Serial Convicted By Dna

JARRATT, Va. Serial killer Timothy W. Spencer, the first person convicted of murder on the basis of DNA evidence, was executed late Wednesday after a last flurry of appeals failed.

Spencer, known as the Southside Strangler, consistently maintained his innocence. He had no last words before being put to death in the electric chair for the first of four rape-murders he was convicted of committing.

He was pronounced dead at p.m.

Spencer arranged for his immediate family to visit him before the execution, said Wayne Brown, a spokesman for the prison in Jarratt.

In the afternoon, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals denied his lawyers request for a stay so new DNA tests could be run on Spencer.

At p.m., the U.S. Supreme Court turned down his lawyers request to halt the execution. A court spokesman said Justice Harry A. Blackmun cast the lone dissenting vote.

His lawyers did not seek clemency from Gov. George F. Allen.

It was the first scheduled execution for which a doctor declined to be present since the American Medical Assn. decided March 23 that doctors participation in executions violates medical ethics.

Dr. Balvir L. Kapil, a prison doctor who regularly pronounces inmates dead, said he was taking a vacation day. State officials arranged for a private physician, Dr. Alvin Harris, to be present.

Spencer was condemned for the murder of Debbie Dudley Davis, the first of three people from the south section of Richmond, Va., murdered in a series of break-ins during three months in 1987. The female victims were bound with clothing and household items, then raped and strangled or hanged.

After his arrest, three criminal laboratories concluded that semen found at all the crime scenes came from Spencer. Scientists said the chance the semen could match someone else was one in 705 million.

At the time, genetic testing had been tried in a few criminal and paternity cases, but never in a murder trial.

Atlanta, Georgia CNN -- Almost 30 years ago, when Wayne Williams went on trial in two deaths that became known as the Atlanta child murders, DNA testing was not yet a staple of courtroom science.

Now it is. And new results have implicated Williams in the death of at least one 11-year-old victim.

When Patrick Baltazar s body was found dumped down a wooded slope behind an office park on February 13, 1981, a forensic scientist discovered two human scalp hairs inside the boy s shirt.

Watch more about Patrick s tragic story

At trial, scientists from both the FBI and Royal Canadian Mounted Police would testify that, under a microscope, the hairs were consistent with those of Wayne Williams. But that was only a matter of judgment, not exact science.

In 2007, defense lawyers for Williams raised the question of DNA testing on dog hairs which were on bodies of many of the 27 boys and young men found dead during the two-year murder spree.

At the same time, the judge decided to allow those two hairs found on Baltazar to be sent to the FBI s DNA laboratory at Quantico, Virginia.

The laboratory report found the scalp hairs had the same type of DNA sequence as did Wayne Williams own hair. Video: Night on the bridge Video: Wayne Williams on trial

The DNA test implicating Williams would probably exclude 98 percent or so of the people in the world.

--Harold Deadman, retired top DNA scientist for FBI

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I don t think they said it was a match, Williams told CNN. I think they said they could not rule out whoever the hairs were from as being the possible donor.

But retired FBI scientist Harold Deadman, who testified about the hair findings in Williams 1982 trial and later became head of the FBI s DNA lab, said it was the strongest finding possible with this particular type of testing.

It would probably exclude 98 percent or so of the people in the world, Deadman said.

Of 1,148 African-American hair samples in the FBI s data base, the FBI said only 29 had the same sequence -- in other words, only 2 of every 100 African-Americans.

None of the Caucasian or Hispanic hair samples in the data base had this sequence. When those samples are added in the total, then the odds rise to almost 130-to-1 against the hairs coming from any person other than Wayne Williams.

The FBI report said this: Wayne Williams cannot be excluded as the source of the hair.

The finding is not ironclad. Because the hairs were incomplete, the type of testing, called mitochondrial DNA, can trace only the maternal line. Only with nucleic DNA testing, which includes paternal lineage, could the results be absolutely conclusive.

When CNN showed the DNA results to victim Baltazar s stepmother, Sheila Baltazar, she said, Without a shadow of a doubt, I really in my heart believe Wayne Williams killed Patrick Baltazar.

Williams not only has denied he killed Patrick Baltazar, but has said he never met the boy.

Yet testimony at trial established various fibers found on the Baltazar clothing could be traced to a bedroom carpet in Wayne Williams home, his bedspread, a yellow blanket found under that bed, a leather jacket hanging in Wayne s closet, and a gray glove in his station wagon.

See a map that tracks victims bodies

There were also dog hairs on the Baltazar body which prosecution witnesses testified probably came from the Williams family s German Shepherd, Sheba.

When those dog hairs were sent to a genetics laboratory in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, in 2007, the report said Sheba had the same DNA sequence. It said that DNA chain would be found in only 1 out of 100 dogs.

The Baltazar case was included among 10 other deaths presented to the jury in Wayne Williams trial, although he was not charged in any of those, and was convicted of murdering two adults whose bodies were found in an Atlanta river in the spring of 1981.

iReport: Do you remember the Atlanta child murders.

Scientists considered the hair and fiber evidence in the Baltazar murder to be among the strongest of their cases. However, the trial took place in the courts of Fulton County, which includes the largest part of Atlanta. Baltazar s body had been found just over the line in the DeKalb County portion of Atlanta, and trying to include his death among the Fulton County charges would have raised legal issues.

A judge on Monday exonerated a man convicted of three rapes after DNA evidence linked the crimes to a serial rapist wanted for assaults dating back two decades.

• JARRATT, Va. Serial killer Timothy W. Spencer, the first person convicted of murder on the basis of DNA evidence, was executed late Wednesday after a last flurry.
• Long before DNA science was a courtroom staple, Wayne Williams was convicted of killing two adults and accused in the murders of more than 20 children.
• Oct 26, 2013  Want to watch this again later. Sign in to add this video to a playlist. THERE IS A SERIAL-KILLER AT LARGE THAT THE FBI WON T ARREST. FREE.

DNA test strengthens Atlanta child killings case

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Jun 09, 2010  Atlanta, Georgia CNN -- Almost 30 years ago, when Wayne Williams went on trial in two deaths that became known as the Atlanta child murders, DNA.