A homicide sergeant, an assistant state attorney and a fingerprint lab man arrived at Eglin Saturday, May 16, and after talking to two Air Force investigators the Dade sergeant questioned Shea.

In the State Attorney's file, there is a 47-page pretrial statement by the sergeant of what happened. There are also statements by the two OSI men and the fingerprint technician. They reveal the background of a peculiar confession.

A second interrogation, conducted alone by the sergeant initially, began the next day.

"The man was shaking so badly that he reminded you of someone who had palsy. It was impossible for him to light a cigaret," the sergeant said.

"Did he try?"

"He tried. I lit the cigaret for him.

RE-TYPED BLOOD

Subterfuge is an oft-used practice of police interrogators.

The police told Shea his fingerprints were in the victim's car. This was not true. Shea says he also was told an eye-witness had seen him buy a bottle of whisky in Miami the night of the crime. There was no witness.

The sergeant said it was a "physical impossibility" that the blood on the shirt could be Shea's. He was in error.

Shea, near hysteria insisted the blood on the shirt was his. The Air Force had typed him AB negative, he said.

Police had the hospital re-type his blood on the spot. The second reading was B negative. (About 10 per cent of the population has B type blood.)

"It had to be that girl's, he told me," Shea now says. "He told me the evidence would put me in the electric chair. He kept calling me a liar." Police also showed him the victim's bloody dress that day

'CRYING BADLY'

There is no suggestion whatsoever - at anytime by anyone, Shea, specifically - that the police used force to extract a confession.

Shea would explain later to unbelieving police that he was "just playing goofy," "trying to act nuts," in a desperate attempt to get a medical discharge because the Air Force wouldn't let him marry his girl. He felt the Air Force made him send her home in disgrace. That's why he put his own blood the shirt, he said.

The sergeant testified how Shea broke:

"So finally he said, 'I'll tell you, Mac.' It was a long pause, and he said, 'I did it.' I said, 'How did you do it?' 'I shot her.' 'Why did you shoot her?' 'I was scared.' 'Why were you afraid, Joe?' 'She was screaming and hollering and I thought I was going to get picked up by the police.'

"The conversation at this time was stopped because he was crying so badly that I could hardly understand him. He put his head down again, he was crying. He was just sobbing by this time."

The interrogation ended about two hours later after Shea had regurgitated in a rest room. In the interrogation room, he went into convulsions and fainted, according to the statements.

Graphically and vividly, Shea would retell the murder:

"She was just about to get in the car ... and I scared her. I guess, she started hollering and I went over to grab her ... I hit her ... and I took her legs and swung them around, under the steering post there ... She woke up and started hollering and screaming thief - just a delinquent juvenile or works like that, and started tugging on my arm and making me swerve. If I'm not mistaken I think she even yelled rape a couple of times."

He said he stopped the car. "I put my hands over her mouth so she wouldn't yell any more and she bit my finger and I don't know why, all I heard was the gun go off ... I was frantic, realizing what I'd just done."

He said he cradled her head in his arms and cried, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Often he would weep in the retelling. Police, prosecution, and especially an Air Force psychiatrist, interpreted this as true guilt, remorse, shame.

In the six months, Shea awaited trial, mostly in the old courthouse skyscraper jail, he once tied a belt to his neck and a bunk and stood in silence until a jailer hurriedly took it off. He wrote bad poetry which he gave to newspaper reporters and he drew sketches of his prospective casket.

Police quietly sent a Catholic priest to him. Shea admitted guilt, the police said. Police put an officer in his cell to pose as rapist. Shea again admitted guilt.

Shea confessed to the jailer, he confessed to his deeply worried parents, he confessed to psychiatrists. He even confessed to the bailiffs while the 12-man jury deliberated. That day, Nov. 4, 1959, the bailiffs twice administered oxygen to Shea.

NO APPEAL

The prosecution had subpoenaed 28 person for the trial, expecting to use some for rebuttal testimony. That wasn't necessary.

Defense Attorney Mike Zarowny, a cross-examiner of ferocity, dramatically rested the defense without calling a single witness for his side. Thus, he had both opening and closing arguments.

"I couldn't put Shea on the stand," Zarowny said the other day. "He was trying to destroy himself."

When the jury recommended mercy with the verdict to Circuit Judge Ray Pearson, Zarowny felt "as if we'd won almost. He didn't get the char." Shea's parents were grateful. There was no appeal.

HAD DOUBTS

Now, 5 1/2 years later, what wasn't said at that trial appears more important.

One day last month Detective Thibedeau, who voluntarily resigned from the Dade County Police Department as a lieutenant in 1962, told his newspaper he believes Joe Shea is innocent. The Meslener murder had been his case from the start.

"When I began to express doubts at the time, my superiors shunted me aside. Here I was supposed to be running the case and I could hardly find out what was going on." Thibedeau was never called to testify.

For years Thibedeau has been telling policemen of his doubts. On one occasion he went to the state attorney's office. He was asked to submit proof of Shea's innocence. He couldn't do it. No one paid much attention to his opinions - until he went to a newspaper.

This newspaper also learned last month that Warren D. Holmes, chief examiner for the Miami Police Polygraph Section in 1959, told the Dade homicide officers that Shea was innocent even before the trial. At that time he made a statement under oath to the prosecution. Holmes was never called to testify.

IS IT VALID

Is Jose Shea innocent? Is his confession valid?

Shea formally signed a single-space typewritten 17-page confession the night of May 20, 1959.

To substantiate a confession, sound police work requires corroborating evidence or testimony; not merely the confessor's word. Too many kooks, or mentally unbalanced individuals, confess falsely.

It is not unusual at all - despite excellent police work - to leave some loose ends. The inability to verify a specific act independently is not necessarily meaningful.

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