A federal judge has ordered a new trial for an Alabama death row inmate after tests showed it was another man's DNA on the victim's body. Christopher Barbour, now 56, was convicted of the 1992 stabbing death of 40-year-old Thelma Bishop Roberts in Montgomery. Barbour, who has been on death row since 1994, initially confessed that he killed Roberts after helping another man rape her, but he later recanted and said his confession was coerced by police, the AP reports. He has maintained that he is innocent.
- New DNA testing done in 2021 revealed that semen on the victim's body didn't belong to either man. It belonged to Roberts' neighbor, Jerry Tyrone Jackson, who is now incarcerated for an unrelated murder. Jackson, 16 at the time of the murder, was friends with Roberts' teenage children.
Chief US District Judge Emily C. Marks said that Barbour's conviction was tainted because prosecutors did not turn over bench notes from the initial forensics report that excluded Barbour, as well as the man he said raped the victim, as the source of the DNA. That information, Marks said, could have used to cast doubt on Barbour's confession, which was the primary evidence against him at trial. "Barbour has shown that the prosecution's knowing use of false evidence may have had an effect on the outcome of the trial," Marks wrote. His attorneys argued in an earlier court filing that "Mr. Barbour's innocence is patently clear."
The state had argued that the DNA results do not exonerate Barbour. A spokesman for Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said the state plans to appeal the decision. AL.com reports that when presented with the new evidence, Marshall argued that Roberts "must have had sex with the neighboring teenager before being raped and murdered by a group of homeless men from across town who did not leave any physical evidence."
- According to court records, Jackson and Roberts' two children spent the night of the murder at another neighbor's house, AL.com reports. Partygoers testified that Jackson left at one point and acted strangely when he returned. Roberts' children found their mother's body when they returned home in the morning. Jackson was convicted years later of fatally stabbing a woman who refused his sexual advances.
- Jackson was never interviewed by police, who ended up focusing on a group of homeless people, including Barbour, who was 22 at the time. The lead detective's notes described him as a "whimpie little thing, and scares real easy" and said he "denies emphatically" any role in the murder. He confessed at a later date after police went to his campsite behind a mall. According to court documents, the FBI was investigating Montgomery police at the time for "using physical abuse to induce confessions."
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