Wrong man jailed in Lake Co. baby sitter murder, expert says

People other than Juan Rivera will be accused of the 1992 murder of a Waukegan baby sitter in Rivera's upcoming third trial in the case.

Rivera's attorneys told a Lake County judge they will tell jurors it is far more likely one of two other men, both of whom were never charged, killed Holly Staker.

Rivera, 35, has twice been convicted of raping and murdering the 11-year-old girl on Aug. 17, 1992, and has twice been sentenced to life in prison. An appellate court reversed Rivera's first conviction, and Circuit Judge Christopher Starck ordered a third trial in 2005.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Jane Raley of Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions told Starck the wrong man has spent the past 16 years in prison for the crime. Raley said two other men were questioned extensively by Lake County Major Crimes Task Force investigators in the wake of the crime, and there is more evidence against them than there is against Rivera.

The first of the two sent Holly a semi-nude photograph of himself just prior to the crime, told police he was attracted to the girl, and the children Holly was baby sitting at the time both identified him as being in the neighborhood at the time of the killing.

"There is a plethora of evidence suggesting that (the man) committed this crime," Raley told Starck. "The stack of police reports detailing his interviews stands two inches high."

Raley said the second man told several friends he had committed the murder and was also seen in the neighborhood the night of the crime.

Assistant State's Attorney Eric Kalata argued the two men were irrelevant to the case because both had been cleared by police prior to Rivera's arrest.

In addition, Kalata said, the defense was turning the table on its own argument for Rivera's innocence because the DNA found inside Holly's body does not match either man.

"The defense is claiming that the man who had sex with Holly is the man who killed her," Kalata said. "But it cannot be either of these two men, according to their theory, because the DNA does not match."

When Raley responded that the DNA also does not match Rivera but he is still being prosecuted for the crime, Kalata argued he believed there was an important reason for that.

"The defendant provided police with a detailed confession as to how he committed the crime," Kalata said. "Neither of these other two were able to provide a single relevant fact about how the murder occurred."

Jury selection is scheduled to begin April 13 and a final pretrial conference is set for April 9.