Ledell Lee's sister, Patricia Young, has been fighting for years to prove it was not her brother who strangled and bludgeoned 26-year-old Debra Reese to death.
“My dying words will always be, as it has been, ‘I am an innocent man,’” he told the BBC in an interview published on 19 April 2017 — the day before officials in Arkansas administered the lethal injection.
“We are glad there is new evidence in the national DNA database and remain hopeful that there will be further information uncovered in the future,” Young said in a statement last week. In response to a lawsuit filed by Young in January, Jacksonville city officials released the bloody wooden club recovered from the victim’s bedroom, a bloody white shirt wrapped around the club and several other pieces of evidence for testing.
At a news conference on Tuesday, Governor Asa Hutchinson defended Lee’s execution. “It’s my duty to carry out the law,” he said, adding that “the fact is that the jury found him guilty based upon the information that they had”. He called the new DNA evidence that has emerged “inconclusive”.
“However, the DNA profile will now remain in the database and will be automatically compared to all new profiles from convicted persons, arrestees or unsolved crimes that are entered in the future,” lawyers for the ACLU, the Innocence Project and Young said in a joint statement.
Australia Latest News, Australia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
First Cow’s Orion Lee on onscreen male friendshipsHarry and Lloyd, Woody and Buzz, and Troy and Abed. There is no shortage of male friendships on screen but few – if any – are like Cookie and King-Lu, the leads in First Cow.
Read more »
Man faces attempted murder charges after Dunedin stabbing attackA man who allegedly went on a stabbing rampage with two knives at a New Zealand supermarket has been charged with attempted murder
Read more »
Dunedin supermarket stabbing: Man charged with four counts of attempted murderA man has been charged with four counts of attempted murder in relation to yesterday‘s horrific stabbing incident at a New Zealand supermarket.
Read more »