Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Women say the "damningest" things

A book was released last week titled "Manifest Injustice." It's the true story of a convicted murder (Mr. Bill Macumber) and the lawyers who fought for his freedom. It turns out his wife, working with the police (literally) had framed him.

Remind you of anyone?

ABC's Nightline covered the story and our blogger will quote a few choice parts from their story.
Ron Kempfert spent most of his life believing his father was a murderer. He said it was his mother who often fueled this horrible image of the man he called Dad.

"He's a murderer, he's a manipulator, he uses people, and that he didn't care about us, only cared about himself," Kempfert said his mother would tell him and his two brothers, Scott and Steve, when they were younger.
 Hey, kids - remind you of anyone?
Ron Kempfert, now 42, had no doubt of his father's conviction, until he spoke with a prominent Phoenix defense attorney named Larry Hammond over the phone in 2003, 28 years after his father has been sent to jail. Hammond runs the Arizona Justice Project, an organization that works to free prisoners they decide could be innocent.

"He said 'I don't know how to tell you this, there is no way to tell you this -- we know your father, we think your father is innocent and we're pretty sure your mom framed him for it,'" Kempfert said of the phone call with Hammond.
Remind you of anyone?
After recovering from the initial shock, Kempfert started to untangle what his mother, Carol, had told him over the years and slowly the possibility that his father was innocent began to make sense.

 "I love my mother but I don't like her. She is not a nice person and I did not make that jump immediately," he said. "I don't have any doubt anymore that my mom did it -- that my mom framed my dad for the murders."
Remind you of anyone?
Kempfert added that he eventually came to believe that his mother had a powerful motive. Around the time she turned her husband into police, Carol and Macumber's marriage was falling apart.
Remind you of anyone?
"It's hard...how do you get across yourself that your mother is capable of this, that she framed your own father...for something he didn't do because she was going to lose what she had?" Kempfert said.
Remind you of anyone?
Macumber, now 75, said he has done his best to fight off bitterness, but what he is most angry about is his ex-wife's efforts to destroy his relationships with his three sons.

"Quite frankly the most unforgivable lie she ever told was to her own children, even after I was in prisons he told them their father was a murderer, he didn't love them or care for them, and hadn't made an effort to contact them and that was a terrible lie. I wrote dozens of letters to my children and every one of them came back refused. They never knew I wrote, they never knew I cared, and as a result of that I've lost two of my boys."
Suggestion: If you find yourself believing only one side of a story your mom is telling you, seek out the other side of the story.

The first to present his case seems right, till another comes forward and questions him. Or her.