A review found violations of Ogrod's right to due process of law and that prosecutors withheld material that could've helped him.
Ogrod's lawyers said police had coerced a false confession from him, and his defence lawyers argued that the girl may have died of asphyxiation and not blows to the head.
They said that jailhouse informers fabricated statements from him and that eyewitness accounts of a man who left the child's remains in a box do not match Ogrod's appearance. His confession, his lawyers said, had wrong details about the crime, including how Barbara Jean died. A review by the Philadelphia district attorney's office found violations of Ogrod's right to due process of law, and that prosecutors had withheld potentially helpful material to his defence.Prosecutors and Ogrod's lawyers agreed there is no physical evidence linking him to Barbara Jean.The judge said she was not able to throw out the case completely but lowered the charge to third-degree murder, allowing him to post bail and get released.
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