Category Archives: Monfils Case

Youth=Our Future

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A Happy New Year to everyone!!

On Thursday, December 21, 2018 I was scheduled to do a presentation for students in two of Mr. Lance Pettis’ Criminal Justice classes at Blaine High School. As I approached the school entrance, I recalled the warm reception my trusted partner; retired crime scene expert John Johnson, and I had received from the previous year’s classes. We were delighted by their interest as we navigated through a foreboding overview of wrongful convictions.

Doing a similar presentation on my own this year, I hoped to again achieve the same level of interest. I arrived equipped with a new PowerPoint program I put together that provided an informative pictorial presentation for them.

BlaineHS-2

Johnny and me last year discussing the Wisconsin Monfils case 

Prior to visiting these classes, I asked Mr. Pettis to give the students an assignment; to read the entire second chapter in my book, Reclaiming Lives. The chapter titled Tragedy in Titletown is one of the longest, filling sixteen pages. It’s a detailed summation of events leading up to the 1992 death of mill worker Tom Monfils in a Green Bay paper mill and the convictions of six innocent men two and a half years later. Having the students read this chapter allows me to focus on other important aspects such as some of the leading causes of wrongful convictions, i.e., perjury or false accusations, false confessions, false or misleading forensic evidence, and government misconduct. I then indicate how some of them affected the outcome in the Monfils case and disclose the new evidence that has since come to light.

It’s a lot of information to take in so at about the halfway point of the presentation, we take a short breather and have some fun. This is also when we get to the last of the main leading causes of wrongful convictions; mistaken identification. I test the student’s ability to accurately identify the true perpetrator in the example below and then I watch their reactions as I disclose the alarming answer. This is my absolute favorite part of the presentation because what is revealed blows their minds, which is not an easy thing to do when dealing with students! And I know that if they remember nothing else, they will certainly remember this exercise.

The police sketch in the center represents the actual image that was televised across the country in 1995. One of the photos on either side of the sketch is the correct match. The point of this exercise is that out of the current 350+ DNA exonerations, misidentification of a suspect through the use of a composite sketch is incorrect 27% of the time, according to the Nat. Registry of Exonerations. However, the results from this one reveal a much higher fallibility rate.*

                                                                                         Police Sketch 

As is typical in all past sessions, the time flew by with the students posing carefully thought-out questions during the forty-five-minute presentation. It was and always is refreshing to also hear correct answers to many of mine.

In the time remaining before the bell rang these students asked about likely motives of the authorities to convict the wrong person, compensation for exonerees, and if people’s rights are reinstated when exonerated. One thoughtful student wondered how they (as students) can be helpful in spreading the word about wrongful convictions. Another asked if I’d pose for a photo. I appreciated their positive feedback about the chapter with some of them mentioning how much they enjoyed it and how well they thought it was written.

I recently sat in my dining room with reporter, Eric Hagen, who wrote an article about my efforts for the Blaine edition of my local Life circular. I expressed the need to educate students on this topic and to prepare them before they find themselves in a vulnerable situation. I explained to him that my outline also includes a discussion about the Miranda Warning because of the importance of students being proactive and knowing their rights as citizens, should they be targeted by law enforcement.

Brendan-dassey

Brendan Dassey from the docuseries Making A Murderer

Stat for juveniles

An alarming statistic from the Innocence Project states that “65% of the juveniles exonerated through DNA evidence falsely confessed to crimes they didn’t commit.” Circumstances such as Brendan Dassey’s also suggest an increased risk of youth being wrongfully convicted because of a low IQ or being unaware that they should not talk to the police without an adult (attorney or parent) present. Research also yields that an overwhelming number of young people between the ages of eighteen to twenty-three are targeted for crimes.

Innocent people fear if they lawyer up they will appear guilty. In fact, innocent people are better served with having a lawyer present than a guilty person because for them, there’s much more at stake. And because innocent people also feel they have nothing to hide and want to be helpful by cooperating, they become more vulnerable to trickery when accusations are aimed at them. They don’t understand that law enforcement can and will lie or become narrowly focused on them despite reasonable doubt. They don’t realize until it’s too late that an interview can quickly become overly aggressive in order to speed up an investigation or force a confession. In all fairness, with officers under extreme pressure to close a case, investigations are done quickly. Mistakes get made. Rush to judgement occurs. Lives are destroyed and then seep into non-existence. Respect from those around them turns to loathing. The innocent are shunned…silenced…hidden away. And hope for many bright futures fades.

Which is why educating our youth becomes urgent…because they are our future.

To learn more about the psychology behind why people confess to crimes they did not commit, check out this YouTube Trailer of the The Confession Tapes. (A Netflix Documentary).

*Answer to exercise:

The correct answer is the photo on the right. This is Timothy McVeigh; U.S. Army soldier, American terrorist, and the Oklahoma City Bomber. He detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in 1995 killing 168 people and wounding over 600. He was executed in 2001 for this crime.

The photo on the left is my son, Jared Manninen. He was also in the military at the time of the bombing but was stationed in CA. At least half and in some instances, approximately two thirds of students and others not familiar with this case, make the wrong choice by picking his photo with complete certainty!

Could my son have been the victim of a wrongful conviction had the circumstances been different? I shudder at the thought…

An Unearthing of Ghosts…

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Greeting card drawn and sent from an innocent man held captive by the Wisconsin prison system                                      

A fitting day to share this chapter from my book; triumph that instilled an uncommon but short lived dose of hope and possibilities…

Chapter 33

Legal Woes for the Opposition

Halloween, October 31, 2014. A fitting day to illustrate an unearthing of ghosts still lurking through the halls of the Brown County Courthouse. Finally, twenty-one months of effort put forth by a dedicated legal defense team came to fruition when they filed a 152-page motion, more than one hundred exhibits, and several affidavits in Brown County requesting an evidentiary hearing for Keith Kutska. Close to twenty years later, this small Midwest town was thrust back into legal upheaval.

There was a flurry of news reports on local TV stations and in print. One Green Bay Press-Gazette headline read:

“Defense: Monfils Death a Suicide. New Legal Team Seeks to Have Conspiracy Conviction Thrown Out.”

When this motion was filed, Johnny and I took great satisfaction in knowing we had played a monumental role in its inception. The families were hopeful. We all felt great about it because there was real progress being made. And our miracle was a kick in the legal shins for Brown County. They most likely never expected we’d get this far or that this case would actually make it back into the courts. But there it was. I imagined the clambering behind closed doors to keep their wits about them because the further this moved forward, the more media attention they’d receive. There’d be no escaping public scrutiny or the tough questions that followed. And it’d be a cold day in hell before those questions stopped. This was no longer merely a movement of family members, close friends, and two crusaders from Minnesota. This motion was spearheaded by a respectable law firm armed with an unrelenting dedication and ability to keep on keeping on.

(Photo courtesy of the Green Bay Press-Gazette) 

The main points listed are directly from the original 152-page brief and are as follows:

  • Defense counsel provided ineffective assistance by conceding the State’s homicide theory without consulting an independent forensic pathologist and investigating the evidence of suicide.
  • The State denied Mr. Kutska due process by relying on erroneous forensic pathology, and perjured fact witness testimony.
  • Mr. Kutska has presented “sufficient reason” for this motion.
  • The court should vacate this conviction in the interests of justice.

These excerpts taken from this same document reveal major aspects of a failed investigation in a massively flawed case:

At approximately 7:42 a.m. on November 21, 1992, Tom Monfils—despondent, shamed, and angry—left his work area at the James River Paper Mill and walked toward an entrance of a nearby airlock passageway. As he neared the airlock, he picked up a 49 lb. weight and proceeded through the airlock. He then entered a storage area where his jump rope was hanging on a railing. With both the rope and weight in hand, Monfils walked to a large vat containing approximately 20,000 gallons of liquid. There, he climbed the steps to the top of the vat, tied one end of the rope around his neck and the other end to the weight, and entered the vat where he suffered traumatic injuries and died from drowning in the liquid.

After a 2 1/2 year investigation, Kutska, and five other mill workers were convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and sentenced to life in prison for Monfils’ death. The prosecution’s theory was that after Kutska had learned that Monfils had reported him to the police for stealing a piece of electrical cord from the mill, Kutska fomented “an angry mob” of his “union brothers” that viciously beat Monfils at a water bubbler (water fountain) at approximately 7:45 a.m. and then disposed of his body in the vat at approximately 7:50 a.m. on November 21, 1992. That theory embraced the conclusions of the medical examiner Dr. Helen Young, who concluded that Monfils had been beaten and then placed in the vat where he died.

Dr. Young’s homicide determination was, however, erroneous and rested on a series of provably false assumptions, as well as her ignorance regarding the engineering design and operating factors impacting the movement of Monfils’ body in the vat. As forensic pathologist, Dr. Mary Ann Sens states in her report, Dr. Young also lacked any scientific or medical basis for reliably and accurately determining that Monfils’ death was the result of a homicide and not a suicide. Indeed, there is ample and compelling evidence that Monfils had taken his own life.

Unfortunately, residents and law enforcement officials in Green Bay remained unwilling to appreciate the implications surrounding the firm’s findings that support a possible suicide. This first round of filings caused the county to push back…hard. They resisted the notion the case had been mismanaged. They remained as steadfast as ever in a dying effort to uphold all of these convictions, including Mike Piaskowski’s, in spite of his exoneration in a federal court. At every opportunity, former District Attorney, John Zakowski, defends the biggest case of his career with toxic statements that still fuel a vengeful public. Afterward and in present day, his most vicious attacks are aimed directly at his worst nightmare come true. In reference to the release of Michael Piaskowski he flatly states, Michael Piaskowski “was not exonerated,” rather, he was “mistakenly let go” due to a poor appeals argument by the attorney general’s office. And in a recent interview he did for a documentary about the Monfils case, Zakowski stated, “People tend to say, ‘Well, it’s only circumstantial evidence.’ Circumstantial evidence is many times stronger.”

Euphoria diminished as we waited and waited for a reply from the State. When the State did finally respond, it was as expected. In their response, they argued against every measure of the firm’s brief. However, it was again the defense team’s turn to have one last say in the matter before a final decision was to be reached. The firm was ready, filing their reply brief earlier than the allotted time…

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Deferential Observations…   

2 Replies

I recently reconnected with a former classmate, Brian Berghefer. Brian and I were friends throughout grade school even though I was the fraidy-cat introvert and he was the good-humored extrovert. Brian was always respectful to me, unlike many of the other kids.

Soon after we connected on social media and he learned about my book Reclaiming Lives: Pursuing Justice For Six Innocent Men, Brian was kind enough to purchase a copy. I received an email from him shortly after he finished reading it. I felt Brian’s words needed to be shared because not only do they speak volumes about the steadfast nature of Brain’s character but they also convey the public outrage I hoped to rouse as a result of writing this book.

Thanks Brian, for these encouraging and deferential words. It’s feeling like old times, my friend…

Hi Joan,

I just finished your book. It’s the first book I have read in probably 17 years and my first impression is WOW!!

First of all, I cannot believe the raw deal these six men got. I know our system is flawed but not as totally corruptible as what was allowed to happen in GB.

What is it with mid-Wisconsin with these cases where people are railroaded by the system, i.e. The Monfils case and the Avery case? Does this happen elsewhere with such frequency?

Tom Monfils, Dale Basten, Michael Johnson, Michael Hirn, Reynold Moore, Keith Kutska, exoneree Michael Piaskowski                                    

Secondly but most importantly is your taking on the task of seeing these men find justice and your resolve and tenacity in completing the task! Knowing somewhat of where you come from, if someone had told me someday you would be an author I would probably have dismissed it, knowing what a shy and quiet person you were. But now finding your voice through such a noble cause is very refreshing and I applaud your commitment to these men and their families and I wish you well in this endeavor. I only wish I had your ability to commit so totally to a cause.

You have created another believer in me as I sort of remember the case. But it happened when I was working on the Lakes so I never really paid attention and all but forgot about it. My wife who lived in GB at the time barely remembered it (as have many) till I started following you and your progress and reading about the sham investigation. The travesty brought on by it is repugnant and should be to any American who discovers it!

I believe your book is just the tip of the iceberg in waking up public interest and hopefully you can get a major network to join your fight and spread the word creating a broader groundswell of interest. I believe that through persistence, you and fellow Truth Seekers will prevail. I only pray that it comes soon for these men and their families!

Sincerely,
A Very Proud Friend
Brian Berghefer

On an extremely sad note, Brian passed away unexpectedly on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. I never got the chance to see him one last time in the UP of Michigan, where we grew up together. RIP my friend.

Brian Berghefer 1958 – 2018                                                            (Photo courtesy of The Daily Mining Gazette)                                                

Purchase my book through Amazon.

You may also purchase a signed copy (via paypal) on this website.