Free Sandra Hemme

Sandra “Sandy” Hemme has spent more than four decades in prison for a crime that evidence supports she did not commit, making her the longest-known wrongly incarcerated woman in the U.S. On June 14, 2024, Livingston County Presiding Judge Ryan Horsman overturned Ms. Hemme’s conviction in the 1980 murder of Patricia Jeschke in St. Joseph, Missouri.

No witnesses linked Ms. Hemme to the murder, the victim, or the crime scene. She had no motive to harm Ms. Jeschke, nor was there any evidence that the two had ever met. Neither did any physical or forensic evidence link Ms. Hemme to the killing. The only evidence that ever connected Ms. Hemme to the crime was her own unreliable and false confessions: statements taken from her while she was being treated at the state psychiatric hospital and forcibly given medication literally designed to overpower her will.

Although Ms. Hemme, now 64, has spent the majority of her life wrongfully imprisoned, she has never given up hope that her name will one day be cleared.

Add your name to join Ms. Hemme’s fight for freedom.