One Of Norfolk Four Cleared Of Killing
August 4, 2011 by UPI - United Press International, Inc.
NORFOLK, Va., Aug. 4 (UPI) — A former sailor, one of the group known as the Norfolk four, was cleared Thursday in Virginia of a 1997 rape and murder.
A special prosecutor told Circuit Court Judge Charles Poston there is not enough evidence to convict Derek Tice of the crime, The Virginian-Pilot reported.
“It’s a victory for me, but there’s still three other guys,” Tice said after the hearing.
Tice and three other sailors confessed under intensive interrogation to raping Michelle Bosko, the wife of another Navy man, and three of them admitted killing her. They later recanted their confessions but were convicted at trial.
Omar Ballard, who was linked to the crime by DNA and did not know the other defendants, testified for the prosecution. But he has since said he acted alone.
Former Gov. Timothy Kaine commuted the life sentences given Tice, Daniel Williams and Joseph Dick but stopped short of declaring them innocent. Eric Wilson was already free.
Robert Glenn Ford, the former Norfolk detective who headed the Bosko investigation, was later convicted of federal corruption charges.
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