#wrongly convicted

[thespliffbunker]

all-bodies-r-beautiful

Bargain!

[gwydionmisha]

How Discovery Channel’s ‘MythBusters’ Helped a Wrongly Convicted Man Prove His Innocence - Innocence Project

[fakeosphere]

Sign the Petition

Release bruce chambers from custody!

a young boy named Bruce Chambers is in custody on pretty extreme charges, which his family claims are false. i really think life +245 years is pretty heinous for armed assault and robbery, whether he did it or not. it's asking for 500 sigs and it has 350.

it would be nice to show this local county in Georgia that other people care about this boy's right to a fair process. signing is free but giving change.org money just pays for them to give the petition a little more traffic and doesn't go to the family.

[caseremains]

The rape and murder of a young child is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable, and thankfully a crime that is exceedingly rare. But in early 1990s Mississippi, two such tragedies occurred to two little girls aged just 3-years-old, who lived just three miles apart from one another. The boyfriends of both the girl’s mothers would be convicted of their murders. And almost twenty years later, both men would be proved innocent.

The first crime took place on September 15 1990, when Courtney Smith was taken from her bed in the middle of the night. Two days later she was found in a pond near her home, and Levon Brooks was picked out of a lineup by Courtney’s 5-year-old sister. At trial, he was convicted on the strength of expert testimony that stated bite marks on the little girl were a match to Brooks’s teeth, and he was sentenced to life in prison. 

Just over a year and a half later, Christine Jackson was found under strikingly similar circumstances, this time dumped in a nearby creek. Having babysat Christine and her 2 younger siblings that night, Kennedy Brewer was arrested for her murder. The same medical examiner and dentist who had testified at Brooks’s trial gave evidence at Brewer’s, matching bite marks on the body to Brewer’s dental records. The dentist, who had in fact been suspended from the American Board of Forensic Odontology, made the bizarre claim that all 19 marks had been made using only Brewer’s 2 front teeth (a claim he also made in the trial of Levon Brooks). In spite of this, he was convicted of capital murder and sexual battery on March 24, 1995, and sentenced to death.

In 2001, advanced DNA testing was completed on a semen sample recovered from Christine, which had been deemed insufficient for testing at the time. The tests excluded Brewer, and instead gave the profile of an unknown assailant. The next year his sentence was vacated, but he remained in prison for another 5 years waiting for a retrial to be scheduled. During this time a DNA match was finally made, to original suspect Justin Albert Johnson, a man with a long history of sexual assault. Johnson finally admitted to raping and murdering both Christine and Courtney.

On February 15, 2008, charges against Brewer were officially dropped, and Brooks was released from prison the same day (and subsequently exonerated just one month later). The men filed a joint lawsuit against the medical examiner and dentist that helped secure their convictions, but the suit was dismissed in 2014. For their combined 32 years spent behind bars, the state of Mississipi awarded Brooks and Brewer $500,000 each.

[saddiedotdk]

Tony Goldwyn is the newest board member for the Innocence Project.

 https://25years.innocenceproject.org

[morbid-n-macabre]

The Savage King Henry VIII

As an American I can’t explain my obsession with Tudor England, except that there’s so much scandal and murder involved. And y’all already know that I do love me some scandal and murder!

King Henry VII

King Henry VIII had only been the second of the Tudor dynasty; his father, Henry VII who had very few ties to the crown, won the throne from Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485…

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[morbid-n-macabre]

These are a couple of the photos from cases posted on my Patreon this past month; there are more than 7 new Exclusive Patreon posts since March 1st. The lowest platform to join is only $3 a month! Donations will help keep this site up and running as long as getting that podcast y’all keep asking forb up and running! I can’t continue to do this without your support. That said, I Completely…

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[caseremains]

Kevin Keith has been imprisoned since 1994, convicted of opening fire in Bucyrus Estates apartments, Ohio, killing 2 women and a 4-year-old child. At trial, evidence was presented by forensic analyst G. Michele Yezzo. Yezzo testified that the numbers 043 imprinted into the snow along with tyre tracks at the scene of the crime matched the license plate and tyres of Keith’s girlfriend’s car. When questioned about her methods, Yezzo explained that she had matched the tracks not from the car, but simply by consulting a tyre brochure.

Yezzo’s personnel file reveals a long history of questionable methods, with an entry in 1989 stating that ‘she will stretch the truth to satisfy a department’.  A note from just a year before Keith’s trial describes her observational errors as 'failures that could lead to a substantial miscarriage of justice’. Her personal reputation proved just as complex, with co-workers accusing her of using racial slurs and suspicions of a ‘severe mental imbalance’.  

A 7-year-old survivor of the shooting had also excluded Keith’s photo from a line-up of suspects, telling police that her ‘Daddy’s friend Bruce’ was the real perpetrator of the crime. Witnesses placed Keith more than 30 minutes from the scene, while an alternate suspect not only had a license plate containing the numbers 043 but also a brother named Bruce. Despite the absence of any other forensic evidence, Yezzo’s testimony was enough for the jury to find Keith guilty, and he was sentenced to death.

As questions continued to be raised surrounding Keith’s conviction, the governor of Ohio commuted his sentence to life without parole in 2010. Having now been imprisoned for 23 years, an appeals court is currently deciding if he will be granted a new trial.