Attorneys argue woman is innocent in 1980 killing and shift blame to former Missouri police officer

CHILLICOTHE, Mo. (AP) — Attorneys for a Missouri woman who has spent more than four decades in prison for a murder her supporters believe she did not commit are arguing that the evidence points to a police officer who was investigated for burglaries and later went to prison. They said at a hearing this week that the only evidence linking 63-year-old Sandra Hemme to the 1980 killing of St. Joseph library worker Patricia Jeschke is the “wildly contradictory” and “factually impossible” statements she made to detectives while she was a patient at a psychiatric hospital. Hemme is serving a life sentence. The Kansas City Star reports that a judge will issue a decision in the coming weeks or months.