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DNA Has Freed Lewis Fogle, But DA Believes He Was Involved In Teen’s 1976 Rape, Murder

By Shelley Hazen
Published on: 23:52 PST, Sep 14, 2015

For 34 years, Lewis Fogle insisted that he didn’t kill a 15-year-old girl named Deann “Kathy” Long in 1976. Someone finally listened.

Last month, Fogle’s conviction on a second-degree murder charge in connection with Long’s death was thrown out. And Monday, the county’s district attorney conceded that they didn’t have enough evidence to try Lewis a second time, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.

Fogle can never be tried again for the young girl’s death. While this court ruling means that Lewis spent 34 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit, Indiana County District Attorney Patrick Dougherty still thinks Lewis, now 64, knows something that could help find her real killer.

“(Mr. Fogle) knows more and was involved in some manner. Whether we are able to prove that, that’s the evidentiary issue. Do I think he’s without blame? I can’t say that today, whether he was or was not.”

Dougherty told NBC News that between the August decision to vacate Fogle’s conviction and Monday’s decision, by his office, not to pursue new charges, he did consider trying him again. But decades after the girl’s death, he lacks the evidence to prove whether or not Lewis was involved as he believes.

“This is a question of what we can prove in court,” Dougherty said.

Deann’s murder is now an open homicide again, and the authorities intend to follow new leads and bring the real perpetrator to justice.

On July 30, 1976, in Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania, a man knocked on Long’s door and told her and her sister, Lola, that their older brother Leonard had been in a car accident, Trib Live recounted. Deann got in the car with the man, and the next day, her body was found nearby. She’d been raped and shot to death.

Five years later, Fogle was arrested alongside his brother, Dennis Fogle (convicted of sexually assaulting a child in 2010), Joseph Victor Receskey (who died five years ago), and John Robert Lynch (whereabouts unknown). Lewis was the only one convicted.

Five years after Deann’s death, a man in a psychiatric hospital implicated the trio while under hypnosis. Fogle also bore some resemblance to the mysterious man who knocked on the Long’s door that night. He was convicted on the testimony of three inmates who said Fogle confessed to the crime.

But Lewis always contended his innocence and spent years trying to prove it. Then he got in touch with the Innocence Project, and his long road to freedom was finally granted

“It pays off if you don’t give up,” he said.

The Innocence Project determined that evidence found in 2010 that tied Lewis to the crime was inconclusive. Later, another piece of evidence — which had been in the authorities’ possession but wasn’t properly inventoried — was discovered that couldn’t be linked to Fogle through DNA testing.

Now reunited with his family and facing the prospect of adapting to a world much different than the one he left in 1981, Lewis said he wants to help Deann’s family find the real killer, NBC News added.

“I want the people to know that I did not commit the crime, and a lot of people out there know I did not commit the crime. I’m hoping very strongly in the near future that the truth will come out with the names of the guilty parties, and I hope if any are still alive that they will be brought to justice.”

[Photo Courtesy ANURAK PONGPATIMET/Shutterstock]

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