A Horrible Price to Pay for Someone Else's Mistake

Who suffers when an innocent person is convicted? Of course, we focus on the individual and his or her family. In this article I want to focus on other people who suffer -- other victims. The information is borrowed from The Innocence Project.

In November 1985, Northern New Jersey witnessed the horrific rape and murder of two children. These details are graphic, but necessary to demonstrate the monstrosity of the crimes. "The [7-year old] girl had been brutally raped, beaten and strangled to death. The [8-year old] boy was sexually assaulted, and a piece of cloth had been hammered into his head with large nails while his face had been slashed with scissors (it was later determined that he died as a result of the nails being hammered into his brain)." Byron Halsey, the man convicted of the crimes, was living with the children's mother. He has recently been fully exonerated through DNA testing.

The man now identified as the rapist/murderer is Cliff Hall. What was Hall doing while Halsey sat in prison? Why, committing more rapes, of course.

"In June 1991, [Hall] grabbed an 18-year-old woman from behind on a street and, holding a knife to her throat, orally, vaginally and anally raped her for up to three hours. Three months later, he abducted a 19-year-old woman and took her to a building where he repeatedly and violently raped her vaginally and anally for two hours. Several months after that, he punched and attempted to rape a 26-year-old woman as she walked toward a train station in Plainfield."

These 3 women paid a horrible price for New Jersey's mistake.