Problems in Hser Ner Moo murder case - Help review the case - Earn BTC
The translation has not been public yet as far as I know. It indicates that Met was not "fleeing" to his uncle's house, but went there to fix a bicycle his uncle had. Met gave the name of a person who bought the repair material so the police could check out the story. That person was a Muslim and it appears the police made no effort to contact the person. There is no mention of any attempt to contact the person in the version of the police report that I purchased legally from the police department.
Here is a
longer term timeline to put the case in local context.
Some additional articles regarding the case (finds courtesy of creepyjas):
Experts: Murdered Utah girl Hser Ner Moo died a painful death Utah murder victim's family tearfully testifies about herEsar Met gets life without parole for murder of Hser Ner MooBurmese girl, 7, died a painful death 'after she was raped and brutally beaten by her Utah neighbor', experts testify after police officer chokes up on the stand
THE ISSUES
Issue 1¶55 After reviewing a video recording of the interview and a transcript, the district court ruled that the transcript could be admitted for impeachment purposes because “[Met's] statements to the officers were voluntary.” The court reasoned that the interrogation did not employ the types of coercive interrogation techniques that could lead to the conclusion that testimony was not freely given. For example, the district court noted that the interview lasted less than two-and-a-half hours; that the interrogation “techniques used by the officers in this case did not create a coercive environment that overcame [Met's] will”; that the officers were not unreasonably persistent; that the “interpretation problems, although pervasive throughout the interview,” were not coercive and did not cause Met to make incriminating statements; and that Met demonstrated a calm demeanor throughout the interview.
Esar Met, Appellant, v. State of Utah, Appellee.1) Met was beaten during his arrest, just prior to the interrogation. The police had knocked down the door, he went to them to try and find out what was going on. They beat him to the point that there was blood on his clothing. Note that the blood on his clothing was tested and all of it was found to be his. It was only much later that a bloodstain on the back of his jacket was supposedly found.
Does the fact that he was beaten by the police just before the interview not suggest a coercive atmosphere?
2) During the interrogation he states that although he did not commit the crime, he is willing to give a confession. He also asks if he can speak to his mother before he is killed.
Does that not suggest an element of coercion?
3) During the interview he tries to give information regarding the day of the crime. The FBI agent cuts him off each time, saying things like 'no no no no no' any time Met tries to speak, unless Met says what the FBI agent tells him to say.
Does that not indicate coercion?
4) Met is
Rohingya from Burma. Many of his relatives were killed in the past and are still being killed
today.
Considering that he was in the country only one month, did not speak the language etc, does that not indicate that the police should have assumed a coercive atmosphere would exist even without the points above?
Note that the judges are now trying to portray the prosecution as having been okay with the confession.
a) Met's interests would have been served by having the confession visible for scrutiny by people knowledgeable about the mechanics of false confessions.
b) The prosecutors realized that if the confession were public and received any scrutiny by experts, there would be even more negative publicity regarding how the case was initially handled. So they went through hoops to keep the confession secret.
c) Once it had been made public, and was visible for scrutiny, they must have been
surprised that for 2 years nobody translated it.
d) An 'appeal lawyer' was hired to represent Met, but his actions suggest he had no interest in the facts of the case, he merely wanted to blow smoke for the prosecution, creating the appearance of a fair defense when the opposite was the fact.
Issue 2In the confession found on tape 1, which the prosecution went to great lengths to keep secret, Met states that his uncle called him and said he had a problem with his bicycle. Met then went with a friend named Yanut to buy some sealant for bicycle tires. He arranged with his uncle to visit the next day and fix the tire.
According to the state, depending on which piece of evidence you look at, Met either did or didn't leave abruptly to his uncle's house, he either did or didn't tell anybody where he was going.
a) If he did flee abruptly, and just by blind chance managed to select the right bus to take to another busstop that just by chance was the stop that had a connecting bus to the area where his uncle lived, then it would be an indication he fled and just by amazing chance ended up meeting his uncle.
b) The prosecution appears to give the impression the visit must have been unplanned, i.e., that he fled. There is no indication they checked phone logs to see if he had spoken with his uncle the day before. The evidence however suggests he did speak with his uncle by phone, that the police/fbi knew that he had, and that they misplaced that bit of research in order to allow the prosecution to pursue him as fleeing a murder scene.
Also note that the child was initially reported as having
last been seen around 2:15 pm. If that were the case, Met would not have had time to kill the child and catch the bus. So the witnesses were 'interviewed' the same way Met was, until their testimony pushed the time back enough that he might possibly be the killer if he knew the bus routes and took the last possible bus he could have taken to his uncle's house.
Note/compare the statement under ¶15 in
Esar Met, Appellant, v. State of Utah, Appellee.; When asked about Met, one of Met's roommates told the agents that he believed Met was at his cousin's house in Cottonwood Heights and provided a phone number. This, besides indicating that the prosecution lied about whether Met's visit was planned, by extension is another piece of evidence that his uncle received an interrogation similar to his, probably by an fbi fixer. His uncle would have more negative experience with police from Asia and could be relied on not to challenge the police version, unlike Met who has no family and is happy to live or to die.
Issue 3Met obviously cannot afford a lawyer. The state obviously is not going to provide him with a lawyer who is interested in the truth. I do not have money for a lawyer to help him in that kind of case. It would probably be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend him in court properly.
What are his options? What would a person recommend be done in a case like this?
Issue 4 Have a look a the following snippets of text copied from police interrogation reports:
Should a person wonder why one of the roommates returned home an hour earlier than the others the day the child was murdered?
Should they wonder about the obvious discrepancies in the stories the roommates gave, including their knowledge of whether a child had gone missing?
Should a person wonder why the only DNA evidence from the crime scene, that might reasonably be seen as indicative of the killer, belonged to one of the roommates? And why did the police try to portray that evidence as "irrelevant", possibly the result of that roommate having spit
betelnut juice previously on the spot where the victim had been killed?
New evidence prompts mistrial motion in Esar Met's murder trial - The Salt Lake tribune:
But in several places in the basement where forensic analysts collected DNA swabs, the child wasn't the only DNA profile present, Grundy said. Most samples were too faint to tell who they might belong to, save one: a DNA sample collected from the west wall of the basement. /// There, Grundy said, experts were able to exclude everyone in the home as being possible contributors — including the defendant — except for ///
Issue 5The issue of when Hser Ner Moo died is central to who might have killed her.
The body was found 29 hours after Mr Met was known to have left the apartment, but was dripping wet from water, somebody trying to wash the body. In fact the body was so wet that it was commented on by the FBI agent during the 'confession' and by others. If he had tried to wash the body, would it still be dripping wet 29 hours later?
~The furnace was next to the bathroom and the door was open. Although it was chilly, the humidity was very low~
Issue 6Notice that on
tape 1 of the translations, he finally gives a confession. However, the confession is based on what he has been told and does not match the evidence that was gathered. There is one glaring problem even beyond that though, and a person who has not researched the case might not see it:
The child was found with her hand clutching a handful of hair she had yanked from an attacker. Sometimes when a person dies during a violent struggle some part of the body, such as the hands,
can go into something like instant rigor.
That was the case when this child died. A person who examined the body said she may have been subject to abuse for perhaps up to an hour. The moment of death was abrupt though and may've been caused by a hard punch to the chest. The girl was very small obviously, her ribs would have been thin and the killer hit her hard enough to cause a substantial hole in her heart. This in addition to numerous heavy injuries to most of her internal organs, broken bones including a bone in her arm that was snapped to an odd angle etc. It wasn't remotely a sex crime. It wasn't an accidental killing. Somebody wanted to "teach her a lesson", or "punish her" for something. Remember, she was a Karin, the roommates are Karin, the translator is Karin. Met is not. One of the roommates made no secret of his dislike for people of Met's ethnic group. The child should not have been watching television with, riding a bicycle with etc somebody from Mr Met's ethnic group.
Issue 7 Counterpoint \ Is he guilty?All of the other issues indicate that he did not commit the crime, in my opinion, but here are issues that suggest he may have. These are the only compelling reasons to consider him a suspect, in my opinion.
1) He says in part 2 on the interrogation that he threw the kid's shoes in the bathroom toilet. This was mentioned prominently a few times. The only question is whether there is evidence from the very first people at the scene that the shoes were in the toilet or around the toilet. As this is the most compelling evidence of his possible guilt, it's source as evidence, comparable to 'chain of possession' with dna, has to be examined.
Just as a sideline, and not likely related, there is a note in the police report stating that during the first search police saw shoes like the ones she had been wearing when they searched an apartment. The apartment had a locked door and the person at the house said they did not have a key to that door so the police left. Later they returned and asked if they could break the door. They were given permission, knocked down the door and the room was empty. That is one of only two references to shoes that I remember from the police report.
2) One person testified at trial that Met had scratches on his upper legs that could have come from a child. This would seem to be an indicator of guilt as long as a) the evidence was described accurately and b) the 'description' was interpreted accurately. That person was an expert in child assault cases and could generally be trusted not to understate the evidence. If it was clear that the scratches came from a child she would not use ambiguous language to help protect a child rapist or murderer. Her language does seem to have been a bit ambiguous though. She wanted to help with the prosecution but she was not able to go 100% with what the prosecutor said.
Are there other possibilities that explain the scratches on his upper legs? Actually he had scratches on a lot of his body, as the defense pointed out. From the early photos it is clear he has some skin problem. 30 days earlier he had been living in a refugee camp on the edge of tropical forest. Then he moved into a cheap apartment that may have had some creatures like bedbugs or other insects that made him scratch. hose two issues are the only ones that I notice as needing further research regarding Met.
Also, there was never any research done on the evidence that regards a roommate
3) If anybody finds other evidence that indicates he
might be guilty then I will add it here. Please look at the case first though. To my knowledge the 'evidence', aside from the two issues raised here, points to his not being guilty.
Sidenote, if Met is given a fair shake and the feds burn a few local cops I'll delete all my posts on this topic, where I can, and send messages to anybody who has copied posts asking them to delete.If Met had not been prosecuted, if the state had chosen to follow the evidence and investigate the roommates, a large number of high level law enforcers would have lost their jobs. After the body was discovered, police
went on a public relations offensive to portray themselves as having done things adequately. If Met is not guilty, as the evidence indicates, it suggests the police let him be prosecuted so they could keep their jobs.
