Regarding Comment From "Older Sibling of Sandra Couture"

Thomas J. Hinze

I haven't written anything in this blog as there have been no updates. I have linked to posts on my Facebook and VK page from time to time, and also on Youtube.

Several weeks ago I saw in my email that there had been a comment submitted to the last post, "Coerced Confession - Throwing One Out to Salvage Some Others?"

The comment was from some unnamed person using the pseudonym "Patvan", who claimed that Sandra Couture was his or her "little sister".

I decided not to publish the comment on that last post. I find it worthless, as it contains no proof of anything at all, just more unproven claims from an anonymous person. Instead I've waited until I had time and was in the mood to reply, and to make this new post out of both my reply and the comment. 

The comment as I found it in my email is copied and pasted below, indented. My only reply is to point out that though I have "begged" for comments on my blog, what I made very clear is that what I was asking for was INFORMATION, not just some more comments containing unproven and undocumented claims from some unnamed person claiming to be somebody.

The INFORMATION that I need and am still asking for is before I "owe an apology" to anyone is:

1: What is the address of the cabin that was supposedly burned by Sandra Couture on July 6, 2012? I need this information so I can provide it to the Cloquet Area Fire District, and to the Fire Reporting officials ("Incident Reporting Inspector" and "Investigator") from the Fire Marshal's Office of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, who are responsible for all incidents in both St. Louis and Carlton Counties. None of those agencies have any record of ANY fire occurring in Cloquet on that date, and no fire was reported in any local media the next morning, either.
Also, neither "Jaida Couture" the person who claimed to be the granddaughter of the victim, or "Patvan" the claimed older sibling of the person who he/she claims actually set the fire on that date can find out the address of the place either. There is just no answer at all to that question.
Why not?

2. What size feet does Joseph Couture have? I need this information, as I find it very unlikely that two people in the area of the Trina Langenbrunner murder were wearing size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes the same week of the murder in which size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes were one of the main clues. 
"Jaida Couture" told me that her mother bought Joseph the shoes of that size.
I know for sure that I saw size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes on Tom Hinze's feet the week of the murder, and that they were much bigger than his feet. I knew that the reason he was wearing shoes that were much bigger than his feet was that he had just been released from jail to which he had been admitted barefoot, and had been given a pair of shoes "out of storage" from the jailer who had out-processed him.
I was in correspondence with a retired jailer, Duane Johnson, who very likely could have found out and informed me and the Sheriff's investigators of who had out-processed Tom that night, had he not suddenly died while we were in correspondence.
I did notify the Sheriff's investigators of what I had seen, and that I was prepared to swear to it in a jury trial. However, there never was any jury trial, no sworn witness testimony, nor any forensic data ever presented to a jury. There was ONLY the sudden confession while I was still trying to tell the (uninterested) Public Defender's office that I had seen size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes on Tom Hinze that week, and that Tom also met all the other clues the Sheriff's investigators said they were looking for.
However, both the head of the Forensics Team and the Public Defender's Office informed me that Tom Hinze has never been DNA-tested.
Why not? What kind of "investigators" wouldn't DNA-test somebody who met all the clues? And what kind of Public Defender's office wouldn't care, and wouldn't even inform the person they were supposedly defending of my existence and testimony?

Anyway, that's the end of this post. The comment from the unnamed person who claims that Sandra Couture is his/her "little sister" is below, indented. All the other things mentioned above are in various past posts, if anyone is interested in reading the entire sad and outrageous story of the St. Louis County, Minnesota style of "justice".

[Trina Langenbrunner Case "Solved"?] New comment on Coerced Confessions - Throwing One Out to Salvage ....

Jun 6 at 6:43 AM

PrintRaw message

Patvan <noreply-comment@blogger.com>

To: lewagner2002@yahoo.com

Patvan has left a new comment on your post "Coerced Confessions - Throwing One Out to Salvage ...":

You begged for someone to comment on your blog for years. When Jaida Couture responded you attacked her because her comments didnt agree with what you think happened. You were sarcastic and condescending to her while she was sharing something that was very painful for her and her family. You wont admit that your theory is wrong.
I dont know anything about the Trina Langenbrunner murder but I do know Joseph Couture. I stepped in and stopped him when he was beating Sandra. Ive seen those crazy eyes when he is angry. I believe he could kill.
As for Sandra Couture I know her very well. She is my little sister. Right before she confessed she told me she started the fire and made the phone calls. She made sure nobody was there because she didnt want to hurt anyone. She only meant to burn the vehicle not the cabin.
I hope this will put an end to your insistence that her confession was coerced. Your wrong!!! Please dont email me in response to this comment. I dont care what you have to say.
Also you owe Jaida Couture an appology!

Coerced Confessions - Throwing One Out to Salvage Some Others?

 

Thomas J. Hinze

I haven't written anything new in this blog for well over a year, as there haven't been any new developments worth writing about. I have continued to try to publicize the information as much as possible by posting links here and there to some of the posts.   
The post that has received the most views by far has been "Attempts to Correspond with Steven Hagenah, Pt 2", as this post shows most clearly the absolute and inexplicable REFUSAL of the police investigators to seriously investigate or even DNA-test Tom Hinze, the son of a former (Red Lake County) Sheriff, who met every single "clue" in the murder case that the investigators said they were looking for. 
And the post also shows the attitude of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in the case. None of them cared about sworn testimony or forensic data being presented to a jury in a trial, or that the defendant Joseph Couture had been kept ignorant of my testimony of ANOTHER person meeting the "clues" the investigators claimed they were looking for, or that that other person had never been DNA-tested, despite my repeated pointing out that he met all those clues -- the police and prosecutors had obtained their "confession", and that was enough to convict the defendant, and "solve the case".  
By the way, as I am writing this, I have been doing some searching around the Internet. I have just become aware that Steven Hagenah has passed away, on May 9, 2016. Here is a link to an obituary in which his skill at "pulling confessions" is praised. Well, I suppose that's a useful skill, especially if there's no matching DNA data available in the case. May he rest in peace.
But anyway, but to bring this matter more up to date, back in October 2016, I read the following in the Duluth News Tribune. I'll post a quote to the most pertinent part of the article, here: 

 A judge has thrown out a cold case murder charge against an Iron Range man, ruling that his confession to the 1987 slaying of an elderly Virginia woman was the result of a “highly coercive” interrogation by police.
Bruce Wayne Cameron, 45, is set to be released from the St. Louis County Jail more than 16 months after authorities charged him with intentional second-degree murder in the death of 83-year-old Leona Mary Maslowski.
Sixth Judicial District Judge David Ackerson ruled on Friday that Cameron’s June 2015 statement to investigators — in which he confessed to assaulting Maslowski inside her Virginia apartment — was given involuntarily and in violation of his 14th Amendment right to due process.
“The detectives essentially told the Defendant what they wanted him to say and then led him into saying it,” Ackerson wrote in a 32-page order.
Defense attorneys had argued that the statement was coerced through leading questions and false promises by the investigators.
"We are happy for Mr. Cameron and his family,” Chief Public Defender Dan Lew told the News Tribune. “He's sat in jail for almost a year and a half waiting for this day.”
...............................................
Cameron, who was 16 at the time, had been at a party in the duplex above Maslowski’s apartment the night of her death and had been interviewed by law enforcement multiple times.
The investigation turned to him last spring when he was identified as a possible suspect based on a palm print and fingerprints discovered on a kitchen door in Maslowski’s apartment.
Police said he denied involvement in an April 2015 interview, but offered the confession on June 2, 2015, when confronted with the forensic evidence.
According to court documents, he told investigators that he had entered Maslowski’s apartment, "most likely drunk" and in search of alcohol. He said he was confronted by Maslowski and punched her when he thought she was moving toward the phone. He also said he used an object to hit her in the head and possibly choked her, according to the criminal complaint.
Defense attorneys moved to suppress the statement, arguing that Cameron was led to believe that the forensic technology was enough to implicate him in Maslowski's murder and that confessing was the only way to keep his case in juvenile court — where he would face lighter sanctions — and out of prison.
Despite his age at the time of the incident, the juvenile court lost jurisdiction over Cameron when he turned 21, requiring the matter to be handled in standard court.
Ackerson noted that the BCA agents did “well over 90 percent of the talking” in the interview and that Cameron’s answers were mostly limited to one word or one phrase, citing examples of the agents repeatedly asking Cameron if he had struck Maslowski with various blunt objects.
The judge said Cameron’s version of the events simply did not fit the established facts of Maslowski’s death and criticized the agents for attempting to “lead and steer” him into confessing.
“The only reasonable inference from the extreme leading of the Defendant by the detectives is that the Defendant’s will at that point was entirely overcome, and he was merely trying to say whatever they wanted him to that would get him the benefit of juvenile court treatment and the promise of not going to prison,” Ackerson wrote.
The judge also wrote that a mental health assessment concluded that Cameron suffers from a “mild cognitive impairment” and that he appeared to be “thoroughly intimidated and frightened by the coercive nature of the interrogation.”

Well, to put it mildly, I was amazed, and nearly overcome with the warm, hopeful feeling that yes, there can indeed be justice, in St. Louis County, Minnesota, after all. I mentioned the case in messages to a couple of my Facebook correspondents, with the comment that Mr. Daniel Lew, the Chief Public Defender mentioned, is a Public Defender who actually does his job!
What I did next then, naturally, was to immediately write to Mr. Lew regarding the "confessions" in the Langenbrunner case. I'll just post the email itself ... actually, this is the second email I sent on November 20, as it includes the full text of the first email I sent October 25, which I never got an answer to:

 Dear Mr. Lew,

I sent you this nearly a month ago, and haven't heard anything from you, so I am sending it again.
I am assuming that perhaps the first email was overlooked, or that maybe you needed time to research and consider.
I'll wait for a few more days, then decide how I will proceed.

Thank you,
Lloyd Wagner

--- On Tue, 10/25/16, Lloyd Wagner <lewagner2002@yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Lloyd Wagner <lewagner2002@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Coerced confession in another St. Louis County murder case
> To: dan.lew@pubdef.state.mn.us
> Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2016, 5:44 PM
> Dear Mr. Lew:
> I just read of your success in getting the coerced
> confession of Mr. Cameron suppressed by Judge Ackerson. My
> congratulations.
>
> I am a witness in the Trina Langenbrunner murder case
> (September 2000), and I have maintained for many years that
> my testimony regarding Thomas J. Hinze has been deliberately
> ignored and covered up by investigators from the Sheriff’s
> Department, and by the MBCA.
> 
> Mr. Hinze met every clue the investigators said they were
> looking for, yet the Sheriff’s office absolutely refused
> to take my testimony seriously, or to DNA-test Mr. Hinze.
> The fact that Mr. Hinze was never DNA-tested was confirmed
> to me in 2013 in an email by former investigator for the
> Public Defender’s Office, Mr. Ron Taggart.
>
> In 2012, Mr. Joseph Couture was arrested, and in 2013 he
> also confessed to a murder I say he could not have done. He
> was convicted solely on the basis of his confession. No
> sworn testimony or forensic evidence was ever presented to a
> jury.
>
> Not only was Mr. Couture framed and induced to confess to
> the murder, both he and Sandra Couture were also induced to
> confess to a “Cloquet arson fire” of July 6, 2012.
>
> I have checked media reports and also have checked with the
> Cloquet District Fire Chief, and with the Incident
> Investigator and Inspector from the Minnesota Department of
> Public Safety for the Cloquet area (both in St. Louis and
> Carlton Counties).
>
> There is no record in any media of that fire the morning
> after it supposedly occurred, but only reports of it AFTER
> it was supposedly “solved”. None of the gentlemen in
> either the Fire District or the DPS have any record of such
> a fire even having occurred. The claimed grand-daughter of
> the "fire-victim" could not give me an address of the house
> that was supposedly burned, even after several weeks of
> correspondence. (I believe my correspondent was someone else
> posing as the "fire-victim's" grand-daughter, because as I
> say, there are no records of any such fire.) However, both
> Joseph and Sandra are serving 7 years each for this “arson
> fire” they confessed to.
>
> As I could not get my testimony into a courtroom no matter
> how hard I tried, I instead wrote a blog reproducing my
> correspondence with many various people (letters in the
> past, and emails more recently) concerned with this case.
> These are the original text files of beginning in 2003,
> which I have never deleted, and I also have never deleted
> any of the emails.
>
> I will give you a link to the first post in the blog, and
> ask you to please consider looking at it. I will also attach
> a screenshot of a list of all the posts, so you can get a
> quick overview of the number and variety of people I have
> contacted regarding this case. http://formerlyfarmerly.blogspot.com/2014/09/introduction.html
> 
> Thank you very much.
>
> Best Regards,
> Lloyd Wagner

And here is the screenshot of the list of all the posts in this blog, that I also sent to Mr. Lew:

 Then, after waiting over 2 more weeks without any response from Mr. Lew, I sent him this email, on December 7, 2016:

 Dear Mr. Lew,
I've decided I'm going to resume posting on my blog regarding the Trina Langenbrunner murder cover-up and framing, plus the related matter of the concocted-out-of-thin-air "arson fire" of July 6, 2012.
What I plan to do within the next few days, is to post a completely new blog post, which will consist mainly of the email that I wrote and sent twice to you. I also plan to add comments to that, to compare the Cameron induced confession (as reported in the Duluth News Tribune) with the Couture framing, and to point out how the two cases are different.
The behavior of the police, prosecutors, and Public Defender's Office in the Couture case was much MORE egregious than in the Cameron case, and it is glaringly obvious, and yet I can't even get a comment from you.
Anyway, I will not bother you again, but I just thought I would let you know what I am going to do, in case you do want to make a comment before I post that.
Sincerely,
Lloyd Wagner    

Well, I said above that I wouldn't bother Mr. Lew again, but then I reconsidered. The reason I reconsidered is because after I had written the above email, I watched the entire Netflix series of "Making a Murderer". 
Something that caught my attention in that very interesting 10-part (so far) series about that Manitowoc County, Wisconsin murder case, was someone's pointing out that challenging an obviously coerced confession in some murder cases is tantamount to accusing the police and prosecutors of deliberate misconduct. (!)
This is especially true in a case like the Trina Langenbrunner murder, where repeated witness testimony was ignored for years, the life of the witness (myself) was threatened, and a DNA test of the person who I repeatedly said met all the investigators' "clues" was never taken. 
And besides that, an "arson fire" was concocted completely out of thin air -- as described briefly in the first email above, and written about in more detail HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE -- and two people, Joseph and Sandra Couture, were also induced to "confess" to that fire that never even happened. The two were sentenced to 7 years in prison each for that, as well, and ordered to pay restitution, besides, of nearly $35,000 each ... well, in such an egregious matter, it's understandable that even a Chief Public Defender might be hesitant to buck the obviously stinking (not to say criminal) corruption in the County.
So, upon reflection of the above, I wrote one more email to Mr. Lew, on December 16, 2016, as follows:  

 Dear Mr. Lew,
I have been reflecting further on that Cameron case, and Mr. Cameron's induced confession being thrown out by the Judge. That's something I have never heard of happening before, at least in St. Louis County.
I look at it in two ways. In one way, it gives the public the heart-warming impression that justice eventually does prevail, in St. Louis County cases. In another way, it almost seems as though they arrested him, knowing ahead of time that his induced "confession" would be thrown out -- to give the public the heart-warming impression that justice eventually does prevail, in St. Louis County cases.
That case shows only minor malfeasance on the part of the investigators and interrogators. They were just a little over-zealous, I suppose. The case is still open.
But in the Couture case, the malfeasance was much worse. Actual crimes were committed by certain people in law enforcement, in covering up testimony and evidence, in manufacturing new "evidence", and even in concocting a new crime for a framing. I won't go through it again, as I have already explained it to you in brief, and offered my blog with all of its documentation.
As you were not in your present position at the time all of that malfeasance was occurring, it is probably not fair to drag you into it, or to diss you in my blog, as though you were a part of it. Getting an over-zealously obtained confession thrown out by a Judge is entirely of a different order than pointing out actual conspiracies and crimes committed by people in high positions of law enforcement ... not even to mention the obviously coerced false confessions.
However, please reflect on the fact that the Coutures have effectively had NO defense, except from myself. I am just a witness who happened to see something, and who refuses to accept the Sheriff's telling me that I did not see what I saw. So, I just keep on telling people what I saw, and I keep on digging into why the Sheriff was so determined NOT to DNA-test the man who I said (and the Sheriff also damned-well knew) met every clue the investigators said they were looking for.
I am a former bankrupted vegetable farmer who had dirt under my fingernails and grease on my jeans, and who is now an English professor at a University, living in a rented apartment in Thailand. I certainly cannot afford to hire a lawyer.
So, I have written to you, the Chief Public Defender, in St. Louis County. It seems to me that you are at least in as good a position as I am, to speak out about this case of injustice.
I also realize that if you do speak out, they will do their very best to discredit and destroy you, as they have done to me. However, I am not destroyed, and my conscience is clean in the matter. I've done the best I could.
I am not sure whether or not I will continue adding to the blog, or exactly what I will do. I will continue to speak out about it, as widely as I can. You do what you feel you have to do. I would appreciate your help, or even your advice.
Sincerely,

Lloyd Wagner 

Well, to make a long story a little shorter, I got no response from Mr. Lew. 
Probably completely unrelated to my emails to Mr. Lew, I did notice in Blogger Statistics within the past couple of weeks that there were 5 views of THIS POST, all in one day. That's over 1/5 of the total number of views that post has received over the past 2 years since I published it. That post is the record of my correspondence regarding one important facet of the case with retired jailer, Duane Johnson, who suddenly died, at about the age of 60, in 2014.
If that has anything to do with anything, only God knows, and I can only speculate. I asked a couple of mutual friends who knew Duane much better than I did, if Duane had ever mentioned anything about our correspondence to them. I got absolutely no reply. So I don't know. It did interest me that there were 5 views of that one post, in one day.
On my testimony, however, and on my research, and on my correspondence on this case, I provide ample links and documentation to back it up. I have it all backed up by screenshots, as well, and not only on my own computer.
All the Sheriff's Department and MBCA would have had to do to prove me a liar, would have been to DNA-test Mr. Hinze and prove him innocent (if they actually thought he was) -- but they refused to do that. Instead they released Mr. Hinze without ever DNA-ing him, and years later came up with a "confession" from Mr. Couture to "solve" the case.  Mr. Couture confessed to the same things I had repeatedly described about Mr. Hinze's actions the week of the murder, wore the same size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes (though no one will tell me what size feet he has) -- and the van he supposedly owned even ended up to be the same exact color as the car I described: charcoal gray. What a bunch of incredible coincidences, eh??
And then suddenly, an oh-so-easy overturning of a coerced confession by a St. Louis County judge, something I've never EVER heard of before -- and during the same time-frame of the world-wide exposure of the very similar coerced confession in the "Making a Murderer" case, on Netflix.
Hence, this blog post. 
Thanks for reading, and please share. 
 

 

Letter to Sandra Couture

The below is self-explanatory. I will be mailing it as soon as I can get to the post office, and will then update this post to tell the date I actually mailed it. Today's date is March 10, 2015. This is the actual text of the letter I will be mailing. On the bottom is a screenshot of Sandra Couture's DOC Offender Locator page.

As reported two posts back, the DOC refuses to give me Joseph Couture's address, so I cannot write to ask him why he confessed to a crime without the Prosecutor presenting any evidence or sworn testimony in a courtroom showing that he actually committed the crime. 

From: Lloyd Wagner

24 Thamrong Prasit Road #8

Nai Muang, Amphur Muang

Nakhon Phanom, Thailand 48000

Sandra Kay Couture

OID# 240974

MFC Shakopee

1010 West 6th Avenue

Shakopee, MN 55379 U.S.A.
March 10, 2015

Hello Sandra Couture,

                I’m writing to you because back in August 2000 I witnessed a pair of size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes on a former neighbor of mine in Twig, MN, named Thomas (Tom) J. Hinze. In addition, Tom Hinze was driving a black Chrysler minivan the last week in August 2000, in addition, Tom Hinze told me that he had taken my vehicle from my yard the week of the Langenbrunner murder, in addition, Tom Hinze told me that he had burned clothing in a woodstove the week of the Langenbrunner murder, in addition, Tom Hinze left town shortly after the Langenbrunner murder, in addition, Tom had a reputation for violence and a bad attitude toward women (especially “Indian women”, he compared them to “animals”).

                I wasn’t much of a newspaper reader back in 2000. In addition, my mother died in the fall of 2000, my father and I were very busy working on publishing a book in the fall of 2000, and there were many other things going on, as well. Also, I knew first hand that Tom Hinze’s minivan had been in impound the night of the Langenbrunner murder, so I never even considered that it could have been him, until I read a full year later that the Sheriff was looking for the size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes, and I started putting 2 and 2 together.

I have repeatedly told the Sheriff’s Department about all of this information, but they have repeatedly refused to DNA-test Mr. Hinze, or to even look at the woodstove or the car that Tom told me he had “borrowed”. The Sheriff’s Department said I was “looking for a reward”, and wouldn’t even investigate. (Tom Hinze died in October 2013 and I’m still saying the same as I said years ago, so I’m not “looking for a reward”.)

                When I read that Joseph had been arrested for the murder, I also sent all of this information to the Public Defender’s office, and though they confirmed to me that Tom Hinze had never been DNA-tested, they didn’t seem to think it was at all important, nor did they make any insistence that the Prosecutors come up with any DNA proof to show that Joseph did the crime. They just accepted his “confession” without requiring any forensic evidence or any sworn testimony from any witnesses. As you know, all the Prosecutors had to back their story was an unnamed witness, and that witness is STILL unnamed.

                I have also checked all over the Internet to see about that July 6, 2012 “arson fire” that you and Joseph both “confessed” to. There was no fire ever reported in Cloquet, or anywhere else in Carlton County on July 6, 2012, until AFTER they had charged you with setting one. And then they never said where the fire was, because I guess they didn’t want you or Joseph to know whose house it was, though according to them, you already DID know, or why else would you go set it on fire??

That’s the only case in history that I can find, that a fire supposedly burned a house and two vehicles, plus killing two dogs that never left any skeletons, but were “missing and presumed dead”, that never made it into the newspaper the very next morning. In fact, ALL fires are reported the next morning, except for that one! There WAS NO fire reported on July 6, in Cloquet.

                Also, did you know that the official Minnesota fire statistics for 2012 reported a TOTAL of $8,600 damage for ALL “incendiary fires” in Carlton County in ALL of 2012?

                I am so irritated at being called a liar in this case, and my testimony being covered up and ignored, and also, my life was threatened by Tom Hinze, that I have started a blog on the Internet about this, and am digging out every bit of information I can find. I’ve published all of the above on the blog, plus a lot more. It’s called “Trina Langenbrunner Case Solved?”

                I have your address from the Minnesota Department of Corrections Prisoner Locator website – you are listed as MnDOC Offender ID 240974, at Shakopee, and I have thoroughly checked into the way to address letters to prisoners.  I will post a copy of this letter on the blog before I mail it to you,  – and I will mail at least 2 copies, a few days apart. The Thai postal system is very reliable, and my family in the U.S. and I have even sent cash through it from time to time. Not a single one of our letters has failed to get through in either direction – but as I have found when I attempted to get Joseph’s mailing address from the Department of Corrections, they refused to give it to me, as he is “serving his sentence out of state” and it is “DOC policy” to not give out his address.

I suspect that they may try to “deep-six” any letter I send to you, too, or try to dictate your reply, or whatever … but I would like to hear and report your story of whatever it was that caused you to confess to setting a fire that according to all the evidence, never even happened.  And please send me Joseph’s mailing address too, if you have it, or any other info you might be able to give me on what went on to induce you to “confess” in this case.

Mail takes about 10-12 days, each way. I will post this on my blog, before I actually mail it – then I will post the date that I actually mail it – and then I will wait for roughly a month for a reply. I will then post whatever reply I get, with my comments, or I will report that I have not received any reply.

Whatever is the case.

Good luck,

Lloyd Wagner

Below are the 2 screenshots of the Offender Locator, as of today, March 10, 2015. 
Thanks for reading, and please stay tuned.

A Short Post (for once)

Just to relate that I've already pretty much written the next post -- but I'm waiting to give the main subject of that post one more chance to respond to a couple very simple questions before I publish it. 
The subject is the former "senior special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension" who was listed in a newspaper article as a forensic investigator on the case.
About all I asked him was, if or if not his office had received my info regarding the case, and if the forensic evidence they had gathered did or did not match Joseph Couture who was convicted of the murder.
It's just weird that he won't answer.
I suppose there is a tiny chance that this person has not yet read the emails I've sent him, but I would certainly think he MUST have read them -- as he is listed as an instructor in Law Enforcement at a tribal college in Minnesota, is listed with an email address at that college, and I've repeatedly written him for over a month, now.
Anyway, I've sent him a draft copy of the next post to give him another chance to comment before I post it, which I will within a few days.
More news, also: I've received the address of Sandra Couture, and will be writing to her to see what I can find out there. I'm hoping to get the address of Joseph Couture very soon, as well.  As I have to write them through "snail mail" from Thailand and then wait for a response, I don't expect to have much to report there for quite some time. 
Anyway, I'm really curious to hear if the Public Defender's office ever did mention to them that there's a witness who saw size 11 or 12 New Balance shoes on Tom Hinze the week of the murder, and all the rest of the stuff I've written about in all the previous posts.
I'm betting they were never told any of it. I'm just itching to hear the stories of how they were induced to "confess", especially to that ridiculous "arson fire" I discuss in this post and this one. The fire that supposedly happened in Carlton County, but was never reported anywhere until after St. Louis County had already "solved" it by cracking a jail-house code. ("Fishing" meant they were going to burn the house.)
Thanks for reading!