based on the eyewitness testimony of a 6-year-old girl, clarence elkins was convicted of killing his mother-in-law and for the sexual assault and attempted murder of his niece. the police that very morning searched clarence s car for blood, for hair fibers, for different things. not a trace. the car was fine. they searched his house, even to the point of searching the drains of his shower for blood and particles and that sort of thing and came up completely clean. clarence rence s wife melinda was sure that her niece, brooke, was mistaken when she identified clarence as the man who attacked her. after all, she was only a child at the time, and the house was dark. shocked, i mean, to think that you can convict someone on i.d. testimony, let alone a 6-year-old child with no physical evidence to back it up, how can this happen?
judy johnson left her front door ajar. some time after midnight, her granddaughter, brooke, heard a commotion coming from the kitchen. when she went to look, she saw a man beating her grandmother. i was scared, so i ran back to my grandma s room and covered up my head with a blanket. but the intruder followed her into the bedroom, knocked her unconscious, sexually assaulted her and left her for dead. miraculously, brooke regained consciousness several hours later but found her grandmother dead. my grandma died, and i need somebody to get my mom for me. i m all alone. brooke then ran to a neighbor s house for help. incredibly, the neighbor made her wait outside. part of my left ear was missing and my whole left cheek was swollen.
somehow, some big publicity hog. the prosecutors wanted to portray me as just some dumb old hick from the country who was trying to get this publicity and have my name out there and my face shown on tv as being my 15 minutes of fame. then, one day, melinda picked up the morning newspaper and read an article about earl mann who had been convicted for sexually assaulting his three daughters. i went online under the ohio offender search and i pulled up his picture, and it was uncanny how clarence and him looked so similar. but that wasn t all. now melinda understood why her niece, brooke sutton, was forced to sit outside the neighbor s house for nearly an hour after the attack. because the home belonged to earl mann and his common-law wife.
testimony, let alone a 6-year-old child with no physical evidence to back it up, how can this happen? sure enough, four years after the murder, brooke sutton, now 10 years old, recanted her testimony. do you think today that uncle clarence was the same man you saw in the kitchen that night with your grandma? no. i just had always had doubts. i knew i was wrong because i put him in there and i wasn t positively sure. melinda petitioned the court for a new trial and was denied. so melinda took matters into her own hands and decided to conduct her own investigation, creating a list of all known criminal offenders living near her mother s home. and she also sought help from an expert on wrongful convictions, martin yant. together, they poured over the
to no fault but to the state, i blame. he never blamed me. clarence never blamed me. and i really would have blamed myself if i were him. because i d be angry if someone put me in prison for something i didn t do. prosecutors believe earl mann s target the night of the murder was brooke sutton. but her grandmother woke up, fought to protect her and paid with her life. brooke saw a man briefly before running away. he then assaulted her and left her for dead. the next morning when brooke regained consciousness she ran to a neighbor s house for help. ironically, she ended up on the doorstep of the man who tried to kill her just a few hours earlier. the dna evidence against earl