|
What first seemed like a slam-dunk case has turned into a long-running nightmare for both police and prosecutors. "It's the case that wouldn't die," says Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney James J. McIntyre. The veteran prosecutor says he knows of no other case that has taken such twists and turns, and it took yet another one in recent weeks. In 1991, armed with a detailed confession, McIntyre helped convict Laverne Pavlinac and John Sosnovske of Bennett's murder. But four years later, Keith Jesperson, a self-professed serial murderer, confessed to the killing. The media, including The Oregonian and Willamette Week, jumped to the defense of Pavlinac and Sosnovske ("Who's Guilty," WW, Oct. 11, 1995), and, in an extraordinary move, the pair of convicted killers was released from prison. Now, Jesperson, known as the Happy Face Killer, says he was lying about Bennett's murder, and a separate case in Deschutes County has some law-enforcement officials suspecting that Pavlinac and Sosnovske were guilty after all. After beginning his life term at Oregon State Penitentiary for the murder of Bennett and two other women, Jesperson began claiming responsibility for a fourth murder, that of Bobbi Crescenzi, who disappeared from Bend in October 1992. Although Crescenzi's husband, Jack, had already been convicted of the crime, Deschutes County Chief Deputy District Attorney Patrick Flaherty took Jesperson's confession seriously. "He convinced the Multnomah County DA that he committed a murder [of Taunja Bennett] that two people had been convicted for, so he was imbued with credibility," Flaherty told WW. This time, however, officials were able to prove that Jesperson was lying. Last week, police arrested Wayne Coker, a former cellmate of both Jesperson's and Crescenzi's, on charges that he tampered with a witness. Coker, Flaherty says, had been relaying information on Bobbi Crescenzi's murder between her husband and Jesperson shortly before Jesperson first confessed to it in 1996. The alleged deal was that Jesperson, who was already serving a life sentence, would take responsibility for the murder if Jack Crescenzi would pay Jesperson's children at least $10,000. If Jesperson lied about killing Crescenzi, couldn't he have lied about killing Bennett? Last month, Flaherty told the Bend Bulletin that he thinks so. (Flaherty took political heat for that comment and refused to explicitly criticize the Multnomah County DA's office in his interview with WW.) |
|
