Man exonerated in murder case sues law enforcement

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A Nebraska man who spent more than seven months in jail on charges for two murders he did not commit is suing state and Cass County law enforcement in federal court.

Matthew Livers was charged in April 2006 with two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of his uncle and aunt, Wayne and Sharmon Stock. The charges were dropped on December 6th - six months after a Wisconsin pair, Jessica Reid and Gregory Fester, were charged in the murders.

Reid and Fester have since been convicted and been sentenced to life in prison.

Court records show Livers, who is mildly retarded, was interrogated for 11 hours before he falsely confessed and implicated his cousin, Nicholas Sampson, in the murders.

http://www.nebraska.tv/Global/story.asp?S=8003763

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A former Nebraska man filed suit Tuesday against Cass County and investigators after he spent more than seven months in jail before being exonerated in the April 2006 slayings of his uncle and aunt in their Murdock farmhouse.

Two Chicago lawyers, Steven Drizin and Locke Bowman, filed the civil lawsuit on behalf of Matthew Livers in U.S. District Court in Omaha. The suit seeks unspecified monetary damages and asks for a federal jury trial.

Shortly after Wayne and Sharmon Stock were found slain in the upstairs bedroom of their rural Cass County home, Livers and his cousin Nick Sampson were arrested. In 11 hours of questioning by the detectives, Livers denied more than 100 times that he had any involvement in the deaths. Finally, he confessed to the killings and offered that Sampson was with him.

Later, the murder cases against both men collapsed when DNA and physical evidence excluded the cousins and instead linked the deaths to Greg Fester and Jessica Reid, a teenage couple who had been on the run from Wisconsin.

Even after the Wisconsin teenagers were charged, Cass County officials continued to hold Livers and Sampson. For several more months, investigators tried to build a case that Livers and Sampson had enlisted the Wisconsin couple to carry out the killings.

Cass County Attorney Nathan Cox eventually dropped all charges against Sampson and Livers. Fester and Reid both entered guilty pleas and received life sentences last March.

After that sentencing hearing, Cox said overwhelming evidence indicated that the slayings occurred during a random, multistate crime spree by Fester and Reid. Cox also said that no credible evidence linked the Wisconsin killers to the Nebraska cousins.

Sampson filed a wrongful arrest lawsuit last spring. That is pending in federal court.

Livers' lawsuit names Cass County and these investigators as defendants: Cass County Sheriff's Investigator Earl Schenck, Cass County Sheriff's Sgt. Sandra Weyers and Nebraska State Patrol investigators Bill Lambert and Charlie O'Callaghan. The county and the four investigators are accused in the 25-page suit of such things as violating Livers' civil rights by making a false arrest, fabricating evidence and conducting a coercive interrogation.

Cass County Board Chairman Ron Nolte said Tuesday's federal lawsuit caught him off-guard. He said he disagrees with the lawsuit's allegations.

"I am sure the Nebraska State Patrol and our County Sheriff's Office felt they had something there," Nolte said. "The Nebraska State Patrol does not make mistakes with their criminal investigations. There had to be something there to warrant holding these two young men.

"We've had our share of problems within the County Sheriff's Office, but in this case I will stand behind Investigator Earl Schenck and Detective Sandy Weyers."

Bowman, one of Livers' lawyers, called the case against Livers "an extreme example of a completely flawed investigation technique that culminates with a gross miscarriage of justice. So while we don't normally get involved in many cases outside of Illinois, this is one we felt compelled to get involved in."

Livers had become the immediate focus of the investigators because he had a strained relationship with the victims. Livers had no prior criminal history and was a longtime special education student.

The suit accuses the Nebraska investigators of planting blood evidence inside a car owned by Sampson's older brother, Will, weeks after the arrests of Livers and Nick Sampson. The suit said the evidence was planted because authorities' original theory of their involvement had begun to unravel.

According to the suit, the tan car owned by Will Sampson — and allegedly used by Nick Sampson and Livers the night of the murders — had remained in a secured police impound lot in Omaha since three days after the murders. When it was initially seized, the suit said, a forensic exam by a Douglas County crime scene investigator found no blood, trace or physical evidence linking the car to the killings. Sometime later, the crime scene investigator's supervisor was asked by investigators to again examine the car, the suit says.

The report from that exam, dated May 8, 2006, stated that a swab of the steering column tested positive for blood. A laboratory examination later determined that the blood from the swab was consistent with Wayne Stock's DNA.

"Prior to the defendants' assuming control of the Will Sampson automobile, Wayne Stock's blood was not present in the case," the lawsuit states. "Therefore . . . blood from the crime scene was planted in the Will Sampson automobile by one or more persons whose identity is not now known to (us)."

Officials have never explained what happened with the blood. In March, Cox told The World-Herald that he did not think the blood got there as a result of accidental contamination on the detectives' part. Cox also said he had no information to suggest that an investigator engaged in misconduct by placing the blood there.

"If that were true, somebody would be subject to criminal prosecution," Cox said then, adding that the investigation would continue. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Livers and his longtime girlfriend, Sarah Schneider, married last November in Lincoln and recently moved to her native Texas. Livers works as a car lot porter at a Houston auto dealership.

"We want other people to know what Matt had to go through," said Livers' wife. "The financial end of this lawsuit will be very helpful to us as well, but that's not our main reason for the lawsuit. We want justice to be served. Our main goal is to help other people to not go through what Matt went through."

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10280960

[packy]

This part is scary. Even after the Wisconsin teenagers were charged, Cass County officials continued to hold Livers and Sampson. For several more months, investigators tried to build a case that Livers and Sampson had enlisted the Wisconsin couple to carry out the killings.

[Details]

That part is where I think they've got a lawsuit. Going after someone who confessed is one thing, continuing after you've got good reason to think they didn't do it is wrong.