found dead from neglect. Police detectives Rick Rice and Rich Martin of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department interviewed several people. Under great pressure from the media for a suspect in this gruesome murder, they turned to Johnny Purvis, the town "weirdo". They yelled and intimidated him at his interrogation and his mother heard it. Purvis was very shaken by the experience, and his mother was determined that he would talk to the police no more. But the detectives, undeterred by the fact that their forensic investigations showed Purvis was not at the crime scene, were determined to make Purvis confess. They picked a time when Purvis was not with his mother and Purvis confessed to Hamwi's murder. Represented by attorney Richard Kirsch, at Purvis's trial the taped confession to police was declared inadmissible by Judge Thomas Coker. But the jurors were not convinced of Purvis's innocence and declared him guilty based on the confession to psychiatrist Joel Klass. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. A new investigation Although attorney Kirsch lost appeals in the courts and Purvis spent time in prison, an Aspen, Colorado, detective named Gary White put the first crack in the Hamwi murder, when a woman beaten by Robert Wayne Beckett Jr. said that she'd heard him boast that his father, Robert Wayne Beckett Sr., had killed a girl in Florida. White remembered the Hamwi case and had private detective Barbara Barton assist in checking this out. Surprisingly, Rick Rice and Rich Martin, who had helped get Purvis convicted, weren't interested in this new lead in the Hamwi case. He was imprisoned for several years before two new detectives, Tim Bronson and Bob Williams, were assigned to the homicide section of the Fort Lauderdale Police Department. They were looking at some old cases and were shocked when they found that detectives Rice and Martin had not investigated the Robert Beckett Jr. boast of his father killing a girl in Florida, and the Hamwi investigation was on again. Through the painful and sometimes unwilling cooperation of Robert Wayne Beckett Sr., Beckett admitted to the murder of Susan Hamwi and that Paul Serio was the other murderer. The baby, Shane Hamwi, had been left neglected. He explained that Paul Hamwi had paid the two of them $14,000 to murder Susan. Release Johnny Purvis was released from custody on January 15, 1993. But he had his problems psychologically and had