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This
is a story that you have heard before, called injustice. There
are many cases of the wrongly accused, convicted, and sentenced
to life behind bars with no chance of parole. The innocent
sit behind bars hoping beyond hope that someday they will
enjoy freedom once again.
She’s
So Cold is almost that story but not quite. It is the
story of a twelve-year-old girl named Stephanie Crowe, murdered
in a random act of madness, or was she. Murdered in her own
home, in her own room, in her own bed, while her family slept
only feet away and yet never heard the violence that took
place just before midnight on January 12, 1998 in Escondido,
California. Her discovery that morning by her grandmother
as she woke to Stephanie’s alarm buzzing was more than
just a murder of a young girl. It would set the wheels in
motion for the devastation of three young boys, their families,
and the system itself. When the Detectives arrived, her family
was distraught, but as an Officer noted, her brother Michael
quietly played a video game apart from his parents and appeared
to be apathetic to what had taken place. With no sign of a
break in, FBI training manual says the family are prime suspects.
This set the wheels of injustice in motion for Michael and
two of his friends, Joshua Treadway and Aaron Houser.
This
is the story of presumed guilt and the fight to regain innocence
lost.
Donald
Mcinnis was the defense attorney for one of the accused boys,
Aaron Houser. He has assembled countless pages of court documents,
video-taped interrogations, testimonies, and transcripts into
a true chronological story of the Crowe murder case.
What
sets this story apart from the rest is that the victim and
accused are all children. Mcinnis highlights the interrogation
method, the Reid Technique, as being unfair, unethical, and
so terrifying that it led to coerced false confessions. He
hopes through the telling of this tragic story to propose
new Children’s Miranda Rights and a Bill of Rights for
children who are suspects in a crime. The unethical psychological
and emotional manipulation of three young boys that coerced
false confessions establishes groundbreaking need for change.
If you are interested in true case studies of the wrongfully
accused or an advocate for children’s rights, maybe
even a newly appointed attorney, this is a must read. It changed
the lives of fifteen people and it might even change yours.
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