Judge rejects claims in salt-poisoning case
By John MacCormack - Express-News A state judge has rejected claims by Hannah Overton that she was wrongly convicted of capital murder in 2007 because prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence, her lawyers were ineffective, and important evidence discovered after trial proves her innocence.
Overton, 35, is serving life without parole in the 2006 death by salt poisoning of Andrew Burd, a 4-year-old foster child who became fatally ill while in her care.
The peculiar case has drawn national attention and become a cause célèbre among those who believe in Overton's claims of innocence. The Corpus Christi woman is serving a life sentence, in part, because she declined to consider pleading guilty to a lesser offense or have the jury consider a lesser offense.
