Exonerated but in Dark: Police Keep Files Closed
By STACEY STOWE
 
HARTFORD, Jan. 22 - It has been 30 years since Peter Reilly was wrongfully convicted of his mother's murder, and he still wants to find the killer. But on Thursday, he learned that the police do not want anyone turning to the case files for clues.

Mr. Reilly's conviction spawned two books and a television movie. Celebrities like the playwright Arthur Miller and neighbors took up his cause, and he was exonerated in 1977.

On Thursday, he attended a hearing of the state's Freedom of Information Commission here on whether the state police are required to open investigative files on the killing of his mother, Barbara Gibbons. An author and a local newspaper have appealed to the commission to open the records.

But it is the quest of Mr. Reilly, casually dressed and, but for the faint crow's feet framing his eyes, the mirror image of his tousled-haired, 18-year-old self that is most poignant. He is a part-time salesman and musician. His band? Voo Doo Justice.

Now 48, he is comfortable enough to riff on his criminal ordeal. He has found work and creative pursuits, but he has never found his mother's killer.

"I'm here to find out the truth about what the state police are hiding behind," he said firmly. In 1977, a one-man grand jury found evidence of law enforcement errors and misconduct in the case.

Mr. Reilly was just 18 when he returned home from a church meeting and found his mother's crumpled body. The slashing of her neck left her nearly decapitated. She had been sexually assaulted. Her nose, ribs and thigh bones had been broken.

Within hours, the police began a marathon interrogation of Mr. Reilly, convincing him that his response to a lie detector test proved him the killer. Riven by shock, he confessed.

His conviction was overturned when new evidence placed him five miles away at the time of the slaying.

But the crime held the interest of many, including Donald S. Connery, a journalist whose 1977 book, "Guilty Until Proven Innocent," analyzed the case. 

After Mr. Connery unsuccessfully sought access to police records in 2003, he appealed to the commission. Ruth Epstein, the editor of The Lakeville Journal, the local paper that chronicled the case, filed a separate, similar complaint.

Under state law, once a criminal investigation is concluded, the records are public, with few exceptions. On Thursday, state officials said at the hearing that the investigation was still active, but that records of it did not exist. Dawn Hellier, a lawyer for the State Department of Public Safety, said during questioning that the investigation "would be active if any new information came in." But Mr. Connery said his research shows the state police have not actively investigated the case for 25 years.

Once someone, like Mr. Reilly, is exonerated of a crime, their police records are ultimately erased from public view but retained, said Victor Perpetua, the commission hearing officer.

Alan Neigher, a Westport lawyer who is representing both Mr. Connery and The Lakeville Journal, said the state was wrongly extending the erasure of Mr. Reilly's police file to the entire Gibbons murder case.

"It's dangerous precedent because you could be hiding evidence of police misconduct by using the exoneration of one person as the bootstrap to close files on the entire case," said Mr. Neigher, who also represented Mr. Reilly in the mid-1970's.

Mr. Perpetua said he would issue a ruling, but did not specify when. The decision on whether to open the file may be taken to state court.

Mr. Reilly, who is not a party to the complaint, said he wants the file open.

"I want to find out who killed my mother, and it's obvious they don't want anyone looking at it," he said, his voice rising. "I won't back down."