Gary Gauger
Gary Gauger is a formerly imprisoned convict, who was falsely accused and convicted of the murders of his parents, Morris and Ruth Gauger, and later exonerated. Following the murder on April 8, 1993, Gauger ultimately spent nearly two years in prison and 9 months on death row before being released in March 1996. Murder and trial On April 9, 1993, Gary Gauger called the U.S. emergency number 9-1-1 after finding his 74-year-old father's body. Paramedics were summoned, as well as the McHenry County Sheriff's Department, who soon found the body of 70-year-old Ruth Gauger in a trailer on the property. Gauger told officers he was asleep when his parents were murdered. Despite this, Gauger was interrogated for 21 hours by the police. Officers lied to Gauger and told him that they had found evidence against him. "They told me that they had found bloody clothes in my bedroom; they found a bloody knife in my pocket," he said. After showing Gauger gruesome photographs of his parents, Gauger broke down and confessed. Though Gauger had no memory of the crime, he believed what police had told him. "I thought I must have done it in a blackout," he said. Though he