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Melissa Calusinski, a day care worker imprisoned for murder, hopes Illinois governor will free her based on new evidence

CBS News
Summary
Nutrition label

73% Informative

Melissa Calusinski was convicted in 2011 of murdering Benjamin Kingan , a 16-month-old boy at a day care center in Illinois .

She has served 16 years of a 31-year prison sentence for a crime she insists she didn't commit.

" 48 Hours '" correspondent Erin Moriarty has been reporting on the case for more than a decade .

Melissa Calusinski was granted an evidentiary hearing to present what Zellner argued was new evidence in her case.

Zellners says the defense had access to clear X-rays at the time of the trial, the verdict would have been different.

In 2022 , a new state's attorney in Lake County had taken office and recommended she retain a forensics company.

In this week 's " 48 Hours ," Andrew Garrett and Brian Bowman , of Garrett Discovery , walk Moriarty through their findings.

" 48 Hours " has learned that a clemency recommendation was just made for Calusinski .

The prisoner review board has made a confidential recommendation to Pritzker .

The report includes new interviews Moriarty conducted with her family, her attorneys, computer forensics experts and a false confession expert.

VR Score

83

Informative language

87

Neutral language

62

Article tone

semi-formal

Language

English

Language complexity

49

Offensive language

possibly offensive

Hate speech

not hateful

Attention-grabbing headline

not detected

Known propaganda techniques

not detected

Time-value

short-lived

External references

no external sources

Source diversity

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