Cape Cod Murder

As false confessions go, not a very good one

Two dubious claims by Robert George, defense attorney for convicted killer Christopher McCowen, in Tuesday night's CBS broadcast of a "48 Hours Mystery" segment on the murder of Christa Worthington --

In the eyes of police, "a person of Chris McCowen's race, class and limited capacities was an easy target," George alleged. "This is a person with a 76 to 78 IQ, on his best day, meaning on a day where he's not using drugs and alcohol, not under pressure."

"This is a false confession and I don't accept it," George asserted. "I don't know how much of it is actually coming from Chris McCowen's mouth and how much of it is coming from the police investigation, I don't know."

All of which is tantamount to alleging police corruption -- along with abject bigotry -- while avoiding those actual words. But ask yourself -- if police are willing and capable of what George is claiming, of compounding the tragedy of a brutal murder by railroading an innocent man and sending him to prison for life, an act comparable to murder in and of itself, why would they introduce a second suspect -- Jeremy Frazier -- when this has the potential to blow their case out of the water?

In fact, it is difficult to reconcile the premise of corrupt police coercing a false confession with these same police introducing a hugely problematic element that risks losing a conviction for them. Logic, common sense and a passing knowledge of human nature dictate that if police are fabricating a false confession, it will be a better lie.  And this assumes that the officers involved in McCowen's interrogation -- Christopher Mason and William Burke -- have even the slightest whiff of corruption attached to them -- which they don't, unsubstantiated allegations aside.

The second dubious claim by George -- "If you had the same body of evidence, and 'Johnny Whitebread' was home for the holidays, and was from an affluent family on the Cape, the same body of evidence, he wouldn't have been charged."

But the analogy doesn't hold water because George tweaks it to remove a crucial element of the case against McCowen -- his frequent access to Worthington's property as her trash hauler, and with it McCowen's awareness of Worthington as a single mother in an isolated location. An easy target, you might say.

"Johnny Whitebread," scion of an "affluent family" on Cape Cod, is not only unlikely still to be home for holiday cheer as of Jan. 6 when Worthington's body was found, he's returned to whatever he was doing before the holidays, wherever else that was. The very premise of George's hypothetical rules out "Johnny" working as a trash hauler.

As for that "same body of evidence"? This includes a defendant with frequent access to the scene of the murder and an awareness of the victim's vulnerability, plus five restraining orders against him -- from five different women. He's already spent years in prison on previous convictions. A defendant who just a week before police questioned him a second time about the case, pleads guilty in court to threatening to kill a girlfriend. Who lies repeatedly to police about not having any physical contact with the victim until he is presented with irrefutable DNA evidence that he's been lying. Who then describes to police an evolving series of scenarios that have him engaging in consensual sex with Worthington, then inexplicably assaulting her -- but hey, it was my buddy Sluggo who actually killed her.

I'll hazard a huge leap of faith here that the same district attorney whose critics believe is a closet Nazi because of the voluntary DNA sweep in Truro is not going to look the other way when it comes to "Johnny" (the DNA sample from McCowen, not incidentally, was also provided voluntarily).

Another leap of faith that requires hardly any effort -- this same defendant is not only going to be charged with murder, he'll be convicted in less time than it took in the Worthington trial.  His lawyer wouldn't be able to play the only ace George is holding -- the race card.