Perjured testimony by the actual killer put Joseph Burrows on death row
Joseph Burrows (Photo: Loren Santow)
The body of William Dulan, an 88-year-old retired farmer, was found on November 8, 1988, at his Iroquois County home southeast of Kankakee. Six hours later, Gayle Potter, a cocaine addict, attempted to cash a $4,050 check in Dulan’s name at the Iroquois Farmer’s State Bank and was arrested. She admitted taking part in the crime and implicated two others, Burrows, who she claimed had been the triggerman, and Ralph Frye, a mildly retarded friend of Burrows. During a struggle with the victim, Potter suffered a gash to her head. Her blood was found at the scene. The murder weapon, moreover, belonged to her. No physical evidence linked either supposed accomplice to the crime and Burrows had a strong alibi; four witnesses placed him 60 miles away at the time of the crime. But, after a lengthy interrogation, Frye corroborated Potter's version of events.
Burrows was tried twice, the first trial ending in a hung jury, the second in a verdict of guilt and a sentence of death. Potter and Frye, meanwhile, were sentenced to prison. Two years later, after the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed Burrows’s conviction and death sentence, Frye recanted his testimony to Peter Rooney, a reporter for the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette. Frye, who had an IQ of 76, said police had intimidated him into falsely confessing and implicating Burrows.
After Rooney’s story appeared, Burrows’s volunteer lawyers, Kathleen Zelner and Michael Hemstreet, discovered a letter Potter had written asking a friend to falsely testify that he had seen her in a blue pickup truck that she claimed Burrows had driven to and from the crime scene. Confronted with the letter, Potter admitted that she had falsely accused Burrows and Frye to minimize her own culpability and because she thought, mistakenly, that Burrows had burglarized her trailer.
She admitted that she alone had killed the elderly victim in an attempted robbery to obtain drug money. After a hearing at which Frye and Potter testified, Burrows won a new trial. The prosecution unsuccessfully appealed and eventually dropped the charges.
Burrows was released on September 8, 1994, five years, one month, and seven days after he was sentenced to death. His left arm bore a prison tattoo from Death Row: "Die Free."
After his release, he was employed by a landscaping company in the Champaign-Urbana area. He filed a civil rights suit, which was settled for a mere $100,000, a small fraction of what comparable cases would be settled for in the years ahead.
In 2005, Burrows was convicted of possession of chemicals he allegedly used in the manufacture of methamphetamine and sentenced to six years in prison. With day-for-day good time, he was released in 2008.
On October 15, 2009, fifteen years after his release from Death Row, he died at age fifty-six.
Sources: People v. Burrows, 592 N.E.2d 997 (1992); People v. Burrows, 665 N.E.2d 1319 (1996) Champaign-Urbana News Gazette, May 15, 16, 17, 1994; Oct. 23, 2009; Chi Trib, Sep 3, 1994.
