Some were even accurate. McIntyre saw nowhere else to look for an anonymous author who liked to sketch happy faces. Then he turned on the tape recorder. Portlandia, they called this symbol of the town. You cant drop a case, he figured, just because someone writes on a bathroom wall. Talking about some dead girl. If nine jurors were inclined to put a grandmother on death row, what would they do with an abusive drunk? A relative, or a friend of a friend. New '20/20' Explores How 'Happy Face Killer' Got Away with - People He still felt that way a week after Pavlinacs trial, when authorities discovered a second message scrawled on a restroom wall in Umatilla, Ore. Killed Tanya Bennett in Portland, this one read. The grandma's story was believable enough for a jury to convict. They were forcing him to relinquish his sense of certainty. The detectives swung into action. Ingram was right, Pavlinacs story did still fit the facts. cannot later be simply set aside by some other judge. . I killed Miss Bennett Jan 20 1990 and left her 1 1/2 miles east of Lateral Falls on a switchback . If the public were more aware of the reality of false confessions the seven women killed by Keith Jesperson after Laverne Pavlinac's false confession might not have been killed, . Down the street, on this dreary morning in early May 1994, his divorce trial had just started. Hed called around, checked them out. McIntyre frowned, looking as if he were in pain. No news account had ever provided a hint. After that, Pavlinac explained, the story just snowballed. Three times before making the anonymous calls about Bennetts murder, shed tried to pin other things on Sosnovske. After both got into Pavlinacs car, they started arguing. Yes, he said. Pavlinac and Sosnovske were both arrested on March 5, 1990, and both convicted of the murder on Feb. 8, 1991. She knew from news reports and a search warrant receipt that it was 1 1/2 miles east of Vista House, below an embankment, in a loop between switchbacks before Latourell Falls State Park. He then wrote a confession on the wall of a truck stop he was passing through, but to no avail. When the Bend mans lawyer finally told them to put up or shut up, McIntyre backed off. Pavlinac would plead guilty and testify against Sosnovske; in return shed get just six to eight years. So I started something I dont know how to stop. After Taunja Bennett, I felt real bad and afraid that I would get caught. Even a baby, she observed, could have found the location of the body out in the gorge. information about the Registry. Now it was another prosecutors problem. Not because of the years, Birkland explained, but because Pavlinac was innocent. You know what happened? he started asking his colleagues. Based on Pavlinac's statements, and that Sosnovke failed a polygraph test, authorities arrested Sosnovke on murder charges. How A False Confession Led To The 'Happy Face Killer' Name Two people got the blame so I can kill again.. The Registry also maintains a more limited database of known exonerations prior to 1989. No, no, Sosnovske cried. Nine of the jurors actually wanted the more serious charge of aggravated murder. What a hassle, what an irritation. It didnt take the others out. Lets dig into the details and find out where John and Laverne are at present, shall we? The informant turned out to be Sosnovske's girlfriend, 58 year old Laverne Pavlinac. The Truth About Keith Jesperson's First Murder - Grunge Why dont the Electoral College and popular vote always match up? The second letter, sent to the Oregonian newspaper, was a little harder to dismiss. Its an imperfect system. McIntyre punched a button on his phone. The search warrant had listed those items; thats where shed gotten the idea. The Happy Face Killer. Thats what an Oregonian columnist, Phil Stanford, was calling him. Ms. Pavlinac recanted after being handed a 10-year sentence, and both she and Mr. Sosnovske served four years in prison before the real killer confessed to the deed. They couldnt blow this off. For days on end in May 1994, Corson and Ingram scrambled across eastern Oregon, tracking the Bend man whose wife thought he might be the Happy Face Killer. "To come clean get it all over, the record straight. Ingram and Corson needed to meet with him, as soon as possible. He knew nothing about these anonymous letters, but he knew all he wanted about the Taunja Bennett murder. Virtually everyone observes that at least this mistake got corrected. The dates of her trucking haul, the B&I; Tavern, even the mattress--Ellis account fit all the facts. There had, of course, been that one peculiar moment midway through Pavlinacs trial. . Not until early July could McIntyre even look up from his desk. It wasn't long until a 58-year-old woman came forward, telling them about an alarming conversation she apparently heard her boyfriend having. This is too weird, he said. She was able to lead police to the spot where the body was. How could she possibly not be telling the truth?. As they drove, Pavlinac described Tanyas appearance precisely, getting every detail right. Not unlike his own deal, he thought. "Theyhave her tell me the story and I looked at her again, and I said, 'Mom, are you sure?' He said one end of the rope was burned, although both ends were cut clean. On Oct. 14, 1995, after checking with McIntyre, Peterson ordered the Explorer Scouts back out to Sandy River. I didnt murder anybody in 1990, he said. It looked obvious to him. Just hours after John Sosnovske scrawled his seven-page statement, McIntyres phone rang. How did the GameStop stock spike on Wall Street happen? No way. Go tell them to put it back, he joked. She also got her geography right. Laverne Pavlinac, 57, read about the murder in depth and decided Bennetts case could be used to end her 10-year abusive relationship with her 39-year-old boyfriend. He was one of Schrunks top lieutenants, a senior deputy district attorney in charge of the violent crimes unit. Id trust her to baby-sit my own daughter, Ingram declared. . Before him, a jumble of letters and documents spilled across his desk. . As she and Sosnovske started their life sentences, one of the United States' most notorious serial killers continued his murder spree. Per Murderpedia, the first message Jesperson wrote to make his crimes public was found on a restroom wall at a truck stop in Oregon. Jesperson : FalseConfessions - Reddit Well, Ingram said. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? . Especially when the police dont want to admit they are wrong., Mike Schrunk decided to take things up a notch. Border crisis: Whats happening at the US-Mexico border? She then described how she watched Sosnovske have sex with Bennett while he directed her to hold a rope around her neck, and that she believed she pulled the rope too tight, killing Bennett. It wasnt his custom to try to convince people of a clients guilt. [He said,] 'No, no. He had dozens of other matters pressing; a senior prosecutor with three small kids had no time to squander. Pavlinac shook her head. Laverne Arlyce Pavlinac ( ne Johnson; December 19, 1932 - March 4, 2003) [1] was an American woman who falsely confessed to assisting in the 1990 murder of 23-year-old Taunja Bennett of Portland, Oregon; she also implicated her boyfriend, John Sosnovske, in Bennett's murder. But Pavlinac claimed she knew where she and Sosnovske had left Bennett's body in the Columbia Gorge outside of town, and took investigators to the exact remote wooded area where Bennett was found. Pavlinac seemed to know intimate details about the case. Nor had Pavlinac. Its correction time, she said. They went to her home first thing that morning. Investigators installed a hidden recording device in their home hoping to catch Sosnovske making incriminating statements. Why Did Laverne Pavlinac Come Forward? What the hell, he decided. Just this morning, Ingram told McIntyre, theyd visited that roommate. Jesperson, also called the "Happy Face Killer", who is serving two life sentences in Oregon in connection with guilty pleas to two murders. When the killer came forward, Sosnovske was released from prison; his conviction overturned. First, she told investigators that she knew Sosnovske did it because she saw Bennett's body, said Ingram. She inferred certain information from the questions the detectives asked her.