Jack Daniel McCullough, 71, was charged with kidnapping and murder in the 1957 slaying of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph in Sycamore, Ill. (Photo credit: DeKalb County Sheriff’s Office)
CHICAGO (CBS) — Jack McCollough, who was convicted last month of kidnapping and killing a Sycamore girl almost 55 years ago, has written a letter to city residents saying a judge threw out documents that would prove his innocence.
The DeKalb Daily Chronicle reports, McCollough describes FBI records that were barred from his trial.
He says those records give him an alibi for the night Maria Ridulph was abducted.
Kane County Associate Judge James Hallock ruled the records could not be evidence because the people in them were dead and could not be cross-examined.
Ridulph’s disappearance and death in 1957 generated national headlines at the time.
Her killing went unsolved for decades until McCullough — a former Sycamore resident who lived near Ridulph at the time she disappeared — was charged earlier this year with kidnapping and killing the girl.
McCullough, who had worked in Washington state as a police officer, was extradited from his Seattle home to DeKalb County to face those charges.
