A man kills a woman, does not get caught, and moves on with his life. Then one day, 32 years later, cops knock on his door, put him in handcuffs and haul the stunned suspect off to jail on the charge of murder. Before 1995 a story like this was the stuff of fiction. The advent of DNA technology, however, has made scenarios like this one not only possible but fairly common.
In the old days (in the context of DNA science), when a murder investigation petered out and the trail grew cold detectives shelved the case, and, except for the victim's family, it was forgotten. Maybe the detective who had tried but failed to solve the murder thought about it every so often. But with dead witnesses, failed memories, lost documents and no leads, the old murder remained as dead as the victim. With the passage of enough time, even the killer might forget the killing, or pretended it never happened. It used to be said that murder will out, but that was a lie.
Thanks to DNA science, old murder cases involving biological evidence such as hair follicles, saliva traces, bloodstains and semen residue can now come back to life and haunt killers who thought they had escaped detection. It's justice delayed but a lot better than no justice at all.
The Catherine Walsh Murder Case
At noon on September 1, 1979, Peter J. Caltury Sr. entered the duplex in Monaca, Pennsylvania where his 23-year-old daughter Catherine Janet Walsh lived by herself. He found her dead, lying face-down on her bed with her hands tied behind her back with a bathrobe cord. Dressed in a nightgown and partially covered by the bed sheet, the victim had a blue scarf wrapped around her neck. When Mr. Caltury called the Monaca Police Department Officer Andrew Gall responded to the scene.
It became apparent that robbery hadn't been the motive for the Walsh murder. The doors to the house had been locked when the victim's father checked in on his daughter, and there were no signs of a struggle. Based on these conditions, investigators assumed the victim had known her killer.
Murder was rare in Monaca, a Beaver County town on the eastern bank of the Ohio River 35 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The fact Catherine Walsh had been sexually assaulted and murdered in her own bedroom shocked the residents of this small community.
Catherine, a year out of Monaca High School, married Scott E. Walsh in August 1976. In December 1978 he filed for divorce on the grounds she had "violated her marriage vows." Catherine had moved into the duplex after the separation. At the time of her death, however, she was still married to Scott Walsh.
The Beaver County coroner determined that Catherine Walsh had been strangled to death and ruled the case a homicide. Detectives questioned, as the obvious suspect, Scott Walsh the estranged husband. Investigators also interviewed a man named Gregory Scott Hopkins from the nearby borough of Bridgewater. Hopkins admitted he had had a sexual relationship with the married victim but said it had ended a month before her death.
Although detectives worked hard on the Walsh murder case they were unable to acquire the evidence they needed to arrest a suspect. Years passed and the case went dormant. Detectives worked on other crimes and the Walsh case suspects went on with their lives. Gregory Hopkins became a successful building contractor, and in November 2010, was elected to the Bridgewater Borough Council. He married his first wife in 1967 and divorced her in 1980. He married again in 1983, divorcing this wife in 1999. In 2001 he married Karen L. Fisher.
In 2010 the Pennsylvania State Police, working off a federal grant, re-opened several old homicide cases that featured biological evidence that could be linked to murder suspects through DNA analysis. One of these cold-case investigations included the September 1979 murder of Catherine Walsh. In December 2011 a state forensic scientist took DNA samples from several people, including Gregory Hopkins. After comparing biological trace evidence from the victim's nightgown, the bathrobe cord and the crime scene bed sheet to Gregory Hopkins' DNA sample, the scientist declared a match.
On January 29, 2012 detectives arrested Gregory Hopkins at his home for the murder of Catherine Walsh. They booked the Bridgewater Councilman into the Beaver County Jail. Six days later, James Ross, Hopkins' attorney, asked the judge to grant his client bail. The judge, ruling that Catherine Walsh's murder was a non-bailable crime, denied the defendant's request.
Hopkins' attorney, promising a "vigorous" defense, told reporters that "Mr. Hopkins is a very reputable man in the community, has been in business for 40 years, served on the borough council and I think the arrest comes as a shock to many people."
On November 5, 2012 Common Pleas Judge Harry E. Knafelc ruled that the state could not use a report by the well-known Pittsburgh-based forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht. According to Dr. Wecht, the murder scene DNA evidence revealed that Mr. Hopkins had been in the victim's bed lying on top of her when the murder took place. Judge Knafelc, in ruling Dr. Wecht's analysis inadmissible as evidence, cited insufficient scientific data to back up his expert opinion.
The Hopkins murder trial got underway on November 10, 2013 in the Beaver County Courthouse. Assistant District Attorney Brittany Smith, in her opening statement to the jury, placed the defendant at the murder scene through his DNA found on the bed sheet, nightgown and the bathrobe cord tied around the victim's wrists.
Defense attorney James Ross told the jurors that his client's DNA was at the murder scene because he and the victim had engaged in sex the summer before her death.
Defense attorney Ross, in his cross-examination of retired state trooper Richard Matas, got the prosecution witness to concede that when he processed the Walsh murder scene he had not seen semen stains on the body, the bed or the nightgown. Attorney Ross showed the witness a photograph depicting a bedroom trash can with a piece of tissue beside it. Ross asked the witness why the tissue hadn't been collected as potential evidence. "In hindsight, perhaps I made a mistake," replied the former officer.
Andrew Gall, the former Monaca patrol officer, testified on cross-examination that he had not worn gloves at the site of the Walsh murder.
At the close of the prosecution's case which featured the expert testimony of several forensic scientists, the 67-year-old defendant took the stand and testified that he had not been in the victim's apartment when she was murdered. According to Hopkins, the last time he visited her apartment was several weeks before her death.
On November 22, 2013 the jury of five men and seven women found Mr. Hopkins guilty of third-degree murder. Judge Henry Knafelc, on February 26, 2014, sentenced him to 8 to 16 years in prison.
In the Walsh case, crime scene mistakes made by the police did not diminish the prosecutorial power of DNA evidence.
In the old days (in the context of DNA science), when a murder investigation petered out and the trail grew cold detectives shelved the case, and, except for the victim's family, it was forgotten. Maybe the detective who had tried but failed to solve the murder thought about it every so often. But with dead witnesses, failed memories, lost documents and no leads, the old murder remained as dead as the victim. With the passage of enough time, even the killer might forget the killing, or pretended it never happened. It used to be said that murder will out, but that was a lie.
Thanks to DNA science, old murder cases involving biological evidence such as hair follicles, saliva traces, bloodstains and semen residue can now come back to life and haunt killers who thought they had escaped detection. It's justice delayed but a lot better than no justice at all.
The Catherine Walsh Murder Case
At noon on September 1, 1979, Peter J. Caltury Sr. entered the duplex in Monaca, Pennsylvania where his 23-year-old daughter Catherine Janet Walsh lived by herself. He found her dead, lying face-down on her bed with her hands tied behind her back with a bathrobe cord. Dressed in a nightgown and partially covered by the bed sheet, the victim had a blue scarf wrapped around her neck. When Mr. Caltury called the Monaca Police Department Officer Andrew Gall responded to the scene.
It became apparent that robbery hadn't been the motive for the Walsh murder. The doors to the house had been locked when the victim's father checked in on his daughter, and there were no signs of a struggle. Based on these conditions, investigators assumed the victim had known her killer.
Murder was rare in Monaca, a Beaver County town on the eastern bank of the Ohio River 35 miles north of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The fact Catherine Walsh had been sexually assaulted and murdered in her own bedroom shocked the residents of this small community.
Catherine, a year out of Monaca High School, married Scott E. Walsh in August 1976. In December 1978 he filed for divorce on the grounds she had "violated her marriage vows." Catherine had moved into the duplex after the separation. At the time of her death, however, she was still married to Scott Walsh.
The Beaver County coroner determined that Catherine Walsh had been strangled to death and ruled the case a homicide. Detectives questioned, as the obvious suspect, Scott Walsh the estranged husband. Investigators also interviewed a man named Gregory Scott Hopkins from the nearby borough of Bridgewater. Hopkins admitted he had had a sexual relationship with the married victim but said it had ended a month before her death.
Although detectives worked hard on the Walsh murder case they were unable to acquire the evidence they needed to arrest a suspect. Years passed and the case went dormant. Detectives worked on other crimes and the Walsh case suspects went on with their lives. Gregory Hopkins became a successful building contractor, and in November 2010, was elected to the Bridgewater Borough Council. He married his first wife in 1967 and divorced her in 1980. He married again in 1983, divorcing this wife in 1999. In 2001 he married Karen L. Fisher.
In 2010 the Pennsylvania State Police, working off a federal grant, re-opened several old homicide cases that featured biological evidence that could be linked to murder suspects through DNA analysis. One of these cold-case investigations included the September 1979 murder of Catherine Walsh. In December 2011 a state forensic scientist took DNA samples from several people, including Gregory Hopkins. After comparing biological trace evidence from the victim's nightgown, the bathrobe cord and the crime scene bed sheet to Gregory Hopkins' DNA sample, the scientist declared a match.
On January 29, 2012 detectives arrested Gregory Hopkins at his home for the murder of Catherine Walsh. They booked the Bridgewater Councilman into the Beaver County Jail. Six days later, James Ross, Hopkins' attorney, asked the judge to grant his client bail. The judge, ruling that Catherine Walsh's murder was a non-bailable crime, denied the defendant's request.
Hopkins' attorney, promising a "vigorous" defense, told reporters that "Mr. Hopkins is a very reputable man in the community, has been in business for 40 years, served on the borough council and I think the arrest comes as a shock to many people."
On November 5, 2012 Common Pleas Judge Harry E. Knafelc ruled that the state could not use a report by the well-known Pittsburgh-based forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht. According to Dr. Wecht, the murder scene DNA evidence revealed that Mr. Hopkins had been in the victim's bed lying on top of her when the murder took place. Judge Knafelc, in ruling Dr. Wecht's analysis inadmissible as evidence, cited insufficient scientific data to back up his expert opinion.
The Hopkins murder trial got underway on November 10, 2013 in the Beaver County Courthouse. Assistant District Attorney Brittany Smith, in her opening statement to the jury, placed the defendant at the murder scene through his DNA found on the bed sheet, nightgown and the bathrobe cord tied around the victim's wrists.
Defense attorney James Ross told the jurors that his client's DNA was at the murder scene because he and the victim had engaged in sex the summer before her death.
Defense attorney Ross, in his cross-examination of retired state trooper Richard Matas, got the prosecution witness to concede that when he processed the Walsh murder scene he had not seen semen stains on the body, the bed or the nightgown. Attorney Ross showed the witness a photograph depicting a bedroom trash can with a piece of tissue beside it. Ross asked the witness why the tissue hadn't been collected as potential evidence. "In hindsight, perhaps I made a mistake," replied the former officer.
Andrew Gall, the former Monaca patrol officer, testified on cross-examination that he had not worn gloves at the site of the Walsh murder.
At the close of the prosecution's case which featured the expert testimony of several forensic scientists, the 67-year-old defendant took the stand and testified that he had not been in the victim's apartment when she was murdered. According to Hopkins, the last time he visited her apartment was several weeks before her death.
On November 22, 2013 the jury of five men and seven women found Mr. Hopkins guilty of third-degree murder. Judge Henry Knafelc, on February 26, 2014, sentenced him to 8 to 16 years in prison.
In the Walsh case, crime scene mistakes made by the police did not diminish the prosecutorial power of DNA evidence.
I wholeheartedly believe that justice was not served in this case. Mr Hopkins was certainly a falanderer but that does not make him a killer. He had a solid alibi and no motive to take the life of the victim. Mr. Hopkins admittedly had sexual intercourse with the victim thus his DNA would be expected to be present. There's also the fact that there was DNA from two other men on the items she was wearing. You have two people who failed polygraph's and one of those people's checkbook was a half a block from the victims home. I think it's most likely the husband who according to to the victim would be angry and jealous if she brought him home.
ReplyDeleteBased on what I know of the evidence, I don't know how the jury did not find for Mr. Hopkins due to readonable doubt.
I should didclose that I knew Mr. Hopkins when I was growing up and at the time of the murder. I don't believe that my having known him has influenced my opinion. I'm professional in the legal community.
Katie McKeever
A FALANDERER???? And JOU are a 'legal' professional? Oy vey! Amerika, The Land of the FEE and the Home of the FAT&ST000PID.
DeleteBefore I comment, I should disclose that I knew Mr. Hopkins when I was growing up ad he was good friends with my parents. This also include the time of the murder.
ReplyDeleteI should also say how i credibly sorry I am for Catherine Janet Walsh's family and friends. I cannot imagine enduring that kind of pain.
Having said all of that, I don't believe that justice was served. It seems to me that Mr. Hopkins was found guilty of his lifestyle as a falanderer not on all of the evidence entered. He had a solid alibi and I have to hear what his motive was. He admitted to having a sexual relationship with the victim during the summer of 1979, until a month before the victim was murdered so of course his DNA was present as was the seminal fluid of teo other men including her exj-husband who was outside her home the night she died, who had no aliby abdfsiled his polygraph tests. According to the victim, her husband was angry and jealous and his semen was also on items the victims was wearing and the sheet covering her body. Then you have Mr. McGrail who appeared to pursue the victime aggressively asking her to take him home. He also failed his polygraph twice and his checkbook was found a half a block from the victim's home and he had no explanation for how it got there. Then there was the boss with whom the victime was intimate and another man who claimed to be her boyfriend but I dont know much anout either of them.
Then you have rookie cops with no experience with homicides. Who failed to collect all the evidence. Those officers who I've seen on 48 hours Janet's Secret, who were clearly effected by by this case and were determined to solve it. I just don't understand why they wouldnt have at least one seasoned officer in homicide.
He did it. Hebt old me
ReplyDeleteI just saw The 48 hour episode regarding the murder of Janet Walsh... I would not have found him guilty in this case... the DNA evidence did not prove murder. It proved he had sexual activity with Janet which he has admitted to. Other men's DNA were also found in evidence... there was a possibility that someone else could have committed this heinous crime so I wouldn't have found him guilty...
ReplyDeleteI thought the same thing after the show. It doesn't make a lot of sense they would have had a late night rendezvous planned based on the fact she needed to be to work in a few hours, or that she called him for a booty call since his guests probably would have heard a phone call. So did he just happen to be calling her all night till she got home, she says yeah sure I have to be to work in a couple hours but come on over, and then he takes off sneaking around his guests? A bit odd. And maybe I missed it, it seems like there would have been signs of ruff play previously that wasn't taken too far- like rope burns on the neck seen by her friends or something like that. But then after the show i read that it had been over a month prior that he said he had last been with her. I would prefer to hear from the experts directly, but it seems like that's an awful lot of 'evidence' spread over a lot of suspicious areas-enough that I think I could have found him guilty. I don't buy the sweat theory at all. If he had said he had just been with her the morning before, that would be a whole different story for me.
DeleteMr.Hopkins alibis just do not carry a lot of weight because we all know people enter a deep sleep for a few hours and myself and family members have experienced someone getting up early and leaving without us knowing and since Mr. Hopkins was first up and they said that he woke them up.Since Mr.Hopkins said he had last had sex with the young woman a month ago. The scientist who examined the DNA was a ➕ 4 meaning the nightgown, the sheet, the robe rope had not been washed. I don't know anyone who wears a nightgown for a month and doesn't wash it. Same with the sheets most people don't sleep on the same sheets for a month without washing them and Mr. Hopkins semen was in abundance and on everything. Semen being on the robe rope which had the young lady hands tied. If someone else had committed this crime why wasn't their semen found in more abundant?? All the evidence points to Mr. Hopkins If he would have still been sleeping and they had woke him, but no. If his semen would have been in less abundance,but no it wasn't. If the nightgown and sheets had been washed and Mr. Hopkins semen would be less concentrated, but it was ➕ 4 showing that the nightgown and sheets had not been washed since the semen was deposited on the items. There is not one thing that shows that Mr. Hopkins could not have been the person who committed this crime. The DNA alone is overwhelming against Mr. Hopkins but along with him having to awaken his alibis. I believe that they convicted the right person. I don't know if this had been the way that Janet and Mr. Hopkins engaged in sex and her death was an accident or if it was deliberate. We all know good people can do bad things.
ReplyDeleteI am a member of the legal community and I caution all to be circumspect about coming to conclusions based upon 45 minutes of a television show. I wil reserve my opinion until I have read all the briefs filed in this case in addition to the trial transcript - and ideally reading the entire file. This would require weeks and perhaps months of my time so I doubt that I shall be able to come to an educated opinion in this case.
ReplyDeleteoh you are so important mr anonymous, we will all wait by our computers with baited breath until you enlighten us with your final conclusion even though we are not worthy
DeleteI thought the prosecution had a simpler, and therefore more plausible, explanation for Hopkins' DNA. But then I remembered that modern DNA testing is so sensitive that it can detect the minutest quantities, apparently even billionths of a gram! Add the fact that fresh DNA should have been visible, and I would conclude that the DNA they found could have been from the various past sex encounters he'd had with her. And there was other men's DNA as well. Plus Hopkins had no real motive, and a strong alibi - not watertight, but strong - and he maintains his innocence, and he apparently had a clean record in the 30 years since, and I think that's more than reasonable doubt. I can't be sure he's innocent, but I couldn't have found him guilty.
ReplyDelete