Do any of you guys, know of any updates to this case? I remember that the girl´s name was barbara and, I think her murder happened in July 1988. Btw, I don´t know if this case is included in any of Crystaldawn DVD compilations, however in the 1st. volume, at the end of the Gayle Delano update, and before the beginning of Kathy Hobbs´case, there is a very,very brief shot of a suspect´s composite sketch(an eerie one), corresponding to the case featured after Gayle Delano´s update (that I´m pretty sure belongs to the "girl in the TV box" case), before cutting to the Kathy Hobbs mystery.

Barbara Jean Horn. I do believe her killer was apprehended. Wasn't it someone who lived in the same apartment complex?

Yeah a man by the name of Walter Ogrod is sitting on death row right now for her murder. While I would like to think this is a closed case and the authorities have apprehended and a jury has sentenced the right man to death there is just so much conflicting evidence that Ogrod is innocent that I think whomever actually murdered Horn is possibly still out there.

Ogrod didn't match the composite, his confession to a jailhouse informant is questionable, the fact that in my mind that it took seven years for anyone to identify Ogrod as the man seen with the tv box is very suspicious since Ogrod was not a stranger in the neighborhood but living right next door to the Horn's at the time of the murder and I believe Walt's trials were not without controversy either.

There is a belief on this forum held by several members that Walter Ogrod will never be executed due to the amount of political backlash that would occur if he was executed. He was due to be executed last year but was granted a stay and as I've said many feel he is not the murderer of Barbara Jean Horn.

This case is included in vol 4 of crystaldawn´s dvds collection near the end. The supect´s composite sketch gave me nigthmares,when I first watched the case back in the mid 90´s (w/o the update). I agree with you Dark Dante, the sketch does not look anything like Ogrod , and, believe me : I will never forget that sketch for the rest of my life.

I wonder what Raymond Sheehan looks like and how similar to the sketch his face is. It seems as if this guy Ogrod is getting railroaded from absolute hearsay testimony crafted by this jailhouse rat scum Hall all so Hall can get out of doing a long prison stretch for being a lowlife. The UM segment left out a lot because I guess the investigation was going nowhere at the time. I take it UM never gave it an update or it was such a short segment that they didn't consider re-airing it with one because it fell under their radar possibly. Does anyone know if that segment ever aired with an update? It's been so long since I've seen it that I don't even think it was shown on Lifetime.

I agree microeconomia, that has to be the scariest sketch I've seen on UM and it jumps on the screen right after the Gayle Delano case from Heather's volume 1 disc, giving me goosebumps just like when I first saw that Special Alert many years ago. I remember having a nightmare as a kid after I saw that.

I have the Lifetime version of the Barbara Jean Horn segment as well and they do show an update. They show a picture of Walter Ogrod and mention he was arrested for the crime (can't remember whether they mention he was convicted or not). Walter Ogrod's appeals team asked me for a copy of the segment and seemed especially interested in the update that showed him.

LOL. You and the people who have contacted you because of these boards, Crystaldawn.

You're such a drama queen. :p

I have the Lifetime version of the Barbara Jean Horn segment as well and they do show an update. They show a picture of Walter Ogrod and mention he was arrested for the crime (can't remember whether they mention he was convicted or not). Walter Ogrod's appeals team asked me for a copy of the segment and seemed especially interested in the update that showed him.
Do you have this case with the update on one of your volumes?

Do you have this case with the update on one of your volumes?

I don't think the update is on any of the volumes. I always try to put the NBC version of any case on them if I have it so everyone can see the unedited version but the trade off is sometimes an update gets left off.

If you have room on volume 15, you should put this case with the update on it.

This case always bothered me. In the segment, witnesses to the suspect apparently talked to the guy who was in the composite. Why in the world did they not identify him as the killer since he lived in the same building/ block? And Orgod really didn't look like the sketch to me at the time. I always assumed that he was arrested and convicted because he was mentally handicapped and of course seemed to be a suspect that no one would really question and could be easily coaxed. I believe it was mentioned in the update of his handicap. This reminds me of the case with the other mentally handicapped guy that apparently killed his elderly neighbor and set fire to her home, only to be released years later.

Yeah, I think the witnesses said that the guy more resembled that other suspect Raymond Sheehan, who is in prison for the rape/murder of another little girl and that Ogrod wasn't the guy. I think they would have known if it were Ogrod or not based on the fact that Ogrod lived right there and they would have immediately told the cops if it were Ogrod.

Well, this is a very interesting case. I have always had doubts about Walter Ogrod's guilt. I have corresponded with Walter from time to time and believe me I wouldnt correspond with a guy convicted of murdering a 4 year old girl unless I was truly convinced of his innocence. Regardless of what one thinks about Ogrod's guilt or innocence I think everyone can agree there was some real problems in this case. Ogrod evidently had been interviewed in the original investigation in 1988 but had never really been considered a suspect. He was interviewed because he was the next door neighbor and police were canvassing the neighborhood.

Now, Walter Ogrod looked nothing like the composite sketch and he was not interviewed again by police until 1992. In 1992 Walter was questioned by police and after several hours of being questioned and after having just got off of an all night shift at work before that he confessed. Many people have a difficult time comprehending how a person could or would confess to something they allegedly did not do. However it has happened.

Walter's first trial, he was nearly acquitted. In fact the 1993 trial was an 11 to 1 vote in favor of acquittal. The big reason why this near acquittal happened was because the jurors said they felt like the cops had lied and embellished key elements of Walter's alleged confession. This confession was neither video taped nor recorded. It was typed up in a transcript by the cops. Walter Ogrod testified in his own defense and the jurors said that after listening to Walter talk they simply didnt believe that he could have confessed to the cops the way the cops claimed he confessed to them using eloquent language and the like.

Three years went by before the 2nd trial and during this time Walter was held in the Philadelphia City Jail. There he came across a jailhouse snitch. This snitch was a career criminal and he cut a deal by claiming Walter confessed to him in jail. At the 1996 re-trial the snitch testified and Walter didnt testify in his own defense based on his new lawyers advice. This time Walter was convicted. The snitch later admitted he lied to get out of jail but refuses to say this under oath for fear of prosecution on perjury charges.

One original suspect in this case was Raymond Sheehan. Sheehan was around the same age as Ogrod and resembled the composite. Sheehan had also been a suspect in the 1987 rape and murder of an 8 year old girl. However Sheehan was never charged in either case because of course in the Horn case Sheehan was eliminated when Ogrod was arrested. In the other case, Sheehan wasnt charged until 2003 when the police got his DNA and matched it to DNA that had matched semen found at the crime scene. In 2005 Sheehan pled guilty to first degree murder in connection with the 1987 case and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Overall this is a very interesting case and I am enjoying reading people's thoughts on it. I do think Walter Ogrod will eventually be exonorated. He is fighting for DNA testing and the state is fighting him on this. So as a result he has been in jail or prison for over 15 years now.

I'd like to see a picture of Sheehan to compare to the composite.

Shocking case.

Any updates ?