A Pennsylvania judge reversed the convictions of three men imprisoned for decades in the 1997 murder of a 70-year-old woman despite their DNA never matching that obtained at the scene. They will remain in jail while a prosecution decides whether to appeal.
The Delaware County court ordered fresh trials for 15-year-old Derrick Chappell, first cousin Morton Johnson, and Sam Grasty on Thursday.
No one should have prosecuted this case. These people should not have been charged. Friday, Centurion legal director Paul Casteleiro, Grasty's lawyer, claimed the evidence always showed their innocence. He claimed the prosecutors “just ran roughshod” over the defendants.
The three were convicted of murdering Chester resident Henrietta Nickens, who told her daughter in her last phone contact that she was watching the 11 p.m. news. She was viciously beaten, her panties removed, and her home plundered with blood on the walls and mattress.
Casteleiro said the three suspects, all local youth, were convicted despite DNA tests showing that semen recovered in the victim's body and on a jacket at the site did not match them.
He deemed the prosecution's theories “preposterous.” He claimed they suggested the victim had consensual intercourse before the slaying or that the three defendants brought a used condom to explain the lack of a DNA match. Though chronically unwell, Nickens had no known male partners, he said.
On Thursday, Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan overturned the convictions and scheduled a May 23 bail hearing to determine if county prosecutors will seek a new trial. DA Jack Stollsteimer will evaluate the case next week before making a decision, a spokeswoman said Friday.
On Friday, Johnson and Chappell's lawyers did not respond. The Pennsylvania Innocence Project assisted. Men in their 40s. All three filed pro se petitions in federal court throughout the years claiming wrongful convictions, but they were refused.
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