I posted this thread a year ago and I hope that it is ok to bring it back up with an update.
Respectfully,
dark_shadows
This is an update for today jan 7,2007;
For most Vermont criminal defendants, a guilty verdict and occasional routine appeal mark the end of their court case.
Not so for convicted rapist and murderer Edwin Towne. His 1989 conviction for killing Richmond teenager Paulette Crickmore three years earlier -- a slaying so cruel the crime still haunts the lead investigator -- marked only the beginning of Towne's odyssey of legal gamesmanship, which continues unabated.
Towne, 54, has filed at least 20 lawsuits, appeals and other legal maneuvers in state and federal courts. The first challenge came within months of his conviction; the vast majority were filed in the past seven years, with the most recent in October.
He has lost 16 cases, four are pending, and Towne, acting as his own attorney, has vowed a ceaseless attack on his conviction.
"I will never give up," Towne wrote in one document, "until I win my freedom."
Al Crickmore, Paulette's father, said prosecutors warned the family years ago that repeated appeals likely would follow Towne's conviction, but the case's constant drumbeat still hurts.
"It just shows what a mean, mean person he is, because he knows this is hurting so many people," said Crickmore, 63, of Huntington. The Crickmores take comfort in their belief that Towne's efforts will fail. "There's no chance of him getting out, and that helps. The system works."
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