GEORGIA ON HER MIND
Like many of the rumors that have circulated about Renatta Frazier
— the famously former cop rousted from the Springfield Police Department on
the basis of false accusations — the one about her using her settlement check
from the city to buy a house in Panther Creek is patently untrue. Frazier has
been eager to leave Springfield for quite some time. The only question was where
she would go.
By the time you read this, Frazier and her husband, B.J., will be the new
owners of a three-year-old house in an upper-class suburb near Atlanta, Ga.,
where her relatives live.Modest but large enough to accommodate their
eight kids, it’s a far cry from the raggedy old van the family once called home.
THE DISCOVERY STATE
In the pilot episode of a new courtroom series originally called
Crime Time, the Discovery Channel examined the case of Julie Rea-Harper,
the Lawrenceville woman accused of murdering her 10-year-old son in 1997. The
pilot apparently proved successful; now comes word that the first regular episode
of the reality show, newly rechristened Reasonable Doubt, will focus
on yet another Illinois case: the 1996 murder and dismemberment of Decatur
Herald & Review advertising representative Karyn Slover. Slover’s ex-husband
and his parents were later convicted of the murder, although all three have
steadfastly maintained their innocence.
Coincidentally, both cases are on the roster of the Downstate Illinois Innocence
Project, which limits its caseload to those its investigators believe are examples
of “actual innocence.”
This article appears in Jul 22-28, 2004.
