Beaman speaks out on wrongful conviction in Lockmiller murder

“I went back and clicked my heels,” Beaman told an audience Tuesday night at Illinois State University’s Braden Auditorium Tuesday evening during an event titled “Wrongful Conviction: A Conversation with Alan Beaman and his lawyer.

The conversation was an opportunity for Beaman to “give voice to these types of issues,” he said, alongside his lawyer of 28 years, Jeffery Urdangen, and moderator Edith Brady-Lunny, a journalist and author who covered the story for The Pantagraph.

During the conversation, the audience was allowed to ask questions for Beaman and Urdanhen to answer.

When Beaman was just 21 years old, he was charged with the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Jennifer Lockmiller. The 22-year-old ISU student was found murdered in her Normal apartment in August 1993, and Beaman was convicted in 1995 and sentenced to 50 years in prison.

At the time Lockmiller was killed, Beaman was 140 miles away in his hometown of Rockford. Beaman said he is preparing to return to Bloomington to finish his senior year at Illinois Wesleyan University.

“I found out about her death by being accused of killing her,” Beaman said during the conversation Tuesday evening.

Beaman was first questioned by police while still in Rockford in August, although he remained free and completed his education, earning a bachelor’s degree in fine arts (technical theater).

Right after taking his last final exam, Beaman went to the student center for dinner. He was then taken into custody shortly after, he said.

“How can you turn a theater student into a killer?” Urdangen asked rhetorically.

Beaman said he believed “if they want to frame you, they’ll frame you.”

Echoing Beaman’s statements, Urdangen said the prosecution “went off the rails,” ignoring the burden of proof in Beaman’s case.

In 2008, the Illinois Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Beaman’s right to due process had been violated by McLean County State’s Attorney Charles Reynard and then prosecutor James Souk, for withholding evidence about another suspect before the criminal trial.

“I think retired judges James Souk and Charles Reynard framed Beaman,” Urdangen said, referring to prosecutors who joined the bench after the Beaman case.

Retired Justice Robert Freitag and current Justices William Yoder and Jason Chambers were also named during the conversation. Beaman and Urdangen said all of those named played a role in the Beaman case, “advancing their careers” by obtaining and maintaining convictions, Urdangen said.

The Illinois Supreme Court found that the state suppressed evidence, including that of another suspect, a drug dealer who had a history of violence against women and with whom Lockmiller was allegedly involved, Urdangen said .

In April 2013, Beaman requested a certificate of innocence, which was granted by the McLean County Circuit Court, before being pardoned by Illinois Governor Pat Quinn on grounds of actual innocence.

Although Beaman has now been exonerated in Lockmiller’s death, Normal Police have yet to make any further arrests in the case and the case remains officially unsolved.

Peggy Hundley, a retired ISU administrative assistant, expressed disappointment that a killer was still on the loose. “I wondered what happened to him (Beaman) after he was released,” she told the Pantagraph of Beaman.

Another audience member said she was not aware of any details before Tuesday night’s conversation. “It’s interesting, sad, but I think it’s even more frustrating that there are a lot of judges who aren’t being held accountable in our community,” Kelly Barth told the Pantagraph.

“When you go through the exoneration process, you have proven that someone presented evidence that was not accurate. How can we ensure that this doesn’t happen again? How can we hold these people accountable ?” » asked Barth.

Following his declaration of innocence, Beaman filed a civil suit against the city of Normal and the former Normal Police Department detectives he accused of mishandling the case. Before the suit went to court, the city agreed to settle with Beaman for $5.4 million.

“Nobody gives you $5.4 million if they don’t have to,” Brady-Lunny said.

Beaman said former detectives Tim Freesmeyer, Frank Zayas and Dave Warner were partly responsible for the malicious prosecutions for omitting evidence from police reports, fabricating time trials on the route from Normal to Rockford and, in the Zayas case, allowed the problem to occur as a supervisor.

Although Beaman has proven his innocence on all fronts, Brady-Lunny said no errors have been admitted and the city continues to support the officers and their conduct.

“An apology would be an expression of decency,” Urdangen said.

“No one wins; everyone loses,” Beaman said.

Today, Beaman spends his free time training police cadets enrolled in the Wrongful Conviction Awareness and Prevention (WCAA) program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Police Training Institute .

Beaman said he hopes that by sharing his story he can inspire change in others.

“It’s so difficult, it’s ingrained, these things need to be changed,” Urdangen said. He believes advances in technology and DNA evidence have helped exonerate people wrongly accused of crimes.

“I was just a student, this can happen to anyone,” Beaman said.