48 Hours ~ Perfect Family (Jeffrey Pyne case)

[wiseguy182]

I am infuriated at this case because a young man is behind bars when he doesn't deserve to be. This is a case from my home state of Michigan.

It concerns Jeffrey Pyne, who was 22 years old when his mother Ruth was brutally murdered in the garage of their home. The household consisted of Jeffrey, a college student and high school valedictorian who never had any trouble with the law or anything. Ruth Pyne was a mentally ill woman who constantly refused to take her medication and would frequently lash out at Jeffrey, at one point trying to strangle him in an incident that landed her in jail for a couple weeks. The patriarch of the family is Bernie Pyne, who got so fed up with Ruth that he had an affair late in their marriage. Bernie and Ruth also had a young daughter.

Jeffrey was apparently the last known person to see his mother alive, he says he saw her before he left to do work at a former teacher's house, then left to go to his job. Bernie and the daughter returned home an hour or so later to find Ruth's body.

Despite absolutely no physical evidence linking him to the scene, Jeffrey was convicted as prosecutors threw in the possibility of second degree murder at the last minute (and the jurors convicted him on second degree murder as they speculated he didn't intend to kill Ruth, but he had snapped and offed her in a "moment of rage" type killing.). The injuries to Ruth were severe: she was beaten extensively and also stabbed 16 times. Whoever killed Ruth would have had massive blood on their clothes, however investigators were never able to find any bloody clothes from Jeffrey. Additionally, a check of his car and DNA on Ruth's body also turned up nothing.

The case against Jeffrey was entirely circumstantial, and not a good one at that. The crux of it was:

-Jeffrey's supposedly unemotional reaction to his mother's death, which I don't understand because he put his head in his hands. And really, considering she tried to kill him, I'm not sure he would have been entirely saddened at the news of her death anyways.

-an ex-girlfriend of his that testified Jeffrey cheated on her and lied "so effortlessly". This doesn't amount to a hill of beans to me because lots of people cheat and most of them are not murderers.

-A couple of wounds on Jeffrey's hands that looked like skin was missing, which he covered up with white bandages. He says he got them from his job when he was handling pallets. I doubt he would try to cover them up as the white bandages were very noticeable.

-And some confusion as to an alibi. Jeffrey said he was planting some lilac bushes at a former teacher's house around the time his mother was being killed. The teacher claimed the lilac bushes were planted a few days before. However, in the answering machine message, Jeffrey never mentions lilac bushes and instead says he was "cleaning up" and doing some odds and ends at her house, so I wonder if he was honestly mixed up about the lilac bushes.

And that's it. A miffed ex-girlfriend, some over exaggerated confusion about an alibi, and a couple of other real minor things landed this poor young man in prison for decades. And you know what? Even if he did murder her, I'm not sure it was unwarranted, considering we know she tried to kill him before. She was an insane, volatile woman who tried to strangle him and was completely unprovoked in doing so. So I think even if he did kill her, he probably did it out of self defense. This woman was crazy after all.

Sad case brought to you by another really stupid jury. For the record, neither Bernie nor his daughter believes Jeffrey did it. I hope some people realize the err of their ways and let Jeffrey out of prison.