Judge Rips Lie Tester On Boy's Story Of Fire |
Chicago, Jan. 16 - Family Court Judge Alfred J. Cilella Tuesday assailed the lie detector operator who reportedly obtained a 13-year-old boy's confession to touching off Chicago's worst school fire. |
The jurist also implied criticism of the police investigation of the boy in connection with the Our Lady of the Angels fire. |
Meanwhile, State's Atty. Daniel P. Ward said a delinquency petition would be filed, calling for the boy's appearance at 11 a.m. Wednesday in Family Court. Attorneys retained by the boy's parents said they would surrender him at that time. |
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Chief target of Judge Cilella's ire was John E. Reid, polygraph expert to whom the youth allegedly confessed setting the fire that claimed the lives of 92 children and three nuns Dec. 1, 1958. |
“Reid's conduct was most unusual,” said the judge. “I don't know what information he had pertaining to the boy but I think that information would be regarded as confidential.” |
The jurist said his first knowledge of the boy's purported confession came Friday afternoon through a phone call from Reid. Reid started to tell him details of the confession, according to Cilella, but Cilella cut him off. |
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“I suggested to Reid that he take steps with the proper authorities,” Cilella said. “My function would be to receive a delinquency petition filed by any citizen or law enforcing agency.” |
The judge also complained that Cicero police and other investigators made no move before late Tuesday to take proper steps “to bring this thing to a head.” |
Cilella added that, according to the new state criminal code effective Jan. 1, the court may not suggest, require nor accept the evidence of lie detector tests. |
The question of lie detector tests was not the only legal problem posed by the case. The new code may also bar the boy's prosecution on a felony charge. |
Ward said the code forbids the conviction of any person for any offense unless he had observed his 13th birthday at the time the offense was committed. |
The boy under suspicion, now an eighth grader at a Cicero school, was a 10-year-old fifth grader when he attended Our Lady of the Angels School. |
Ward announced the decision to file a delinquency petition after a conference with Reid, Assistant Corporation Counsel John Thornton, the city fire attorney; representatives of the police and fire department arson squads and Cicero police officials. |
The state's attorney would not disclose the substance of the petition. |
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Cilella said his duty will be to determine whether the boy is guilty of delinquency under the petition. |
If he finds the boy guilty, he may place him on probation in custody of his parents with a recommendation for psychiatric care or he may refer him to the Illinois Youth Commission. |
If the boy is referred to the youth commission it may, after a period of observation, assign him to one of the state's 10 forestry camps, to the Illinois Training School for Boys near St. Charles or to the Sheridan Reformatory. |
Walter P. Dahl, an attorney engaged by the boy's stepfather and mother, said he would surrender the youngster for the hearing and that John J. Cogan, veteran trial lawyer and former assistant state's attorney, would conduct the defense. |
The attorneys said the boy has insisted, since he took the lie test, that he never set the school fire. They said he told his parents that if he made any such admission, he did so only because he had been tricked into it by the lie-detector operator. |
The parents complained, according to counsel, that the boy had been kept under questioning by Reid for seven hours, from 1:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. last Friday. |
The lawyers said the mother had agreed for the boy to take the test, with the understanding that he would be asked just five questions about fires in Cicero. They said she sought the test voluntarily to determine whether the boy had anything to do with starting the Cicero fires. |
The stepfather said Reid deleted a section of the boy's statement in response to questions about a fire in a Cicero bowling alley, according to the attorneys. They said the parent charged Reid held out that section after it was demonstrated to him that the boy could not have had a hand in starting the fire. |