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Nov 28, 2007 8:13 am US/Eastern
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Attorney: Stein Murder Confession 'Coerced'
Says Client Was Locked In Interrogation For 12 Hours
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
They are her own words -- written by her own hand.
Natavia Lowery wrote and signed a statement confessing to last month's murder of wealthy real estate agent Linda Stein.
But Lowery's new attorney, Ron Kuby, says his client did not do so by free will.
"The entire series of statements that Natavia made were a product of illegal coercion," Kuby said.
In the statement to police, Lowery says Stein taunted her with insults and pointed a cane at her. That's when Lowery says: "I asked her to move the cane out my face and she told me to 'blank' off and blew smoke in my face again. I snatched the cane and hit her repeatedly with it."
"Lowery was locked in an interrogation room for 12 hours," Kuby said. "She didn't have her cell phone. The cops took away her blackberry. And the only way she was going to get out of that room was to tell the police what they wanted to hear. And we and the DA's office knows that most of what she says was not true."
Kuby says Lowery's previous attorney told detectives they could not speak to her without speaking to him first. Yet police continued their interrogation. Kuby wants the confession thrown out. The DA's office says not a chance.
"We do not think there's a legal problem there," the office said. "It's going to be decided in court. But that lawyer was retained by her father and she said she didn't want any lawyers so never consulted him."
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