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Coleman was convicted of the 1981 rape and murder of his sister-in-law, Wanda McCoy. He was sentenced to death and executed on May 20, 1992. Before this crime, Coleman was accused of attempted rape in April 1977. He was convicted because the victim identified him as the perpetrator despite his having a solid alibi provided by his high school principal. In Jan. 1981, Coleman was suspected of masturbating in front of two librarians at the public library, but maintained his innocence. Charges against him were initially brought in connection with his later murder charge, but apparently were only brought to prejudice the public since they were later dropped.

No direct evidence linked Coleman to the murder, but the prosecution theorized at trial was that the victim knew the perpetrator because there were no signs of forced entry to her house. A report later surfaced that there was a mark near the lock on the front door that was possibly a pry mark. In addition, the victim's hands, her sleeves, and her upper thighs were blackened with dirt. This evidence suggests she was attacked and dragged outside before she and her assailant went inside.

Coleman had an alibi witness, whose testimony and timecard made it almost impossible for Coleman to have had time to commit the murder, but a prosecution witness with a changing story, made it seem that Coleman had an additional half-hour to commit the rape and murder.

An investigation by Jim McCloskey and attorney Kitty Behan implicated McCoy's closest neighbor as the real killer and undermined the state's weak case against Coleman. As his execution date approached, Coleman received enormous press attention, including a cover story on Time Magazine. This press attention put pressure on Gov. Wilder's office to postpone the execution until the new evidence could be heard. Rather than postpone the execution, Wilder's office scheduled a dubious polygraph test for Coleman on the morning of his execution. No defense personnel or polygraphist was allowed to witness it. Within hours, it was announced that Coleman had failed and he was soon executed. Results of the test were never released because Coleman was dead and the "case was closed." A 1997 book by John Tucker entitled May God Have Mercy tells Coleman’s story.

In 2001, Centurion Ministries and some news organizations petitioned the judiciary to permit post-execution DNA tests. However, none of the victim’s semen stained clothes had been preserved, undermining confidence in the chain of custody of the semen evidence. The state, known formally as the Commonwealth of Virgina, claimed to have preserved a tiny sample of the assailant's semen, but it also had a sample of Coleman’s semen, as indicated in Tucker’s book. Coleman, himself, indicated apprehension at giving the state a semen sample, and rightly so. Once the state had custody of Coleman's semen it could take a small swab of it and claim the swab was a sample of the assailant's semen.

In retrospect Coleman should have given blood, a mouth swab, or some other form of DNA. It is not clear why Coleman had to give the state a semen sample since the state had no intention of performing DNA tests and would actively oppose them for years.  Apparently, such a submission was prompted by Coleman's defenders who trying to force the state to perform such tests. Secondly, if Coleman's semen, rather than another form of his DNA, was required in early DNA testing, it could have been given to his attorney and held in confidence.  Then if the state agreed to DNA testing, or a judge ordered it, Coleman's semen could have been given to an independent testing lab without it passing into the state's hands.

Given the state’s record of often extreme hostility on the Coleman case, there is little basis to “trust” that the state would honestly submit evidence that could potentially prove it executed an innocent man.  In 2006, DNA tests were eventually ordered which “proved” Coleman guilty. No one doubts the semen sample allegedly taken from the victim matched Coleman’s DNA. However, there exists reasonable doubt that the sample ever came from the victim. In its eagerness to obtain DNA tests, Coleman’s defender, Centurion Ministries, promised to accept the results of the tests. Out of apparent pride in keeping its promise, it now says it knows that Coleman is guilty.  Whatever Coleman's actual guilt, the state wrongly convicted him and executed him based on the evidence then available.  Its evidence that Coleman might not have had an alibi for the crime is hardly proof of anything.  The state might have reliably proved Coleman's guilt, posthumously, by preserving the victim's semen stained clothing.  It chose not to, leaving its hypothesis of Coleman’s guilt an unproven assertion.  (TruthInJustice) (CM)  [6/08]

Washington, who has an IQ of 69, was arrested in 1983 on minor charges in Fauquier County, VA.  After 2 days of questioning, police announced that he had confessed to 5 different crimes including the murder of Rebecca Lynn Williams.  Of the five confessions, four were dismissed because of inconsistencies in the confessions and the inability of the victims to identify Washington.  In the remaining confession, Washington said that he raped and killed Rebecca Lynn Williams.

Questioning revealed that Washington did not know the race of his victim, the address of the apartment where she was killed, or that he had raped her.  Washington also testified that Ms. Williams had been short when in fact she was 5'8", that he had stabbed her two or three times when the victim showed thirty-eight stab wounds, and that there was no one else in the apartment when it was known that her two young children were with her.  Washington said he kicked in her door, but her door was undamaged.  Only on the fourth attempt at a rehearsed confession, did authorities accept Washington's statement and have it recorded in writing with Washington's signature.  He only picked out the scene of the crime after being taken there three times in one afternoon by the police, who in the end had to help him pick out Williams' apartment.

At trial, the confession proved to be the prosecution's only evidence linking Washington to the crime.  The defense failed to point out the inconsistencies of the prosecution's case, especially the results of the Commonwealth's own serological analysis of the seminal fluid found at the scene of the crime, which did not match Washington.  It also failed to inform the jury of Washington's other false confessions.  Washington was convicted and sentenced to death.  He came within 9 days of execution when a New York law firm picked up his case pro bono.

In 1993, DNA tests exonerated Washington, but Virginia law barred the introduction of new evidence so he had no redress though the courts.  In 2000, Gov. Gilmore granted Washington an absolute pardon.  The case was featured on "Frontline" and is the subject of a book, The Expendable Man: The Near-Execution of Earl Washington, Jr.  (IP076) (Times-Dispatch) (Profiles of Injustice)  [5/05]

Joe Giarratano was convicted of murdering Michelle Kline, 15, and her mother, Barbara “Toni” Kline, 44.  Michelle had been strangled and Toni had been stabbed to death.  Joe had stayed at the Kline’s apartment a few weeks before the murders.  The day after the bodies were found, Joe was in Jacksonville, Florida and police there contacted him.  He confessed to them that he committed the crime.  He gave four statements inconsistent with details of the crime.  After two detectives from Norfolk arrived and interviewed him, he gave a fifth statement.

This statement was more consistent with the facts of the crime, as Norfolk detectives showed him crime scene photos and could feed him details of the crime, but it was still inconsistent.  Joe claimed to have killed Lori before Michelle, but medical reports show that Michelle died before Lori.  He had stated that he strangled Michelle with his hands, when the autopsy report stated a non-hands form of strangulation.  This report was changed to say manual strangulation prior to trial.  Other discrepancies exist.

At trial the prosecution withheld evidence such as that of an alternate suspect whose driver’s license was found in the Kline’s apartment.  This suspect was heroin user and a federal informant with a history of sexual assaults.  All trace of him has since disappeared as though he entered the federal witness protection program.  In 1991, Joe’s appellate attorneys convinced Gov. Wilder to commute Joe’s death sentence to life imprisonment and to recommend a new trial.  However, Virginia law does not allow new evidence to be introduced after 21 days following a conviction.

Joe had been a serious alcohol and drug abuser.  However, in prison, after he stopped taking tranquilizers issued to him by prison doctors, he became a competent "jailhouse lawyer."  A couple of his cases have made it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  He worked tirelessly on Earl Washington's case as well as many others.  He taught non-violence classes and helped some inmates to read and write.  Officials at Red Onion State Prison have since stopped his activism by placing him in solitary confinement.  (JusticeDenied)  [2/07]

Davidson was convicted of raping, sodomizing, and robbing a 66-year-old woman.  The assailant had worn a stocking mask over his face, a cap, gloves, and a coat.  The victim had known Davidson and his family most of her life.  Davidson and his family had moved away years before, but they had stopped to visit the victim the day before the attack.  Police put a stocking on Davidson's head and asked the victim if he looked like her attacker.  She responded affirmatively.  Davidson said that he was at home sleeping while the crime was being committed.  His family members supported his alibi at trial.  Davidson served almost 13 years of imprisonment.

A crime lab analyst, Mary Jane Burton, had, against the rules, saved specimens of biological evidence of the cases she worked on.  Evidence saved by Burton had already helped exonerate three convicts.  In 2004, DNA tests were ordered on a random 10% of her approximately 310 specimens, resulting in the exonerations of Davidson and Phillip Leon Thurman.  Gov. Warner pardoned both in Dec. 2005.  (IP167)  [12/05]

Dennis Waldon Stockton was convicted of murdering his friend Kenny Arnder.  Arnder’s body was found in North Carolina, but Stockton was tried in Virginia based on the assumption that Arnder was killed there and his body was moved to the North Carolina side of the border.  Stockton was convicted solely on the testimony of Randy Bowman, a convict, who in many respects was a more likely suspect in the killing.  On appeal in 1995, Stockton’s attorney presented affidavits from Bowman’s former wife, his son, and a friend, stating that Bowman admitted to committing the murder.  The affidavits had little effect and Stockton was executed two days later on Sept. 27, 1995 by lethal injection.

Stockton's case is the subject of a book entitled Dead Run: The Shocking Story of Dennis Stockton and Life on Death Row in America by William F. Burke, Jr. and Joe Jackson.  (TWM)

Rogers was sentenced to death for the shooting murder of Robert B. Hatchell, a police officer.  Two police officers chased a stolen car through Petersburg, VA and forced it into a ditch.  The driver escaped on foot and was pursued by one officer, R. B. Hatchell.  The other officer stayed behind to guard the car’s two passengers.  The passengers were two AWOL soldiers.  A half-hour later, two shots rang out and Officer Hatchell was found dead.

Police then combed the area and picked up a black hitchhiker named Silas Rogers.  They got Rogers to confess that he had stolen the car in Raliegh, NC and had shot the cop.  A judge would not allow Rogers’ confession to be used at trial because there was clear evidence that it was obtained through third degree methods.  However, at trial the soldiers identified Hatchell as the man who picked them up in the stolen car.  Rogers was convicted.

The NAACP reviewed the case and thought the evidence was weak.  They found a witness who corroborated Rogers’ story that he arrived in Petersburg by train.  As a result Rogers’ death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.  Then a fellow convict told Rogers of Argosy magazine’s “Court of Last Resort,” an investigative agency that worked to free wrongfully convicted inmates.  Rogers wrote to Argosy and got them to work on his case.  Jack Kirkpatrick, an editorial writer for the Richmond News-Leader also began an investigation.  Working with Argosy, Kirkpatrick assembled a mass of evidence and affidavits to show the two soldiers had perjured themselves at Rogers’ trial.

The soldiers testified that they shared cigarettes with Rogers in the stolen car.  However, Kirkpatrick proved that Rogers never smoked.  He also proved that Rogers could not have driven the stolen car, as he had never learned to drive.  The only remaining piece of evidence against Rogers was testimony that his coat was found in the stolen car.  When an Argosy investigator found and questioned the witness who gave that testimony, the witness quickly changed his story and acknowledged that Rogers’ coat was brown while the coat found in the stolen car was blue.  Virginia Governor Battle pardoned Rogers on Dec. 23, 1952.  (Time)  [7/07]

Jeffrey David Cox was convicted of the abduction and stabbing murder of 63-year-old Eloise Cooper, a black woman.  Two neighbors, both blacks, who witnessed the 3 a.m. abduction, stated the perpetrators were two white males.  Police believed the perpetrators to be Billy Madison and Stephen Hood, but neither witness identified them in a lineup.  Instead, they tentatively identified Cox, who was included in the lineup because he was a friend of Madison and because Hood suggested he might have been involved.  Both witnesses said they wanted to see Cox in person to be sure.  In a later lineup, one witness failed to identify Cox, and the other witness was not asked to view the lineup.  Nevertheless at trial, both witnesses identified Cox as one of the perpetrators.  Police believed the other perpetrator was Madison.

At his trial, Cox testified on his own behalf, along with several alibi witnesses.  Before reaching a verdict, the jury asked the judge several questions.  They wanted to know why Cox was a suspect, why the scientific evidence – such as the skin and hairs under the victim’s nails – had not been tested, and what happened during the police questioning of Cox.  The judge refused to answer any of the questions, and the jury found Cox guilty.  He was sentenced to life plus 50 years in prison.

In 1997, Cox’s family hired two new attorneys who discovered numerous pieces of exculpatory evidence that had been withheld from the defense:  (1) One eyewitness had an extensive criminal past that he had lied about at trial.  (2) Charges pending against the other witness were dropped after she testified against Cox, suggesting that she had made a deal with the prosecution.  (3) Police had withheld from the defense a “Crime Stoppers” report containing the eyewitnesses’ descriptions of the perpetrators, which did not match Cox.  (4) Hair analysis showed that two hairs found on the victim’s body were of a different color than Cox’s hair.

The attorneys asked the FBI to investigate the murder.  An FBI investigation reportedly discovered extensive evidence against Hood, including a possible motive.  An acquaintance of Hood, Roberto Steadman, acknowledged ripping off Hood and Madison in a $100 marijuana deal.  He told Hood he lived with his grandmother, and falsely used the victim’s address as his own address “so no one could trace him.”  The victim was unrelated to Steadman.  During a plea negotiation, Hood said he committed the murder with Madison, and this statement was later admitted into evidence as a confession.  Despite an indictment of Hood for the crime, police refused to acknowledge Cox’s innocence.  Nevertheless, in 2001, prosecutors agreed to vacate Cox’s conviction and drop charges against him.

The prosecutorial agreement was unprecedented in that Virginia bars the introduction of new evidence discovered more than 21 days after sentencing.  Virginia convicts found to be innocent have always had to seek clemency from the governor.  Cox is the first time serving “innocent” to be exonerated by a court since the 21-day rule was passed.  Hood’s upcoming trial presumably helped to prompt the agreement as Cox’s conviction could have been used as exculpatory evidence by Hood’s defense.  In 2002, Hood was convicted of the murder.  Madison has never been charged with the crime.  Cox received $750,000 in compensation from Virginia for his wrongful conviction.  (MAIP)  (Washington Post) (WPost2) (Hood v. Virginia)  [7/07]

Lyons, the newly elected pastor of small church in Reid's Ferry, got into a quarrel with the old pastor, James Smith, over $45 in church funds.  Lyons threatened to kill Smith.  Smith soon disappeared from the community.  A few months afterwards a decomposed body that seemed to match Smith's description was found near Suffolk.  When questioned, Lyons stated he had seen Smith in Portsmouth, Norfolk, and Newport News.  These statements were shown to be untrue.

After Lyons' trial and conviction, the judge was willing to grant his lawyer's motion for a hearing for a new trial, but only after the lawyer went to Lyons, told him the motion was denied, and asked what really happened.  When the lawyer followed instructions, Lyons stated he had been involved in the murder as part of a conspiracy with church members who had testified for the prosecution.  Three years later Smith was located living in North Carolina.  He had read newspaper stories about Lyons' trial and conviction, but had done nothing because he feared prosecution for absconding with the $45 over which he and Lyons had quarreled.  (NL)  [7/05]

*Case occurred in Nansemond County, now extinct, which merged with the City of Suffolk in 1974.

Troy L. Webb was convicted of raping and robbing a 25-year-old woman in the parking lot of her apartment complex.  Following the attack, the victim was unable to describe her attacker in sufficient detail to allow police to create a composite sketch.  Nor was she able to identify him from a collection of mug shots.  After more than a month, she identified Webb from a photo array of six pictures, claiming she was almost 100% sure that Webb was the man who raped her.

Serology tests showed that a man with Type A blood deposited sperm found in the victim and that Webb was a non-secretor, meaning that his sperm would not reveal his blood type.  Nevertheless, at trial, a serologist testified that the tests could not exclude Webb as the attacker because the semen of a second man, such as the victim’s live-in boyfriend, could mask his semen.  Webb’s defense counsel failed to ask the victim questions about whether she had another man’s semen in her at the time of the attack.  Nor had counsel sought to determine her boyfriend’s blood type.

On appeal, Webb’s appellate attorneys argued that two jurors – one who had been a rape victim, and a second who was the husband of a rape victim – should have been removed from the jury.  They also argued that the evidence was insufficient to prove Webb’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  The appeal was eventually denied.  However, in 1996, DNA tests were performed which exonerated Webb of the crime.  (MAIP) (IP041)  [7/07]