Shane’s Story
My name is Shane Crum and I have been incarcerated since November 4th, 1996 for a crime that never happened.
In 1986, I began dating a woman named Christine. We moved to Florida in 1988, and our daughter K.C. was born on September 4th, 1991. I soon realized that Christine and I had very different ideas about what was best for K.C..
For example, One Saturday morning, on my day off, I had slept in. When I went into the kitchen, I saw that K.C. was eating a cereal bowl full of M&M’s and drinking a Pepsi. When I asked Christine about K.C.’s breakfast, she replied, “K.C. is eating her breakfast.”
We got into many arguments over K.C., and separated a few times. We moved back to Ohio in 1994. Christine and K.C. stayed with Christine’s parents; I lived with my mother.
The arguments continued. We tried living together once more, but soon decided to end the relationship. We finally split in July of 1995. Christine and K.C. moved back in with her parents, and I moved in with my childhood best friend and his two brothers. By October, Christine’s was living with her new boyfriend, Johnny Confalone.
Between October and December of 1995, I was twice called home from work to authorize a doctor to put stitches in K.C.’s head. She was being left with Christine’s alcoholic grandmother while they went to amusement parks and the like. After the second incident, I told Christine that I would sue for full custody if K.C. had another injury. I had no idea how much trouble that threat was going to cause me.
K.C. spent some time with my family at Christmas, and the above picture of K.C. and me was taken at that time.
In the following January, I learned I had been accused of molesting K.C. and that I was no longer allowed to have contact with her.
Against my lawyer’s advice, I went to the police station to talk with a detective, Jill Stevenson, and a woman from the Department of Human Services. I signed a statement saying I had never molested K.C. and that I’d be willing to take a lie detector test. I called the police multiple times to see when I could come in for the test. They never gave me the test. And, at trial, the prosecutor redacted my willingness to take one from the statement I had made.
Before trial, the prosecutor offered me a plea deal: 10 to 25 years if I would plea. I flatly refused. I was innocent and naively believed that justice will prevail. (I have now served nearly 23 years.) But I could not understand why K.C. was making these accusations.
While I was accused in early January, K.C. was not taken to see any professionals until February. The physical examination showed no signs of abuse. The abuse interrogations were first investigated by the police and someone from human services in February of 1996. Most of the information came not from K.C. but from Christine. The main professional witness validating the accusations, a Dr. Coleman, first saw K.C. and her mother on April 11, 1996.
We do know, from his trial testimony, that Johnny said he was disturbed when K.C. gave him an open mouthed kiss. He began interrogating K.C. when Christine was at work. K.C. first said she learned that from TV. Later she just said she didn’t know. Finally she said, “Maybe Daddy.”
We of course don’t know what kind of interviewing K.C. was subjected to by Johnny, Christine, and other members of her family over the next few weeks. Obviously none of them are trained child examiners.
Research, by Drs. Stephen Ceci, Maggie Bruck, and others, has shown without a doubt that young children – K.C. was only four – are highly susceptible to suggestive interviewing, and resulting testimony is simply not reliable. By the time K.C. was interviewed by a professional (three months after the accusation), I believe she had been convinced by Johnny and by Christine and her family that I had done terrible things to her, including vaginal intercourse and anal sodomy. Such experiences would be traumatic for a child: unimaginable pain and physical injury.
Furthermore, I doubt the competency of Dr. Coleman. For one thing, he used anatomically correct dolls. By 1996 it had been firmly established that such dolls should not be used because their use results in false accusations. And someone who used anatomically correct dolls would almost certainly ask leading questions as well. Such techniques can implant false memories that persist for a lifetime. Extensive research has been done on this by Dr. Elizabeth Loftus and other memory researchers.
This web site contains a number of scientific articles (and a bibliography) about the problems of improper interviewing and the unreliability of subsequent testimony and memories. There is also an excellent article by attorney Robert Rosenthal arguing that testimony by improperly interviewed children is unreliable, and that permitting a jury to see unreliable evidence violates one’s constitutional right to a fair trial.
A number of convictions based on unreliable child testimony – such as Bernard Baran in Massachusetts and the San Antonio Four in Texas – have been thrown out. I don’t suggest that parents and family members had bad motives. But I think they were so convinced that something terrible might have happened that their questioning became emotional and highly coercive.
Had my case been handled properly, with recorded interviews, we could enlist an Innocence Project. Unfortunately, this did not happen. But yet I am no less innocent.
My mother has lost everything trying to prove my innocence. She spent all of her money and lost her home. We don’t have the means to hire lawyers or experts. (Please read the statements from my mother and my sister.)
Thank you for taking the time to read this. You might also be interested in the chronology or the longer and more detailed version of my story.
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