Philadelphia Agrees to $9.1 Million Settlement for Wrongful Murder Conviction
by David M. Reutter
The City of Philadelphia agreed on November 3, 2023, to pay $9.1 million to settle a wrongful conviction lawsuit brought by Walter Ogrod, 59, a former state prisoner exonerated of murder and released after more than 28 years of wrongful incarceration—including 23 years on death row. The settlement ends the saga for Ogrod, but the underlying murder remains unsolved.
The naked, wet body of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn was found on July 12, 1988, partially covered by a plastic bag inside a cardboard box less than 1,000 feet from her home in northeast Philadelphia. An autopsy found five blunt force injuries to Horn’s skull, but no skull fracture. There was no evidence of sexual abuse. Eyewitnesses gave descriptions of a man they saw carrying the box. None of them identified Ogrod, then 23, who lived across the street. Despite leads to two suspects, the case went unsolved until early 1992.
That’s when City Police Department (PDP) Dets. Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell were assigned to a cold case unit and resurrected the investigation into Horn’s murder. Using pictures from a home invasion that had occurred in Ogrod’s residence in July 1986, they theorized that a weight bar was the murder weapon. The detectives brought Ogrod in for questioning.
During the interrogation, Devlin drafted a confession that stated Ogrod tried to initiate oral sex with Horn, and after she screamed, he killed her using the weight bar. Ogrod, who had no criminal record and documented mental disability had been awake for 30 hours when he signed the confession. (He graduated two years late from a school for those with learning disabilities and served briefly in the military before being medically discharged with a “mixed personality disorder characterized by extreme dependency.”)
Two trials ensued. A jury acquitted Ogrod after the first trial, but a mistrial was declared when a juror announced disagreement with the verdict before it was read. The second trial included new testimony from jailhouse snitch Jay Wolchansky that Ogrod confessed to him. The jury convicted Ogrod of murder.
In February 2018, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit agreed to examine Ogrod’s claim of innocence. DNA evidence then excluded Ogrod and identified an unknown male. Investigators also excluded the weight bar as the murder weapon because there were no skull fractures. An independent forensic pathologist and neuropathologist determined that Horn likely died from asphyxia, but proper testing was never conducted during the original autopsy. The head wounds also indicated that the weapon had sharp edges. which caused “tears/cuts” in Horn’s scalp.
The written confession was riddled with factual errors unsupported by the evidence. But testimony showed that Ogrod’s childhood history of abuse left him so committed to pleasing people that he succumbed to the detectives’ pressure during the interrogation, and they convinced Ogrod that he suffered from a mental block about the murder. Investigators further established that Wolchansky and his girlfriend obtained information to formulate an alleged jailhouse confession by Ogrod. Wolchansky testified in several cases in return for leniency in his own criminal cases.
After 28 years, one month and 30 days in prison, including 23 years on death row, Ogrod was released in June 2020. In the civil rights complaint he then filed against the City, Ogrod claimed that PDP detectives “coerced and fabricated confessions, withheld exculpatory evidence, and engaged in other egregious conduct.” The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement. Ogrod was represented by Philadelphia attorneys Michael D. Pomeranz and Joseph M. Marrone of Marrone Law Firm LLC. See: Ogrod v. City of Philadelphia, USDC (E.D. Penn.), Case No. 2:21-cv-02499.
Additional source: NBC News
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Related legal case
Ogrod v. City of Philadelphia
| Year | 2023 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (E.D. Penn.), Case No. 2:21-cv-02499 |
| Level | District Court |
| Conclusion | Settlement |
| Damages | 9100000.00 |