The Justice Project - Profile of Injustice
Gary Gauger
In January of 1994, Gary Gauger of McHenry County, Illinois was wrongfully
sentenced to death for the murder of his parents. Despite an exhaustive
search, no physical evidence was found linking Gauger to the crime. After an
all-night interrogation, Gauger made statements that police and prosecutors
claimed constituted a confession. He was sentenced to die based only on an
unrecorded testimony he denied making. In March of 1996, Gauger was freed on
appeal because of trial improprieties. The true murderer of his parents was
discovered several years after Gauger’s case was reversed and remanded.
Morris and Ruth Gauger were murdered on April 8, 1993 at their McHenry
County farm, where they, in addition to farming, operated a motorcycle shop
and sold imported rugs. Gauger, who lived with his parents, discovered his
74-year-old father’s body the next day and called 911 to summon paramedics,
who notified sheriff’s police. Shortly after deputies arrived, they found
the body of 70-year-old Ruth in a trailer from which the rugs were sold.
Gauger was indicted on May 5, 1993, on two counts of murder. He denied that
he had confessed, claiming he had made the statements only hypothetically
after his interrogators persuaded him it was possible he had committed the
double murder during an alcoholic blackout. The statements were not
electronically recorded, and deputies made no contemporaneous recording of
them.
At a hearing on a pretrial motion to suppress the alleged confession, Gary
testified that deputies had induced him to speculate about how he might have
committed the crime. He said they accomplished this by telling him that he
had failed a polygraph examination and that clothes drenched in his parents’
blood had been found in his room. In fact, the polygraph had been
inconclusive and there were no blood-drenched clothes.
At trial, the jury heard the official version of Gary’s allegedly
inculpatory statements. According to deputies, Gary told them he committed
the crimes by coming upon his parents from behind, pulling their heads back
by their hair, and cutting their throats. The only evidence introduced to
corroborate the alleged statements was the testimony of a pathologist who
performed autopsies on the bodies and a state forensic scientist who
examined loose hairs found near Ruth’s body.
After the jury found him guilty on both counts, Gary waived a jury for
sentencing and was sentenced to death by Judge Henry L. Cowlin of January
11, 1994. Nine months later, after Northwestern University Law Professor
Lawrence C. Marshall agreed to take the case on appeal, Cowlin reduced the
sentence to life in prison.
On March 8, 1996, the Second District Illinois Appellate Court unanimously
reversed and remanded the case for a new trial on the ground that Cowlin
erred in failing to grant a motion to suppress Gary’s allegedly inculpatory
statements. In an unpublished opinion written by Judge S. Louis Rathje, with
Judges Robert D. McLaren and Fred A. Geiger concurring, the court held that
the statements were the fruit of an arrest made without probable cause and
therefore should not have been admitted at the trial.
Without the confession, McHenry County State’s Attorney Gary W. Pack had no
choice but to drop the charges, and set Gary free. Pack continued to suggest
publicly that Gary had in fact committed the crime and was freed only
because the prosecution could not meet its burden of proof without the
confession.
Pack’s position was severely undermined in June of 1997, however, when a
federal grand jury in Milwaukee indicted two members of a Wisconsin
motorcycle gang known as the Outlaws for 34 acts of racketeering, including
the murder of the Gaugers. One of the Outlaws, James Schneider, pleaded
guilty to acts relating to the murders in 1998. The other, Randall E.
Miller, was convicted of the charges in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee in
June of 2000.
At Miller’s trial, prosecutors played tape recordings in which Miller was
heard to say that the authorities had nothing to link him to the Gauger
murders because he had been careful not to leave any physical evidence. The
recordings had been made by an Outlaw who turned government informant.
After his release, Gauger returned to farming in McHenry County.