 Ronald J. Harris was also charged and found guilty in two of the murders.The incident is controversial for a number of reasons such as Peterson is African American, while the initial descriptions of the suspect of the murders was described as white; Peterson had been illegally arrested for committing another crime which impacted the use of evidence in the ""Shotgun Killer"" spree trials because it was deemed improperly collected; Peterson's initial confession was recanted under claims of duress; the trials with all-white juries came to different conclusions than juries which included people of other races; and in the final case to go to trial, the judge over-ruled the jury's decision not to impose the death penalty.Between October 30, 1990 and December 18, 1990, there were a series of murders in northern Indiana in which seven people were killed by assault with a shotgun.