This is the sad thing!!! 
2nd mistrial declared in'80 abduction, slaying
Frank Green
Mar 14, 2008 (Richmond Times-Dispatch - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
A second mistrial was declared yesterday in the case of John Bradley Crawford, charged in the 1980 abduction and slaying of 6-year-old Alexander Paul Glanz.
The forewoman of the seven-man, five-woman Hanover County jury said that after just two hours of deliberation, jurors were hopelessly deadlocked.
The outcome leaves unresolved the 27-year-old killing of the Highland Springs Elementary School first-grader and the future of Crawford, who has finished his prison sentence for the 1981 abduction of two Mechanicsville girls.
Hanover County Commonwealth's Attorney R.E. "Trip" Chalkley III said after yesterday's proceedings that he had not decided whether to seek a third trial.
A hearing has been set for Tuesday morning, when bond for Crawford is expected to be argued, assuming that a third trial is sought. Crawford was not charged in the Glanz slaying until 2006, as his prison term for the abduction of the girls was about to end.
Ed Riley, one of Crawford's lawyers, said, "everybody is upset and frustrated because this is a very emotionally charged case."
"It's very difficult to defend, very difficult to prosecute . . . it's not easy for anybody," he said.
Two jurors contacted last night spoke on the condition their names not be published. One said the panel was split roughly seven for conviction and five against. Some were "on the line," others, he said, "wanted a smoking gun."
Another juror said, "I think the consensus was that there was a strong belief that he was guilty, but there just wasn't enough to connect him personally to it."
"The most difficult part, really, is looking at the little boy's [death photographs] like that, knowing that somebody did this and not being able to have a conviction of the person who did it, whether it was Mr. Crawford or not," said the juror.
Diane Glanz, the boy's mother, would not comment. But Pat Sledd, her aunt, said, "It's very sad; we can't believe it. Maybe we'll get him next time." Sledd said she thinks Glanz could handle a third trial. "I'll be there for her," she said.
Glanz and Crawford's father, John C. Crawford, witnesses at both trials, attended much of both of them. They were courteous, if not friendly, to each other, and each separately expressed sympathy for the position of the other.
After the mistrial yesterday, the elder Crawford said, "It's a disappointment. The wheels [of justice] grind slowly. . . . It couldn't wind up any other way, I suppose."
Alex Glanz disappeared from his Oakleys Lane home after school on Dec. 3, 1980. His slight, pale body was discovered by a hunter along Cold Harbor Road in Hanover County by a hunter on Dec. 6, 1980.
The boy's ankles and wrists had been tightly bound, and he was wearing only his socks and underpants. He had been sexually molested and died of exposure in the wooded area where he was left.
Crawford, who worked for his father's pest control business, was an early suspect. The company had a contract to conduct annual inspections of the house where Glanz and his mother lived.
No DNA or fingerprints tied Crawford to the crimes, nor did tire and foot impressions or hair analysis.
Much of the prosecution's case against Crawford depended on similarities and alleged links between the Glanz abduction and that of the two girls. One of the girls, now an adult but then 10 years old, testified this week against Crawford.
A state chemist back in 1981 testified that tests run in his lab found chemical compounds -- one of them chlordane -- used in a pesticide on the bindings of one of the abducted girls, the binding used on Glanz and on clothing worn by Glanz and Crawford.
It was the same pesticide found in barrels on the back of Crawford's pickup truck.
However, an expert, Harold M. McNair, testified yesterday that a second type of test should have been conducted to confirm the results that identified the chemicals.
In his closing argument, Chalkley said, "There is fingerprint evidence in this case; it's chlordane and it's everywhere the defendant went."
But Riley disagreed, telling the jurors, "It's not anything like a fingerprint." The chemicals were commonly used in pesticides at the time. There were also problems with the testing and the safeguards taken to ensure the evidence was not contaminated, he argued.
He concluded by telling the jury, "The only thing worse than to let what happened to Alexander Glanz go unpunished is to send an innocent man to jail. If you find him guilty, this is what you're going to do."
But Chalkley, who as the prosecutor got in the last word, countered, "Thank goodness you won't have to send an innocent man to jail."
"Who speaks for Alex? Who speaks for the little boy torn from his mother?" Chalkley asked, urging the jury to do so by finding Crawford guilty.
