THE TRIAL
Bernard Hatch's trial lasted from November 6th, 1974 to March 6th, 1975, when he was found guilty of the second-degree murder of Mary Rose Turner. It persists as the longest trial on record for Oneida County, New York.
The Oneida County Courthouse in Rome, in the late 1800s or early 1900s.
Bernard Hatch's trial began on November 6th, 1974, which was over a year after his arrest. The Honorable John H. Walsh presided over the trial. Edward A. Wolff prosecuted the case. Stephen J. Pawlinga served as Hatch's defense counsel. Thomas Carl has served as the Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) investigator.
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No physical evidence was ever tied to Hatch completely; rather he was convicted on an overwhelming amount of well-collected circumstantial evidence and a time line of witnesses who saw a car like his and a person looking like him at the appropriate times. Farmer James Weaver testified to the type of car he saw, the object he saw dragged, and how he followed the trail of blood and organic material to what was found to be Mary Rose's grave site. Dorothy Stanco and Joyce Broadbent testified that they had seen the green car on the route Mary Rose's body had been dragged and subsequently buried. The investigators testified as to what they found at the crime scene, how Hatch's family had reacted during the property search, and that his family had switched their reported
timeline of Hatch's behavior after he was accused of the crime, which they had. According to documentation discovered by Blanchfield (2009), Hatch's mother and sister changed the timeline they originally gave police, moving times back by three hours to cover when he might have been seen elsewhere.
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The evidence taken from Hatch's car trunk matched that found at the crime scene, even if rudimentarily determined. The fibers of cloth found on the rope at the scene matched those found in the trunk of his car, as did the hair. Mary Rose's own hairdresser testified at the trial that the hair was of the exact same type as Mary's. Mary Rose had visited the hairdresser's two days before her murder, and the ends still looked like they had been cut with a razor, as hers had been cut. Finally, paint found on the rope left at the scene of the crime matched that on the hitch on Hatch's car. Combined with the witness testimony, the timeline, and Hatch's previous record of violence, the jury deliberated quickly, finding him guilty on March 6th, 1975. To date,
The present-day Supreme Court Courthouse of Oneida County, NY
The current Oneida County Courthouse
the trial is the longest on record for Oneida County, NY (Parker, 2016). And as long as the trial was, the jury's deliberation was as short: it took them less than ten hours, a very short time to find someone guilty whose trial resulted in over 8,000 pages of court transcripts (Schaaf, 1975). Justice Walsh sentenced Hatch to 25 years to life. Hatch slit his wrists between the verdict's reading and sentencing.
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Hatch was not without supporters. Defense counsel Pawlinga claimed he did not receive fair consideration, because he had to get a court order to be allowed to visit the crime scene (Patinkin, 1975). The court officials also denied that jurors had received threats, but the courthouse was very animated at the reading of the verdict. Today, some still swear Hatch is innocent. In order for Hatch to have not committed the crimes, however, someone would have had to stolen his car to commit the crime, and then return it. Nor does this scenario does explain how Hatch claimed ignorance of Mary Rose's murder when he had article clippings of her death in one of his dressers. To this day, no one can offer an explanation
for how the evidence to come together in such a perfect way. Hatch still refuses to acknowledge guilt. He has no answer for the evidence found, nor the sightings of the green car driven by someone who looked just like he did. It is probable that he will never confess.