Secrets in the cornfield: Iowa's Unsolved · True crime podcast

The murder of Sarah Ann Ottens Part 2

·38 min·2 clips

A judge overturned Hall's conviction after ruling prosecutors withheld material from the defense.

Sarah Ann Ottens was found murdered in her dorm room on March 13, 1973. About six months later, James Wendell Hall was charged with her murder, and on May 23, 1974, he was found guilty of second-degree murder. The case did not really stay settled. Hall's defense attorney, William Tucker, immediately filed a motion for a new trial, and when sentencing came on July 3, 1974, Judge Schultz overruled that request. On paper, that should have been the end. It was not, because years later it was revealed that the state had been hiding evidence all along, which changed the shape of the case. The fight moved into Johnson County District Court for post-conviction relief. Allegations surfaced that Carl Goetz and a state law enforcement officer had been involved in misconduct in both the investigation and prosecution. That is hard to untangle. On July 20, 1983, Assistant Iowa Attorney General Michael Sheehy admitted that Hall's rights were violated and said a judge should grant relief. Then the office tried to walk it back. A spokesman said the admission had been a misunderstanding between Sheehy and his superiors, and a few days later another prosecutor said the state might have to confess error to the court. In legal terms, that meant admitting a mistake serious enough to justify a new trial. The BCI investigative file had turned up material they believed was exculpatory, and some records were missing, so Hall's new lawyer, Paul Patterson, had to gather documents from Hall's former attorneys and from the state itself. Keep that in mind. Both suspects under review had alibis. Then an inmate in an Iowa prison came forward and said William Charles Burbridge killed Sarah Ottens. The case still did not settle into a neat answer. Hall is still in custody. Sarah's family still needs answers, and the episode closes by pointing listeners toward the IDCI and University of Iowa Police if they know anything.

As heard by us

A conviction starts to wobble as withheld evidence, post-conviction filings, and official backtracking come into view.

Sarah Ann Ottens' murder is framed as a case that once looked settled and then starts to unravel under withheld evidence, post-conviction filings, and a state that later backed away from its own position.

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Why you'd press play

You want the moment a closed murder case starts to crack, and the state evidence story turns.

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