A Message From Andy Lefebvre, A Retired Chief of Detectives
I got involved because of Father Dennis Ferrigno. He’s my pastor at the church. He heard about this injustice and asked me if I would look into it. Of course, the next step was to go to Tom Condon’s article (Condon’s article can be found in the links section), like everybody else did, and I just couldn’t believe it.
I did meet with Richard on a couple of occasions. I think the whole case boils down to what they call a detailed confession. I quite frankly don’t view it as a confession at all. I view it as an admission, an admission of guilt by somebody else’s words.
There’s nothing – he adds nothing independently here. I view a confession as giving details of a crime. There are no details of a crime here, and in defense of the police department, which has been getting a bit too much of a bad rap, I think there are safety gaps, and the safety gaps should have been at the prosecutors level.
I worked fifteen years in the bureau. I worked with a half a dozen prosecutors, and I don’t know of any one prosecutor that would have signed a warrant like that if I brought it to him, and that’s 15 years ago, so I certainly don’t see why this one was signed.
I always felt that this was a custodial investigation and that Richard gave NO information in any of his three so called confessions that only the police or the accused would know. I also believe that politics was involved in making an arrest. He wasn’t properly Mirandized. There was no probable cause for an arrest. His so called confessions didn’t fit the crime and were given under duress.
After speaking with Richard, I am convinced that I can get a full confession out of him regarding Abraham Lincoln’s murder. I am serious and would make a wager on it. even after all he has been through.
Submitted January 2008