|
Calvin Johnson: Another
Georgia case | Rafay/Burns
| Wilfred Hathway | Kyle
Unger | James Driskell
| Clifford St. Joseph |
John Stoll | Ludrate
Burton | Michael
Williams | Albert Johnson
| Shaka Sankofa:
Executed after conviction based on faulty eye-witness | U.S.
wrongful convictions: recently Exonerated Peter
Rose | Clifford St. Joseph
| John Stoll | Ludrate
Burton | Albert Johnson
| Stephen Cowans | Laurence
Adams | Peter Reilly |
Still working on it: | Dennis
Dechaine | Dwayne
McKinney| Marty Tankleff
Dennis Perry
Dennis and Daniel in
happier times
Daniel Perry's
diligent struggle for justice for his brother, Dennis
Feb. 2003:
Dennis was convicted of a double murder
A plea from Georgia
injusticebusters
received this message.
I would like to ask anyone
a question. If there was an 18 year old murder and 8 yrs of investigation
ensued. And all 8 yrs of the information was lost along
with all the evidence in the case by an incompetent sherrifs
office, except for the only DNA found which exonerates a suspect,
should a DA be allowed to begin a case without any evidence,
circumstantial or otherwise? What if they hire a guy to investigate
it for 40,000 dollars of drug money and he takes a sole picture
of anyone fitting the description to taint the only witnesses?
Do you believe this can happen in the U.S.? It did. Ask
me about it.
In a time when we are convicting innocents and sending otherwise
free people to their deaths, we need a change in the power the
prosecutor has. If the District Attorneys were some foreign entity
murdering our innocent defendants we would spend billions of
dollars and even give our lives to defend our innocent victims
of this Justice system. I bet you never looked at that way. Did
you know the Medical Examiners office is controlled by the DA?
The DA can fire him or cause him grief! If the DA wants
someone to be convicted he can do what ever he wants with the
evidence. The DA can hide the innocence of a person!
The DA should not control the M.E. or the evidence. I suspect
Hundreds or maybe thousands of COMPLETELY INNOCENT people are
being held against their will right now in OUR prisons! There
is a conflict of interest in the DA. He is an elected official
and if he doesn't get convictions he's gone! Please Help we are
in a race against time. What can we do? Contact me with your
ideas. Daniel Perry at drkanglmoonshdws@aol.com
From the family website:
. . . Dennis was accused of
a double murder that happened 18 years ago. He was cleared in
the very beginning by Joe Gregory, the investigator for the GBI.
There was a picture line up of 12 people which included Dennis.
It also included a guy that had bragged about doing the murders.
The eyewitnesses of the murders picked the guy that was bragging,
not Dennis. But Mr. Gregory did not stop there in trying to clear
Dennis. He checked to see if Dennis was at work that day. Joe
called Dennis' supervisor, he told Joe Dennis was at work pouring
concrete until around 6 PM that day. Dennis worked in Atlanta.
The murders happened in south Ga., 6 hr. away, about 8:40 PM!
After the witnesses picked the guy bragging, the sheriffs office,
headed by sheriff Bill Smith, mysteriously let him go! Not only
that, they also lost the picture line-up. In fact since
then, the great sheriff has lost all the evidence related to
the murders except one hair, which excludes Dennis 100% as a
possible suspect! When asked on the witness stand how and why
he no longer had any of the evidence his reply was quote
unquote "I DON'T KNOW "!!!
During the 5 months before the trial, Dennis was offered several
deals, the last being manslaughter eligible for parole in 40
months. The 40 month finished the day that Dennis was convicted!
He would not take any deals! Yet he was convicted without any
evidence in an 18 yr. old murder.
Bill Smith is still the sheriff in this town. I guess you should
be very careful if you happen to pass through Camden Co. Ga.
especially if you look like someone he wants to target for one
of his unsolved crimes. . . You may not know Dennis, nevertheless
a small amount of checking would let you know Dennis IS innocent
. . .
- Sincerely,
Daniel F. Perry Jr.
-
- Lost evidence key in slaying defense
Jacksonville man
on trial for deaths
By Gordon Jackson, Florida
Times-Union staff writer, February 11, 2003
BRUNSWICK -- During testimony
yesterday in the trial of a Jacksonville man accused of the 1985
slayings of a husband and wife at a Camden County church, defense
attorneys questioned how key evidence could have been misplaced.
Dale Westling, an attorney
representing Dennis Arnold Perry, expressed concern about the
methods used by the Camden County Sheriff's Office to safeguard
evidence.
The evidence was found at Rising
Daughter Baptist Church after police said Harold and Thelma Swain
were gunned down during a Bible study class.
The missing evidence includes
the following:
A pair of glasses investigators
say were worn by the man who shot the couple.
An empty Pepsi bottle which
may have had the fingerprints of the attacker.
A tape-recorded interview with
witnesses.
Photographs of possible suspects.
A box containing telephone
wires to the church which were found cut after the shootings.
Buttons from a shirt believed
to be worn by the attacker.
"There was no crime scene
integrity," Westling said. "There was a significant
amount of tangible evidence [now missing]."
Westling also criticized investigators
for allowing church officials to clean blood from the floor before
samples could be used as evidence.
The man ultimately responsible
for safeguarding the evidence, Camden County Sheriff Bill Smith,
was blunt with his response about what happened: "I don't
know."
Smith testified all the evidence
should have remained intact after lead investigator Butch Kennedy
quit his deputy's job in 1992, and he didn't know what happened.
"I don't get directly
involved in the process," Smith said.
Though only two men are responsible
for holding evidence and releasing it to investigators, Smith
said nobody has ever been reprimanded for losing evidence that
could hold the key to a conviction.
Despite the missing evidence,
John Johnson, assistant district attorney for the Brunswick Judicial
Circuit, said he was confident evidence will show Perry is guilty.
During opening arguments, attorneys
for the prosecution and defense agreed a clean-shaven, slender
man with shoulder-length hair entered the church and confronted
66-year-old Harold Swain. The two men argued and Swain was shot
four times by the man. Thelma Swain, 62, ran into the church
vestibule to help her husband and was shot once in the chest
by the assailant, who fled in a battered brown car.
Johnson told the six-man, six-woman
jury that Perry, 41, became a suspect a few years after the shootings
when an episode of the television show Unsolved Mysteries depicted
the crime. A woman called investigators and said the police composite
drawing on the show resembled her daughter's boyfriend, Dennis
Perry.
Until that time, investigators
said Perry was never a suspect.
Johnson also said witnesses
will testify Perry was in Camden County the day of the shootings,
even though Perry told police he was in Atlanta that day. Perry
is the only one capable of the shootings, Johnson said.
Westling, however, said investigators
never followed leads against another possible suspect, even though
the other suspect was arrested on weapons charges three months
after the Swains were gunned down and the suspect matched a composite
drawing.
The trial before Superior Court
Judge Amanda Williams is expected to last about a week.
The trial was moved to Glynn
County because of pretrial publicity.
Staff writer Gordon Jackson
can be reached at (912) 729-3672 or via e-mail at gjacksonjacksonville.com.
- Witness testimony
differs in slaying
- Descriptions vary of
1985 shooting
By Gordon Jackson, The Florida
Times-Union, February 12, 2003
BRUNSWICK -- Testimony yesterday
by eyewitnesses to the 1985 shooting deaths of a husband and
wife at a Camden County church showed how time can challenge
one's memory.
Witnesses agreed the man who
shot 66-year-old Harold Swain and 62-year-old Thelma Swain was
a young male with shoulder-length blond hair. They also agreed
the assailant and Harold Swain argued just before the shootings.
But they agreed on little else.
Prosecutors say Dennis Arnold
Perry, 41, of Jacksonville is the man responsible for the deaths.
Perry was arrested in January 2000.
The case baffled investigators
for nearly 15 years until it was reopened and new evidence was
found that prosecutors said links Perry to the crime.
Defense attorneys argue their
client was never a suspect until four years ago, when a woman
said Perry resembled the police composite drawing shown on the
television show Unsolved Mysteries.
Some witnesses yesterday said
the man who asked to speak to Harold Swain at a Bible study class
in Rising Daughter Baptist Church wore glasses with thick lenses
and dark frames, while others said the man was not wearing glasses.
Vanzola Williams said she was
leaving the church early to pick up her daughter when she was
startled to see a man standing in the vestibule. Williams said
the man said he "wanted to speak with someone." When
Williams asked who the man wanted to speak with, she said he
pointed at Harold Swain.
Williams described how Swain
suggested he and the man go outside to talk, but the man insisted
on staying in the vestibule.
Williams said she heard gunshots
as she was walking toward her car in the parking lot. She ran
into the pastor's study in the rear of the church to call police,
but the phone was dead. Investigators later discovered the phone
lines were cut.
Another witness, Vandora Baker,
said the man walked down the main aisle of the church. But three
other women inside the church that night said the man who shot
Harold Swain four times and Thelma Swain once looked into the
church through a doorway in the vestibule but never entered the
main area of the church where worshipers gathered.
Three witnesses said Harold
Swain never acted like he knew the young man who asked to speak
to him on March 11, 1985. But one woman, Cora Fisher, was allowed
to testify by Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams through a
written deposition taken before the trial because the witness
has health problems.
Fisher testified that Swain
knew the man who asked to speak to him. Fisher testified she
was afraid for her life for 16 years because she was afraid the
man who shot the Swains would kill her.
Witnesses who were at the church
that night testified they hid in different parts of the church
until they knew it was safe to leave the building.
Fisher was the only witness
who identified Perry as the assailant from a photograph shown
by investigators. She testified there was "no doubt"
Perry was the man who shot the Swains. The only difference between
the photograph and her memory from the night of the shootings,
Fisher said, was Perry's hair was darker than the man who showed
up at the church that night.
Testimony is scheduled to continue
today at the Glynn County Courthouse.
The trial was moved from Camden
County because of pretrial publicity.
Staff writer Gordon Jackson
can be reached at (912) 729-3672 or via e-mail at gjacksonjacksonville.com.
Witness offers likely
motive for killings
By KAREN SLOAN, The Brunswick
News, February 13, 2003
Jurors in the double murder
trial of Dennis Arnold Perry heard for the first time Wednesday
what prosecutors offered as a motive in the killings at a Camden
County church.
Jane Beaver, the mother of
Perry's girlfriend at the time of the shootings in 1985, testified
that prior to the slayings, Perry made threats against a man
she believed was Harold Swain, one of the victims.
According to Beaver, Perry
did not identify his intended victim by name.
"He said, 'I always wondered
what it was like to kill a n-----, and now I'm going to get me
one,'" Beaver told the jury in Glynn County Superior Court.
Perry is charged with the March
11, 1985, shooting deaths of Harold and Thelma Swain, who are
black, at the Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Woodbine.
Beaver said Perry told her
prior to the shootings that he was angry with a black man who
lived near his grandfather in Dover Bluff because the man refused
to lend Perry money to travel to Jonesboro. Beaver testified
that the Swains lived in the same neighborhood as Perry's grandfather.
Perry's defense attorney, Dale
Westling, questioned Beaver about her feelings toward Perry in
1985, asking her if she had ever called Perry "white trash."
While Beaver denied calling
Perry "white trash," she said she was not happy about
her daughter's relationship with Perry, whom she suspected of
using illegal drugs.
Police investigated Perry as
a possible suspect after Beaver called "Unsolved Mysteries"
after the television show aired a segment on the murders, assistant
district attorney John Johnson said in his opening statement.
Beaver said she called the
Camden County Sheriff's Department to report Perry as a possible
suspect on multiple occasions in the days after the shootings,
but never received a response from police.
About seven years after the
shootings, Beaver testified that she took photos of Perry to
two women who were at the church when the murders occurred, and
that both witnesses said the photos looked very similar to the
shooter.
When cross-examined Wednesday
by Westling, Beaver testified that the women said they were not
absolutely sure that the man in her photos was the same man in
the church years ago.
Beaver told the jury she was
later contacted by Dale Bundy, who was hired by Camden County
Sheriff William Smith in 1998 to reinvestigate the Swain murders.
Westling questioned Beaver's
ability to remember specific statements allegedly made by Perry
in 1985, when Beaver was unable to recall numerous other specific
dates relevant to the case.
Beaver's daughter Carol Ann
Raborn, Perry's girlfriend at the time of the murders, also took
the stand Wednesday.
When questioned about a telephone
call she allegedly received from Perry the day before the shooting,
telling her that he was in Camden County on a motorcycle trip
with his brother, Raborn said she could not confirm the date
of the telephone call.
Ronald Rhodes, formerly a special
agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, testified that
when he interviewed Raborn in November 1998, she said she had
received a phone call from Perry the day before the murders,
informing her that he was in Camden County.
Under Westling's cross examination,
Raborn testified that she felt she was being led on by Rhodes
at times during the interview, and that he may have put words
in her mouth. No tape recording was made of the 1998 interview.
Wednesday's testimony began
with the cross-examination of Butch Kennedy, a former detective
with the Camden County Sheriff's Department who was the lead
investigator on the case in 1985.
Westling used Kennedy's testimony
to reiterate that several pieces of physical evidence from the
crime scene are missing, including two Pepsi bottles, a pair
of eye glasses possibly worn by the shooter, a smudged mirror
and photos of police lineups.
Kennedy also testified that
one witness at the church, Vanzola Williams, identified another
man in a police lineup as the possible shooter. Kennedy said
Perry was not a suspect in the original investigation.
- The prosecution is seeking
the death penalty and was expected to continue its case Thursday.
The trial was moved from Camden County to Glynn County to avoid
pretrial publicity.
-
-
- Camden resident testifies
in '85 shooting trial
She says suspect had been angry
By Gordon Jackson, Florida
Times-Union staff writer, February 13, 2003
BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- Prosecutors
produced their first witness yesterday who they say links Dennis
Arnold Perry to the shooting deaths of a couple at a Camden County
church in 1985.
The witness, Jane Beaver, said
Perry told her less than a week before the shootings that he
was upset after he was ridiculed by an African-American neighbor
of his grandfather.
The Camden County resident
also described her quest of more than a decade to link Perry
to the shooting deaths of Harold and Thelma Swain, African-Americans,
during a Bible study class at Rising Daughter Baptist Church.
Despite repeated attempts to
get investigators to consider Perry a suspect, Beaver said her
first contact with an investigator was about a year before Perry's
arrest in January 2000. Testimony did not reveal why investigators
never returned any of Beaver's calls about the case.
Perry, 41, of Jacksonville,
was arrested after a composite sketch of the assailant was shown
on television.
The trial, which was moved
from Camden County to Glynn County because of pretrial publicity,
could possibly conclude this week, court officials have said.
Beaver said she had photographs
of Perry, who dated her daughter before the March 11, 1985, shootings,
which she showed to some of the witnesses who saw a man enter
the church.
Defense attorney Dale Westling,
however, questioned Beaver's methods for showing the photograph.
Beaver testified she told witnesses she had a photograph of a
man who looked similar to an artist's rendition of the assailant.
At first, Beaver denied telling
witnesses the photo resembled a possible suspect but later testified,
"I probably did say something similar to that."
Westling asked Beaver how she
could be so positive about her conversation with Perry, where
he made the alleged threats more than 18 years ago but couldn't
remember a conversation with a witness years later when she showed
the photographs.
Westling also asked how Beaver
could be certain Perry was threatening to kill Harold Swain when
he never named the neighbor of his grandfather who upset him.
Westling pointed out that at least six neighbors, including the
Swains, living near Perry's grandfather were African-American.
Beaver's daughter, Carol Ann
Raborn, said she was questioned after Perry's arrest about a
telephone call investigators said she received from Perry the
day before the shootings. Perry called to say he was in Camden
County but he had to leave to go to Jonesboro.
Raborn testified she told investigators
she couldn't recall when that conversation took place. The interview
with authorities was upsetting, Raborn said, because they asked
"leading questions."
"I didn't like it too
much," Raborn said. "He was insinuating I knew more
than I did."
Ron Rhodes, a former special
agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, denied Raborn's
claims about leading questions, but said the interview was never
recorded.
Staff writer Gordon Jackson
can be reached at (912) 729-3672 or via e-mail at gjacksonjacksonville.com.
Supposed confession center
of trial
By KAREN SLOAN, The Brunswick
News, February 14, 2003
The prosecution rested its
case Thursday, halfway through the fourth day of the double murder
trial Dennis Arnold Perry Thursday, after investigators testified
about what they considered to be a confession.
John Johnson, chief assistant
district attorney, rested the state's case after three witnesses
testified that Perry had made statements after being arrested
in January 2000 that they said implicated him in the killings.
Perry is charged with the March 1985 shooting deaths of Harold
and Thelma Swain at the Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Camden
County. He faces the death penalty.
Detective Dale Bundy, hired
by Camden County Sheriff William Smith in 1998 to work exclusively
on the Swain murders, told the jury that Bundy had essentially
confessed to the murders after he was taken into custody in Florida
and interviewed. Former Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special
Agent Ron Rhodes and Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent
Terry Mullen also testified that Perry confessed to the slayings.
Rhodes testified in Glynn County
Superior Court that his report was based on his memory of the
conversation. No audio or video recording was made of the interview.
When Perry was taken into custody by police on Jan. 13, 2000,
he initially denied any involvement in the killings, all three
witnesses testified.
Perry then made statements
later that night that Bundy said was a confession, he told the
jury.
"I said, 'You were at
the church that night?' He said, 'Yes,'" Bundy recalled
on the witness stand.
Bundy also testified that Perry
had said the gun went off accidentally and that he would take
the killings back if he could.
All three witnesses agreed
that the interview ended when Perry said, "I want to stop.
You're trying to put words in my mouth."
Rhodes testified that at that
point during the interview, he tried to tape record the conversation,
but Perry refused to speak on tape.
Bundy, Rhodes and Mullen all
testified that they did not try to coerce a confession out of
Perry.
Under cross-examination by
defense attorney Dale Westling, Rhodes told the jury that he
tape-recorded most of the witness interviews during the investigation
of the Swain murders, but decided not to tape record the interview
with Perry. He said he did not want to distract Perry when the
tape ended and had to be changed.
Perry became a suspect in the
murders after a segment on the television show "Unsolved
Mysteries" aired showing a composite sketch of the shooter.
The mother of Perry's former girlfriend called in to suggest
Perry as a possible suspect. While prosecutors spent Thursday
morning attempting to prove that Perry confessed, the defense
spent Thursday afternoon trying to prove that the wrong man is
on trial for murder. The jury heard the testimony of three witnesses
who said they heard another man make statements at a party in
Mariana, Fla., about shooting a black preacher and his wife in
a church in Georgia, after the murders occurred.
Joe Gregory, a retired GBI
special agent who assisted in the original investigation of the
case called as a defense witness, testified that he tried to
get an arrest warrant for a man other than Perry the summer after
the murders, but was told by the district attorney that he needed
more evidence.
Gregory told the jury that
that suspect had been brought to the attention of investigators
by police in Telfair County, who had arrested him on weapons
charges.
Vanzola Williams, who was at
the church the night of the killings, identified that suspect
in a lineup as the shooter, but said she was not absolutely sure,
Gregory testified. Gregory also said that Ms. Williams was shown
a photo spread of similar-looking men, which included Perry,
and that she had not picked him out. Gregory was retired from
the GBI when Perry was arrested in 2000, and told the jury that
he went to Bundy and offered him information on his past investigation,
but was turned away.
"I can't remember his
exact words," Gregory said in court. "He was not interested."
The man Gregory had investigated,
Donnie Baritine, took the stand Thursday and told the jury that
he was not involved in the Swain murders. The trial was moved
from Camden to the Glynn County Courthouse to avoid pretrial
publicity.
The defense was expected continue
its case Friday. Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams is presiding.
- 'Confession' under fire
Duval man tried in church deaths
By Gordon Jackson , Florida
Times-Union staff writer, February 14, 2003
BRUNSWICK -- The prosecution
concluded its case yesterday against a Jacksonville man accused
in the 1985 shooting deaths of a couple in a Camden County church.
The case ended with testimony
by investigators who arrested the suspect and took what they
described as his confession.
The statement, however, was
never videotaped or recorded and no original notes exist from
interviews with Dennis Arnold Perry, 41, of Jacksonville.
Perry was arrested Jan. 11,
2000, after a composite sketch was shown on a television show.
He faces the death penalty in the shooting deaths of Harold and
Thelma Swain, who were attending a Bible study at Rising Daughter
Baptist Church.
The trial was moved from Camden
County to Glynn County because of pretrial publicity.
Camden County sheriff's investigator
Dale Bundy testified that he and other investigators wrote statements
from memory after interviewing Perry. Bundy told the court Perry
offered a "confession."
Perry refused to talk with
arresting officers after an initial interview, which he ended
after accusing officers of "putting words in my mouth,"
Bundy said.
Perry told officers he "could
have ridden to Camden County" the day of the shootings,
but he couldn't remember for certain, Bundy said.
"He said, 'I might have
gotten drunk or stoned and did something I don't remember,'''
Bundy said.
Bundy also testified Perry
admitted to being at the church the night of the shootings, but
that information was never in a police statement written by any
officer involved in the arrest.
Former Georgia Bureau of Investigation
special agent Ron Rhodes said he took notes of Perry's statements
after his arrest but shredded them after he transcribed them
in typing.
Terry Mullen, a special agent
with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which assisted
with Perry's arrest, said Perry has said he didn't remember a
lot of what happened because he was "drinking a lot and
using drugs."
"He said he could have
been at the church, but couldn't remember," Mullen said.
When Mullen said he didn't
take notes or record the interview, defense attorney Dale Westling
asked how the investigator could recall events for testimony
about Perry's statements to arresting officers.
"Show me in this report
where it says Dennis Perry said, 'Yes, I killed Mr. and Mrs.
Swain,'" Westling said.
"It doesn't say that,"
Mullen acknowledged.
When he first began his testimony,
Bundy explained how he was hired in 1998 by the Camden County
Sheriff's Office specifically to review evidence and witness
statements from the shootings.
Bundy testified how his first
interview with a woman from the church helped make Perry a prime
suspect.
Once Perry became the focus,
Bundy said he showed other women at the church Perry's picture
from a mug shot taken by the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office from
a DUI arrest in the early 1990s.
Westling asked Bundy why he
showed witnesses only one photograph, especially when the average
person can recognize the front and side profiles of a police
mug shot.
"You don't believe today,
Mr. Bundy, that showing [witnesses] a single mug shot of Dennis
Perry was suggestive or tainted?" Westling asked.
"No," Bundy replied.
Westling also expressed surprise
that Bundy could take less than a week after being assigned to
the case to make Perry the prime suspect, when two other investigators
spent a total of 16 years on the case and couldn't make an arrest.
Bundy responded that Perry
had already been identified by witnesses as a prime suspect.
After the prosecution rested
yesterday afternoon, witnesses for the defense included Charlie
Williamson, a former co-worker of Perry. Williamson said he was
certain Perry worked the day of the shootings with him in the
Atlanta area because a few days later, an artist's rendition
of a suspect was published in an Atlanta newspaper and he joked
with Perry about the similarity in appearances.
"I kidded him about it,"
Williamson said. "He had a twin brother."
Another defense witness, Donnie
Barrintine of Marianna, denied killing the Swains after Westling
asked if he committed the crime. But two other witnesses said
Barrintine bragged about shooting two people at a church in Georgia.
John Johnson, the assistant
district attorney prosecuting the case, showed a timecard from
the week of the shootings and said it would be impossible for
Barrintine to drive six hours to Camden County to shoot the Swains
because he worked that day.
But Westling said the timecard
showed Barrintine had the day off work.
"That's not what the timecard
says," Westling said.
Superior Court Judge Amanda
Williams ended the dispute by telling the attorneys, "We'll
let the jury decide that."
Staff writer Gordon Jackson
can be reached at (912)729-3672 or via e-mail atgjacksonjacksonville.com.
Jacksonville man found
guilty of murder
By Gordon Jackson, Florida
Times-Union staff writer, February 15, 2003
BRUNSWICK, Ga. -- Dennis Arnold
Perry, a Jacksonville man accused in the 1985 shooting deaths
of a couple in a Camden County church, was found guilty yesterday
of two counts of murder.
After the unanimous verdict
from the six-man, six-woman jury was read, John Johnson, the
prosecuting attorney, met with family members of the murder victims
and returned to the Glynn County courtroom with a plea bargain
offer.
Perry, 41, accepted two consecutive
life sentences for the shooting deaths of Harold and Thelma Swain
at the Rising Daughter Baptist Church in Camden County on March
11, 1985.
In return, Perry agreed not
to appeal the conviction. He must serve a minimum of 20 years
before he is eligible for parole, Johnson said.
Family members agreed to offer
the plea bargain to ensure they didn't have to go through another
trial in appeals court and to give closure to the murders that
have haunted them for years, Johnson said.
The case was described as especially
challenging for the prosecution because the evidence was 18 years
old, some witnesses had died and memories had faded over time.
"In the 25 years I have
been a prosecuting attorney, this is the most difficult case
I have had to try," Johnson said.
"The family of Harold
Swain is at peace with that verdict. I'm glad this is over and
this case is closed."
Helen Umphrey, Perry's mother,
described the verdict as "a travesty of justice."
"I have no faith in the
legal justice system any more," Umphrey said.
Perry's family members said
they would continue investigating the murders until they find
evidence that could implicate someone else because they think
the jury prosecuted the wrong man.
The trial, which began Monday,
was in Glynn County because prosecutors were concerned pre-trial
publicity could make it difficult to find a jury that hadn't
heard about the double homicide.
During closing arguments earlier
yesterday, defense attorney Dale Westling said the prosecution's
case against his client revolved around "suggestive and
tainted" work by investigators, who took less than a week
to make Perry the prime suspect in 1998, after other detectives
spent years on the case without making an arrest. Perry was arrested
near his Jacksonville home on Jan. 11, 2000.
Westling said Camden County
Sheriff's Office criminal investigator Dale Bundy was hired to
solve the crime and he was willing to abandon proven investigative
techniques to make an arrest.
Witnesses identified Perry
as the man they saw in the church the night of the shootings
based on one mug shot of Perry taken when he was arrested for
DUI in Jacksonville in the early 1990s.
Westling criticized investigators
for losing "tangible evidence" that could have proven
his client's innocence or guilt.
He also criticized investigators
for never recording interviews of statements they said Perry
made after his arrest. Investigators argued in testimony this
week that Perry ended the interviews after he accused police
of "putting words in my mouth."
"The evidence is not only
lacking, it's non-existent," Westling said.
Johnson, however, defended
the investigation that led to Perry's arrest, saying Bundy looked
at the evidence for the first time in 1998 and "got information
other investigators were unable to do."
Johnson said an earlier witness
testified Perry threatened to kill Harold Swain two weeks before
the shootings for ridiculing him after Perry asked to borrow
money. Johnson said Perry didn't name Harold Swain when he said
he was going to kill the man, but he didn't have to.
"We know ... Dennis Perry
was talking about Mr. Swain," Johnson said.
Jurors began deliberating at
4 p.m. and reached a verdict about 7:30 p.m.
Staff writer Gordon Jackson
can be reached at (912) 729-3672 or via e-mail at gjacksonjacksonville.com.
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
