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In the wake of the Casey Anthony acquittal yesterday I thought I'd mention a case that just ended the same way in my area. I live in the city of Moorhead, Minnesota, which is just across the Red River from Fargo, North Dakota. Way back in the summer of 1993, a woman named Sharon Stafford, 26, was strangled to death in her home in a Moorhead trailer park. There were two murders in that trailer park that summer. One was a stabbing that was solved the same day, and then there was Sharon, who ended up as a cold case for the next 16 years. I remember there wasn't much fanfare over it, because she wasn't a character that garnered a lot of sympathy. Sharon Stafford was a foul mouthed, hard drinking party girl widely believed to be a prostitute. The detectives had very little to work with, as her home was always such a mess that it always looked as if there'd been a struggle there, and the case was written up as a rape/murder though it wasn't certain because she was with multiple men all the time and coincidentally having rough but consensual sex just prior to her murder wouldn't have been unusual. A couple of years later there was a piece in the news about local unsolved murders, and a detective commented on how he knew what kind of person she was but that no one deserved to die that way. A sad and pathetic case, really, with many obvious comparisons to the victims of Jack the Ripper.
Then in June 2009, a cold case detective was looking up old suspects and associates and arrested Clarence Burcham, 46. After much interrogation, he confessed to the murder and said he'd strangled Sharon with an electrical cord when she refused to have sex with him and called him a "retard." His trial just wrapped up a week or so ago, and he was found not guilty. Burcham is extremely simple-minded, barely found competent to stand trial, and his defense attorney convinced the jury that his confession was coerced. His family supports him, he has a girlfriend and three kids, and he appeared on t.v. as just a big and dumb but nice simpleton who doesn't say much. But he also has a criminal record. Did he kill Sharon? I have no idea. It sounds like she associated with any number of people who might have done it. But the most striking thing is that we live in a very conservative area and acquittals of any kind are extremely rare here, especially in murder cases. It was a real surprise.
Striking for me on a personal level, though, is the fact that in 1993 when the murder happened I was living within sight of that trailer park.
Then in June 2009, a cold case detective was looking up old suspects and associates and arrested Clarence Burcham, 46. After much interrogation, he confessed to the murder and said he'd strangled Sharon with an electrical cord when she refused to have sex with him and called him a "retard." His trial just wrapped up a week or so ago, and he was found not guilty. Burcham is extremely simple-minded, barely found competent to stand trial, and his defense attorney convinced the jury that his confession was coerced. His family supports him, he has a girlfriend and three kids, and he appeared on t.v. as just a big and dumb but nice simpleton who doesn't say much. But he also has a criminal record. Did he kill Sharon? I have no idea. It sounds like she associated with any number of people who might have done it. But the most striking thing is that we live in a very conservative area and acquittals of any kind are extremely rare here, especially in murder cases. It was a real surprise.
Striking for me on a personal level, though, is the fact that in 1993 when the murder happened I was living within sight of that trailer park.
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