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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Aiding and Abetting Murder |
Sentence: |
3 to 5 years |
Years Imprisoned: |
2.08 |
Year Crime: |
1986 |
Year Convicted: |
1989 |
Year Cleared: |
2002 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Michigan |
County or Region of Crime: |
Otsego |
City of Crime: |
Gaylord |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated |
Summary of Case: |
"Donald Heistand was one of the Tobias Five. They were five men wrongly convicted of the December 1986 murder of Jerry Tobias. The testimony of Debra Parmentier (Herrick) who claimed to have been an eyewitness to the murder was central to the prosecution's case.. In August 2003 Herrick pled guilty to three counts of perjury after being indicted for perjury in the trials of Walter Moore and Michael Canter. "After the Michigan Court of Appeals vacated the charges against Canter and Moore in 1992, hundreds of pages of documents pertaining to the case that had not been given to defense attorneys at the time of the trials were discovered at the Gaylord post of Michigan State Police." (source: Otsego OKs settlement talks in wrongful imprisonment case, Dan Sanderson (staff), Traverse City Record-Eagle, 10/21/2001). Included in those documents was proof of the unreliableness of Parmentier's testimony. In a Feb 1995 statement, Parmentier admitted that none of the men were involved in Tobia's murder, and she only claimed to have witnessed the murder because the police and prosecutor threatened to prosecute her if she didn't perjure herself. It also came out that she was home at the time Mr. Tobias was allegedly murdered. However there is no proof he was in fact murdered: since the available evidence is he overdosed on drugs and went to sleep in the bed of a pickup and froze to death without waking up. Heistand filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Ostego County that was settled in 2005 for $675,000." |
Conviction Caused By: |
Perjury by a prosecution witness threatened by the police and prosecutor |
Innocence Proved By: |
Completed sentence before proof of wrongful conviction uncovered |
Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
"$675,000 (Ostego County, 2005)" |
Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
32 |
Age When Released: |
34 |
Sex: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
White |
Information Source 1: |
"Tobias murder 'witness' makes 'no contest' plea to 3 perjury charges, By Michael Jones (Staff Writer), Gaylord Herald-Review, MI, 08-07-03" |
Information Location 1: |
http://www.gaylordheraldtimes.com/articles/2003/08/07/news/top_stories/top_stories02.txt |
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Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org