GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT

Hardback. 2nd impression. Eighteen year old Peter Reilly was convicted of killing his mother. His neighbours refused to accept the verdict. This is the moving story of a young man's misplaced faith in the system, and of a community's successful fight for justice. When Peter Reilly came home on a September night in 1973, everything seemed normal. He called out to his mother - and then saw her, eyes closed, lying in a pool of blood. Peter was arrested. Alone in the offices of the State Police, cut off from family, friends or legal counsel, his naïve confidence in his own innocence was quickly exploited by the police, who exacted a false confession from the boy within hours. Within days, Peter was indicted as his mother's murderer. The State of Connecticut found him guilty, and Judge John A. Speziale sentenced him. At age 19, Peter Reilly was destined to spend 6 to 16 years in the State Penitentiary. The most controversial criminal case in the history of Connecticut had almost ended. But Peter was incredibly fortunate. Friends and neighbours took his situation very seriously indeed. Hours after his arrest, people from his community were rushing to his aid despite his detention by police. They offered him comfort, opened their homes to him, even baked cakes and organised dances to help pay his legal expenses. Celebrities joined the cause, and eloquent spokesmen like Arthur Miller and William Styron used their influence to alert the country to Peter's plight. The author tells the shattering story of Peter Reilly's battle with injustice - from a detailed reconstruction of the murder night through his hearing for a new trial and the recent grand jury report which exposed how a murky and self-serving prosecution strove more to convict Reilly than to see that justice was done. The author deepens the understanding of the case with painstaking research into the life of the murder victim, Barbara Gibbons. In addition he draws upon his fascinating interviews with Peter Reilly in which Peter tells about the terrible lessons he learned. Peter Reilly's incredible ordeal, which sounds at first like a soap opera or murder mystery, becomes frighteningly real as the facts come to light. His is a deeply moving story which affords a chilling vision of what American justice might become if people cease to care. Illus. + Epilogue. 377pp. lge. 8vo. h/back. From the library of true crime writer, Wilfred Gregg, with his personal b/plate. V. lightly browned edges, + ink date to fep o/w Vg. in sl. frayed Vg. dw. A fairly heavy book which may require additional postage.