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Thursday, 13 July 2000
Jul 14, 2000
From The Herald
Guilty until proved innocent
JOHN BALD
Eileen Richey couldn't tell a soul for six, long, painful years. She was afraid to let even her family and close friends in Edinburgh know. It was a nightmare which started following a frantic telephone call from her ex-husband in America in 1986.
But despite her hellish private grief and countless nights crying herself to sleep, she felt unable to divulge the terrible secret: her eldest son Kenny had been charged with murder after a two-year-old girl was killed in a house fire in Ohio.
"How could I?" Richey says, dragging heavily on a cigarette. "I felt ashamed. It's not the sort of thing you want to be public knowledge. It was too awful to even think about. I just wanted to blot it out. It was a hell of a lot to carry about with you all that time."
The 55-year-old mother-of-three from Dalry, Edinburgh - whose son Kenny is on Death Row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution in Ohio - was speaking ahead of her fifth visit to see her son in 14 years since he was first charged. But she knows that if all his appeals fail over the coming months, and maybe years, Kenny will be strapped into Old Sparky, Ohio State's electric chair.
Kenny Richey's case has attracted worldwide attention, and Amnesty International has said he has "one of the most compelling cases of innocence" they have ever seen.
Eileen Richey was speaking ahead of her latest journey to the top-security jail to see her 35-year-old son in leg-irons and handcuffs. She will not be able to touch him.
"I remember the first time I saw him, that was at Louisville, not Mansfield where he is now," she says, her eyes watering. "I was trying to hold it in, trying not to think that it was my boy. But it was heartbreaking. I couldn't stop crying as I was escorted to Death Row to see him. I was a nervous wreck. He was wearing an orange boiler suit and wearing all these cuffs and leg-irons. I had never seen that sort of thing in my life before. It was like he was an animal. Kenny is not an animal. It was like a cage. The two of us had a good greet. Eventually he said 'now, stop crying, mum, it's all right'. And I did. We then had a right good blether for about three hours."
Kenny Richey was born in Holland, but spent the first 18 years of his life growing up in Sighthill, Edinburgh - not Dalry, as most papers have reported. Life changed for the Richeys in the early hours of June 30, 1986.
A fire engulfed an upper flat in an apartment in the village of Columbus Grove, Ohio, killing two-year-old Cynthia Collins. The child was asleep inside the apartment. Kenny Richey, a former close friend of the child's mother Hope Collins, was charged with arson. The court ruled that the young Scot - then 21 - set fire to the flat in a jealous rage in an attempt to murder Collins and her lover, living below, after a drunken party.
But doubts about the case have since been raised, with two forensic scientists willing to testify that the fire is consistent with an accident. Judges found that Kenny pulled down a smoke detector in the apartment, although it wasn't mentioned at the trial that this was frequently disconnected by most apartment residents when they were cooking.
"The case is just a farce," Eileen Richey says. "It brings out more questions than answers. When James, my ex-husband, called me about the fire away back in '86, I just thought 'Oh my God - Kenny didn't do that'. He was great with kids. He used to babysit when he lived here in Edinburgh. There was no way he did that.
"But I try to forget it all. Since that phone call, it's been terrible. How can you put into words how I felt? The emptiness. I've not touched him, my own son, since he left for America on Christmas Eve 1982 to try and start a new life. And then when I heard that news it was not the sort of thing you tell people about.
"I was absolutely stunned. I was so far away there was nothing I could do. I would just wait on them getting in touch with me. I didn't have the money to drop everything and just run over. It was just a case of waiting.
"There was days when I was right down. You can only take it so long. And I kept blaming myself. What did I do? If that's not bad enough, my other son Tom is serving a 65-year sentence after a killing when he was supposedly high on LSD, also in America. He has accepted what he has done. Kenny's case is different. I keep thinking I must have done something wrong for them to end up like that. Kenny was just a normal laddie."
Since the trial, it has emerged that the child in the apartment started three separate fires in the weeks leading up to her death. In addition, new tests show that the carpet was never splashed with petrol, paint thinner, or any other flammable substances.
Richey has taken a back seat in the campaign to free her son over the past few years since Karen Torley from Glasgow - who saw a documentary about her visiting Kenny on Death Row - took over the campaign to free him. But her main contact is a Friday-night telephone call from her elder son.
"The last time I visited Kenny a few years back they refused to let me see him," she says. "They said they'd never received my letter. If I had argued any more with them I would have ended up beside Kenny, because I really got riled. I told them I had come all this way, and surely they would let me in, but no. They said they couldn't break the rules for me. The chaplain tried three times to get me in. Still the same answer. It was breaking my heart."
But when all's said and done, she clings to a picture she has constructed in her head of how she wants it to end up. "At the back of my mind, I must admit I do think about it, and the day he gets off that plane," she says, gazing at the floor. "I'm going to be there. At Edinburgh Airport. I try and picture us together at last."
From The Herald
Guilty until proved innocent
JOHN BALD
Eileen Richey couldn't tell a soul for six, long, painful years. She was afraid to let even her family and close friends in Edinburgh know. It was a nightmare which started following a frantic telephone call from her ex-husband in America in 1986.
But despite her hellish private grief and countless nights crying herself to sleep, she felt unable to divulge the terrible secret: her eldest son Kenny had been charged with murder after a two-year-old girl was killed in a house fire in Ohio.
"How could I?" Richey says, dragging heavily on a cigarette. "I felt ashamed. It's not the sort of thing you want to be public knowledge. It was too awful to even think about. I just wanted to blot it out. It was a hell of a lot to carry about with you all that time."
The 55-year-old mother-of-three from Dalry, Edinburgh - whose son Kenny is on Death Row at the Mansfield Correctional Institution in Ohio - was speaking ahead of her fifth visit to see her son in 14 years since he was first charged. But she knows that if all his appeals fail over the coming months, and maybe years, Kenny will be strapped into Old Sparky, Ohio State's electric chair.
Kenny Richey's case has attracted worldwide attention, and Amnesty International has said he has "one of the most compelling cases of innocence" they have ever seen.
Eileen Richey was speaking ahead of her latest journey to the top-security jail to see her 35-year-old son in leg-irons and handcuffs. She will not be able to touch him.
"I remember the first time I saw him, that was at Louisville, not Mansfield where he is now," she says, her eyes watering. "I was trying to hold it in, trying not to think that it was my boy. But it was heartbreaking. I couldn't stop crying as I was escorted to Death Row to see him. I was a nervous wreck. He was wearing an orange boiler suit and wearing all these cuffs and leg-irons. I had never seen that sort of thing in my life before. It was like he was an animal. Kenny is not an animal. It was like a cage. The two of us had a good greet. Eventually he said 'now, stop crying, mum, it's all right'. And I did. We then had a right good blether for about three hours."
Kenny Richey was born in Holland, but spent the first 18 years of his life growing up in Sighthill, Edinburgh - not Dalry, as most papers have reported. Life changed for the Richeys in the early hours of June 30, 1986.
A fire engulfed an upper flat in an apartment in the village of Columbus Grove, Ohio, killing two-year-old Cynthia Collins. The child was asleep inside the apartment. Kenny Richey, a former close friend of the child's mother Hope Collins, was charged with arson. The court ruled that the young Scot - then 21 - set fire to the flat in a jealous rage in an attempt to murder Collins and her lover, living below, after a drunken party.
But doubts about the case have since been raised, with two forensic scientists willing to testify that the fire is consistent with an accident. Judges found that Kenny pulled down a smoke detector in the apartment, although it wasn't mentioned at the trial that this was frequently disconnected by most apartment residents when they were cooking.
"The case is just a farce," Eileen Richey says. "It brings out more questions than answers. When James, my ex-husband, called me about the fire away back in '86, I just thought 'Oh my God - Kenny didn't do that'. He was great with kids. He used to babysit when he lived here in Edinburgh. There was no way he did that.
"But I try to forget it all. Since that phone call, it's been terrible. How can you put into words how I felt? The emptiness. I've not touched him, my own son, since he left for America on Christmas Eve 1982 to try and start a new life. And then when I heard that news it was not the sort of thing you tell people about.
"I was absolutely stunned. I was so far away there was nothing I could do. I would just wait on them getting in touch with me. I didn't have the money to drop everything and just run over. It was just a case of waiting.
"There was days when I was right down. You can only take it so long. And I kept blaming myself. What did I do? If that's not bad enough, my other son Tom is serving a 65-year sentence after a killing when he was supposedly high on LSD, also in America. He has accepted what he has done. Kenny's case is different. I keep thinking I must have done something wrong for them to end up like that. Kenny was just a normal laddie."
Since the trial, it has emerged that the child in the apartment started three separate fires in the weeks leading up to her death. In addition, new tests show that the carpet was never splashed with petrol, paint thinner, or any other flammable substances.
Richey has taken a back seat in the campaign to free her son over the past few years since Karen Torley from Glasgow - who saw a documentary about her visiting Kenny on Death Row - took over the campaign to free him. But her main contact is a Friday-night telephone call from her elder son.
"The last time I visited Kenny a few years back they refused to let me see him," she says. "They said they'd never received my letter. If I had argued any more with them I would have ended up beside Kenny, because I really got riled. I told them I had come all this way, and surely they would let me in, but no. They said they couldn't break the rules for me. The chaplain tried three times to get me in. Still the same answer. It was breaking my heart."
But when all's said and done, she clings to a picture she has constructed in her head of how she wants it to end up. "At the back of my mind, I must admit I do think about it, and the day he gets off that plane," she says, gazing at the floor. "I'm going to be there. At Edinburgh Airport. I try and picture us together at last."