July 1984 Trial

The eyewitnesses 

The State's two eyewitnesses, Seibert and Lewis, testified about what I described earlier in this article, with two exceptions:

Seibert swore she was 100% certain the man she saw was Gibson, who she described as clean-shaven; Lewis testified he was "70% sure" he saw me! To substantiate Seibert's identification of Gibson, the prosecution put on evidence that he was in Elgin on the morning of August 9, 1982.

No physical evidence 

From their opening statement to their closing argument, the prosecution's case was that Gibson and I kidnapped and murdered Betty Jane Mottinger together. Yet there was no physical evidence that identified either Gibson or me as perpetrators of the crime. There was no physical evidence, at either the post office or the site where Mottinger was found, that even suggested Gibson or I were involved. Though the victim was stabbed multiple times, searches of my belongings turned up no blood or even trace evidence. Furthermore, none of the fingerprints found in the post office matched either Gibson's or mine.

Denied access to the investigation records 

Before the trial, my defense filed 26 motions for discovery. In spite of this, the prosecution and U.S. postal inspectors denied us access to many of the investigation records. Without the potentially exculpatory evidence in those files, I was forced to go to trial and make a defense for myself.

Defending myself 

At my trial I tried to show that I could not possibly have committed the crime because on the morning of August 9, 1982, I was 120 miles away sitting in my parole officer's office in Swanton. Since it was impossible for me to be in two places at the same time that are several hours distant from each other by car, I was obviously innocent.

My parole officer testified that I was in his office on August 9, 1982, and that the interview took anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. Although he said he could not remember what time of day it was, he did remember that my sister was with me. He recalled he had asked her a couple of questions, that he did not notice anything unusual about her, and she seemed coherent and alert. You'll see shortly why her alert state of mind when he saw her is important.

My sister testified that she was with me at my parole officers office, and we were there at 9:30 am. She also said there was a slip in the door from the Swanton Post Office when we returned home, informing her of packages at the post office. The packages were my personal belongings that were mailed from the prison in Eddyville, Kentucky. I went to the post office and picked up both packages myself, I signed a slip acknowledging receipt of the packages, and the post office clerk also signed the slip that indicated the date - August 9, 1982, and time - 2:17pm. I took the packages to my sister's house and discovered that my television set was not in either package, so I called the prison and spoke with a mailroom staff person. The phone bill shows that call was made from my sister's home to the prison the afternoon of August 9th.

I then took my sister to the doctor. She received a shot of a very powerful narcotic to counter severe migraines attributed to a car accident several years earlier. She had received the same treatment many times, and the doctor testified that he would not give the injection to her unless she had someone to drive her home. My sister testified that I drove her home after she was given the shot. She was not "alert" after this appointment, and would not have appeared "alert" to anyone, including my parole officer.

An old girlfriend of mine called me after we returned to my sister's house, and we spoke for around 20 minutes. The phone records again verify the call, and that it was on the afternoon of August 9th.

But... 

However, the jury chose to believe the prosecution story of what happened and the obvious lies I had told investigators to try and help LuAnn: I was convicted on Aug. 22, 1984, and sentenced to die.