MINNEAPOLIS — The United States Supreme Court has denied a petition to hear the case of Jerry Westrom, the man convicted of first-degree murder in the death of Jeanie Childs.
On Monday, the court announced it had denied Westrom’s request for a writ of certiorari, a request from people unhappy with a lower court’s decision.
In 2022, a jury convicted Westrom of first-degree murder and second-degree intentional homicide in Childs’ death in 1993.
Last year Westrom appealed the jury’s conviction to the Minnesota Supreme Courtwho upheld the conviction for first-degree murder. However, the court overturned the second-degree murder conviction, citing a violation of a Minnesota statute.
The law says in part: “When prosecuted for a crime, the actor may be convicted of the crime charged or of a related crime, but not of both.”
A lesser degree of the same crime is considered an included crime.
Westrom was charged in the decades-old case after investigators followed him to a hockey game and grabbed a napkin that he threw in the trash. They used the napkin to obtain his DNA.
Childs was 35 years old when she was found stabbed to death in her south Minneapolis apartment.
CBS
