Excerpted by Nicholas Stix
“In 1989 Mr. Safer went back to Vietnam for a ‘60 Minutes’ report and interviewed people whose lives had been touched by the war. He also wrote a best-selling book, ‘Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam’ (1990), with a chapter on Pham Xuan An, a Time magazine war correspondent who had secretly spied for Hanoi. Mr. Safer held no grudges. ‘He has done his best to follow his conscience,’ he wrote.”
In 1994, Morley Safer and the CBS 60 Minutes crew did a piece on the 1993 trial of a 45-year old executive named Vernon Robinson for the 1963 brutal murder of a woman named Thora Rose in a Hollywood apartment.
ReplyDeleteThe trial took place exactly 30 years after the crime. Robinson was caught by the AFIS fingerprint database, a relatively new thing in 1993.
The evidence was 34 clear fingerprints matched to Robinson in Thora Rose's apartment. Despite this, 60 Minutes expected Robinson to be acquitted on the basis of an alibi (later discredited) and "the computer made a mistake."
During the trial, prosecutor Paul Turley produced Robinson's Naval records proving he was in Los Angeles at the time as a Navy Reservist. Robinson testified and Turley took him apart piece by piece on cross examination.
Robinson had the support of his South Central LA Church and the pastor who was prominent in Los Angeles. The trial took place in the downtown LA Criminal Courts Building in October 1993.
Paul Turley asked the jury, "Do you think anyone is entitled to a free murder every 30 years?" The jury found Vernon Robinson guilty after seven hours deliberation.
I met Paul Turley a few years ago when he visited Nashville and we had lunch. He told me the CBS people expected a not guilty verdict going in but as the trial went on they came up to him and said "He really is guilty."
Morley probably either a commie or a secret left wing admirer of the commie way and "good social services".
ReplyDeleteMorely probably learned a lot from unclassified "shop talk" with American officers in Nam and passed it along to the commie spy.
ReplyDeleteMy above comment for May 23, 2016 is about the trial I talked about with you on the phone Saturday night.
ReplyDelete