![]() O’Connor also tracked down one of three alleged Lawndale 13 gang members whom police reports initially identified as suspects in the case. Patti as a credible witness was a “laughable” idea, the office’s director told The Times. The public defender’s office kept a document known as “the June Patti brief” that would be filed whenever her name was involved in a case. Patti moved to Skagit County in Washington state, where she was involved in more than 2,000 police calls or cases before her 2006 death. She did not return calls Friday seeking comment. Marcella Winn previously told The Times that she had no recollection of talking to Patti’s sister, and said she stood by her investigation and believed that Mellen was involved in the killing. ![]() ![]() Several years before Mellen’s trial, a Torrance police narcotics investigator wrote in a report that Patti had provided a series of tips, virtually none of which had any truth to them.Īnother Torrance police officer, Patti’s sister, described her as a pathological liar and recently informed the district attorney’s office that she told the same thing in 1997 to the lead LAPD detective handling the murder case. LAPD investigators considered Patti credible at the time because she described details of the July 1997 killing that had not been made public.īut Patti had a reputation for dishonesty - a history outlined in a Times story last week. Deirdre O’Connor learned that Mellen’s trial relied on the testimony of June Patti. ![]() Mellen’s case was resurrected last year by an attorney who runs Innocence Matters, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing and overturning wrongful convictions. Which is what made Friday’s events so hard to believe, the 39-year-old teacher said. Carroll attended her mother’s trial and broke the news afterward to her siblings that their mother would be imprisoned for life. The two were raised at one point by their older sister, Julie Carroll, and a stepsister. Her brother Donald, 25, showed off a tattoo of a broken heart he had put on his chest as a teenager, a symbol of how he felt growing up without a mother. Realizing she would soon hug her mother outside of prison, she said, “felt like a dream.” “Knowing that my mom’s been innocent Day One has been the hardest part.” “It’s been a miserable road,” Jessica Besch, now 26, said. Outside the courtroom, Mellen’s three children waited anxiously for her release. One held balloons that read “Welcome Home!” More than three dozen of Mellen’s friends and family clapped and cheered afterward. “Thank you, your honor, thank you so much,” Mellen, 59, said in a small voice. Mellen not guilty, I believe based on what I’ve read, she’s innocent, and for that reason I believe the criminal justice system failed,” Arnold said. The judge said Mellen had received “subpar representation” from a trial attorney who should have conducted a thorough investigation of the witness’ credibility. But jurors never learned that the witness’ sister, a Torrance police officer, believed she was a pathological liar or that Torrance police had several years earlier deemed the witness an “unreliable informant.” Arnold said the trial had hinged on a single witness who was a “habitual liar” and claimed Mellen had confessed involvement in the crime. Hours earlier, in the same Torrance courtroom where she had been sentenced in 1998, a different judge threw out her conviction. She said adjusting to her life of freedom would be overwhelming. It was cruel punishment.”Īt one point during Mellen’s news conference, someone handed her a cellphone, which she said was her first.
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