by Dick Hall-Sizemore
![](https://www.baconsrebellion.com/app/uploads/2024/07/Harper-Christopher-489x1024.jpg)
Marvin Grimm spent 44 years in jail and prison for sexual abuse and murder of a three-year old boy, to which he confessed and pleaded guilty. However, the Court of Appeals of Virginia recently said that there is no evidence he committed the crimes and fully exonerated him.
Grimm’s case is largely an illustration of the utility of forensic tools that were unavailable until relatively recently. It is also an illustration of the reality of false confessions and their role in the criminal justice system.
In November 1975, three-year old Christopher Harper (designated as “C.H.” in the Court of Appeals opinion) was reported missing by his mother. His body was found four days later in the James River. An autopsy and forensic analysis reported that he died of asphyxiation. There was sperm in this mouth and throat and a significant amount of ethanol, chlorzoxazone (a muscle relaxant), and acetaminophen in his blood, liver, and stomach.
There was considerable coverage. The police went weeks without solid clues or a suspect. Eventually, they came to focus on the 20-year old Grimm, a laborer because he had had two arguments related to the little boy with the boy’s father prior to his disappearance; the boy’s mother had said she felt “Grimm was odd in his actions;” and Grimm lived in the apartment across the hall from the boy’s family.
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