(Warning: graphic details ahead)
Let me ask you this one question to open this piece: What is the first thing that came across your mind when you hear the words "true crime story"? Most of you would answer old cases, or maybe a grisly murder went unsolved, or maybe a story of few people banded together to put a stop to a violent shenanigan using deadly force. But what others might not realize, one phrase is also relevant when it comes to these types of stories: a sad story of wrongful conviction. Prepare yourselves, make sure there is a box of tissue ready, because this is probably the saddest story I've ever written. This is a story on how a cognitively impaired man was manipulated into confessing a rape-murder case, and subsequently executed in a gas chamber, without him being aware of what did he had gotten himself into.
Let's turn back the clock to 29 April 1915, in the city of Pueblo, Colorado, USA, where Joe Arridy was born. he came from a non-English-speaking Syrian immigrant family seeking work in the United States, first came into the country in 1909. His father worked for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Works and lived in a small house owned by the company. Along the way, the Arridys, Henry and Mary, welcomed another son and a daughter, but the butt of the problem was seemed to be young Joe, as he was late to start speaking, even if he did manage to speak, it's just sentences in few words. He also struggled to keep up with kids his age, even in school. When push came to shove, by the time he entered second grade, the school opted to send him back to his parents, stating that he couldn't learn. By the age of 10, Joe was admitted to State home and Training School for Mental Defectives in Grand Junction, Colorado, where he spent much of his days until he turned 21. During his stay at the facility, it is revealed that the experts had tested him, and he could only score 46 on his IQ test, couldn't understand colors, spoke slowly, and couldn't understand basic sentence with more than few words. Meaning, what they had accepted to the institution was a 6-year-old child trapped inside the body of a young adult man. He was also a target for coercion, as his innocence often used against him. He was also bullied and mistreated. It is speculated that the familial relationship between his parents, being first cousins contributes to Joe's mental defection.
By 12 August 1936, he left the facility and began wandering aimlessly across Colorado. Three days later, a gruesome murder-rape took place that would ultimately seal his fate. On that fateful night of 15 August 1936, the Drain household, husband Riley and wife Peggy was shocked when they discovered their two daughters, 15-year-old Dorothy and 12-year-old Barbara covered in blood after being attacked in their sleep. They were bludgeoned using an axe, and Dorothy was raped. Unfortunately, Dorothy succumbed due to her head injury, but Barbara survived. The Colorado Police were in intense pressure to solve the case, armed with the description provided by two women who were also attacked days prior. All those leads seemed pointed to Joe Arridy. At the time of his arrest, he was caught for vagrancy in Cheyenne, Wyoming on 26 August 1936. It was reported that when being questioned, Joe actually confessed to be involved in the murder, which excites county Sheriff George Carroll. By the time he reported his findings to Colorado, he learned that another suspect had also been arrested, named Frank Aguilar, although by his own confession, he never seen or met Arridy, a statement Joe himself repeatedly utter while in custody in Wyoming. Both Arridy and Aguilar were convicted for the rape and murder of Dorothy Drain, but on Joe's case, it was based on false confession, since there was no evidence that would place him at the time of the murder. even the surviving Barbara Drain could identify Aguilar, not Arridy.
By the time the case went into the trial stages, Arridy's lawyers plead insanity in order to save his life. But the plea went bust, but also acknowledged his mental incapacitation. three state psychiatrists stated their acknowledgments to his mental state, that he was so mentally limited, he was classified as an "imbecile", since he basically had the mind of a 6-year-old. Therefore, he could not distinguish right from wrong. That alone should be clear that he has no mental capabilities to perform any action with a criminal intent. Despite these saddening facts, he was sentenced along with Aguilar to death in a gas chamber. Few appeals then launched to hopefully reduce the sentence to at least life imprisonment, but all they got was a 9-day stay off execution.
During his appeals process, Joe could be seen inside his death row cell playing a toy train given to him by prison warden Roy Best. By his accounts, Arridy was treated well by guards and inmates alike, even so far as to consider him as his own son, often bringing him gifts. Even when Arridy's execution day came, Best said "He probably didn't even know he was about to die, all he did was happily sit and play with the toy train I had given him." He also said that Joe is basically "the happiest prisoner on death row." When that fateful day came, Joe asked for ice cream as his last meal, but he didn't even finish it, stated that he wanted that ice cream to be refrigerated so he could "finish it later," blissfully unaware that it was his last day living in this world. He did not understand the concept of death, or execution in that matter. He even smiled while being taken to the gas chamber. By the time the chamber door closed, on 6 January 1939, at the young age of 23, Joe Arridy was executed for a crime he did not commit, all because of his mental incapacity, and his coercion into falsely confessing to it. More than seven decades later, in 2011, the late Joe Arridy was given a full and unconditional posthumous pardon by Colorado governor Bill Ritter, stating that although by pardoning Joe cannot undo that tragic even in Colorado history, but it is in the interests of justice and simple decency to restore his good name. I would say that the pardon came 70+ years too late.
After reading this story, I can't help but feel for Joe Arridy. He was simply a man with the mind of a child, who only wants to explore the world, one step at a time. But one grisly crime that had nothing to do with him claimed his life in a legal debacle. I know there is one or several timelines where this crime never happened, or at least one where Joe was never convicted, but that seems to be a long shot. All I have to say in return is this: Joe Arridy, rest in eternal peace, you pure soul. I hope that you are having the most fun up there, playing with all the toy trains in the world. This shouldn't have happened to you in the first place.
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