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James Joseph Richardson was born in 1935. He was known for being wrongly convicted of the murder of his seven children using the organic phosphate pesticide parathion in 1967. He was living in Arcadia, Florida at the time the murders happened. He was convicted in 1968 and exonerated in 1989. He now lives in Wichita, Kansas.

The Deaths
On Wednesday, October 25, 1967, seven of the Richardson kids ranging from ages two to eight consumed food poisoned with parathion. On that day, six of the children: Betty, age eight; Alice, age seven; Susie, age six; Dorreen, age five; Vanessa, age four; and James, Jr., age two passed away. The very next day, the seventh child, Dianne, age three, died. Betty and Susie were from Annie Richardson's previous marriage while the rest of the kids were biologically James' kids. The night before, Annie Mae Richardson, James' wife, prepared lunch of beans, rice, and grits for her kids. The meal was placed in a locked refrigerator overnight. On Wednesday, James Joseph Richardson and Annie Mae Richardson left to work at the orange groves 16 miles away outside of the city of Arcadia. The neighbor, Bessie Resse, was instructed to take care of the children while the parents were at work. Only four of the kids were old enough to go to school: Betty, Alice, Susie, and Dorreen. After returning home from school to eat lunch at the house, these four were sent back to school. Teachers noticed that the kids were showing strange symptoms and the kids were immediately taken to the hospital by the principal. One of the teachers, Faison, went to check on the other three kids at home and found them sick as well. They were then taken to the hospital. Word was sent to the parents that one of their children was ill and one of the parents needed to report to the hospital. Both of them decided to leave the groves to check up on their sick child together. They were unaware that six of their children were already dead at this point.

The Evidence
Joseph H. Minoughan of the Arcadia Police Department was the first officer to arrive at the hospital. He determined that all of the children who were poisoned were from the same family and promptly made his way to their apartment to try and quarantine any potential poison that was remaining. He found nothing indicative of a poison except an insect spray, and didn’t believe that it could have been that, so he rushed back to the hospital. Arcadia Police Chief Richard Barnard and De Soto County Sheriff Frank Cline were among the next law enforcement officers to examine the apartment. Minoughan came back from the hospital for a second trip to the house and ran into Barnard and Cline. Barnard and Cline went into the unlocked apartment and noticed a very strong smell, but no sign of any poison.

Cline knew almost immediately that the poison was a pesticide called parathion and went out to the shed to check for the poison. He found nothing, and it was determined that the poison wasn’t present in the house or in the shed. Reporters started flocking to Arcadia to cover the breaking news. Richardson and the law enforcement officers were repeatedly questioned by reporters, but failed to make any preliminary statements. Frank Shaub was a prosecuting attorney in the area who quickly took to responding to reporters and giving first-hand accounts of his investigation of the house.

The next morning, as the last child, Dianne, passed, a two-pound sack of parathion was discovered in the shed behind the apartment building in which the Richardson family lived. Cline, Barnard, their staffs, and Shaub all agreed that the bag of parathion had not been there the day before. They determined that it had been placed after the premises had been searched five times, and that whoever had placed the parathion sack was also probably the murderer of the children. Conflicting reports on how the parathion sack was found were given to law enforcement officers. Minoughan was the first officer to arrive and was told by Bessie Reece, the babysitter, that Charlie Smith, a black resident of Arcadia’s Quarters had discovered the parathion. When Minoughan asked Barnard who called in the discovery to the police station, he was informed that it was an anonymous male caller.

The next day Cline and Shaub’s local assistant, John Treadwell, III, came out to reporters and told them that Richardson had “discussed insurance policies for the children the night before their deaths”. It was determined that the insurance salesman, George Purvis, talked to Richardson just hours before the children were poisoned. According to authorities, Richardson and Purvis were giving conflicting stories on the insurance policies. No new evidence could be claimed for a couple days.

That Sunday was the funeral for the kids. Both Richardson and his wife collapsed in sorrow at the service. National news magazines, television, and radio networks covered the funeral. This put Sheriff Frank Cline at the center of nationwide scrutiny, and Barnard later told attorney Mark Lane that, “Cline saw the chance to make a big name for himself. He needed to make an arrest real bad”.

Two days after the funeral Cline charged Richardson with seven counts of murder in the first degree. Evidently Cline acted without adequate consultation as Police Chief Barnard said, “There just is no case against that man”. Treadwell, charged with prosecuting the case if it came to trial agreed with Barnard. The murder warrants were dropped, but both Annie Mae Richardson and James Joseph Richardson were formally charged with child neglect. Hayes agreed with Cline and summoned a coroner’s inquest “to substantiate evidence already on hand”. At the press conference the next day Cline announced that Richardson had five other children who had died under mysterious circumstances in another Florida city and that his motive for this crime was to collect the insurance money on the kids that would total to almost fourteen thousand dollars. Judge Hayes claimed that both Richardson and his wife had taken lie-detector tests and the results showed that Richardson had knowledge of the poisoning that meant he was guilty.

The coroner’s jury held a hearing on Thursday, November 2, 1967 where Judge Hayes stated that “We will meet today to instruct Frank Cline to file murder charges against Richardson”. This statement carried a lot of weight because both the citizens of Arcadia and the hand-picked jury realize that Hayes is one of the most influential and powerful men in De Soto County, and had been presiding as a judge in Arcadia for more than thirty-one years. The verdict was basically written in stone before the trial even began.

The Defense
John S. Robinson was a white, thirty-year old successful lawyer who noticed the media coverage of the Arcadia murders. Robinson could see the injustice that was going on in the way the case was handled as the judge constantly claimed that Richardson was guilty and an impartial jury wasn’t being selected. He contacted people who knew Richardson and they gave personal statements saying they couldn’t believe he would kill his kids due to the fact that he was such a good-standing family man. Robinson then called the president of the NAACP in Florida, Joel Atkins, and asked if the organization would be taking on this case. Robinson convinced Atkins that the NAACP chapter in Arcadia should be contacted and should ask Richardson if he wants to be represented by them, giving Richardson a list of potential lawyers. Richardson decided to let the NAACP represent him and choose John Robinson as his lawyer.

Robinson went to talk to Richardson while he was being held in the county jail before the trial took place. Richardson was very grateful that he was being represented and could potentially be given a fair trial, because he adamantly demanded that he didn’t kill his children for he loved them very much. Richardson told stories of how Sheriff Cline would push him around, call him a nigger, and question him ‘in a very mean way’ every day. Richardson was told by Sheriff Cline that he would be let off easy if he just confessed to the crime, but denied that he had ever harmed any of his children. Robinson also found out, through Ernell Washington, another prisoner, that Cline placed an eavesdropping device in the cell whenever Robinson was going in there to talk to Richardson. Robinson later found the small microphone and took it, letting Sheriff Cline know that he found it there.

Robinson filed for a writ of Habeas Corpus after examining the available evidence and finding nothing that was substantial that could possibly find Richardson guilty. Once the writ of Habeas Corpus was accepted, Robinson debated the bond that was set, which started at one hundred thousand dollars. After tense negotiation, the bail was agreed to be set at seventy-five hundred dollars. Robinson gathered up the necessary funds to get Richardson out on bail and thought that this ordeal might be finally over.

The Trial
Ernell Washington, James Weaver, and James Cunningham, who were all cellmates with Richardsion, claimed that Richardson had admitted to them while they were incarcerated in the Arcadia Jail that he had killed the children. Judge Justice revoked the bail, ordered Richardson to be jailed again, and asked for a change in venue, to Fort Myers, one county removed from Arcadia on May 27th. Any attempt by Robinson to move the trial to a potentially fairer county was denied.

The trial began on Monday morning, May 27, 1968 at the Lee County Courthouse. All of the chosen jurors were white, and many challenges were set forth by Robinson to try and get a fairer jury that wasn’t biased but he was denied any changes. During the trial, the most sensational development was when Cline claimed that there was evidence of at least three of Richardson’s children who have been killed in another county and another three more who became ill but did not die. Bessie Reece claimed that she divided up the meal into seven equal parts once the children came home from school at five minutes to twelve. Treadwell, who was conducting the examination of Reece, established that she was on parole at the time but didn’t ask what the charge that she was convicted of was. Treadwell didn’t want the jury to find out that she was on parole for having murdered her husband. No other questions about her involvement in the preparation of the food were asked. When asked about finding the sack of parathion, Reece became more specific, claiming that Charlie Smith wanted to look for the sack and went straight to the shed, pulling a board off the window and discovering the sack, implying that Charlie Smith had prior knowledge of the location of the parathion. Then, an unknown woman saw them retrieving the sack and called authorities. Charlie Smith was in the courtroom but was not asked to testify at that time.

The next witness was Gerald Purvis, the insurance salesman. He claimed that he called at the Richardson household on Tuesday, the 24th. It wasn’t determined if he was invited over to the apartment or if he was soliciting from door to door. Purvis testified that he talked about family plans with Mr. Richardson, but there was a need for premium that Richardson couldn’t pay. Richardson tried to obtain the money but couldn’t, and Purvis decided that he would come back in a week, leaving no indication that there was a policy that was set. Treadwell insisted that Purvis left with the impression that a policy was in place, but Purvis adamantly denied that claim.

A pathologist and a chemist concluded that the children had in fact died from the organic phosphate parathion, which was found in the children’s stomachs and on utensils in the Richardson apartment. Several law enforcement officers, including Barnard, Cline, and Minoughan testified that they had searched the shed and didn’t see the bag of parathion there October 25th. Charlie Smith was called up to the stand and testified about finding the bag of parathion in the shed. His story matched up with Bessie Reeces, and he was excused with alacrity. The jury then retired to consider the evidence, and a half hour later, on May 31, 1968, returned with a unanimous verdict: “Death with premeditation at the hands of James Richardson and party or parties unknown” and recommended that he be put to death. Hayes immediately arrested Charlie Smith as a material witness and set the bond at two thousand dollars, while no other witness was placed in Arcadia jail.

After the hearing, the Chief of Police Barnard still believed that there was no case against Richardson. The case had proceeded just as Judge Hayes had intended and virtually predicted, with a guilty verdict for Richardson.

After The Trial
James Richardson was sentenced to die by the court and was on death row for five years. He was saved by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1972 that Florida’s death penalty at the time was unconstitutional. Richardson was then placed in jail and was eligible for parole in 1993. There were many clues that were overlooked that would have pointed to Richardson not being involved. The first is the presence of a likelier suspect, Bessie Reece who, as of 1988 had confessed to the murders more than 100 times to her caretakers. These confessions haven’t been taken seriously because she is now mentally incompetent with Alzheimer’s disease and resides in an Arcadia nursing home. Bessie was also on parole at the time of the murders for killing her ex-husband with a poison. The facts regarding Bessie Reece’s murdered husband were never brought up in court and the prosecution tried very hard to keep that fact from coming up in the court proceedings. In fact, little was done to pursue Bessie’s involvement with the murders at all, including the fact that she was the last to see the children alive, fed them the food, and lied when she initially stated that she had not gone into the apartment. Also, the last surviving witness to Richardson’s alleged jail-cell confession recanted his testimony to state legislatures, claiming that he was offered a lighter sentence in return for the testimony.

Further injustice was brought as there was a totally inadequate and incomplete investigation that was conducted into the deaths of the children. Standard investigative procedures weren’t followed as leads were never pursued, critical questions weren’t answered, and glaring inconsistencies never resolved.

After looking at all of these inconsistencies and the injustice that was done in Arcadia, retired Circuit Judge Clifton Kelly said that Richardson, now 53 years old, did not receive a fair trial and released him into the custody of attorney Ellis Rubin in 1989 after Richardson served 21 years in prison. Richardson, when released said, “I think it’s good. It’s wonderful. I think everything is all right now, and I’m able to go forward now and get on with my life. I just have to get on with my life. It feels good being free”. Richardson, after getting let out, was set to work for nutritionist Dick Gregory at a health resort in Fort Walton Beach with a 10-year contract. He filed a lawsuit against the De Soto County for his wrongful prosecution and settled for $150,000. On August 25, 2008, 73-year-old Richardson filed a claim under Florida’s wrongful conviction compensation law that provides $50,000 a year.

Unfortunately for Richardson, he suffered a series of setbacks upon being released from jail. The job working at the health resort didn’t pan out. He suffered from heart problems, which he attributed to prison food, poor medical care, and constant stress. He and his wife, who remained with him the entire time he was in jail, eventually divorced. He had to give up most of his money to lawyers and was in prison for so long that he wasn’t entitled to Social Security. He now lives at the ranch of his cardiologist in Wichita, Kansas and does light work to pay for room and board.