Attorneys for Rodney Reed, a death row inmate in Texas, have filed a peti­tion in a coun­ty court with new evi­dence sup­port­ing an alter­nate the­o­ry of the crime that led to Reed’s con­vic­tion. Reed is sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed on March 5 for the mur­der of Stacy Stites. 

The peti­tion includ­ed affi­davits from three foren­sic experts who con­tend Stites died much ear­li­er than police orig­i­nal­ly said, and that her body was stored for sev­er­al hours in a dif­fer­ent loca­tion than where it was found. They also said that there was not suf­fi­cient evi­dence to con­clude that Stites had been sexually assaulted. 

Attorneys for Reed said Stites was like­ly killed by her fiance, a for­mer police offi­cer who is now in prison for the abduc­tion and rape of a young woman while on duty. Affidavits from two of Stites’ cowork­ers state she would ​“delib­er­ate­ly hide” from her fiance because ​“she was sleep­ing with a black guy named Rodney and … didn’t know what her fiancé would do if he found out.” 

Reed pre­vi­ous­ly sought DNA test­ing of Stites’ shirt and the belt used to stran­gle her, but that request was denied by the Bastrop County District Court.

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Sources

C. Hoffberger, ​“Rodney Reed’s Attorneys Seek Retrial,” Austin Chronicle, February 12, 2015; M. Hayoun, “ ​‘Dead Man Walking’ nun rais­es voice against exe­cu­tion of black inmate,” Al Jazeera America, February 14, 2015. See Innocence and Upcoming Executions.