Hyperreal Film Club
Frances Newton Deserved to Die
RECEIVED Thu., Sept. 22, 2005
Dear Editor,
Frances Newton was not executed because she was poor and black [“Without Evidence: Executing Frances Newton,” News, Sept. 9]. She was executed because she murdered her husband and two children for $100,000 in insurance money using a pistol owned by the man with whom she was having an affair.
Concocted stories about multiple guns call for replacing an unbroken chain of evidence custody with an imaginary 18-year conspiracy by police and prosecutors to convict an innocent woman.
If you are going to base your editorials on that kind of fantasy then kindly give your readers an update on O.J. Simpson's progress in finding "the real killers.”
Frances Newton was not executed because she was poor and black [“Without Evidence: Executing Frances Newton,” News, Sept. 9]. She was executed because she murdered her husband and two children for $100,000 in insurance money using a pistol owned by the man with whom she was having an affair.
Concocted stories about multiple guns call for replacing an unbroken chain of evidence custody with an imaginary 18-year conspiracy by police and prosecutors to convict an innocent woman.
If you are going to base your editorials on that kind of fantasy then kindly give your readers an update on O.J. Simpson's progress in finding "the real killers.”
Richard Turpyn
Alexandria, Va.
Alexandria, Va.
[News Editor Michael King responds: Mr. Turpyn's credulity for the prosecutors' (changing) version of the Frances Newton case evidence – not even endorsed by the police investigators – is apparently limitless, as is his entirely unsupported conviction that there was "an unbroken chain of evidence." We drew no conclusions about Frances Newton's guilt or innocence, but the notion that she received either a fair trial or due process in her appeals is frankly preposterous. That means we'll never know if she was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and neither will Turpyn. The state of Texas executed her anyway.]