Investigative reporter Brian O'Donoghue to speak on saga of 'Fairbanks Four'

Brian O’Donoghue, one of the best investigative reporters in Alaska, is nearing completion of his long-awaited book, “The Fairbanks Four: Murder, Injustice and the Birth of a Movement.”

O’Donoghue is to speak Friday at 3 p.m. at the Morris Thompson Center auditorium. His book, to be published by Sourcebooks, is available for advance ordering now at major outlets.

I can think of no one better qualified to comment on this prolonged legal and ethical morass than O’Donoghue, a former newspaper reporter, author and a retired journalism professor from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The publication of his book will be an important event in Alaska history and it should spark a renewed discussion on what went wrong in our justice system and how things could have been different. How things should have been different.

Three of the men settled their civil rights case with the City of Fairbanks for $1.59 million each this past fall, but not Marvin Roberts. He wants something more than money.

“I’m prepared to wait this out until I see justice” Roberts told Dan Bross of KUAC.

“Wrongfully incarcerated for 18 years of my life. They robbed me of the best years of my life . . . time lost with my family, my loved ones, building a future. I never did get an apology for the many wrongs against me. I never saw accountability for the many wrongs against me.” Roberts said.

The brutal beating of 15-year-old John Hartman on a night in October 1997 led to the arrest of four young men, all under 21 — Roberts, George Frese, Kevin Pease and Eugene Vent.

“All were eventually convicted of murder and given lengthy prison terms — one of them was sentenced to 79 years," says the promotional material for the book.

“But the case seemed off to one journalist who, with his journalism students and community members, researched, wrote, and petitioned for justice for years. When those four convicted murderers walked free 18 years later, it had long been clear that they had been wrongfully convicted by a police department intent on railroading four innocent men.”

O’Donoghue and others kept the story of these four men from being forgotten after they went to prison, digging into theories and evidence that went unexamined or had been overlooked.

The only reporting I ever did on this topic was covering the post-conviction relief hearing in Fairbanks Superior Court in 2015.

I came away convinced that the men would never have been convicted had the juries heard the evidence presented in 2015. The proceedings that put the four men in jail long ago were flawed beyond belief.

Bill Oberly, the attorney with the Alaska Innocence Project, was right when he said the police “stopped investigating and started accusing” as soon as they had the four young men in custody and got confessions from drunk teenagers.

Had they kept looking, they might have found two other teenagers at the center of the case—William Holmes and Jason Wallace.

Had the juries heard about Holmes and Wallace, both later convicted of other murders, they would have found far more than reasonable doubt regarding the prosecution case against the Fairbanks Four.

Holmes claimed he drove the car that October night and that four fellow high school students jumped out of his car and went out to attack a person they saw on the street. He claimed that Wallace was the killer. Holmes talked about this to a California prison chaplain in 2011.

Wallace made self-incriminating statements in 2003.

Both Wallace and Holmes had credibility problems. Together, their claims created credibility problems for the alleged open-and-shut Fairbanks Four prosecution.

One incident that sticks with me from that court proceeding is Oberly questioning whether Roberts had clear memories about what happened on Oct. 10, 1997: “It’s pretty clear. I’ve had about 18 years to think about it.”