Disclaimer: The article contains mentions of murder and assault. Readers’ discretion is advised.
Oxygen’s Dateline: Secrets Uncovered looks into Barbara Jean Horn’s murder case and Walter Ogrod’s wrongful conviction. The episode titled “The Investigation” will air this Wednesday, January 10, 2024, at 8 p.m. ET. The synopsis of the episode reads, “A Philadelphia murder reveals decades of misconduct in the city’s criminal justice system and raises questions about whether police caught the right person.”
According to Law & Crime, four-year-old Barbara Jean disappeared in July of 1988 from her Northeast Philadelphia home. A neighbor found her dead body inside a television cardboard box about 1000 feet away from her house. The CBS News reported that the girl had been beaten to death and then stuffed in the cardboard box.
In 1996, the victim’s neighbor, Walter Ogrod, was convicted in Barbara Jean’s murder case based on his confession. Ogrod later alleged that detectives had coerced him into confessing and maintained his innocence. He spent 28 years in prison in total, out of which 23 were on death row, as per CNN. In 2020, a judge overturned Ogrod’s conviction. He walked out of prison in June 2020.
Why was Walter Ogrod’s conviction in Barbara Jean Horn’s murder case overturned?
CNN reported that authorities arrested Walter Ogrod in 1992, four years after Barbara Jean Horn’s murder. He signed a confession but always maintained his innocence, alleging that police detectives working on the case had coerced him into confessing.
At the time of the investigation, five witnesses told police that they saw a man carrying or dragging a box across the area on the afternoon of the murder. However, none of these witnesses could identify Ogrod as the individual in question, as per Law & Crime. The only direct evidence was the confession he made to detectives Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell.
Ogrod’s first trial in 1993 resulted in a mistrial after a juror said he did not agree with the verdict shortly before the foreman was about to announce it. The second trial in October 1996 ended with his conviction, following which he received a death sentence.
According to the Guardian, in 2018, District Attorney Larry Krasner initiated a review of the case. Subsequent DNA testing definitively proved that Ogrod, who was 23 at the time of the crime, did not commit Barbara Jean’s murder.
Where is Walter Ogrod now?
In June 2020, Common Pleas Judge Shelley Robins New ordered a new trial for 55-year-old Walter Ogrod and reduced the charges. Following this, Robins’ move allowed Ogrod’s release on bail from the State Correctional Institution Phoenix in Skippack. Guardian reported that he should face a new trial, but it is unlikely that prosecutors will pursue one. His current whereabouts remain unknown.
As mentioned earlier, Ogrod reportedly spent 28 years in prison, out of which he served 23 years on death row. Barbara Jean Horn’s mother and stepfather also believe in Ogrod’s innocence. The girl’s mother, Sharon Fahy, said, “I believe firmly that he was wrongly convicted.”
In the aforementioned CNN report, Sharon Fahy expressed her frustration with the situation and hoped to finally find justice for her daughter. Sharon added, “We have been lied to when this first happened and we finally have the truth. We hope that we will be able to get the person who took Barbara Jean away from us to pay for the crimes that he did and hope that he didn’t hurt anyone else.”
The following year, in 2021, Ogrod sued the City of Philadelphia for his wrongful conviction. CBS reported that his lawyer revealed they settled the lawsuit for more than $9 million. The outlet also stated that authorities have uploaded the DNA from Barbara Jean’s body to local, state, and national databases. They continue to look for other potential suspects in the decades-old case.
Dateline: Secrets Uncovered’s new episode airs on Oxygen this Wednesday, January 10, 2024.
