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THE PLAIN DEALER
Painter: Give Me Polygraph In Spirko Case Page 4 of 5 In fact, investigators had never heard of Spirko until he came forward, saying he had information about the crime he wanted to trade for lenient treatment for himself and his girlfriend in an unrelated case. Spirko was convicted largely on the basis of his own testimony and a series of jailhouse interviews he gave to former postal inspector Paul Hartman. During both, state attorneys say, he revealed details about the case that only the killer could know - an assertion his attorneys vigorously dispute. Spirko's lawyers offered an alternative theory at the 1984 trial that Mottinger was murdered in Willier's trailer. Dingus was also living there temporarily about that time. Latham has said that Willier's story, coupled with recent challenges to Hartman's credibility and the quality of the evidence, raises questions about whether Spirko had anything to do with the Mottinger slaying. Although he alerted the U.S. Postal Inspection Service about Willier's account several times by phone eight years ago, Latham said no attempt has been made to follow up. Recently filed court documents show that Latham's calls in 1997 inspired a flurry of memos between postal officials in Washington and Cleveland, where Hartman was based at the time. The documents had been in Hartman's files, which were made public only recently, after a federal judge's order. According to the memos, postal officials in Washington seemed ready to come to Ohio to interview Willier. But Hartman, the investigator most responsible for putting Spirko on death row, was dismissive of the Willier story, telling his boss in one September 1997 memo that "this whole thing sounds like a defense ploy to me." Describing Willier at the time as a "goofy, 19-year-old kid," Hartman said a fellow investigator described him as so unreliable "that even if you knew it was raining, and Willier told you it was, you'd have to look out the window just to verify the fact for yourself."
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