Walter Ogrod case
Walter Ogrod is an American man who was convicted and sentenced to death for the July 12, 1988, sexual assault and murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. According to police, Ogrod confessed to Horn's murder four years after it occurred, but in 2020 the "confession" was recognized to be false. On June 5 of that year, Ogrod's conviction was vacated by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and he was ordered to be released from prison. He had spent more than two decades on death row. Trials In April 1992, Walter Ogrod, a neighbor of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, confessed to luring Horn into his basement, attempting to sexually assault her, bludgeoning her to death with a metal object and then placing her body in a cardboard television box on nearby St. Vincent Street. In October 1993, Ogrod was prosecuted by Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham for the first time. The defense argued that Ogrod's confession had been coerced by the authorities. The jury was set to acquit Ogrod of the crime, but a single juror announced that he did not agree with the verdict as it was being read, resulting in a mistrial. In October 1996,