Gage County Taps Insurers to Help Pay Wrongful Conviction Judgement to Beatrice Six

BEATRICE – A Nebraska county that owes $28.1 million to six people wrongfully convicted of murder has reached a settlement with several insurance companies to help pay part of that judgment.

The Gage County board approved agreements with six insurers on Wednesday to secure $5.98 million to help pay the county’s debt off more quickly.

Officials have already increased property taxes and approved a half-cent sales tax to pay the judgment off over the next several years.

The Beatrice Six Backstory:

The former inmates, known as the Beatrice Six are Joseph White, Thomas Winslow, Ada JoAnn Taylor, Debra Shelden, James Dean and Kathy Gonzalez, who were falsely found guilty of the 1985 rape and murder of Helen Wilson in Beatrice, Nebraska, and served lengthy prison terms before being exonerated by DNA evidence in 2009.

Their conviction was based on forensic evidence that had been faked by a now-discredited forensic chemist. That chemist was involved in numerous false convictions that have been reinvestigated. A police psychologist on the case of the Beatrice Six convinced five of the six that they each had “repressed memories” of the crime. (Joseph White maintained his innocence.) The Nebraska State Patrol forensic scientist who did the original blood and semen analysis was never called to the stand to testify during the case: her analysis had determined that none of the defendants on trial were a specific match to blood or semen found at the scene.
In 2008, DNA evidence was reexamined and implicated Bruce Allen Smith, the original prime suspect in the slaying, who had died in 1992. All of the Beatrice Six were exonerated and freed in 2009.
Joseph White, who maintained his innocence from 1985 onward, filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Gage county on behalf of himself and the rest of the Six. White died in a 2011 accident, but the lawsuit went forward to trial in January 2014. In July 2016, a jury awarded the Beatrice Six a $28 million judgement.  Gage county appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States, which denied the appeal on March 4, 2019.
Five of the Beatrice Six, and Joseph White’s heirs, will receive the full judgement from Gage county.