Hank Skinner Part II: The Crime Scene

New Years Eve, 1993
Pampa, Texas

Elwin Caler had been stabbed multiple times in the chest and stomach. He was alive but mortally wounded. The neighbors found him sitting on their front porch, wearing nothing except a pair of bloody undershorts. They called for help. Elwin died at the hospital before he could reveal the identity of his killer.

Elwin was Twila Busby's 22 year old son, six-foot six-inches tall, 215 pounds, and mentally challenged. He lived at the house next to where he was found. His blood trail led back home.

There, on Twila's front porch, the police found a knife and some bloody gauze. There were no fingerprints on the knife. Perhaps someone had attempted to clean the knife with the guaze.

There was a bloody handprint on the front storm door. Investigators would remove the glass panel from the door, cover the handprint with a sheet of stiff paper, and tape the edges of the paper to the glass. They would secure the glass and its handprint in the evidence vault.

Beyond the door were bloody boot prints originating from copious blood stains on the living room floor. Twila Busby's body lay face down in that blood, her head smashed 14 times by an ax handle which leaned against the couch nearby. Whoever swung the ax handle did so with considerable force. Twila's skull was fractured. Bits of skull were driven all the way to the middle of her brain.

The overhead light was shattered, an unintentional victim of the ax handle. Broken glass was mingled with the blood below.

The medical examiner would later determine that Twila had been strangled, apparently before being bludgeoned. Her larnyx was crushed and one of her two hyoid bones broken.

Twila's pants were unzipped and her blouse pulled up. The investigators took a rape kit, swabbed for semen and combed for foreign hairs. The medical examiner would determine that Twila's vaginal area was reddened from intercourse.

Twila's fingernails were broken. She had put up a fight. She may have scratched her assailant and captured his DNA. Investigators clipped her nails and secured the clippings.

The body of Randy Busby lay face down on the upper bunk in the bedroom he shared with Caler. Randy was Twila's 20-year-old son. He was partially covered with a bloody blanket. He had been stabbed three times in the back. The lower bunk, where Caler slept, was free of blood. Caler had been stabbed elsewhere.

Clues abounded. There were four more bloody handprints to be found. One was a mere 18 inches off the floor on the frame of the boys' bedroom door. Two were on the back door, as if someone had left through that door while another person had left through the front.

The remaining handprint was on a garbage bag. Inside the bag, investiagtors discovered a second knife and a bloody dish towel. No fingerprints were found on the knife. Perhaps someone had attempted to clean this knife as well. If so, it would be the same modus operandi as that associated with the objects on the front porch.

The investigators also found a windbreaker on a chair in the living room. It was a DNA gold mine of blood, hairs, and sweat.

Hank Skinner, Twila's boyfriend and the only other member of the household, was nowhere to be found. He was last seen in a drunken stupor on the couch, in the living room, just a few feet from where Twila would fall into eternity.

In Part III of this series, the wheels of justice begin their grind.

Hank Skinner Part III: Target Fixation

In World War II, pilots reported incidents of nearly flying into the targets they were strafing. The phenomenon was sufficiently common to deserve a name: target fixation.

Target fixation is blamed today for some motorcycle accidents in which riders mindlessly steer towards an object that fixes their attention. The phenomenon has also been used to explain instances in which skydivers fail to deploy their parachutes.

I argue that target fixation is the primary root cause for many, perhaps most false convictions. See if the phenomenon makes sense to you as an explanation for what happened in the case of Hank Skinner.

The police found Hank Skinner three hours after their arrival on the murder scene. Hank was hiding in the closet of his former AA sponsor, Andrea Reed. He was drunk. He had blood on his shirt and pants. He had a cut, apparently a knife wound, on his right hand.

At trial, Reed would testify that Hank forced his way into her home, had confessed to killing Twila, and had threatened to kill her should she attempt to call the police.

The authorities believed they had solved the case quickly. Hank Skinner was in their gun sight, and they would never look left, right, up, or down. They were fixated.

They ignored the pleas of Howard Mitchell. Mitchell explained it was impossible for Hank to have murdered Twila. Hank had been completely incapacitated, passed out on the couch next to the remains of a vodka bottle. Mitchell had tried to rouse Hank to attend a New Year's Eve party with Twila at his residence, but he could not wake Hank, much less get him to stand. And that was little more than a half-hour before the murder.

Mitchell provided the name of a more likely suspect, Robert Donnell. Donnell was Twila's uncle, a violent man with a propensity for knives, a history of choking people, and an incestuous lust for his niece. Donnell was so threatening, in fact, that Mitchell was frightened for his life by speaking of him.

Donnell had, according to Mitchell, previously attempted to rape Twila, and had that very night stalked her at the New Year's Eve party. So persistent was Donnell in his lewd advances towards Twila, she had asked Mitchell to drive her home after only a half hour at the party. Mitchell drove Twila home, returned to his party five minutes later, and realized Donnell had left soon after they did.

The investigators choose to ignore Mitchell. They did not investigate Donnell. They were fixated and they would fly this case into the ground.

They tested the bloody handprints against Hank Skinner. Hank was good for the three near the back of the house. The one on the trash bag, and presumably the one on the front storm door, belonged to someone else. Perhaps they belonged to Robert Donnell, Twila's dangerous and lecherous uncle.

It would have been mere child's play to check the prints against Donnell. He was a four-time felon, and his fingerprints were already in the system. They choose not to.

They tested but a small subset of the copious DNA evidence collected from the scene. They took a DNA profile from Twila but not from her two murdered sons. They took a DNA profile from Hank Skinner, but not from Donnell. They tested the blood found on Hank's shirt and pants, but not the vaginal swabs from the rape kit. Perhaps most shockingly, the failed to test the scrapings from Twila's broken fingernails, though Hank had no scratches on him.

The blood on Hank's shirt came from his own wound and from Twila. The blood on his pants came from himself, Twila, and Elwin. The case was a slam dunk. All that remained was a conviction and a syringe.

If they were lucky, Hank would end up with an attorney who would not insist that all the DNA and fingerprints be tested. But what were the chances of that? One in a million gazillion?

Then, as if manna from heaven, the court appointed Harold Comer to represent Hank Skinner.

Part IV, Fix of a Different Sort, follows.

Hank Skinner Part IV: Fix of a Different Sort

It is nothing short of astounding that Harold Comer was assigned by the court to be Hank Skinner's lead counsel. Comer, after all, had spent a portion of his previous career attempting to throw Hank in jail rather than keep him out. In an earlier career, Harold Comer had been the elected District Attorney for Gray County, and Hank Skinner had a checkered past.

Hank's two non-violent felonies would in fact be used against him in the death-penalty phase of the trail. Comer had earlier prosecuted Hank for those very felonies, and would now have to defend him against them.

Harold Comer's transition from Hank's prosecutor to Hank's defender was -- well -- shall I say -- blemished. Yeah, that's it, blemished. It seems Comer had been run out of the District Attorney's office because he embezzled substantial quantities of drug forfeiture funds, and because he was himself addicted to drugs. One failing was undoubtedly tied to the other, and neither was of inconsequential magnitude. After he was ejected from his job, the IRS tagged him with a $90,000 bill for unreported taxes.

Comer needed to find honest work, and he needed to find it quickly. Luck was on his side: Judge M. Kent Sims had been assigned to handle the trial of Hank Skinner. That wasn't just good news, it was great news. Comer had been a close political supporter of Judge Sims, and sure enough, Sims assigned Comer to represent Hank Skinner.

That was just the break Comer needed, even though, under normal circumstances, the State of Texas didn't pay very well for defending indigent defendants. In Actual Innocence, Jim Dwyer writes "In too many cases, serving as counsel to the indigent is a fast way to join their ranks. For instance, in Mississippi, the maximum amount for non-death penalty cases is $1000 ... In certain rural sections of Texas the limit is $800."

Comer had good reason to expect he would earn somewhat more than the $800 cited by Dwyer in 2003. Hank would be tried in 2005, so there was inflation to be considered. And Palma wasn't necessarily the rural section of Texas of which Dwyer wrote. And, most significantly, Hank's case was a death penalty case. That was the best part. That would bump up the $800 figure by a fair amount.

Still, those adjustments seem inadequate to explain how Harold Comer came to be paid $86,000. It was the largest fee ever paid by Texas to a court-appointed attorney. It simply boggles the mind to think of how much they might have paid him had he defended Hank successfully.

Though to this day he claims otherwise, Harold Comer didn't really seem to give it his best shot. For example, his effort to independently investigate Robert Donnell as the likely culprit was uninspired. He hired Kirvin Roper as his private investigator.

Comer and Roper went way back. When Comer was still District Attorney, Roper worked for him, at least for the office. Comer absolutely knew that Kirvin's work wasn't top notch, because Comer had, as the DA, fired him for incompetence and embezzlement. Now Comer hired him back to check out the violent, knife-wielding, sexually-obsessed uncle.

Kirvin didn't come up with much of anything. He didn't get a copy of Donnell's fingerprints or DNA, best we can tell. He apparently didn't discover that Donnell's truck was seen outside Twila's house that night, or that Donnell repainted the truck and replaced the carpeting almost immediately after the crime. Nor does it seem he learned that Donnell had bragged of killing someone earlier in a bar fight. It's not obvious what, if anything, Kirvin brought to the party.

More significantly though, Comer failed to demand that all the DNA be tested. Hell, he didn't even ask. Nor did he demand that the handprints be tested against Donnell. He would argue later it was all part of a well-conceived strategy: he wanted to make the police look bad because they didn't do the testing voluntarily.

As you already realize, that strategy sucked.

Part V, The Trial, coming soon.

Hank Skinner Part V: The Trial

I recall from my younger days a single-panel cartoon of two scientists standing before a large chalkboard. I could tell they were scientists because they wore white lab coats and because the large chalkboard was almost completely filled with complex equations, math, and greek symbols. There was one portion of the board, however, not covered with equations. Instead, that small portion read: "And then a miracle happens."

One scientist is pointing at those words and telling the other scientist: "I think you need a little more detail right there."

When I studied the Hank Skinner trial, that cartoon came to mind. I envisioned the prosecution case as the big chalkboard filled with equations. The defense strategy was represented by reliance on a miracle, and the jury by the one scientist telling the other, in effect: "That's not going to cut it."

The prosecution presented a formidable case. Hank Skinner was absolutely in the room when Twila Busby was being murdered: he had her blood on his shirt and his pants. He was also near Elwin Caler when Elwin was being stabbed. He had Elwin's blood on his pants.

Hank also had a cut on his hand, an unintentional wound, it claimed, resulting from striking bone as he stabbed Randy Busby to death. The abrupt stop caused his hand to slip down the knife.

Hank's bloody handprint was found on the doorway to Randy's bedroom, left there after he murdered Randy.

Hank's bloody handprints were found on the back door, left there as he made his escape.

After murdering Twila, Elwin, and Randy, Hank made his way to the home of Andrea Reed, his earlier AA sponsor. There he forced his way into her home and kept her hostage for more than three hours. He admitted to the killing and threatened to kill Andrea herself if she tried to contact the police.

The police located Hank there some three hours later, hiding in a closet.

Hank's escape to Andrea's home was proof that he was not too drunk to kill. After all, Hank found his own way to Andrea's home, entered there without her knowledge, cleaned his own wound, attempted to stitch up his own wound, warned Andrea against notifying the police, and had the presence of mind to hide as the police narrowed their perimeter about him. He even admitted to the killing. Those were not the actions of an innocent person.

Hank's defense was that Hank was indeed at the murder scene, but incapacitated. His blood alcohol level was 0.21, his codeine level was three times that of a normal therapeutic dose. He simply couldn't have killed them, despite the testimony of Andrea Reed that Hank was quite capable of tasks such as breaking and entering, dressing self-inflicted wounds, holding people hostage, and hiding from the police.

Hank had also in the past injured his hand, the same hand he would have used to wield the axe handle and the knives. Testing showed that Hank had lost considerable gripping power in that hand.

Hank must have cut himself on glass from the broken light fixture when he fell down as he staggered from the house. That's how the blood must have come to be on his clothes. He was staggering out of the house, fell down, cut his hand, and got blood on his clothes.

And finally for Comer's ace in the hole. Why didn't the police test all the DNA? If the police were so confident of Hank's guilt, why didn't they test all of the DNA?

To which the jury answered: "Because you didn't force them to do so, because you knew what the answer would be."

Guilty of murder in the first degree. Penalty set as death by lethal injection.

Coming soon in Part VI of the series: Eyewitness Testimony.

Hank Skinner Part VI: Eyewitness Testimony

Responding to what I have written so far, one reader commented: “If he did dress his wound, that takes away any doubt of his lucidity. And why would Andrea lie? After that read, he looks even more guilty.”

Welcome to the world of the juror. It’s a world in which opponents of an ultimate-stakes face-off spoonfeed you morsels of well-massaged information, a world of appetizers but no main course, a world of thirteen-line sonnets. You are one of the twelve people least-informed about the tragedy just laid bare before you. You are nonetheless expected to assume lead role for the final act.

Though eyewitnesses tend to be held in high-regard by jurors, they are responsible for more than 75% of all wrongful convictions. Recent studies by The Innocence Project and numerous other organizations simply re-enforce a phenomenon well-documented more than a century ago. Hugo Munsterberg  wrote of the issue in his 1907 work “On the Witness Stand.”

It is a wise juror that weighs eyewitness testimony as it weighs all other testimony: with a skeptical eye.

After the trial, well after the trial, Andrea Reed recanted her testimony. She claimed she lied to the police that night and lied to the jury during the trial.  I’ll defer to her words. I’ll allow her to tell you why she might have had reason to lie.

AFFIDAVIT OF ANDREA JOYCE REED

Dated, September 27, 1997
Gray County, Texas

My name is Andrea Joyce Reed. The attorney who represents Henry Skinner gave me a copy of the written statement that I made to Officer Connie Ogle on January 1, 1994, and the transcript of my testimony at Hank's trial for capital murder in Fort Worth on March 9, 1995. I carefully read both of these documents before I signed this affidavit. I swear that all of the statements in the affidavit are true.

Several of the things that I said in my written statement to Ogle and my trial testimony are false. I lied because of implied threats and I was intimidated by Officer Katie Gerhardt and the district attorney's investigator, Bill McMinn.

This is what really happened. At about midnight on the night of December 31, 1993 , I was in the bedroom of my trailer house at 705 Henry St. in Pampa, Texas, with my daughter, Jessica, and son, Kris, when I heard someone pounding on the wall. I asked the person to identify himself and I heard a voice that I recognized as Hank shouting, “Andy, I’m hurt. Please let me in" or words to that effect. At first, I told Hank to leave and threatened to call the police if he did not do so. Hank was an old friend, but I did not associate with him because he was an alcoholic and drug user.

When I told Hank to leave, he said that he had been shot and pleaded with me to help him. I turned on my porch light and opened the front door so that I could see him. Hank had a lot of blood on him. I decided to help him because I felt sorry for him. I went back into the house, put my dog in the bedroom with my children, closed the door to that room and went outside again. Hank was still standing in the front yard. I invited him to come into the house. He stumbled and fell over backwards when he tried to climb up the porch stairs. I caught him or helped him to get up. He had to lean on my arm as we walked into the house. He was with me for over three hours before he was arrested.

Very shortly after Hank was taken into custody, I heard Officer Katie Gerhardt tell one of my curious neighbors that he could not enter my house because it was "a triple homicide crime scene." I assumed that this meant that Hank was accused of murdering three people. I did not understand how my house could be a crime scene because no crime was committed there, but I feared that the police believed that I was involved in the offense.

My fear of being falsely accused increased when McMinn and Gerhardt told me that they believed that Hank had an accomplice and asked me where that person was. I told them I did not know what they were talking about, but they apparently did not believe me because they kept asking the same question. Gerhardt finally told me that I could be charged with being an accessory after the fact if I did not cooperate with them. I did not understand why she made that threat because I believed that I was cooperating .

I told my first lie when Gerhardt and McMinn asked me how Hank got into my house. I was afraid to admit that I helped him inside because I did not want to say anything that could later be used to suggest that I offered a murderer a place to hide from the police who were trying to arrest him. I told McMinn and Gerhardt that he entered the house without my consent and I did not know how. Gerhardt said that she did not believe me. She asked me why I did not try to leave my house and get help. I told her that I did not want to leave my kids alone with Hank. She warned me that I could be charged with a crime if I invited him into my house knowing that the police were trying to arrest him.

My written statement to Ogle left the false impression that I only treated Hank's wounded hand because he entered my house against my will and threatened to kill me. I did not admit that I invited him in because I was afraid that the police would arrest me for helping a wanted man.

I falsely claimed in my written statement that Hank warned me, "don't call anyone or I'll kill you" when he saw me pick up the telephone. Hank did tell me not to call anyone, but he did not threaten to kill me.

I falsely claimed in my written statement that I believed that Hank was capable of killing me because of his intoxicated condition. The truth is that he was much too drunk or high on drugs to physically carry out such a threat. I know what Hank is capable of doing when he is intoxicated because I saw him in that condition many times. When he arrived at my house, he was too intoxicated to strangle Twila Busby until her neck broke, repeatedly hit her on the head with an ax and precisely stab her two sons to death .

I also lied in my written statement about two small details because I did not want the police to believe that I voluntarily did anything for Hank. I said that Hank took his shirt off and hung it over a chair in my living room. The truth is that I helped him remove his shirt and I put it on the chair. I said that Hank washed blood off of his watch. The truth is that I washed off the blood.

When I described in my written statement how Hank said that he thought that he tried to kick Twila to death because he found her in bed with her ex-husband, I left out the fact that Hank gave me a ridiculous description of Twila's ex-husband that did not fit him at all. This is one of the reasons why I believe that his statement about kicking Twila to death was just a drunken fantasy like the other violent stories that he told me to explain how he was injured.

I informed Ogle that I did not want my daughter, Jessica, to be a witness because it would be a traumatic experience for her. Ogle told me that it was up to the district attorney. I was very upset when I received a letter from John Mann notifying me that Jessica would be subpoenaed as a witness. I sent her out of town to stay with a relative shortly after I received that letter. McMinn warned me that I would be arrested if I did not tell him where she was. I told McMinn that it was his job to find his witnesses -- not mine. McMinn finally promised that my daughter would not have to be a witness if I testified "as instructed by John Mann."

When I arrived in Ft. Worth for the trial, Gerhardt and McMinn told me that I could not go anywhere or do anything without a police officer or prosecutor being present. I was not allowed to eat alone in a restaurant, receive visitors at my hotel, make phone calls or take a walk by myself. Gerhardt even insisted we share a room. I felt like a prisoner. I was told that all of this was done for my own safety, but that explanation made no sense because Hank was in jail and no one had threatened me. I was more afraid of the cops who were supposedly protecting me than I was of Hank on the night of the murder.

Shortly before I testified at the trial, Assistant District Attorney Tracy Blades gave me a document in a clear plastic folder and told me, "read it. This is your part. She explained that the document was a "condensed" version of my statement to Ogle. It placed several things that I said way out of context, but I cannot recall what they were.

I tried to follow the script that Blades gave me because that is what I was instructed to do and I still wasn’t sure they (Law) would leave my daughter alone, but I did not believe my testimony was going to be helpful to the State. I did not understand how anything that Hank did or said at my house on the
night of the murders could possibly show whether he was guilty or innocent.

When Mann asked me how Hank was able to get in to my house after I told him to leave, I falsely answered, "I don't even know." I repeated what I told the police on the night of the murder because I was afraid to admit that I lied to them and I did not believe that the truth could make a difference. I lied again for the same reason when Mann asked me what Hank did with his shirt and watch.

I falsely testified that Hank walked to the bathroom by himself when I went to make a telephone call because I was still afraid to admit that I did any thing to help him. The truth is that I had to help Hank walk from the kitchen to the bathroom before I went to make the call because he was so intoxicated that he could not keep his balance.

I falsely testified that Hank warned me that he would kill me if I tried to call anyone. I lied to the jury about that threat because I said the same thing in my written statement to Ogle and I was afraid to admit that it was false. The truth is that Hank told me not to make a call without threatening to kill me.

I gave the jury the false impression that Hank’s statements about finding Twila in bed with her ex-husband and killing her were not related to each other. The truth is that Hank said that he thought he tried to kick Twila to death because he found her in bed with her ex-husband. The questions that John Mann asked me did not allow me to explain this to the jury.

I falsely testified that out of all of the stories that Hank told me on the night of the murder, the only one that he made me swear not to reveal was his story about kicking Twila to death. The truth is that he swore me to secrecy or made me promise not to tell each time that he gave me a different story about what happened.

I am not sure why I lied about this on the witness stand, but I may have repeated what was in the condensed version of my statement to Ogle that Blades prepared for me. It is also possible that I gave the answer that I thought John Mann wanted to hear.

After Hank was sentenced to death, I read news stories about the trial and began to understand the importance of my testimony. The lies that I told to protect myself made it appear as if Hank broke into my house, held me hostage and confessed to the murders. The truth is that I invited a harmless drunk into my house and listened to three hours of meaningless gibberish. I have no idea who killed Twila Busby and her sons, but I pray that I get another chance to tell the truth about what I do know to a jury because I do not want to be responsible for the execution of a man who may be innocent .

[signed]
Andrea Joyce Reed

Here’s the deal with recantations. They don’t work. 

I’m aware of plenty of people who have recanted their trial testimony.  I’m not aware, however, of a single recantation which has, by itself, led to the release of the defendant / prisoner.  Hopefully someone will inform me of a counter-example to prove me wrong.

In any case, we now know with confidence that Andrea Reed will lie if circumstances so dictate. Either she lied to the police and perjured herself during trial, or she lied when she recanted her testimony. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. Andrea’s situation provides but one more substantiating example for my skeptical juror rule-of-thumb: trust no one.

Trust not the witness, the attorneys, or even the judge. They will lie, muddle, and confuse. All of them will. They will obfuscate, prevaricate, orate, and bloviate. They will attempt to manipulate you. Your only defense  is to remain skeptical of them all. Rely not on their oration and special pleading. Rely instead on the evidence, the physical evidence, and examine that with a jaundiced eye.

Part VII, The Physical Evidence, follows.