The Killer of Dawn Marie Birnbaum Could Be Released On a Technicality
James Robert Cruz Jr. was convicted of the slaying more than two decades ago, but there are fears he could get a new trial.
The killing of 17-year-old Dawn Marie Birnbaum in 1993 was a crime that shocked the eastern United States. A troubled teenager, she had been hitching rides with truckers to find a boyfriend with whom she had lost contact when she had the misfortune to cross paths with James Robert Cruz.
Cruz was convicted of Birnbaum’s murder and still resides at the Fayette State Correctional Institution. However, in a shocking twist to this apparently closed case, there are fears he could stand a chance of having his conviction overturned — all because of an FBI scandal linked to microscopic hair evidence.
The shocking crime
Seventeen-year-old Dawn Marie Birnbaum from Indiana was having some issues at home and, in 1993, was attending a boarding school in Bangor, Maine that her mother hoped would rein in her rebelliousness.
However, she had run away from the school before and, on March 21 1993, she decided to take to the road again. She told a friend she planned to hitch a ride to a truck stop in the hope of finding a trucker…
