Thread by @andrewpurc

Barring a last-minute stay of execution, Texas will execute Larry Swearingen tonight. He almost certainly did not commit the murder he was convicted of - as he was in jail when Melissa Trotter was killed @helenprejean @pamelacolloff @chronic_jordan 1/

I read thousands of pages of documents and transcripts, attended appeal hearings, interviewed prosecutors, defence attorneys, Swearingen’s family and Swearingen himself. This long read was published in @TheDublinReview andrewpurcell.net/?p=1609 What follows is a summary 2/

Melissa Trotter disappeared on December 8, 1999. Swearingen was among the last to see her alive. Police detained him on Dec 11. The body was found three weeks later, in a forest. It was in remarkably good condition - at first, hunters thought it was a discarded shop mannequin 3/

It was a warm winter in southern Texas, with temperatures often reaching 20C/68F. The forest is home to carnivorous feral hogs, coyotes, vultures and eagles. Yet Melissa Trotter’s organs were intact. A single leaf had come to rest on her exposed torso 4/

Nine forensic scientists have testified that Melissa Trotter was killed less than a fortnight (probably less than a week) before her body was found. In short: Larry Swearingen cannot be the killer. Texas is about to execute an innocent man @RDunhamDPIC @WCADP 5/

Trotter was strangled with one leg of a pair of pantyhose. At trial, prosecutors claimed the other leg was found in Swearingen’s trailer - without revealing that it was found by an off-duty cop, after three comprehensive police searches had turned up nothing so damning 6/

An expert witness from the Texas crime lab testified that the two legs were “a unique physical match” because they “fit together like a jigsaw puzzle” - a ‘forensic’ pattern matching technique that has since been comprehensively debunked 7/

Prosecutors also claimed hairs found in Swearingen’s truck “contained microscopic similarities” to hers, and that fibres from his trailer carpet ‘matched’ fibres on her jacket. They said cellphone signals showed he drove to the forest the day she disappeared. All junk science 8/

Prosecutors claimed Swearingen raped Trotter before killing her, but there was no semen, nor defensive wounds on her body to indicate a struggle. There *was* some male DNA in blood under her fingernails, but it did not belong to Swearingen 9/

A state serologist dismissed this as a contaminant - specks of blood from a sheriff’s shaving cut, perhaps, that had blown onto the crime scene. The director of the Texas crime lab has since admitted this testimony was “inappropriate” and baseless 10/

Swearingen’s lawyers have fought to get DNA testing that could exonerate him - on the blood flecks, the pantyhose and cigarette butts found by Melissa Trotter’s body - but the state has fought equally hard to deny him this opportunity 11/

Montgomery County District Court, a federal appeals court and the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals have all upheld Swearingen’s conviction, finding that the circumstantial evidence of his guilt outweighs the clear scientific evidence of his innocence 12/

Unless the US Supreme Court intervenes, Larry Swearingen will soon join the list of men executed by Texas despite grave doubts about their guilt. Todd Willingham, Carlos DeLuna and Johnny Frank Garrett were almost certainly innocent, too @TCADPdotORG
13/

There is much, much more to this case, including leads pointing to an alternative suspect that were not pursued by police, and some extraordinary twists there’s no space for in a Twitter thread. Here’s the long read again andrewpurcell.net/?p=1609 ENDS

#LarrySwearingen