March 30 NORTH CAROLINA: Relatives of murder victims lobby for N.C. execution moratorium Patricia Parker doesn't know if she wants her brother's killer punished by death. "It's not a black or white issue for me," she said Wednesday after joining at the Legislature with other supporters of a bill proposing a 2-year suspension of the death penalty. "It's tinged with great grief. "I pray that I make the right decision so that I can find peace in my heart." Parker's brother, Wendell, was slain on his birthday two years ago, stabbed and bludgeoned several times inside his home in Georgia where he lived alone. No one has been charged in his death. Parker, who lives in Asheville, said his death forced her to re-examine a judicial system she now believes lacks the fairness necessary to hand out the death penalty. Five other relatives of murder victims joined Parker to lobby lawmakers for the moratorium. The proposal would allow lawmakers to review issues of race and geography, as well as the adequacy of defense lawyers and the behavior of prosecutors. Prosecutions and sentencings would continue during the hiatus. The state Senate passed similar legislation in 2003, making it the first legislative chamber in the South to approve a moratorium. The House never took up the issue during that session, but supporters came into last year with momentum after convicted killers Alan Gell and Darryl Hunt were exonerated of their crimes. Gell spent six years on death row before his lawyers found that prosecutors had withheld evidence in his case. Hunt served 18 years in prison before a DNA test revealed another suspect who has since been convicted of the slaying. But the issue never came to the House floor, stymied by a power-sharing deal between former Co-Speakers Jim Black, D-Mecklenburg, and Richard Morgan, R-Moore, that called for neither to bring to a vote legislation opposed by the other. Black supports a moratorium, while Morgan objects to it. Black is now the sole speaker after Democrats regained control of the chamber. Moratorium supporters contended last session that they had a bipartisan coalition of at least 61 votes to bring the issue to the House floor. That would have been enough votes to pass the legislation, if the coalition remained intact. Rep. Joe Hackney, D-Orange, one of supporters of the moratorium, said he didn't know whether most House lawmakers would support the proposal, but believed it has a good chance of approval this session. Rep. Larry Womble, D-Forsyth, vice chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said the moratorium is among the caucus' top priorities. Opponents of the moratorium argue that recent death penalty reforms - more stringent requirements for defense lawyers, more discretion for prosecutors to seek lesser penalties and a more open discovery process - have occurred without stopping executions. Hackney argued that a study may find that the state needs to pay more attention to innocence claims or make recommendations about ongoing cases. Rep. Earline Parmon, D-Forsyth, said the state shouldn't continue executions until it figures out how to improve the justice system. "This is not a question of whether we believe in the death penalty or not, but whether we are dispensing justice fairly," she said. Parker agreed it doesn't make sense to continue with a system that has proven flaws. "I do not want anything done that makes another mistake," she said. "I don't want to ever have to think that the wrong person was punished for my brother's death. It will only bring more heartache in the world." (source: Associated Press) CONNECTICUT: Lawmakers debate abolishing death penalty A little over a month before Connecticut is scheduled to execute serial killer Michael Ross, members of the House of Representatives debated a bill Wednesday that would abolish Connecticut's death penalty. Those who want to end capital punishment acknowledged the legislation had no chance of passing, but said it gave them an opportunity to debate the public policy before New England's first execution since 1960. "Today is our opportunity to think about whether we want that to be law of our state," said Rep. Michael Lawlor, D-East Haven, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The House was expected to vote late Wednesday afternoon. The legislation would require that all capital felonies be punished with life in prison without possibility of release. Under the bill, all seven men on Connecticut's death row would have their sentences commuted to life. That possibility angered some legislators, including Rep. Steven Mikutel, D-Griswold, whose district includes the families of some of Ross' victims. "It's about standing up to evil. We should treat the people on death row as enemies of the state," Mikutel said. "They should die." Ross, 45, was sentenced to die for killing 4 young women and girls in eastern Connecticut in the early 1980s. He has decided to forgo his remaining appeals. The killer, an Ivy League graduate who has confessed to eight murders, came within hours on Jan. 29 of being put to death by lethal injection. But the execution was postponed until May 11 so his mental competency could be examined. At times during the debate, legislators related the gory details of Ross' crimes and the crimes of others on Connecticut's death row. They argued there are no questions about the guilt of the condemned inmates or the constitutionality of the death penalty law. "Government must be just. It must exact justice," said Rep. Lawrence Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk. "I want to wake up one day and know that justice was carried out." (source: Associated Press) TENNESSEE: Innocent on Death Row Over the last few decades, 117 death row inmates have been exonerated and released nationwide. Tennessee may be housing No. 118. Editor's Note: This article was developed from court documents (trial testimony, appeals court briefs and transcripts, official written findings and opinions from justices of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals). In the past 30 years, 117 death row inmates have been exonerated and released, according to the Death Penalty Information Centers. It appears from information produced by DNA analysis and federal appeals court testimony that Tennessee may be housing No. 118. The state contends that Paul Gregory House kidnapped a woman to rape her and then murdered her so that he could not be identified. At his trial, the state insisted that rape was the motive for the murder and the aggravating factor justifying the death penalty. The prosecution used evidence of semen on the victim's body and nightgown as evidence of rape or attempted rape and said it was consistent with his blood type. The state offered no other motive for the kidnapping and murder of Carolyn Muncey. Years later, DNA testing showed that the semen didn't come from House, but from the woman's husband. House's lawyer insists, and seven justices of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agree, that the DNA analysis means that House did not rape the woman and that, therefore, both his motive and the aggravating factor have evaporated. 6 of the 7 justices say that he should be released from prison immediately. The 7th says that he should at least be given a new trial. But 8 of the 6th Circuit judges sided with the state, which maintains that the new DNA evidence makes no difference. It insists on putting House to death. How can a case be so starkly polarized that almost half the judges say the man is innocent and should be released and the other half insist that he be put to death? That 8-7 ruling against House is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is expected to make a decision about whether to take the case between now and June. Paul House was sentenced to death 19 years ago in February for kidnapping, raping and murdering his neighbor, Carolyn Muncey, a 29-year-old, poorly educated, often abused and bruised, dirt-poor mother of two school-age children who lived in a rural area near Luttrell, a nondescript town in Union County, northeast of Knoxville. She and her husband, William Hubert Muncey Jr., widely known as "Little Hube," lived in a rundown shack back in the trees, without telephone or running water. A television dominated one of the four rooms. They survived on day-work in nearby tobacco fields, occasional odd jobs, food stamps, government dole and the kindness of friends who allowed them small credit and buckets of water. Their toilet was a small structure several steps farther back into the woods. Extra cash was rare and often drunk up by Little Hube. Little Hube was, in fact, little-about 125 pounds soaking wet and a little over 5-and-a-half feet tall. He was also a mean drunk. Neighbors and friends testified or signed affidavits that he routinely hit Carolyn-in private and public, in front of friends and family and children. She frequently was decorated with a black eye or a split lip, usually for complaining or nagging. She had confided to female friends that she wanted out of the marriage, if only she could figure a way. Just before her death, she finally had her escape set up. In fact, 3 of her cousins have come forward in recent months to say Carolyn had met with them and their grandmother to plan her leaving. The plan called for one of them to pick up her and the children after Little Hube left for work in the tobacco fields on the Monday after she was murdered. Then she was going to file for divorce and live with her grandmother. Little Hube complained about her to former girlfriends who couldn't tell if he was serious or had another agenda. House, then 23, had a different, yet similar, history. He'd been expelled twice from high school, never graduated and mostly moved in a drug-induced haze. At the time of the murder, July 13, 1985, he had been in the area less than four months. In March, he had been released from a Utah prison, having served less than four years after a guilty plea to aggravated sexual assault of a woman who had picked him up hitchhiking in Salt Lake City. He was on parole that spring when he moved in with his mother and stepfather in the Luttrell area, where he was a stranger. But by June he had a girlfriend, Donna Turner, and had moved into her mobile home, about 2 miles from the Muncey cabin. Like Carolyn and Little Hube, he also had trouble finding steady work. His only employment was occasional farm work for his stepfather, and he didn't have a car, although sometimes he was allowed to drive those of his mother and his girlfriend. Much of the time, though, he lay about the trailer watching television or rented movies, smoking marijuana and adding a spare tire to his already pudgy frame. He was physically out of shape, his only exercise an occasional nighttime walk in good weather. Events of the evening of July 13, 1985, Carolyn Muncey's last on earth, are in dispute, and the chronology is convoluted. Carolyn and her two children left their shack about 8 p.m. that Saturday night, about an hour before dark, and walked across the road to visit their neighbor Pamela Luttrell. They stayed "an hour or an hour-and-a-half," according to Luttrell, who also testified that Carolyn told her Little Hube "had gone to [help] dig a grave [for a family friend] and he hadn't come back." She said that Carolyn left with the children between 9 and 9:30 p.m. to go back home and put them to bed. Meanwhile, if Little Hube had been digging a grave at all, he had finished and had gone to the local C&C Recreation Center dance instead of going home. He later told police that he had been at the dance until it ended, near 1 a.m. But there had been an intermission, a rest break, at the dance between 10 o'clock and 10:30. Dennis "Dink" Wallace, the Luttrell police chief, who was acting as a security guard at the dance that night, said he saw Little Hube leave sometime around 10 or 10:30. He said he never saw him return. Carolyn apparently had tired of waiting for him at home. When he went outside for air, she was there in the parking lot. At least 2 other people taking a break outside the center said they saw Carolyn confront Little Hube in the parking lot. One man said he saw them arguing vigorously. A woman said she saw the argument and also saw Little Hube grab Carolyn's arm and then hit her. Carolyn left the recreation center beaten and angry. It was shortly before 11 p.m., and she was in street clothes. Between 10 and 11 p.m., "an hour or so after" Carolyn and the children left her house, Pamela Luttrell said she believed she heard the familiar revving of Little Hube's car coming home. About that same time and about 2 miles away, Paul House was watching a television movie while Donna was ironing. The western didn't hold his interest and, at about 10:45 p.m., he left the trailer to go for a walk. It was a pleasant, warm evening, and he wanted to be outside. He had told her and others that what affected him most during his 4 years in prison had been the inability to see the stars at night. This is when the chronology of events enters a 2-to-3-hour tangle. Much of it depends on the vague, sleep-soaked memory of an awakened child, who has given multiple accounts of what she heard and saw that evening. At the Muncey shack, the children, Lora, 10, and Matt, 8, went to bed about 9:30. At one time, Lora said that she was awakened by a voice calling to her mother asking if Little Huber was home. Her mother answered no. Lora then remembered someone, sounding like her grandfather, asking if her father was home and using words like "Little Hube" and "wreck." Later, she said she heard her mother crying and going down the steps. She said that her mother got in a car. In one statement, Lora said that she heard a car horn blow and her mother telling her to go back to bed. When her mother had not come back, she woke her little brother and they went outside and looked around a bit for their mother before returning to bed. In fact, next-door neighbors said the children came to their house looking for their mother just as the 11 p.m. TV news was coming on. At another time, she said she heard her mother pleading with someone and crying out, "Oh God, no, not me." She didn't know what time that was. The next thing the children remember, Little Hube was waking them and asking them where Carolyn was. When they said they didn't know, Little Hube took them across the road to Pamela Luttrell's house to tell her that Carolyn was missing. Luttrell put the time at shortly after 1 a.m. But Luttrell's recollection of what Lora told her that night about the events at the cabin is different. "She said she heard a horn blow and somebody asked if Bubbie was home, and her mama, you know, told them no. And then she said she didn't know if she went back to sleep or not, but then later she heard her mama going down the steps crying." Was the person who blew the horn the one who took Carolyn to the dance around 10 p.m.? She didn't have a car and didn't even know how to drive. Is that how she got to the recreation center some four-and-a-half miles from her cabin? Luttrell further testified that Lora told her that the man who had asked for "Bubbie" after the horn blew sounded like her grandfather, whom she called "PawPaw." "Bubbie" was a family nickname almost never used by others in the community, who always called Muncey "Little Hube." Only his family members and those closest to him used "Bubbie." Luttrell said that Lora had said nothing about anyone talking about a car wreck. At House's trial, Lora testified that her mother said nothing when she left the house and that she didn't hear any noises after her mother left. The police were called from Luttrell's phone at 1:47 a.m. and told that Carolyn was missing. Chief Wallace answered the call. Wallace said that Little Hube explained that when he got home from the dance, he went into the kitchen and made himself a sandwich, then went into the bedroom to find his wife gone. The policeman said that Little Hube showed him around the cabin in a search for Carolyn and claimed that his wife had been kidnapped. Wallace asked Little Hube why he thought that, and Little Hube said he didn't know. Paul House had returned to his trailer home shortly before midnight, about an hour after he'd left. But he returned in a far different condition. He was completely disheveled, panting and sweating, exhausted and missing his blue tank top and both of his sneakers. His hands and arms were marred with bruises and laced with cuts and scratches. His jeans were muddy. House told Donna that while he was walking along the road, a 4-wheel-drive truck pulled up behind him and stopped. He said he kept walking and that two men, the driver and a passenger, got out of truck. The driver said something and then grabbed House by the arm. House said the man "started to jerk me around," but that he pushed the man away with his left hand. He said they struggled and fought. "I hit him. He let go. I started running," he said, adding that his shirt was torn off during the attack and escape, and that he ran across the road into some trees and underbrush. He said he ran around in the woods for a while through briars and branches before heading back toward his trailer, and that as he went back across the road from the woods and up to the trailer he stepped on a sharp rock or something and realized he had lost a shoe while he was running. He took off the other shoe and threw it into the woods before entering the trailer. He said he didn't realize his shirt was gone in the warm, muggy night air until he got home. A woman who described herself as "a good friend" of Little Hube's said he came to see her with a request the next morning, several hours before Carolyn Muncey's body was found and before it became clear that she had been murdered. He wanted her to help him establish an alibi for his whereabouts on Saturday night and early Sunday morning. "Well, this Little Hube, he come to my house that morning, on Sunday morning, and he asked me, if anybody come to say anything, you know, to talk to me, to tell them that he was there [at her house] at 6 o'clock," she testified in federal court. "He asked me if anyone, you know, come and asked me anything, to tell them that he had, that I was at the dance that Saturday night-but I was not. He said [for me to say] that he had eat breakfast down there [at my house] at 6 o'clock that Sunday morning and he did not." While Little Hube was talking to Mrs. Artie Lawson about vouching for him, telephones across the Luttrell community were ringing with news of Carolyn's disappearance. While his girlfriend, Donna Turner, was at church, House had gotten a call from his mother informing him that she had heard that Carolyn was missing. House would have gone to help look, but Donna had the car. By that Sunday afternoon, the mercury was sliding past 90 degrees and the air was thick and stifling. About 2 p.m., the wife of tobacco farmer Billy Ray Hensley got a telephone call telling her that Carolyn Muncey was missing. Hensley said he drove to the Muncey shack to talk to some of the family members and then "went to check on my tobacco." A little later, House, who said he was friendly with the Munceys (his stepfather Bill Spivey was very close friends with Little Hube's father, Big Hubert), borrowed Donna's old, white Plymouth sedan and drove to the area on Ridgecrest Road where he knew Little Hube lived. On his first pass, he missed their driveway, which was tucked tightly between trees and undergrowth. He turned around and missed the driveway again. He stopped along the road near a large structure known as Merritt's barn and walked back about 90 feet to the obscure driveway. Looking up the driveway, he saw that Muncey's car was not there, and he walked back along Ridgecrest Road to his car. He says he got in and pulled out into the road when he saw a blue car approaching. He stopped and waved down driver of the blue car-Billy Ray Hensley, who had driven from his tobacco fields back to where the Munceys lived. Here, conflicting testimony becomes extraordinarily critical. It turns out that Hensley is the only eyewitness that can connect House to the crime scene in any way. Hensley initially testified that he had been driving on Bear Hollow Road until it intersected with Ridgecrest, where he turned left and drove 400 to 500 feet. But he said that while he was on Bear Hollow Road, about 150 feet before he reached the intersection, he saw House come up onto Ridgecrest Road from down an embankment, wiping his hands on a black rag. He later conceded that he only had that view of House for a "second or two, a glance." And later in his testimony he said that at no time after he turned onto Ridgecrest Road did he see House until House, sitting in the white Plymouth, flagged him down to ask if Hensley knew Little Hube, knew of his whereabouts and knew that his wife was missing. Hensley acknowledged the conversation and also acknowledged that at no time after he turned onto Ridgecrest Road could he say where House was in relation to the embankment, the side of the road, the road itself or anywhere except inside the white Plymouth. But that testimony is in conflict with the statement he gave police shortly after the body was found. In that statement, which was written by a policeman because Hensley could not read nor write, he said he saw the Plymouth parked on the side of [Ridgecrest] road and that he saw House "enter the roadway from the right-hand side of the road. "He was coming up over the bank, and he had a black rag in his hands and he was wiping his hands. I drove on by and went to Little Hube's driveway." How could he have seen all this from two different locations, 500 feet away on Bear Hollow Road for "a glance," and also as he drove by on Ridgecrest Road, where he testified that House was inside a car when he first saw him? He said law enforcement misrepresented his accounts. But to complicate the truthfulness of his testimony even further, his view from his stated position on Bear Hollow Road-500 feet away for "a glance"-was totally obstructed by a large barn and a thick grove of trees with a heavy canopy of leaves reaching to the ground. Hensley conceded in cross-examination that he could not have seen House coming up the embankment. But maps, photographs and his contradictory accounts show conclusively that he could not have seen House at all from the location he cited on Bear Hollow Road. After he encountered House near the Munceys cabin, Hensley drove to Bill Spivey's house, where Muncey friends were gathering. He encountered his friend, Jack Adkins. They talked about the missing woman, and Hensley mentioned seeing a man near the Muncey cabin asking about Carolyn and Little Hube. They went back to where House and the white Plymouth had been parked. They parked, got out and looked around. They went along the road for a way and then looked down the embankment. There, under some brush about 15 feet down the bank, Adkins saw a bare foot sticking out. Through the brush he could see a flower-patterned nightgown. They went to call the sheriff. Actually, Hensley later admitted that when he and Adkins went back to the point on Ridgecrest Road where he had seen House, that was not where the body was found. Union County Sheriff Earl Loy saw the body, face down on a pile of brush. Flies were working feverishly in the blood that was on the nightgown and the face of Carolyn Muncey. Later, the sheriff was at Bill Spivey's house getting Hensley's account of how he and Adkins found the body when House drove up with Little Hube in the car with him. Hensley whispered into the sheriff's ear that he had seen "that feller come up outta the ditch," near where the body was found. He said that House had been wiping his hands with a black rag. Sheriff Loy approached House and told him the investigators would want to talk to him at the jail. House didn't resist and went along to the jail to be interviewed. The sheriff's deputies knew that House was a parolee from Utah who had served 4 years in prison for sexual assault. Almost immediately, the sheriff had a suspect. House immediately became not just the leading suspect, but the only suspect. Investigators looked no further and starting working to prove their only theory. Under interrogation, House made a fatal mistake. Knowing that his being on parole as a convicted felon would make him highly vulnerable, he told police that he had been inside the trailer with Donna all night. Donna backed up his alibi. But when investigators searched her trailer and found House's muddy jeans, with what they said looked like blood on them, in the bottom of a laundry hamper, she reversed course. In a damaging statement, she told them about House's hour-long absence the previous night, the condition in which he'd returned home, and his account of the foray. House's lie about being at home all night would be devastating to his case in the eyes of the investigators, the prosecutors and the jurors. Interestingly, when Luttrell Police Chief Wallace interviewed Little Hube about an hour after Carolyn's body was found, he made no note of his seeing Little Hube leave the dance during intermission the previous night and not returning, even though Little Hube insisted that he did not leave the dance until after midnight. Wallace had written Little Hube's statement himself because Little Hube, like many others interviewed about the death, could not read or write. But he was not alarmed by the lie. Why was House's lie to police about his whereabouts from 10 p.m. to midnight more significant than Little Hube's lie about his whereabouts? Why was Donna Turner's attempt to provide an alibi and then reversing course more significant than Little Hube's attempt to get Artie Lawson to lie? Is it because House was a convicted felon on parole? Is it because House was a newcomer, a stranger to the small community? Dr. Alex Carabia, a pathologist, conducted the autopsy. He found a massive hematoma inside Carolyn's skull, caused by blunt trauma, a blow so hard it pulled her brain loose and caused heavy bleeding that fairly quickly killed her brain, filled her lungs and caused her heart to stop beating. She was dead within 15 minutes of being hit, he said. There were bruises on her face and thighs and around her neck, indicating an attempt at strangulation. She was literally beaten to death. And there was evidence, the pathologist acknowledged, that she'd been dragged a considerable distance to where her body was found. The police saw evidence of semen in her vagina, on her thigh, on her underwear and on her nightgown. The pathologist confirmed it, took a swab from her vagina and put it in a tube. He also took 4 test tubes of blood from her heart. He said he sealed all the evidence with rubber stoppers and put all of it in a lab refrigerator overnight. Two days later, on July 16, Bill Breeding, Union County's only detective, and another deputy collected the evidence from Dr. Carabia. The tubes of blood and vaginal swab were in a Styrofoam box. The other evidence -the dirty jeans, Carolyn's underwear and nightgown-was labeled and put in brown paper evidence bags. The district attorney, William Paul Phillips, directed his officers to drive the evidence directly to the FBI crime lab in Washington, D.C., and in a letter to the FBI he described the crime as a "sexually motivated attack." In 4 separate lab reports, the FBI characterized the case as a "rape-homicide." The lab reports indicated semen not only on the vaginal swab, but also on Carolyn's panties and on her nightgown. In fact, there had been semen on her bruised thighs. FBI special agent Paul Bigbee, a serologist, said the semen came from a person who was a "secretor" with type A blood. In the days before DNA testing, pathologists looked for a blood antigen unique to "secretors" by testing either blood or saliva, with a saliva test for the antigen being far more definitive. Both House and Little Hube have Type A blood. A further test on House disclosed the blood antigen defining him as a "secretor." A blood test on Little Hube came up inconclusive, but no one ever tested Little Hube's saliva. The state never sent a sample to be tested, and the FBI agent didn't ask for one even though his first test was inconclusive. Nobody can say why. Also questionable: although Little Hube told investigators that he'd had sex with Carolyn the day she died, alerting prosecutors to the likely presence of his semen, the state never provided House's defense lawyers with his statement. Ironically, had the semen evidence been accurately reported to the prosecutor as belonging to the violent husband, House's record for sexual assault would not have come into play, because rape likely would not have been an element of the crime, according to a federal judge. It was 15 years later, after DNA typing became available and House was a longtime resident of death row, that an independent laboratory proved for certain that the semen was not House's. It definitely belonged to Little Hube, who turned out, in fact, to be a type A secretor also. The DNA evidence proves that Paul House did not rape Muncey. But rape and attempted rape were the aggravating circumstances on which the prosecution, the judge and the jury so heavily relied to justify a death sentence in the case. According to the opinion of the dissenting justices of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, written by Justice Gilbert S. Merritt, "There can be no doubt that the State claimed rape as the motive from the beginning and throughout the trial, and that the jury so found, and that the Tennessee Supreme Court approved the verdict on that basis. "The newly discovered evidence conclusively removes rape as the motive and eliminates rape as the aggravating circumstance that made the defendant eligible for the death penalty. Without any evidence of rape, the State has lost its motive, its theory of the case and the aggravating circumstance on which the State and the jury relied for its death verdict." The handling of the evidence taken to the FBI lab in Washington raises further grave doubts about the prosecution of, much less the verdict against, House. The police officers had taken the vials of blood and the vaginal swab from the medical examiner's refrigerator and supposedly secured them inside a Styrofoam box sealed with Tennessee Bureau of Investigation tape. But the evidence indicates that the box was tampered with. Instead of arriving at the FBI lab in the vial Dr. Carabia said he used, the vaginal swab arrived in a brown envelope, according to Special Agent Bigbee's initials of receipt. No one has explained the switch. And subsequent photographs of the TBI Styrofoam box show that the sealing tape had been broken and then resealed with a 2nd piece of tape over the first. Again, Higbee's initials are on the 2nd piece of tape, indicating that he received the box in that condition. Why was the seal cut? Why was the box opened before it reached the FBI lab? The only things in the box were four vials of blood and one containing the vaginal swab. This matters because the only physical evidence connecting House with the crime were faint bloodstains on his muddy, very heavily soiled jeans. But experts testified the blood appeared to be planted. A blood spatter expert testified during the appeals phase of the case that the blood on House's jeans represented "transfer stains," swiped onto the cloth, not soaked in. And it was swiped onto the jeans in several places, including inside the right pocket and at the bottom of the right leg, inside the hem. The expert, Paulette Sutton, also found that some of the bloodstains were mixed with the mud. The problem with that evidence is that there was no place where Carolyn's blood and mud should have been able to mix. It had not rained for three days in the Luttrell area, there was no mud where the body was found, and there was no mud on Carolyn's nightgown. Additionally, investigators later found House's lost, white tennis shoes, and there was no blood found. Odd, blood on the inside hem of the right leg of the jeans, but not on the shoe. House's lawyer said he never saw a copy of the report of that negative shoe/blood test. One other complication surrounds the blood evidence. Dr. Cleland Blake, the assistant chief medical examiner for Tennessee who has been the TBI's consultant in forensic pathology for more than 20 years and testified for the state in hundreds of cases, has testified that he had no doubt that the blood on House's jeans came from the vials of blood taken from Carolyn's body during the autopsy. He said that the blood in the body had deteriorated dramatically from being out in the hot sun all day, and that the blood on the jeans was in the identical condition, even though the jeans had been in a cool, dark hamper all day. In fact, according to Dr. Blake, enzyme degradation is less when fresh blood is preserved on dry fabric than as liquid blood stored in a test tube. He said he would have expected "fresh" blood from a cut to be better preserved on the jeans than the blood taken from Carolyn's body. But in this case, he said, the degradation was identical. He was questioned by the court in a 1999 hearing: Dr. Blake: "I conclude that the deteriorated blood which was in the jeans came out of the test tube [because] both [the blood on the jeans and the blood in the vials] had lost the enzyme." The Court: "So in your opinion, then, the blood on the jeans and the blood in the tube are one and the same?" Dr. Blake: "That is my opinion." How did the blood from the vials get onto the jeans? Is the broken seal on the Styrofoam box a clue? And does it matter that photographs of the Styrofoam box show that the vial stoppers had been opened and leaked? Does it matter that almost all of the blood in one of the four vials cannot be accounted for? The FBI lab report also produced other fascinating pieces of information. Or lack thereof. If House was the person who struggled with, attempted to rape, struck, abducted and dragged/carried Carolyn's body some 100 yards to hide it, how was it that not a hair from him was found on her or her nightgown and not a single fiber from her gown or a hair from her head was found on his jeans? The other factors that cast doubt on House's guilt involved time, distance, weight and shape. They combined to form this question that tests logic: How could a seriously overweight, out-of-shape, dope-smoking couch potato run 2 miles up and down hills, run up the driveway, lure Carolyn out of her house, assault and try to rape her, fight her, kill her, lug her 130-pound body 100 yards up a road, seek a hiding place, drag her over an embankment, find brush to cover her body and then run two miles back home through the woods, briars and underbrush, all in the dark and losing a shoe in the process, in an hour? All of that requires a constant pace of some 10-minute miles. Such action would require him to leave home on a dead run from the start, and not stopping to catch a breath, with the intention of running four miles all the way and back for no other reason than to rape someone he didn't even know he would find at home. For all House knew, Carolyn Muncey was dancing the Saturday night away with Little Hube at the recreation center or visiting family or neighbors. She had, in fact, already done both for portions of that evening, having left the recreation center about a half-hour before House left home that night. In fact, the only person who knew that Carolyn would be at home after 10:30 was her husband. On a cold February night in 1986, about 7 months after Carolyn's body was found and near time for House to come to trial, Little Hube, drunk and still drinking, crashed a small party in Luttrell at the home of Kathy Parker. Penny Angela Letner, Kathy's sister and a lifelong resident of Luttrell, recalled the incident with Little Hube in court testimony a decade-and-a-half later. "We call him Bubba. We growed up around him. That was just a nickname for us. He was sitting there and he went to crying and was talking about his wife and her death, and he was saying that he didn't mean to do it. "He said he didn't mean to do it. That she was 'bitching him out' because he didn't take her fishing that night, that he went to the dance instead. He said when he come home that she was still on him pretty heavy 'bitching him out' again and that he smacked her and that she fell and hit her head. He said, 'I didn't mean to do it, but I had to get rid of her because I didn't want to be charged with murder.' "When he said he had to get rid of her, it scared me quite badly," she said. "I was 19 year old with a small child. I got out of there immediately. After he made those statements, I was ready to leave there." On cross-examination, she said she didn't report Little Hube's confession to the police. "No, I didn't. I was 19 year old. I was kinda scared. I was frightened, you know, I didn't know how to take it. I figured me being 19 year old they wouldn't listen to anything I had to say." Kathy Parker's testimony was just as strong. She recalled Little Hube's confession as: "He said they had been into an argument and he slapped her and she fell and hit her head and it killed her and he didn't mean for it to happen" Q. "Was he emotional?" A. "Very." Q. "All right. How very is very?" A. "Well, he was crying and just all to pieces." Q. "Did he say what they were arguing about?" A. "He had wanted to go to a dance or something or another and she was wanting to go somewhere else. That is what they got into an argument over." Q. "What did you do when you heard Little Hube say he hit his wife and she died?" A. "I freaked out and run him off." The next day, she said, she got her mother to take her to the Union County courthouse, where she tried to speak to the sheriff, but was told he was too busy. A deputy sent her to another officer, but she never got to talk to him. "I never did really get to talk to anybody," she said. Q. "Did you know Carolyn Muncey?" A. "Yes, sir." Q. "Are you aware of whether or not Little Hube had ever abused her or beat on her?" A. "She was constantly with black eyes and busted mouth." Kathy Parker, 42, said she had known Little Hube since they dated when she was 14 years old. Q. "Why are you here today?" A. "Because I don't think what has happened is right. It needs to be taken care of. An innocent man is in jail." Q. "Do you know Paul House?" A. "No, sir." Q. "Ever met him?" A. "No, sir." And another person in the Luttrell community had yet another story to tell at House's appeal. Hazel Miller testified that Little Hube had been in her house, at her kitchen table, about 2 months before Carolyn's murder and had told her that he was "going to get rid of that woman one way or another." Q. What was he there (at her house) for, if you know? A. He come and tried to get my daughter to go out with him. Q. What did Little Hube say? A. He was upset with his wife, that they had had an argument and he said he was going to get rid of that woman one way or the other. Now, almost 20 years later: Carolyn Muncey is dead. Little Hube has been married twice more. Paul House is on death row, confined to a wheelchair, cuffed hands and feet, and suffering from multiple sclerosis. His speech is affected, he can't bathe himself and he needs help eating. What began as a seemingly strong case with hard forensic evidence of semen and blood and the motive of a convicted rapist has become purely circumstantial, surrounded by doubt and questionable activities by the authorities. The state maintains that even if House did not rape Carolyn Muncey, he attempted to rape her and killed her to keep her from reporting him. The prosecution holds that attempted rape is a felony offense sufficient to be the aggravating factor required for application of the death penalty. The state has further said that if House is exonerated, it does not intend to further investigate or charge Little Hube in his wife's murder. "This case and the few empirical studies that we have reinforce Justice (Sandra Day) O'Connor's view that the system is allowing some innocent defendants to be executed," wrote the 6th Circuit's Judge Gilbert S. Merritt. "High on the list of the causes for mistakes are the kinds of errors we see in this case: the misinterpretation or abuse of scientific evidence, the adverse inferences drawn from the prior record of a defendant, particularly one who is a stranger in the local community, the failure of counsel to uncover (until too late) witnesses who could exonerate the defendant, and the existence of one or more other suspects with a motive to commit the offense. "Once the initial trial and appeal have occurred, it is clear from the studies that the State, and its officials who have prosecuted, sentenced and reviewed the case, are inclined to persevere in the belief that the State was right all along. They tend to close ranks and resist admission of error. "Intelligent citizens who strongly believe in the reliability of capital (punishment) are also inclined to persevere in the belief that a case raising the 'embarrassing question' will never really arise and close ranks with the State in resisting the admission of error. "This case is a good example of how these errors can lead to the execution of a defendant who is actually innocent." (source: Nashville Scene) MISSOURI: Missouri Supreme Court Sets Execution Date The Missouri Supreme Court has set an April 27 execution date for Donald Jones, 38, convicted of the March 1993 stabbing death of his grandmother in St. Louis after she refused to give him money to buy drugs. The office of Attorney General Jay Nixon represented the state against Jones' appeals. Around midnight on March 6, 1993, Jones went to the home of his grandmother, Dorothy Knuckles, to get money to buy crack cocaine. When she refused and began lecturing Jones on his use of drugs and alcohol, he went downstairs to the kitchen and picked up a butcher block and knives. When Knuckles resumed her lecturing, Jones struck her several times with the block. When Knuckles began to scream, Jones stabbed her repeatedly to silence her. Jones then stole his grandmother's VCR, what money he could find, and her car keys. He later sold the VCR and rented out the car to get money to buy drugs. Knuckles' body was discovered the next morning by her son. Upon questioning by St. Louis homicide detectives, Jones gave an audiotape statement of the details of the murder. A St. Louis City Circuit Court jury found Jones guilty of 1st-degree murder on June 16, 1994, and recommended that he be sentenced to death 2 days later. (source: Kansas City InfoZine)
