In 2004, Isaac Turnbaugh of Vermont was acquitted of killing his coworker. Police say he recently contacted them, however, and confessed to the murder. But there's not much they can do.
Some might call it an outrage, but he's protected under a basic Fifth Amendment concept better known as "double jeopardy," and prosecutors say their hands are tied.
"He could have turned over a video tape of him committing the murder and it wouldn't change the fact that double jeopardy is attached," Vermont Attorney General William Sorrell told The Huffington Post. "We had our chance. The jury acquitted him and, just in the same way OJ could confess today to his wife's murder, it wouldn’t affect what could be done to him."
Turnbaugh, now 28, stood trial in 2004 on a charge of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Declan Lyons, 24. The two men were coworkers at the restaurant American Flatbread in Waitsfield, a town located about 20 miles southwest of Montpelier, Vt.
Lyons, engaged and expecting his first child, was found dead outside the restaurant on April 12, 2002. He had been mixing sauce in an outdoor cauldron when witnesses inside the restaurant heard a loud popping noise. WPTZ reported that, when the waitresses went outside to investigate, they found an unresponsive Lyons on the ground with a gaping head wound.
Police had no suspects in the case until the following month, when Turnbaugh went to a party and allegedly told six friends that he had shot Lyons. One of the friends told Turnbaugh's mother and she reportedly contacted the police.
"The whole reason he was charged was because he was sitting around the campfire with friends taking mushrooms and, amidst some sort of schizophrenic break, he confessed to this shooting, to being responsible for [the terrorist attacks of] 9/11 and an assortment of other things," Turnbaugh's former attorney, Kurt Hughes, told HuffPost.
Read The Whole Story Here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/isaac-turnbaugh_n_917477.html?ncid=webmail10
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