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An Arkansas man was executed in 2017 for killing his neighbor — but activists say new tests show someone else’s DNA on the murder weapon.
Ledell Lee was arrested in Jacksonville within an hour of the 1993 killing of Debra Reese, who was viciously beaten and struck more than 30 times with a tire tool her husband had given her for protection.
His execution on April 20, 2017 was the first in the state in almost 12 years. He was put to death by lethal injection four minutes before midnight when his death warrant was set to expire.
But the results of new tests identified another man’s DNA on handle of the bloody club, the American Civil Liberties Union and Innocence Project said in a summary released Friday.
“While the results obtained twenty-nine years after the evidence was collected proved to be incomplete and partial, it is notable that there are now new DNA profiles that were not available during the trial or post-conviction proceedings in Mr. Lee’s case,” Nina Morrison, senior litigation counsel at the Innocence Project, said in a statement.
DNA was also found on a bloody shirt wrapped around the murder weapon, the activist groups said. The DNA profile was entered into the national database but no exact matches were found, the groups said.
Five fingerprints found at the scene were also run in a database but weren’t identified, the groups said.
The city of Jacksonville agreed to additional testing last year after a lawsuit from the ACLU and Innocence Project, a group that works to overturn wrongful convictions. Lee had maintained his innocence while on death row.
Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who’d set the schedule for Lee’s execution, stood by the results of the case, which had gone to the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal.
“They affirmed the convictions and it’s my duty to carry out the law,” Hutchinson, R, said at a Tuesday press briefing. “The evidence obviously that was uncovered is inconclusive and the fact is that the jury found him guilty based upon the information that they had.”
State Attorney General Lisa Rutledge also stood by the legal integrity of the case in a statement emailed to The Post through a spokeswoman.
“The courts consistently rejected Ledell Lee’s frivolous claims because the evidence demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that he murdered Debra Reese by beating her to death inside her home with a tire thumper,” Rutledge said in the statement.
“After 20 years, I am prayerful that Debra’s family has had closure following his lawful execution in 2017,” she added.
With Post wires.
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