Location

Defendant(s)

Date of Alleged Crime

Ronald Quinton Carden of Bigelow, AR was convicted of murdering a girl whose body was found outside of Little Rock.  The victim was misidentified by an Arkansas Crime Lab dentist and the conviction was purportedly obtained through the efforts of Sheriff Tommy Robinson.  Following the conviction, Dr. Fahmy Malak, the medical examiner told Arkansas Democrat reporter Mike Masterson that he was disturbed by it.  Masterson looked through the Malak's case file and noticed that description of the victim seemed to match that of a missing person named Mildred Honeycutt from Pocahontas, AR.  Honeycutt reportedly had a birthmark which Masterson found on an autopsy photo of the victim.  Masterson showed the photo separately to each of Honeycutt's parents and they both identified the victim as their daughter.  Fingerprints later confirmed the identification.  The new evidence resulted in the overturning of Carden's conviction.  Following the confession of another man to the crime, and evidence which connected him to the victim, charges against Carden were dropped.  (ISI) (AR Democrat Project) (Free Republic)

Timothy George Baldwin was convicted of the murder of Mary James Peters, an 85-year-old West Monroe woman.  Peters was a former neighbor of Baldwin and also godmother to his youngest child.  Peters was severely beaten in her home on April 4, 1978, apparently in the late evening hours.  She was found at noontime the next day by a Meals on Wheels worker who went to her home to serve her lunch.  Although the assault left Peters with some brain damage, she remained conscious following her discovery.  Even though she knew Baldwin well, she did not identify him as her assailant.  Peters died the day after she was found.

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Larry Swearingen sentenced to death for the murder by strangulation of 19-year-old Melissa Trotter.  Trotter disappeared on Dec. 8, 1998.  Swearingen was one of the last known persons to see her alive.  He was arrested three days later on outstanding traffic warrants and put in jail.  An extensive search for Trotter was organized, but her body wasn’t discovered until Jan. 2, 1999.  She was found in the Sam Houston National Forest by a couple of hunters—in an area that had been already searched three times.  Swearingen was still in jail at this time.

Following the scheduling of Swearingen's first execution date for Jan 2007, he began getting medical science on his side.  Unanimous medical opinion, based of various signs of body decay, is that Trotter could not have been murdered until some time after she disappeared and after Swearingen was put in jail.  One pathologist puts the earliest possible date of Trotter's murder as Dec. 18, another puts it at Dec. 23.  Dr. Glenn Larkin, a retired pathologist, said "No rational and intellectually honest person can look at the evidence and conclude Larry Swearingen is guilty of this horrible crime.”  (IIPPI) (Texas Monthly)

Luis Ramirez was executed for the murder of Nemicio Nandin, who was reportedly dating Ramirez' ex-wife.  Ramirez' conviction was based on the testimony of police informant Tim Hoogstra, a self-admitted "daily drug abuser," who was paid $500 for his testimony.  Hoogstra was also granted leniency on a shoplifting charge and other pending charges.  In addition he was promised “crime stopper” money upon Ramirez' conviction.  Hoogstra gave testimony that when he was getting high with another man named Edward Bell, Bell told him Ramirez paid him $1000 to kill Nandin.  Bell was never called to testify nor had he ever given a statement to corroborate Hoogstra’s testimony.  Ramirez' was denied his Sixth Amendment right to dispute Hoogstra's testimony by cross-examining Bell.

Ramirez told his court-appointed attorney, Gonzalo Rios, to call an alibi witness, Patricia Raby, but Rios refused to even talk to her.  Ramirez thought Rios was prejudiced against him because he found out later that Rios' brother and cousin had been murdered two decades before and another cousin shot.  Ramirez said he never met Nandin, Hoogstra, or Bell, and has no knowledge of whether or not Nandin dated his ex-wife.  Ramirez was executed by lethal injection on Oct. 20, 2005.  (IIPPI) (Statement of LR)