By Bruce Vielmetti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel –
MILWAUKEE — The innocent man wrongfully convicted of beating, raping and killing a 63-year-old Milwaukee woman in 1984 was sentenced to life in prison.
The man who actually killed Ione Cychosz and kept the secret for more than two decades was sentenced Monday to a term that will add an extra 7 ½ years to the time he’s been serving for another homicide.
That’s just how things shake out in what a veteran prosecutor called “a very unusual case.”
In 2009 the Wisconsin Innocence Project showed that bite marks used to convict Cychosz’s neighbor, Robert Lee Stinson, could not have come from him, and he was freed after 23 years in prison. The next year, DNA evidence linked Moses Price to the crime, and he confessed.
Price, 51, was finally charged in April, pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder and was sentenced Monday to 19 years in prison, concurrent to the 35 years imposed for first-degree reckless homicide, arson and theft in 1991.
Under the laws in effect in 1984, Price must be released after serving two-thirds, about 12 ½ years, of his sentence and would be eligible for release even sooner. He was set for release in 2017 on his 1991 convictions, but will now serve as much as 7 ½ years more.
Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams recommended the concurrent sentence, noting that once confronted with the DNA evidence in 2010, Price confessed and is a different person from the man abusing drugs and alcohol in his 20s. He has completed training in plumbing and welding while incarcerated.
“Now he’s found redemption and cleansed his soul,” Williams told the judge. “I think he’s come to peace with himself and perhaps with his god.”
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Richard Sankovitz agreed and noted that 20 years was the maximum sentence for the offense in 1984. He agreed to subtract a year because Price has been serving time in a higher-security facility since admitting to the murder two years ago.
Sankovitz told Price he could press him on why he didn’t come forward sooner, but wouldn’t because now Price will pay his own price by having to spend several more years in prison, just as he nears his mandatory release from his prior sentence.
Price told investigators in April 2010 that he followed Cychosz after she got off a bus, he had a “blackout” and when he “came to” the woman was lying on her back on the ground. He was on top of her and had a knife in his hand, he told investigators, according to the criminal complaint.
The next day he saw a news report of a woman being found dead and realized the woman he had been with had died, the complaint says.
He said that he never told anyone about what happened, and that no one ever suspected him in the killing. He also claimed he didn’t know Stinson had been convicted of the crime until 2010.
He stated that he went to prison shortly after the homicide, and he worried his DNA would come up in the Cychosz case and that he thought about the case every day, the complaint says.
Neither Stinson nor Cychosz’s family attended the hearing.
Investigators talking to Stinson after Cychosz’s death noticed he was missing a tooth, suggesting his bite might match eight marks found on the victim’s body.
At trial, experts said Stinson’s bite was a definite match, and his lawyer didn’t challenge their qualifications or call another expert to dispute the findings. He was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and sentenced to life in prison.
He was freed in 2009 after the Innocence Project produced evidence showing the bite marks on Cychosz could not have come from Stinson. He now lives with his sister in Milwaukee, according to the Innocence Project.
The Wisconsin Claims Board agreed to pay Stinson $25,000 as compensation.
