Dr. Phil Airs Two-Part Investigation of Rodney Reed Case

The case of Texas death-row pris­on­er Rodney Reed (pic­tured, right), who is fac­ing exe­cu­tion in Texas on November 20, 2019 despite pow­er­ful evi­dence of inno­cence, is attract­ing nation­al atten­tion from unusu­al sources. On October 10 and 11, the syn­di­cat­ed tele­vi­sion show Dr. Phil devot­ed two episodes to an inves­ti­ga­tion of the inno­cence claims in Reed’s case.

“I don’t think it’s a ques­tion of whether he’s guilty or not guilty,” host Dr. Phil McGraw (pic­tured, left) said. ​“I think the ques­tion is, has he had a fair tri­al with a full air­ing of all of the evi­dence. And I think the answer to that ques­tion, in my opin­ion, is not just ​‘no’ but ​‘hell no.’” 

Reed, who is rep­re­sent­ed by the Innocence Project and is seek­ing DNA test­ing of evi­dence he says will exon­er­ate him, was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the mur­der of Stacey Stites. Reed says he and Stites were involved in a secret rela­tion­ship for about five months pri­or to her death. Over the course of two hours, Dr. Phil fea­tured clips from his own in-per­son inter­view with Reed, as well as appear­ances by Reed’s moth­er and broth­er, his attor­ney Bryce Benjet, foren­sic experts, and a cousin of the vic­tim. The episodes describe prob­lems with the foren­sic sci­ence in the case and explore the the­o­ry that Stites may have been killed by her fiancé, police offi­cer Jimmy Fennel, who was lat­er con­vict­ed of abduct­ing and rap­ing a woman while on duty. 

McGraw inter­viewed Alicia Slater, a co-work­er of Stites’ who has recent­ly come for­ward to say she knew about Stites’ affair with Reed. Slater says that she asked Stites if she was excit­ed about her upcom­ing wed­ding, and Stites told her no, because ​“she was sleep­ing with a black guy named Rodney.” Slater explains that she warned Stites to ​“be care­ful” because ​“in the 90s, Bastrop, Texas did not have many inter­ra­cial cou­ples.” She went on to say that Stites was ​“wor­ried about Jimmy and what he would do if he ever found out she was cheat­ing on him.” Slater imme­di­ate­ly sus­pect­ed Fennel when she heard of Stites’ death: ​“When I found out Stacey had died, my first thought was ​‘did she get caught cheating?’” 

Several foren­sic experts spoke about the case, high­light­ing the faulty foren­sic evi­dence used to con­vict Reed. Retired NYPD Detective Sergeant Kevin Gannon said that he believes the scene where Stites’ body was found was ​“staged,” and that she was actu­al­ly killed by drown­ing, rather than stran­gu­la­tion, as the state con­clud­ed. Gannon and vic­ti­mol­o­gist Dr. Lee Gilbertson describe their the­o­ry of how the mur­der took place, based on the foren­sic evi­dence. If she had been stran­gled, Gannon explained, ​“her hyoid bone should have been rup­tured. Her lar­ynx should have had some kind of dam­age,” and the blood ves­sels in her eyes would burst, but none of these symp­toms was present. Her lungs had absorbed 16 ounces of flu­id, lead­ing him to con­clude she was drowned. Her body was found face-up, but blood had set­tled in the front of her body, sug­gest­ing she was face­down for sev­er­al hours after her death. They say that the state’s the­o­ry of the case is faulty, because pros­e­cu­tors claimed that Reed attacked Stites as she drove to work, killed her, then left her truck in a park­ing lot. Decomposition flu­ids were found in the truck, indi­cat­ing that Stites’ body was trans­port­ed in it after she was killed. The truck also con­tained fin­ger­prints from Stites and Fennel, but not Reed. Stites’ fin­ger­nails were cut very short, elim­i­nat­ing any DNA evi­dence that could have been under them. 

Forensic pathol­o­gist Dr. Cyril Wecht con­clud­ed that the time of Stites’ death giv­en at tri­al was incor­rect. The tim­ing of her death was crit­i­cal, because Reed had an ali­bi until mid­night on the night of the mur­der. ​“I have con­clud­ed, after review­ing all of the infor­ma­tion – the autop­sy report, the pho­tographs, and all the back­ground infor­ma­tion – there is sim­ply no ques­tion, from a foren­sic, sci­en­tif­ic stand­point, that Stacey Stites was mur­dered before mid­night,” Wecht said. ​“There is no way that the tim­ing that is nec­es­sary for the pros­e­cu­tion to have brought this case and to have con­vict­ed Rodney Reed has any kind of valid­i­ty. None.” He con­tin­ued, ​“I would say with­out hes­i­ta­tion, that this is one of the clear­est unequiv­o­cal cas­es of gross, gross mis­judg­ment, of trav­es­ty of jus­tice, that I have ever seen.” 

The show delves into sus­pi­cions against Stites’ fiancé, Jimmy Fennel, who was ini­tial­ly the lead sus­pect in her death. Fennel failed a lie detec­tor test about the mur­der and gave chang­ing state­ments about his where­abouts on the night Stites was killed. Years lat­er, he was con­vict­ed of the rape of Connie Lear. Lear appeared on Dr. Phil to tell the sto­ry of the crime, and said she believes Fennel is ​“absolute­ly capa­ble of rape, killing, cov­er­ing it up.” 

Fennel’s attor­ney denied that his client killed Stites and her fam­i­ly pro­vid­ed a state­ment to Dr. Phil express­ing their belief that Reed was her killer.