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Wrongly Convicted Database Record
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Charge: |
Murder |
Sentence: |
Death |
Years Imprisoned: |
6 |
Year Crime: |
1979 |
Year Convicted: |
1986 |
Year Cleared: |
1992 |
U.S. State or Country of Crime: |
Pennsylvania |
County or Region of Crime: |
Dauphin |
City of Crime: |
King of Prussia |
Result: |
Judicially Exonerated Released |
Summary of Case: |
"Jay Charles Smith was wrongly convicted in 1986 for the 1979 murder of Susan Reinert who was a teacher at the school Smith was the principal of. Another teacher who was Reinert's boyfriend and tied to the murder by physical evidence, fingered Smith as Reinert's murderer. Smith was sentenced to death while the other teacher, Bradford, was sentenced to three terms of life in prison for conspiracy to commit murder in the death of Reinert and her son and daughter. After six years on death row evidence was discovered that crime writer Joseph Wambaugh had secretly promised to pay $50,000 to a Pennsylvania State Patrol officer involved in the murder investigation if he would act as a consultant for Wambaugh's book about the murder case. A year after Smith's conviction Wambaugh published the bestselling book, "Echoes in the Darkness," which was made into a television mini-series. Based on the new evidence that Smith's prosecution was based on a tainted investigation, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed Smith's indictment and barred his retrial. In 1996 Smith's lawyer William C. Costopoulos published a book about the case, "Principal Suspect: The True Story of Dr. Jay Smith and the Main Line Murders." In October 2008 Smith's first-person account of the case was published, "Joseph Wambaugh and the Jay Smith Case." Jay Smith died in 2009." |
Conviction Caused By: |
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Innocence Proved By: |
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Defendant Aided By: |
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Compensation Awarded: |
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Was Perpetrator Identified? |
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Age When Imprisoned: |
50 |
Age When Released: |
56 |
Sex: |
Male |
Skin/Ethnicity: |
White |
Information Source 1: |
Death Penalty Information Center |
Information Location 1: |
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/Innocentlist.html |
Information Source 2: |
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Information Location 2: |
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Information Source 3: |
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Information Location 3: |
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Information Source 4: |
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Information Location 4: |
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Information Source 5: |
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Information Location 5: |
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Book About Case: |
"Joseph Wambaugh and the Jay Smith Case" by Jay Charles Smith, (Xlibris, 2008)." |
Book Information: |
http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Wambaugh-Jay-Smith-Case/dp/1436348463/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230943305&sr=8-1 |
Book About Case (2): |
"Principal Suspect - The True Story of Dr. Jay Smith and the Main Line Murders, by William C. Costopoulos (Camino Publishing, April 1996)" |
Book Information (2): |
http://www.amazon.com/Principal-Suspect-Story-Smith-Murders/dp/0940159368/ref=pd_bbs_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1230943305&sr=8-3 |
Movie About Case: |
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Comments About Case: |
Innocents Database Created and Maintained by Hans Sherrer innocents@forejustice.org