set for the man indicted in the murder of christine morton in austin back in 1986. you might recall that mark norwood was indicted for the murder of christine morton when michael morton was found innocent of those charges after spending 25 years in prison. this morning norwood stood in court next to his attorney. officials say dna on a crime scene bandanna helped free morton because it belongs to norwood. in williamson county this morning attorneys for the innocence project filed a 140-page report on their investigation of the michael morton case. it alleges that then district attorney ken anderson refused to call chief investigator don wood to the witness stand because he didn t want to turn over key documents in wood s trial toward his defense lawyer. and as woefully inadequate as i realize it is, i want to formally apologize for the system s failure to mr. morton and to every other person who was adversely affected by this
the basis of that stomach contents junk science that michael was convicted. from the autopsy with vaginal swabs, rectal swabs, oral swabs, all the usual stuff, clippings, we were having those things tested thinking that would reveal the assailant. and so those results were coming back all negative negative negative. in february of 2005, we filed our first motion. and we sought dna testing on the swabs from christine s body. we asked for the bloody bandanna found 100 yards behind the house along what we always believed to be the escape route of the murderer to be dna tested. john bradley was the district attorney of williamson county at the time we filed the motion for dna testing. so i called up mr. bradley and i introduced myself. and i tried to explain to him the logic of what we were doing,
we found out where he was living in austin during the time of christine s murder and for a few years after that. and a paralegal in our office found the news story in cold cases, a woman bludgeoned to death, and checked the location. and it was a block from where norwood was living at the time. the woman s name was debra jan baker and she was killed a couple years after christine. exactly the same way. bludgeoned to death in her bed. a few days after the hit on debra jan baker with norwood s hair at that murder scene, was announced in court, john bradley contacted barry scheck to discuss terms of michael s release. i received an e-mail from
you might recall that mark norwood was indicted for the murder of christine morton when michael morton was found innocent of those charges after spending 25 years in prison. this morning norwood stood in prison next to his attorney. officials say dna on a crime scene bandanna helped free morton because it belongs to norwood. in williamson county this morning, attorneys for the innocence project filed a report on their investigation of the michael morton case. it alleges that then-attorney ken anderson refused to call chief investigator don wood to the witness stand because he didn t want to turn over key documents in wood s file to morton s defense lawyer. and as woefully inadequate as i know it is, i want to formally apologize for the system s failure to mr. morton and to every other person who was adversely effected by the verdict. do you feel he s responsible for your mother s murder? in part, absolutely. how so?
it was just taking time. and michael is in prison and he s innocent, and we know that he s innocent. so we sued john bradley in federal court. michael morton was convicted of killing his wife and sentenced to life in prison. his attorneys say the case boils down to testing a bloody bandanna found behind the home where christine morton was beaten to death. if that contains dna evidence from the crime scene it could show someone else did it. but d.a. county attorney john bradley says that s a pipe dream. if i got a promise from michael morton that he would accept criminal responsibility for killing his wife should the bandanna exclude any other mystery killer, you know what, i would consider doing that. well, the third court of appeals ruled morton can test the bloody bandanna but that won t happen anytime soon. the district attorney s office is appealing that decision. while we re waiting for the