Delano Wilson’s father found not guilty of murder

I found out from the “No Body” Twitter feed that Delano Wilson‘s father, Willie Wilson who’d been charged with killing him, has been found not guilty. That’s quite unusual; even in MWAB cases, most people in this country that face criminal charges either plead out, or get convicted at trial. If you look at my list of convictions in MWAB cases, it’s more than three times longer than my list of acquittals. I think the rate of MWAB convictions is so high because, without a body, all other aspects of the case must be very strong, airtight as it were.

And apparently the case wasn’t airtight here. This article says the prosecution pointed out that Willie Wilson invented a story about his son being kidnapped, a story that was easily disproved, and said the only reasonable explanation why Willie dreamed up the abduction story is because he killed Delano. But there was almost no physical evidence to speak of,  or witnesses, and I’m thinking perhaps at least some of the jury members were like “I know he’s guilty, but…” The law says if there is reasonable doubt, the jury must acquit the defendant.

That poor baby was only six weeks old.

MP of the week: Raymond McBride

This week’s featured missing person is Raymond Harold McBride, who disappeared from Jasper, Texas on October 4, 2004 — eight days before the Charley Project was officially launched. McBride had told his family he was thinking of going to either Houston or Florida to look for work. He seems to have vanished into thin air, and left no paper trail, as my casefile for him notes. Beyond that I don’t have anything on him.