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Post by unknown on Feb 14, 2015 15:14:18 GMT -6
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Post by rayozz on Feb 14, 2015 18:47:17 GMT -6
There is a great deal to worry about with this verdict. I watched an award winning documentary several years ago and thought that he deserves a retrial. Went to look at again after reading your post and noticed it had been updated.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 15, 2015 2:56:58 GMT -6
Wow!!!! this case is a pandoras box if the allegations are true, i will be watching with anticipatin.. Rodney Reed attorney says new evidence proves innocence By Angie Beavin Published: February 12, 2015, 5:46 pm Updated: February 13, 2015, 6:24 am 24Click to share on Twitter Click to share on Google+ 765Share on Facebook Click to share on Pinterest AUSTIN (KXAN) — Attorneys for Texas death row inmate Rodney Reed say they have new evidence proving he is not guilty. Reed was convicted of the rape and murder of Stacy Stites in Bastrop in 1996. His execution date is set for March 5, but his attorney is confident they can get the execution pushed back. Reed’s defense is filing a petition asking the court to reconsider the case. It includes findings from three forensic scientists claiming their evidence shows Reed could not have been the person who killed Stites. It all has to do with timing. Prosecutors have said all along that Stites was killed around 3 a.m. and her body was found about 12 hours later. They say Reed abducted, raped and strangled her. Request for new DNA testing denied in Rodney Reed case However, Reed’s defense attorney says their new evidence shows she was killed hours earlier, the night before. And he says the only person with her was her fiancé, Jimmy Fennel. The defense also says Stites and Reed had been in a relationship for a few months and that is why his DNA was found. “I would hope that the state would want to execute someone only after it was certain that that person was guilty,” said Andrew MacRae, Reed’s defense attorney. “What the state is trying to do here, in our view, is rush the execution date, before we can get to the evidence that establishes Mr. Reed’s innocence.” Reed is sitting in prison in Livingston, Texas. This week Reed spoke with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in an interview that will air next month. He talked about living on death row for nearly two decades. “I have guys that I associate with because when you go as far as making a friend, I mean, there’s feelings there, that, if you know what a true friend is, you know what I’m saying, next thing you know, the state’s gonna take them. It’s more than likely that the state’s gonna kill him,” Reed told Hayes. MacRae says Stites and Reed had an affair for months, which explains why his DNA was found. But the defense wants more evidence tested. For example, they say the belt used to strangle Stites was never tested. Fennell is now in prison for a sexual assault he was convicted of as a Georgetown police officer in September 2008. An attorney who’s represented Fennell had this to say about the new appeal coming from Reed’s attorney: “More than a dozen courts have turned down every Rodney Reed appeal, and I’ll be shocked if ‘new time of death’ evidence persuades anybody.” He continued to say Reed made up the story of an affair after investigators found his DNA on Stacey’s body. kxan.com/2015/02/12/rodney-reed-attorney-says-new-evidence-proves-innocence/
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Post by unknown on Feb 15, 2015 12:16:36 GMT -6
If this is true, this does clear Rodney of Stacey's murder, but not of the other sexual assaults he was tied to via DNA (go to staceystites.com for more information). OTOH, Michael Baden and Werner Spitz tend to testify for the defense. And the two HEB employees...wouldn't the police have interviewed them at the time, especially since, having read up on this case, they first suspected Fennell (and maybe with good reason, as it turns out)? Here's the link to the document I mentioned that mentions the other assaults Reed was tied to: www.staceystites.com/Reed_Opinion_2000.pdf. Keep in mind, he was acquitted of one of them, IIRC.
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Post by kma367 on Feb 15, 2015 13:06:58 GMT -6
This is yet another example of the fact that even with DNA evidence that identifies a killer beyond a shadow of doubt, it's not good enough.
Reed claimed a consensual relationship at trial and his claims were not found to be credible by the jury. This is just smoke and mirrors to make a guilty man look innocent.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 16, 2015 0:31:02 GMT -6
This is yet another example of the fact that even with DNA evidence that identifies a killer beyond a shadow of doubt, it's not good enough. Reed claimed a consensual relationship at trial and his claims were not found to be credible by the jury. This is just smoke and mirrors to make a guilty man look innocent. only the family has said that they saw stacey with reed at his house, you don't know whether to believe them or not- obviously his own lawyers didn't believe them otherwise they would of been called to testify to that..
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Post by kma367 on Feb 16, 2015 18:24:10 GMT -6
The witnesses were presented at Reed's trial and were not found to be credible. Reed presented the claim of a consensual affair in state post-conviction and federal habeas claims and the evidence was not found to be credible and the claim was deemed unproven.
The "new" witnesses who have since come forward are no more credible than the ones who testified at Reed's original trial, especially in light of the fact that neither of them came forward during the original investigation in 1996/1997.
Reed initially denied knowing Stacy Stites. It wasn't until his trial that he claimed they had a consensual relationship in an attempt to explain away his DNA.
Rodney Reed killed Stacy Stites. There is no doubt about that because his DNA was found on her body. The claim of a relationship with Stites is a lie perpetuated by Reed and his advocates to try to make a guilty man appear to be innocent.
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Post by whitediamonds on Feb 16, 2015 18:49:19 GMT -6
Looks like Sister Helen Prejean will have to pray for his soul now.
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Post by unknown on Feb 17, 2015 8:07:57 GMT -6
kma367, just curious, what do you think of Spitz and Baden's affidavits (or opinions) that Stites was killed hours earlier than thought (along with LeRoy Reddick's affidavit)?
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Post by kma367 on Feb 17, 2015 14:10:46 GMT -6
I haven't read the actual affidavits, so I can't really determine whether the opinions are credible. The dispute regarding time of death has been presented in prior habeas claims made by Reed, so they're not new.
The opinions of Drs. Baden and Spitz also don't corroborate Reed's claim of a consensual relationship, or the fact that the reason Fennel, the victim's fiancee', was eliminated in the original investigation was because it was determined that there was no way he could have dumped the victim's body, abandoned the truck in Bastrop and returned to Giddings in time to be notified of the victim's disappearance by her mother. Additionally, their opinions don't refute the testimony from the victim's mother and sister that refuted Reed's claim of an affair with the victim.
Additionally, this isn't the first time Reed claimed a consensual relationship with a victim he'd raped. The victim's family members also testified that Stacey did not know Rodney Reed.
When questioned by police, Reed stated that he didn't know the victim and only claimed a "secret affair" when his DNA was found on the victim. That claim has also been previously rejected not only by a jury in his original trial, but in prior habeas claims.
Again, this case is an instance of a defense team refusing to accept irrefutable DNA evidence tying a killer to his victim and proving guilt.
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Post by unknown on Feb 17, 2015 15:53:41 GMT -6
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Post by kma367 on Feb 18, 2015 20:21:46 GMT -6
I have various sources for my information, including newspaper accounts written at the time of Stacy Stite's murder and during Reed's original trial, the appellate opinions from Reed's post-conviction claims in state and federal court and transcripts from one the state court post-conviction hearings. In fact, I spent part of Monday night and much of Tuesday (because I was off for Mardi Gras) reading the transcripts from the state post-conviction hearing. rodneyreedfulltruth.com/writ-of-habeas-corpus-03152001-testimony-and-exhibits/Reed's claims of a consensual relationship with Stacy Stites was never corroborated by her family, friends, nor could he produce a shred of proof, such as a picture of himself with Stacy. Again, the claims of a consensual relationship were presented at his original trial and a jury rejected them. Reed has also failed to prove any of his post-conviction claims regarding Brady violations, etc. in his state court and federal court actions. caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-criminal-appeals/1354304.htmlwww.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions%5Cpub%5C13/13-70009-CV0.pdfWhile the briefs crafted by Reed's counsel are persuasive, they don't tell the whole story and they're heavy on conclusory allegations and light on persuasive evidence the proves Reed's actual innocence.
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Post by kma367 on Feb 19, 2015 20:16:51 GMT -6
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Post by unknown on Feb 20, 2015 12:53:29 GMT -6
Thanks for the information, kma367.
Have you read the appeal I linked to, BTW?
I agree with you; it is interesting that the two HEB employees waited until now to come forward, especially when one considers that HEB had offered a $50,000 reward for information in the case, IMO.
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Post by kma367 on Feb 20, 2015 17:43:09 GMT -6
Unknown, your link was to a brief written by Reed's attorneys, which is nothing more than conclusory allegations. It is one of the prime examples of how an guilty person whose guilt was proven at his trial by conclusive DNA evidence is being made to appear to be innocent. The links I provided were to three opinions of state and federal courts addressing the claims made by Reed and pointing out their utter lack of evidentiary support.
Additionally, another poster somewhere pointed out that the crime the defense continues to try to use to make Jimmy Fennell look guilty was one in which he didn't kill the victim. He left her alive, she reported the crime and he was arrested, tried and pled guilty. He is now serving a sentence in prison.
In Reed's years of post-conviction litigation, he has never proven (a) that he had an affair with Stacey Stites and (b) that Fennell knew about the affair. Therefore, he has failed to prove that Fennell had any motive to kill Stacey. The original investigators did not develop a shred of evidence that Fennell had the opportunity to commit the crime and Reed has never proven that Fennell did. One of the big lies that's been told by his attorneys is that two beer cans found at the site where Stacey's body was dumped had DNA from Stites, Dave Hall (a Giddings officer and friend of Fennell) and Ed Salmela (a former Bastrop detective). However, Reed's independent DNA expert, through additional testing of swabs from the beer cans, eliminated Stacey, Hall and Salmela as donors of the DNA found on those beer cans.
The conclusory allegations of Reed and his advocates do not exonerate him. Reed's guilt has been proven with conclusive DNA.
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Post by unknown on Feb 21, 2015 10:58:55 GMT -6
Thanks, kma367. I think Reed is likely guilty, myself. IIRC, they mentioned the beer cans in the A & E special about him (which leans towards his innocence; did you see that? (1)) and they didn't mention that Reed's own DNA expert eliminated those three, if I recall the comments about the special correctly. As for Spitz and Baden, just Google the Lana Clarkson case; the prosecution managed to get them to contradict their own testimony.
(1) It's called Dead Again: Dead Man Talking. It also doesn't mention, IIRC, that DNA tied him to several other sexual assaults (including one on the road where Stites drove to HEB).
BTW, Rodney Reed has a Facebook and Twitter account (I've been to it; it tries to discredit everything about his case and says that it was all one big conspiracy by the police, prosecutors, and, maybe, his court-appointed attorneys). Personally, even though Fennell is probably a POS, Reed likely did it.
Of course, Sister Helen Prejean says that Reed's upcoming execution is outrageous and that Texas is "inherently racist" if it goes through with the execution. I take anything she says with a huge grain of salt.
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Post by kma367 on Feb 21, 2015 12:40:53 GMT -6
Unknown, I did watch "Dead Again," and was not impressed. Of course, I've never been impressed with any of their investigations or the show. While they claim to go into the investigation "blind," I find it hard to believe that the detectives could not recognize the Darlie Routier case when they looked at it.
It was obvious from the avenues they they pursued that the Dead Again investigators were taking their lead from the defense and they gave the defense attorneys exactly what they wanted, i.e. a declaration of Reed's innocence. I would expect "seasoned detectives" to independently verify their information. They didn't consult an independent ME to vet the claims made by Reed's experts about time of death. What Reed's attorneys don't mention (and IIRC, they may even misrepresent) is that the temperature during the day on April 23 was in the 80s with high humidity and Stacey's body was in direct sunlight. That would accelerate both decomposition and rigor.
They apparently didn't even attempt to interview Stacey's mother, or any of her sisters, who all would have told them that Reed's claims of an affair are false. Stacey's mother was not a racist and, therefore, if Stacey had a relationship with Reed, she would have told her mother about it. The same goes for Stacey's sisters.
Finally, the "detectives" didn't independently vet the claims that Fennel would have had motive and/or opportunity to murder Stacey. Giddings is 35 miles from the location where the truck was found abandoned. There is no way that Fennell could have abandoned the truck and walked 35 miles back to Giddings. During the year before Reed's arrest, the detectives thoroughly investigated Fennell and were never able to develop any evidence of his involvement. In fact, that's likely why the apartment was never searched, i.e. the Bastrop investigators were never able to develop probable cause to get a warrant to search the apartment.
As for the return of the truck to Fennell, it was actually returned after 6 days, which is more than enough time for crime scene investigators to collect plenty of evidence from the truck. Reed's supporters make a lot of allegations regarding Fennell's decision to sell the truck immediately after it was returned to him by police. Frankly, that is one of the most intellectually dishonest allegations I've read in the case. There was evidence that Stacey may have been killed in the truck and there was certainly no doubt that her dead body was transported to the dump site in the truck. Of course Fennell would want nothing more to do with the truck when it was returned to him. Under those circumstances, no one would want to keep a vehicle in which a loved one was possibly murdered and in which a loved one's body was transported to be dumped in a rural area.
As for the complaints about the refusal of the authorities in Texas to allow Reed to test other evidence, the fact is that no amount of DNA, whether it is from Fennell, or unknown, is going to refute Reed's DNA found on Stacey's body. His conviction is based on conclusive DNA evidence. Period.
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Post by unknown on Feb 21, 2015 13:05:51 GMT -6
Where did you get the information that on April 23, 1996, it was in the 80s with high humidity? I'm just curious.
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Post by whitediamonds on Feb 21, 2015 15:27:25 GMT -6
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Post by unknown on Feb 21, 2015 15:47:55 GMT -6
That's actually from Houston, IIRC.
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Post by whitediamonds on Feb 21, 2015 15:54:25 GMT -6
That's actually from Houston, IIRC. You can go to history weather & place in any city/town date for the weather, it only goes back I think 50 yrs.
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Post by unknown on Feb 21, 2015 16:39:43 GMT -6
I looked up the date for Bastrop (the nearest weather station was in Giddings), and the temperature was 57 for the low and 82 for the high, IIRC. But there are variables.
The Dead Again investigators seem to have reached the conclusion that she was killed hours earlier first, because, from what I've been reading in the news, the investigators got in contact with the Innocence Project lawyers first, and not the other way around; then they decided (I don't know this for sure) to make this theory fit.
Why not interview the people who worked the case first (or even the victim's family and friends (1))? This is what got Rolling Stone in hot water over their UVA rape story; the fact that they didn't interview anyone that "Jackie" was accusing (or even her friends). Kevin Gannon, the person in charge of that show, BTW, also had a theory that drunken young men were drowned by a group of killers who left a smiley face near the scenes of the murders; eventually, even some of the victims' families thought he was out for publicity.
OTOH, I can understand why Fennell's victim supports Reed's innocence.
*******
(1) At least one of whom would probably know about Stacey's "secret relationship" with Rodney.
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Post by kma367 on Feb 22, 2015 0:22:02 GMT -6
Unknown, I got my information from the same site that White Diamonds posted the link to above. The site would not record a high of 82 if the temperature stayed in the 50s, or the 60s on that day. Therefore, my statement that the temperature was in the 80s is consistent. There was also testimony from one of the crime scene people, Karen Blakely, that the day was "very warm" and humidity was in the 80s. rodneyreedfulltruth.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/45_reporters-record_jury-trial-guilt-innocence-morning-session_volume-45-of-69-2.pdfThe testimony is on page 9 of the transcript. I initially watched "Dead Again" when it first started airing on A&E. I wasn't impressed with their methodology, however. There seemed to be too much cherry picking of information, as evidenced by their approach to the Reed case. If they approached the cases in their careers in that way, it's no wonder they're no longer actively involved in police work.
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Post by unknown on Feb 22, 2015 12:28:11 GMT -6
Thank you. The appeal for Reed states that the temperatures ranged from 50 to 75 (according to Dr. Riddick). There's only one problem: they used it for the nearby city of Elgin, not Bastrop. And Spitz states in his affidavit that the average temperature was in the mid-60s. The problem is that if the information used to determine the time of death (such as the temperature and humidity) is erroneous, everything else that comes after it is based on the wrong information, IMO. They don't mention anything about the humidity in the appeal, but that would probably also affect the decomposition rate (I'm not a pathologist, so I don't know this for sure). And thanks for the testimony from Karen Blakely, kma367. I don't think the state of Texas is sitting idly by, IMO. Reed's supporters are crowing about this, but they shouldn't crow too loudly, especially if Spitz and Baden used erroneous information (and it wouldn't be the first time they were wrong). Thanks for the analysis, kma367. You seem knowledgeable about these topics. BTW, here is a link to another site where the blogger investigated Reed's case (this is where I got the information about the $50,000 reward HEB offered); he also concluded that Reed was guilty: www.michaelcorcoran.net/archives/3005. This is probably why Texas Monthly (which did a good piece on the Michael Morton story; read that case for a true injustice) won't be running articles sympathetic to Reed, IMO. They'd have to mention the DNA tying Reed to other sexual assaults. The site I linked to does say that Carol Stites heard one set of footsteps at around 3:00-3:30 a.m.; can you find Carol Stites's testimony to confirm that? That's why I don't buy that Fennell (who I've said is a POS) killed her in his apartment; Carol Stites, who lived downstairs, would have heard something. And I really don't see her covering for Fennell, either, especially if he killed her daughter.
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Post by whitediamonds on Feb 22, 2015 13:20:27 GMT -6
Bastrop is only a 15 minute drive to Austin, TX. Bastrop would have the same temp, humidity, dew points as Austin on April 23rd in 1996. For sure.
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Post by rayozz on Feb 23, 2015 18:22:18 GMT -6
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Post by kma367 on Feb 25, 2015 20:57:49 GMT -6
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Post by unknown on Feb 28, 2015 12:14:03 GMT -6
Thanks for the information, kma367. If the belt was handled by people at Reed's trial, that would create contamination (since multiple people touched it). In addition, the time of death dispute is the same defense Larry Swearingen used in his appeal (and I wonder if Reed's attorneys knew about that use).
In addition, Reed's brief says (or, more accurately, speculates) that several people (including Hall) could have driven Fennell back to Giddings on the night of the murder (they can't decide on who might have helped Fennell, though). In addition, Reed's supporters (I got this from the Facebook page and Twitter account; keep in mind, I'm not making this up) say that Ed Salmela (1), one of the investigators of the Stites murder who shot himself in the summer of 1996, was actually murdered (by Fennell, of course), and his death was made to look like a suicide (BTW, some members of Salmela's family support a version of this). In addition, they also imply (without providing one shred of proof, of course) that another officer named Gary Joe Bryant, who was actually murdered by a hit-and-run driver he was looking for, was actually murdered by...you guessed it, Fennell.
There's a reason why Reed's attorney's don't mention this, of course; if they put all of this in their appeal, they'd probably be laughed out of court.
And the comments on the Tribune article about the appeal blame Williamson County for this whole mess--the problem is the crime occurred near Bastrop, and wasn't tried in Williamson County (though it is where Fennell committed his crime).
Have any comments on this, kma367?
(1) Salmela, if I recall from the report on his death, was depressed over both the breakup of his marriage and being suspended from his job.
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Post by kma367 on Feb 28, 2015 22:50:10 GMT -6
IIRC, Benjet, one of Reed's attorneys in this latest round of BS, is also representing Swearingen.
The time of death issue is not "new evidence." It's new interpretations of the evidence that could have been presented at Reed's trial, or during his prior post-conviction claims. In fact, it's previously been rejected by the Court of Criminal Appeals and federal district court.
It's painfully obvious that a lot of the people posting pro-Reed information don't have a clue about the facts of the case. CNN has an "opinion" article authored by Dan Simon that can't even get the town in which the murder occurred, or the agencies that investigated it correct. I guess since Fennell was a Georgetown officer at the time he was arrested for rape in 2007/2008, Mr. Simon decided his "conspiracy theory" would get more traction if the murder also occurred in Georgetown. Bastrop is in Bastrop County and it wouldn't take much for Reed's supporters to go to the CCA website to at least get that detail right. Of course, I've seen people argue that little details like that don't matter if you believe a person to be innocent of a crime for which they're about to be executed. I dealt with that for years debating the West Memphis Three case, in which supporters of the three refused to accept that their trials were not held in West Memphis where they'd committed murder.
Contrary to the claims of the conspiracy theorists, the Bastrop P.D., Bastrop Sheriff's investigators and Texas Rangers actually considered Fennell a suspect for nearly a year and they investigated him. Fennell's friend Dave Hall had an alibi, provided by his wife, Carla Hall. Dave was at home at 3:30 a.m. when his 2-month old daughter woke the whole house up screaming. He helped his wife tend to the baby and didn't leave the house until it was time to leave for work on the morning of April 23. His departure was about 10-12 minutes after Fennell's abandoned truck was first spotted in the parking lot of Bastrop High School, just a few blocks from Reed's home.
Selmela and Fennell didn't know each other, a fact that Reed's attorneys continue to ignore. There was also never any evidence to tie Fennell to Selmela's death. The new guy is one whose name has never been connected in the investigation, which is probably why Reed's supporters are now bringing it up.
There is also a woman posting under the name "Carla Hall" on one of the Facebook pages. She is either an imposter, or she's forgotten a lot about the case, including the fact that she testified on behalf of the State at one of Reed's post-conviction hearings.
Reed and his supporters don't have a shred of proof to back up any of the claims. The only proof they need is Reed's DNA in and on Stacey's body. They choose to ignore that.
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Post by unknown on Mar 1, 2015 12:41:21 GMT -6
Yes, Benjet did represent Swearingen; it makes sense that he'd use the same tactics he used in that case here. It's worked for Swearingen, BTW. And the reason the CNN article mentioned Georgetown (and Williamson County) is not only because Fennell committed his crime there, IMO, but because Williamson County was the site of a rather infamous wrongful conviction case: Michael Morton (1). Reed's supporters think he's the next Morton (or Anthony Graves). Keep in mind that several other articles sympathetic to Reed (including in The Nation) got the area where the crime occurred right; did Dan Simon not look up those articles?
The trouble is, of course, that DNA tied Reed to several other rapes and assaults, including two that occurred on the same road that Stites traveled on her way to work, IIRC. Reed's supporters, of course, claim that he was actually framed for these as well (it's easy to say that when you think he's innocent and you're willing to overlook anything that points to his guilt, IMO). And the Carla Hall thing is interesting; it might be another woman with a similar name, and not the Carla Hall who testified in the Reed case. There has to be more than one Carla Hall in the greater Austin area (or in Texas, for that matter). The investigator's name (the one who shot himself) was Salmela, not Selmela, IIRC.
Another part of the case I'd like to mention is what they do to Stacey Stites. I don't mind that they bring up her past, but naming every guy she had sex with, and the fact that she had a baby at 15 that she gave up for adoption? That sounds like victim-blaming to me (and this is something that you'd think Reed himself would be uncomfortable with, especially given that he allegedly had a relationship with Stites).
Still, I'd like to hear why the two HEB witnesses waited until now to come forward (and didn't do so even when HEB offered a $50,000 reward).
(1) BTW, the Morton case was a true injustice; look it up sometime. The fact that Ken Anderson didn't spend more time in prison is another injustice, IMO.
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