Justice for Rosie Lerner: New hearing raises questions about a decades-old murder by Andy Dominianni
 |
| https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2679740482339800 |
CALHOUN COUNTY, Mich. — It was the phone call Rose McFarland never wanted to receive, and I had to be the one to make it.
After briefly reminding her who I was, I informed McFarland that there had been a new development in the criminal case closest to her heart. As it turns out the case, that upended her life and stole her only daughter, might not be over after all.
Of course, there's much more to the story; there always is.
The last time McFarland saw her 18-year-old daughter alive or dead was at 1 a.m. on a cold December morning in 1993. "Love you, Mom," McFarland recalls as the last words Rosie tossed out sideways when she popped in for a quick visit to her mom's overnight cashier job. "Love you, too," McFarland said.
The next morning McFarland knew something was amiss. Rosie, prone to partying all night and sleeping all day, wasn't home when mom returned from the graveyard shift at 7 a.m. She wasn't in her bed, or on the couch. She hadn't left a note or a voicemail. It seems she'd simply vanished into thin air.
It would be three days before McFarland became convinced her daughter wasn't coming back. It would be three years before she learned the truth.
Several months later, when Kehoe went on trial Rosie Larner's family endured three weeks of heart-wrenching testimony. Kehoe laughed out loud when the jury foreman announced a guilty verdict. An odd reaction, many felt, to the news that he was going to prison with no chance of ever getting out.
At least that was how it looked at the time. Twenty-plus years later, things have changed.
Did Brown blame everything on Kehoe to escape a murder charge for himself? Was he lying on the stand? Is there some chance, that Kehoe has been sitting a prison cell for decades, serving time for a crime he didn't commit?
https://wwmt.com/news/local/justice-for-rose