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Grannis was sentenced to death for murder of Richard Sutcliffe.  While hitchhiking, Grannis and a co-defendant, Daniel Ethan Webster, were given a ride by Sutcliffe.  Sutcliffe offered the men a place to stay.  At trial the state argued that Grannis and Webster killed Sutcliffe while robbing him and burglarizing his home.  Grannis testified that Sutcliffe sexually propositioned him and became aggressive with him.  Grannis ran out of the house and did not know that Sutcliffe was dead until he was arrested.  Grannis believed his screams must have awakened Webster, who killed Sutcliffe after he left.  A female friend of Webster testified that she overheard Webster bragging to her cousin about committing a murder.

During trial, the prosecution introduced photos depicting homosexual activity that were found in Grannis' room at the time of his arrest.  The Arizona Supreme Court overturned Grannis’ conviction in 1995.  It ruled that the photos were “marginally relevant” and that the trial court abused its discretion in admitting them.  The Court stated that the probative value of the photos was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.  At retrial in 1996, the charges against Grannis were dismissed because of insufficient evidence.  (DPIC)  [10/07]

Patricia Gordy Wright was convicted in 1999 of the 1981 murder of her ex-husband, Willie Jerome Scott. Jerome was found stabbed to death in his motor home while it was parked in a bad area in downtown Los Angeles. Jerome’s homosexual lifestyle led to the dissolution of the couple’s marriage. It also led him to some unsavory partners and placed him in some dangerous situations. No physical or forensic evidence connects Wright to the crime.

Prior to Wright’s arrest, there were three previous suspects in the case. Police were unable to locate Jerome’s gay-lover or the male prostitute he was last seen with. In 1995, Wright’s brother, Larry, who was angry at his sister, pointed a finger at her and at Larry Slaughter, a family friend.  Two years later, Wright was arrested based on her brother's statement.  However, after being taken before Judge Lance Ito, she was released for lack of evidence.  Two weeks later, she was again arrested and taken before a different judge.  The police claimed to have a taped statement from Slaughter in which he claimed he was hired by Wright to murder Jerome for $25,000.  Without hearing the tape, this judge decided there was sufficient evidence to hold her.  Wright's attorney later demanded to hear the tape, but police claimed the tape was lost.  Slaughter later claimed that police taped him giving them them a statement, but in the statement he told them he knew nothing about the murder and did not know what they were talking about.

At trial, Slaughter did not testify, but a detective gave hearsay testimony as to his incriminating statements against Wright that were supposedly on the "lost" tape.  Wright's brother, Larry, also testified and stated that he lied in his statement to police, that he knew nothing about Jerome's murder, and that Wright never made any admissions to him about it.  However, a detective gave testimony about being present when Larry gave his statement.

To establish a motive, the state presented the testimony of an insurance agent who “remembered” selling Wright life insurance on her husband some 20 years before. The testimony had to be videotaped, as the agent, then 83, was confined to a nursing facility because of his Alzheimer’s disease.  Wright's attorney had no opportunity to cross-examine the agent.  Since her conviction, Wright has gathered evidence that largely refutes the life insurance claim.  Besides her own wrongful conviction, Wright also believes that Slaughter was wrongly convicted at his separate trial.  (JD38 p3)  [3/08]

Hansen was charged in 1994 with the famous unsolved murders of three 11 to 13 year old boys that occurred in 1955.  The victims were John and Tony Schuessler and their friend Robert Peterson.  They had traveled downtown to attend a matinee at a Loop theater and were found dead two days later in Robinson’s Woods, outside of Chicago.

Hansen was on his honeymoon in Texas at the time of the murders, but he found his 40-year-old alibi impossible to confirm.  Four witnesses claimed he confessed to them separately and alone in 1955, 1964, 1968, and 1976.  There was no other evidence.  Three witnesses were paid informants.  Hansen was convicted and sentenced to 200 to 300 years.

After the trial, the fourth witness admitted his testimony was fabricated.  None of the witnesses mentioned the confessions to anyone before 1993.  In addition, after the trial, a woman came forward and claimed her dead husband, Silas Jayne, confessed to her to performing the murders in 1956.  She left her husband the next day.  Other witnesses and some physical evidence corroborated her story.  Despite there being no evidence that the boys were molested, the trial judge allowed evidence of Hansen’s homosexuality and deviate lifestyle to be presented.  The 2002 retrial with new evidence and the widow witness also resulted in conviction.  (TruthInJustice)

Frank Chester was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Anthony Milano.  Chester, 19, and a friend, Rick Laird were at a Tullytown bar where they met Milano.  Laird, Chester, and Milano then left the bar.  While on the way to a friend's house, Laird, drunk and strung out on drugs, lost his temper when Milano wanted to go home.  In a fit of rage, Laird dragged Milano to a nearby wooded area off of Rt. 13 and knifed him in the throat.  Milano was soon dead.  Chester says he saw the murder as it was happening and ran through the woods to a friend's house, shaken by what he witnessed.

After the murder, Chester cooperated with the police.  He produced the clothes he was wearing at the time (which had not one drop of Milano's blood on them), and gave the police the names of all his friends and the patrons in the bar.  He even submitted to a lie detector test, which he passed with flying colors.  Laird had a previous arrest history for violent behavior.

Milano was a gay man who was learning to accept his identity.  When the DA learned this fact, he used Milano's homosexuality as the cause of his death.  Laird and Chester were depicted as hate mongers.  The press picked up on the DA’s depiction and joined in portraying the two as evil gay bashers.  The fact that Milano just happened to be gay did not enter the picture.  Both Laird and Chester landed on death row.  Laird has exonerated Chester from any responsibility for the murder.  (Source)  [2/07]

For reasons unknown, Reyos confessed in New Mexico to police that he had killed a Catholic priest, Father Patrick Ryan, during a homosexual tryst in a West Texas motel.  However, every other piece of testimony controverted his guilt.  Reyos had an airtight alibi:  He was 200 miles away when the priest was bludgeoned to death.  Reyos could prove his alibi with time-stamped receipts, a speeding ticket, and even an eyewitness.  Father Ryan was a much beloved priest, and Reyos' allegations that the father had repeatedly solicited young men for sex shocked and offended the jurors.  Reyos was convicted and sentenced to 38 years of imprisonment.  The state's attorney responding to Reyos' appeal made himself a timeline of the crime and realized that Reyos could not have committed the crime.  The attorney put in a pardon request but it was turned down.  Reyos was paroled in 2003.  (AJ) (Houston Chronicle)

Smith County, TX

Kerry Max Cook

June 10, 1977 (Tyler)

Cook was sentenced to death for the murder of Linda Jo Edwards, a 21-year-old secretary.  Edwards was a college student who was having an affair with her married professor.  Cook was arrested in a club where he worked as a bartender.  The club was chiefly known as a gay bar, and police theorized that Cook was a degenerate homosexual who hated women.

Cook was convicted because:  (1) A single fingerprint found on the outside of a sliding glass door of Edward's apartment was identified as Cook's.  Cook had once been in Edwards’ apartment, but a fingerprint expert testified that it was 12 hours old at the time Edwards’ body was found, placing him in the apartment at the time of the murder.  This testimony went unquestioned.  (2) The victim's roommate testified that she had seen Cook in Edwards’ apartment, around the time of the murder.  (3) A jailhouse informant testified that he heard Cook confess to the crime.  At trial, the prosecutor branded Cook a "little pervert," telling the jury, "I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't eat [the victim's] body parts."  At sentencing, Dr. James Grigson, who had helped send more than 100 defendants to death row, testified that Cook had an antisocial personality disorder, virtually assuring that he would kill again.

Later all the trial evidence was discredited because:  (1) The fingerprint expert admitted that it is impossible to date a fingerprint. He said that prosecutors pressured him to give false testimony.  (2) It was learned that the victim's roommate had originally said she saw Edwards’ professor in her apartment rather than Cook.  (3) The jailhouse informant recanted his testimony that he heard Cook confess.

The state's highest court threw out Cook's conviction, ruling that the state's “illicit manipulation of the evidence permeated the entire investigation of the murder'' and that prosecutors had "gained a conviction based on fraud and ignored its own duty to seek the truth.”  Cook was freed in Nov. 1997, but only after pleading no contest to a time-served sentence.  Cook spent nearly 20 years in prison, most of them on death row.  After his release Cook married and had a son he named Kerry Justice, saying, “After 23 years, Justice has finally arrived.”

Cook has written a 2007 book about his ordeal entitled Chasing Justice.  The book notes that Cook was helped by Centurion Ministries, and that its founder went on a retreat to question his faith in God after attending one of Cook's trials.  One is hardly surprised, as the book is one of the most harrowing tales of corrupt prosecution ever written.  (CM) (NL) (TWM)  [10/05]