David Hendricks

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David Hendricks is an American businessman convicted of killing his wife and three children in 1984 but acquitted in a retrial in 1991.

1 Life
2 Trial
3 In popular culture
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Life

Hendricks was a member of the Exclusive branch of the Plymouth Brethren, a strict Christian sect. He ran a business in Bloomington, Illinois, selling a back-brace he had patented.^[1]

One day in November 1983, while Hendricks was out of state on a business trip, his wife and three children were found murdered in their home. An axe and a butcher's knife were the murder weapons.

[edit] Trial

Hendricks was tried the following year and found guilty but doubts were raised as to his guilt due to the prosecution's perceived reliance on circumstantial evidence and anti-religious bias.^{[citation needed]}

Among other factors, the prosecution attempted to link Hendricks' belief that divorce was a sin to the murders.^{[citation needed]} The prosecution said that since Hendricks could not divorce, the only way out of his marriage was to kill his wife and children.^{[citation needed]} Also at issue was the prosecution's belief that Hendricks calm demeanor when being told of the murders indicated guilt.^{[citation needed]} Despite the fact that two weapons were used and the blood spatters indicated the presence of two perpetrators, the prosecution argued Hendricks' guilt and Hendricks' lawyers missed some key pieces of evidence (one was the proposed order of killings, and the hair and blood evidence on the weapons proving the prosecution's assertion to be incorrect). There were also some clear signs of evidence bungling (if not tampering) such as the containers of stomach contents (one of the children's "stomach content" vials contained food that she never ate).

Despite all these inconsistencies and the fact that the prosecution's case was purely circumstantial, Hendricks was found guilty and was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences. He served seven years in Menard Correctional Center in Illinois.

In 1991, he was acquitted and released after a retrial at the McLean County Law and Justice Center in Bloomington, Illinois.