The Trail Went Cold - Episode 415 - Barbara Jean Horn, Part 2

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

July 12, 1988. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Four-year old Barbara Jean Horn disappears from the front yard of her home before her nude body is discovered inside a cardboard box resting on a curb in the same neighbourhood. Nearly four years later, a suspect named Walter Ogrod, who had lived across the street from Barbara Jean’s residence, is arrested after he confesses to her murder and after two trials, he is convicted and sentenced to death. However, Walter claims his confession was coerced by corrupt police detectives and there are numerous allegations of misconduct and serious issues with his conviction. In 2020, after a new review is performed of the case, Walter’s conviction is overturned. While he is finally released from death row and fully exonerated, no one else is charged with the crime. Last week, in Part One of our series about the murder of Barbara Jean Horn, we shared the basic facts about the case. This week, in Part Two, we will attempt to analyze and break down this crime by sharing all the different theories about what happened, as well as explore some other wrong conviction cases which took place in Philadelphia during this time period and involved the same law enforcement figures who put Walter Ogrod in prison. If you have any information about this case, please contact the Philadelphia Police Department’s tip line at (215) 686-TIPS (8477). Additional Reading: "The Trails of Walter Ogrod: The Shocking Murder, So-Called Confessions and Notorious Snitch That Sent a Man to Death Row" by Thomas Lowenstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Ogrod_case https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Barbara_Jean_Horn https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5752 https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/PhilaDA-CIU-Walter-Ogrod-Expert-Reports-2020-02-28.pdf https://dpic-cdn.org/production/documents/PhilaDA-Answer-to-Walter-Ogrod-Amended-PCRA-Petition-2020-02-28.pdf https://www.inquirer.com/news/walter-ogrod-exonerated-innocent-death-row-larry-krasner-philadelphia-20200605.html https://www.inquirer.com/news/walter-ogrod-exonerated-murder-conviction-overturned-philadelphia-larry-krasner-20200610.html https://www.inquirer.com/philly/columnists/will_bunch/walter-ogrod-death-row-stories-hln-larry-krasner-dna-testing-philadelphia-20180405.html https://www.newsweek.com/pennsylvania-court-orders-death-row-inmate-tested-coronavirus-1493628 https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/after-2-decades-on-death-row-wrongfully-convicted-man-will-be-set-free/2421261/ https://www.cbsnews.com/philadelphia/news/barbara-jean-horn-murder-philadelphia-walter-ogrod/ “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing at the AdvocacyCon, taking place at the Indianapolis Marriott East in Indianapolis on March 28-30, 2025. To get a 10 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL10”, by visiting https://www.advocacycon.com/. “The Trail Went Cold” is going to be appearing on podcast row at Crimecon UK” in London on June 7-8, 2024. To get a 10 % discount on tickets, please use our specialized promo code, “TRAIL10”, by visiting Crimecon.co.uk. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon. Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. 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	The
0:07.0	The Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of The Trail Went Cold. I'm your host Robin Warder,
0:41.5	and today we're going to be presenting the second of our two-part series about the 1988 murder
0:46.8	of Barbara Jean Horn. I first became familiar with this case when it was featured on
0:52.0	Unsolved Mysteries only four months after the crime
0:54.7	originally took place, but since it eventually evolved into a very convoluted story which has dragged
1:00.1	on for over 36 years now, I decided to cover it in a two-part episode. We released part one last
1:07.2	week, which outlined the most important facts of the case, and if you haven't heard the
1:11.0	episode yet, I suggest you go back and listen to it, since I'm going to be discussing a lot of
1:16.0	the information I previously shared, as well as provide my own theories and analysis.
1:21.2	So as a brief recap, four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn lived with her mother and stepfather in
1:26.3	the Castor Gardens neighborhood
1:27.6	of Philadelphia when she was presumably abducted from her front yard on the afternoon of July
1:32.9	12, 1988. A few hours later, Barbara Jean's nude body was found inside a cardboard TV box on a
1:40.5	curb only a block and a half from her residence. It was initially assumed that Barbageen
1:45.8	was fatally bludgeoned with a blunt object, but in recent years, experts have reached the
1:50.6	conclusion that our cause of death was probably asphyxiation. Five witnesses had seen an unidentified
1:56.9	man carrying the TV box through the neighborhood before it was dropped off, but it would not be
2:01.8	until 1992 when a 27-year-old suspect named Walter Ogrod was charged with Barbara Jean's murder
2:08.0	after he made a full confession. However, Walter quickly recanted his confession as he suffered from
2:14.5	developmental disabilities and had been awake for at least 30 hours prior to his
2:19.1	interrogation, so he claimed that detectives wore him down and coerced him into admitting to something
	...

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