The Trail Went Cold - Episode 31 - Holly Staker

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2017

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

August 17, 1992. Waukegan, Illinois. While babysitting two children, 11-year old Holly Staker is sexually assaulted and brutally murdered inside their apartment. Two months later, a suspect named Juan Rivera is brought in for questioning and confesses to the murder after four straight days of interrogation. He is subsequently convicted and receives a life sentence, but no physical evidence links Rivera to the crime and the veracity of his confession is called into question. After Rivera serves 19 years in prison, DNA evidence eventually links Holly’s death to another murder… but could another innocent person also be serving time in prison for that particular crime? This week, we present one of our most shocking episodes of “The Trail Went Cold”, which examines a truly egregious wrongful conviction and two brutal murders committed by an unknown perpetrator who has yet to be identified. Additional Reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Rivera_(wrongful_conviction) https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3850 https://courts.illinois.gov/opinions/AppellateCourt/2011/2ndDistrict/December/2091060.pdf http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictions/exonerations/documents/rivera_brief.pdf http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-06-10/news/chi-dna-links-murder-and-rape-of-holly-staker-11-to-second-murder-8-years-later-20140610_1_holly-staker-dna-evidence-dna-match The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	August 17th, 1992, Waukegan, Illinois.
0:07.0	While babysitting two children, 11-year-old Holly Staker is sexually assaulted and murdered inside their apartment.
0:15.3	Two months later, a suspect named Juan Rivera compesses to the crime.
0:20.4	He is subsequently convicted and receives a life sentence.
0:24.0	However, since no physical evidence linked Rivera to the murder,
0:29.0	and the veracity of his confession is called into question,
0:32.0	he would undergo two separate retials before his conviction is vacated for good.
0:37.0	DNA evidence would link Holly Staker's murder to the death of a man named Delwyn Foxworth and it's possible that another
0:44.9	innocent person is serving time in prison for this crime. After that the trail
0:50.7	went cold. Oh, uh, I'm not. Oh, uh,
1:04.0	uh,
1:05.0	uh, uh, uh, uh,
1:07.0	uh,
1:08.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, yeah. So, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh,
1:15.0	uh, uh,
1:16.0	uh, uh, uh,
1:18.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, uh uh uh... Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of The Trail went cold.
1:32.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today I will be covering a crime which was
1:36.0	initially solved but has technically become unsolved again in recent years. The 1992 murder of an 11-year-old girl named Holly Staker, and I need to warn you
1:47.0	up front. This is the most infuriating case we have featured on this podcast. You might find it upsetting and there's a very good
1:55.4	chance you will be absolutely outraged once you hear this story. I don't often cover
2:00.4	wrongful conviction stories on this podcast, but this is a particularly egregious
	...

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