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John Brookins has professed his innocence for nearly three decades, despite authorities linking overwhelming amounts of evidence to him in the Dec. 20, 1990 murder of Sheila Ginsberg, Bucks County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jill Graziano said in a letter to the Board of Pardons.
Authorities have continued to emphasize that Brookins' fingerprints were found at the scene, including a bloody fingerprint found on a television remote near Ginsberg's body, Graziano wrote.
However, Brookins has told the Board that the physical evidence linking him to the murder scene is not a result of him killing Ginsberg, but only of innocently walking in to discover her daughter, Sharon Ginsburg, in the act of murdering her mother, Graziano wrote.
Graziano indicated that Brookins' theory cannot be supported as there was no evidence linking Sharon Ginsberg to the crime, no witness that implicated her in her mother's murder, and defense forensic pathologists who agreed that the nature of the injuries inflicted required a "great deal" or "considerable amount of force," the letter says.
The letter also details three separate police interviews in 1991, where Brookins constantly changed his story. It was not until 1999, years after his conviction, that Brookins claimed that he walked in on Ginsberg’s daughter committing the murder.
Brookins claims that testing of DNA evidence will clear his name, but no physical evidence was ever found linking Ginsberg’s daughter to the killing, Graziano wrote.
“We believe strongly in justice here in Bucks County. Mr. Brookins’ petition to be absolved of his murderous conduct in the killing of Ms. Ginsberg would subvert justice. Mr. Brookins was convicted of first-degree murder for killing Ms. Ginsberg, by a jury of his peers and after offering a full defense. There is no basis in law, or in fact, to absolve him of his guilt, or to let him go free," District Attorney Matt Weintraub said.
"Just as he denied Ms. Ginsberg any mercy, his petition for clemency must be denied.”
“His repeated denials, his every-changing account of events, and his failure to report to police or anyone else his apparent discovery of Sheila Ginsberg's murder makes his attempt to explain away the physical evidence against him wholly unbelievable,” Graziano wrote.
“The Bucks County District Attorney's Office asks this Board not to be swayed by conjecture or the false specter of an innocent man in prison. John Brookins is not innocent, and he does not deserve clemency in the murder of Sheila Ginsberg.”
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