the time were allowed to identify Wetzel as the killer rather than as a suspect. Stories cited his criminal record and that he was an escapee from a mental institution. His institutionalization and escape, however, were part of a plan to free a brother on Death Row in Tennessee, who was executed the year Wetzel was sentenced and then was exonerated the next year.
Born in the Depression era of 1921, Frank Wetzel and his brother Bill had been encouraged to contribute to the family income by any means possible. From an early age, both brothers served time for theivery but not for violence.
Armed with munitions to break his brother out of Death Row, Frank was headed south from New York when he was caught in the North Carolina jam. Two state troopers were shot in one night in two towns forty-five miles apart. A states-wide bulletin was issued by the FBI the next day. Wetzel was captured in California a week later and was returned to North Carolina by local law-enforcement officers traveling by train to take him into custody.
Three months later, Wetzel was convicted of both killings based on the identification of a hitchhicker who had witnessed the first killing, despite the fact that the witness’ initial description did not apply to Wetzel. The witness had described a dark-complexioned driver, for example, while Wetzel was a blond German. The driver’s described height was also at odds with Wetzel’s, as was the car color and the subjects talked about during the drive prior to the killing.
Nevertheless, Wetzel was convicted in the first trial on the basis of that testimony and on circumstantial evidence that at the time required no safeguards of fingerprinting or comparison of tire tread-marks to ensure the same vehicle was involved in both incidents. Discrepancies went largely unchallenged by Wetzel’s court appointed attorney, who was a fomer FBI agent.
Based on that first verdict, Wetzel was convicted in the second trial. Based on his attorney’s advice to postpone filing an automatic appeal because the case was “too hot” at the time, Wetzel lost his legal window of opportunity and has been a prisoner of the North Carolina legal system ever since.
The testimony that served as the basis for Wetzel’s conviction was recanted 30 years later by the “Negro” sole eye-witness, as reported in the Roanoke Rapids Daily Herald on March 14, 1986. In the recantation, he said he was “under great pressure by the police” to identify Wetzel as the killer.
The recantation came about as a result of investigative work by reporter Bianca Brown, who also succeeded in obtaining the death certificates of the two officers. Those indicated that the shootings had occurred within 15 minutes of each other and not an hour as had been testified in the trials.
Bianca Brown was drawn into Wetzel’s situation on reading a news article that Wetzel had been denied a requested transfer when a prison guard overheard him discussing escape plans with another inmate. Seeing no sense in such self-sabotage, Brown met with Wetzel and presumed she would easily secure his release through her well-positioned connections.
Over 20 years later, Wetzel’s continued incarceration raises serious questions. They concern not only the legal and penal systems in North Carolina and the country beyond the state, but also the political.
Convicted by legal standards no longer allowed by modern law, Frank Wetzel at the age of 88 remains at the vagary of humanly implemented law. Appearing at his first hearing without benefit of legal counsel, he obviously did not receive a fair trial in 1957. Despite that obvious injustice and false testimony about the timing of the killings, Wetzel is routinely denied his writ of certeriori petition for a review of the trials.
The February 1995 Herald-Journal article quotes inmate advocate Jim Lewis as saying “No governor wants to touch this. If Frank Wetzel gets out on their watch — oh my.”
At present, as Frank Wetzel’s next parole hearing nears in September, a former governor of North Carolina is under investigation for corruption. That seems to indicate that perhaps Frank Wetzel’s case needs to be taken beyond the state.
One final point about the question of Frank Wetzel’s guilt or innocence seems of paramount relevance. If he did not commit the two murders on the November night of 1957, then a “cop-killer” is still on the loose somewhere in North Carolina 50 years later.
