Peter Joseph "Pete" Shellem (6 October 1960,

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

–24 October 2009) was an

investigative reporter Investigative journalism is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years rese ...

for ''

The Patriot-News ''The Patriot-News'' is the largest newspaper serving the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area. In 2005, the newspaper was ranked in the top 100 in daily and Sunday circulation in the United States. It has been owned by Advance Publica ...

''. He was instrumental in obtaining the release of five wrongfully convicted innocent people: * Steven Crawford, imprisoned for life in 1970 for murder at age 14, released after 28 years * Barry Laughman, imprisoned for life in 1988 for rape and murder, released after 15 years * David Gladden, imprisoned for life in 1995 for murder, released after 12 years * Patty Carbone, imprisoned for life in 1984 for first-degree murder, released after 14 years after pleading guilty to a reduced charge of

third-degree murder In the United States, the law for murder varies by jurisdiction. In many US jurisdictions there is a hierarchy of acts, known collectively as homicide, of which first-degree murder and felony murder are the most serious, followed by second-deg ...

* Jay C. Smith, sentenced to death in 1979 for triple murder, released after 13 years, after the state Supreme Court found that prosecutorial misconduct barred him from being retried on

double jeopardy In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...

grounds Shellem's reporting also led to the conviction and imprisonment for

mail fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...

of the

Pennsylvania Attorney General The Pennsylvania Attorney General is the chief law enforcement officer of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It became an elected office in 1980. The current Attorney General is Democrat Josh Shapiro. On August 15, 2016, then-Attorney General Kat ...

, Ernie Preate in 1995. After serving a year in jail, Preate said of Shellem: "He is a one-man

Innocence Project Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futu ...

. You've got to recognize the work that he's done and the value he's given to society. He was there when the justice system failed." On April 16, 2010, Pete Shellem was posthumously awarded "The 2009 Innocence Network Special Lifetime Achievement Award". This event took place at the 2010 Innocence Network Conference, hosted by the Georgia Innocence Project, in Atlanta. His wife, Joyce Shellem, accepted the award in honor of him.

Death

Shellem died on October 24, 2009, in his home town of

Gardners, Pennsylvania Gardners is an unincorporated community in Adams County, Pennsylvania and a census-designated place that includes portions of Adams and Cumberland counties in Pennsylvania, United States. The village of Gardners is located off Pennsylvania Route ...

. His son reported that Shellem died from suicide, but this has not been confirmed.

Bibliography

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shellem, Peter American investigative journalists 1960 births 2009 suicides Writers from Philadelphia Temple University alumni American newspaper journalists American crime reporters American male journalists Journalists from Pennsylvania 20th-century American journalists 2009 deaths Suicides in Pennsylvania