A miscarriage of justice will be complete on Halloween

Column by William Weathers

If anyone ever compiles a list of great miscarriages of justice, surely the case of Mel Ignatow will be near the top.

Now, the miscarriage is being compounded by the freeing of an apparently remorseless sexual sadist turned murderer.

Even though there's supposed to be some good in everybody, if anyone ever compiles another type of list - a list of the most nearly worthless humans ever to breathe air - Ignatow will make the cut.

If the name sounds familiar, it's because Melvin Ignatow is the killer whom a Kenton County jury acquitted six years ago for the murder of Brenda Schaefer.

The murder was committed in Louisville, but since polls there showed virtually everybody in Jefferson County knew what somehow eluded the jury - namely, that Ignatow was a murderer - the trial was moved to Kenton County.

It's never been really clear why the jury here found Ignatow not guilty. Jurors complained they weren't presented enough evidence. But the judge was so upset when they voted for acquittal that - in a move almost unheard of in Kentucky circuit courts - he let it be known that he would have convicted if it had been a bench trial, and he wrote a letter of apology to the Schaefer family.

Ignatow's former girlfriend, Mary Ann Shore-Inlow, testified that not only did Ignatow commit the crime, he also took photographs of the torture that led to the killing. She should have known. She was there. She helped. Then she helped him bury Ms. Schaefer's body.

Jurors didn't believe Ms. Shore-Inlow. But the following year - in 1992 - a carpet layer found a hollow place under carpet behind a door in a house Ignatow had owned. The carpet had been laid over the hole where a heating duct had been. Because it was carpeted over and behind a door, it had gone unnoticed.

But once the carpet was cut away, and the duct underneath probed, a

Ziplock bag was found containing jewelry that belonged to Ms. Schaefer and rolls of undeveloped film. On the film were images of Ignatow torturing Ms. Schaefer on the night he killed her.

Ignatow admitted having committed the murder, using chloroform. He pleaded guilty to perjury for lying to a federal grand jury and to federal investi gators. He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Now, according to a Saturday story in the Louisville Courier-Journal, Ignatow is to be released next month. He got credit for about two years he was in jail before the trial and another year off for good behavior. The report said the date of his release is Halloween.

You want to place blame in a story like this. I mean, the guy's getting away with murder. And maybe there's some blame to go around.

You could blame the prosecutor for not getting a conviction.

You could blame a jury that chose not to believe an eyewitness to the murder.

You could blame investigators for not inspecting any building Ignatow might have come in contact with right down to the floor joists.

But of course, the real blame falls on Mel Ignatow. Who knows what goes on in this man's mind, or why. But whatever the case, his is the mind of a man who used a human like an object. He is a very dangerous individual. Mel Ignatow kept a checklist of the things he was going to do to Brenda Schaefer on the night he killed her.

And the fact that he not only took the photographs, but also made sure they survived even at risk to his own liberty, showed he was, in the view of those who study such things, a classic sexual sadist.

But given such people exist, whose fault is it that come Halloween, he'll roam freely? Whoever's fault it is, it is not the fault of ''the system.'' It is, if anything, the fault of fallible people such as you and I.

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William Weathers is assistant city editor for The Post.

Publication date: 09-30-97

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