Former Murder Suspect Files Lawsuit Against Police

By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 2, 2010 7:00PM

Jerry Hobbs Don't know what it is about Illinois and wrongful convictions, but it seems to happen with frequency here. Jerry Hobbs, was in jail for four years on charges of murdering his daughter and a friend in a Zion park before DNA evidence exonerated him, filed a civil rights lawsuit against the police who took his confession yesterday. Hobbs was arrested in 2005 in the murder of his 8-year-old daughter Laura and her friend, 9-year-old Krystal Tobias, and he served time awaiting trial for the murders until August, when DNA evidence implicated Jorge Torrez, a former Marine who grew up in Zion. Prosecutors knew about the DNA evidence linking Torrez as early as 2006, and the evidence didn't become public knowledge until 2008. Yet they still focused their investigation on Hobbs.

The lawsuit alleges that police physically and psychologically coerced Hobbs into confessing, a charge prosecutors dispute, saying that the court ruled Hobbs's confession admissible. In a press conference today, Hobbs said that he could never truly be repaid for the years he lost.

"They were just looking for somebody. They didn't care who they had," Hobbs said.