Well, this is interesting: John Walsh, who for 21 years has been helping law enforcement to pull suspects out of thin air and get them into the criminal justice system where they belong, is now trying to spring someone who's in the grips of that same system. Or at least, get them a new trial.
Walsh will look at the case of Dale Helmig, whose conviction on the charge of murdering his mother has become a cause celebre for the Missouri Innocence Project. The group, which produced a documentary that it said lined up enough evidence to free Helmig, thought it had succeeded last fall when Helmig's conviction was overturned. But that ruling was reversed on appeal.
What's really interesting here is that Helmig is one of several cases that were prosecuted by former Missouri congressman Kenny Hulshof and which are now being called into question. In the video clip, Walsh refers to certain "prosecutorial missteps" committed in the Helmig case.
Not since the case of Bambi Bembenek has "AMW" involved itself so deeply in the case of a convicted killer as it will here. Which leads me to ask: Is John Walsh going to do more of this kind of thing? And if so, how do his allies in the law enforcement community feel about that?


Well, I'd imagine his friends in law enforcement are happy about it. They wouldn't want to see an innocent man go to jail even if freeing him meant that police and/or prosecutorial errors were exposed and highlighted, right? They want to see justice served, don't they?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Whew. That was a good one if I do say so myself.
Posted by: Gavin | May 29, 2009 at 04:40 PM
This is CRAZY!! JOhn doesn't mention not once in his "interviews" the fact that Dale, and his girlfriend, Stacey Medlock were crack addicts, high on crack, when he went down to his Mohter's house looking for more crack money, as he knew she had won the bingo money. Why isn't the TRUTH about 2 crack heads killing a mother being told??
Posted by: susie | May 30, 2009 at 03:31 PM
I have a friend who is a homicide detective and is haunted by one particular case. Although the courts convicted his suspect, he's just not 100% sure he got the right guy.
At least once a year, he pulls the file and goes over it again looking for anything that might have been a mistake on his part.
I don't think John Walsh will lose a single friend in the law enforcement community by doing shows like this.
Posted by: Jim Henshaw | May 31, 2009 at 06:20 PM