were you afraid of dying? not in a way, but like i say, i knew the truth would eventually come out, right. so that s that s kept me going. it kept my faith right, and just taking it one day at a time. that s all you can do, you know, and hope and pray that everything come out all right. mr. elmore had been incarcerated for 11,000 days. the judge told mr. elmore that he had exhausted his sentence and he was free to go. you are free to go, mr. elmore. we could walk him out that door of the courtroom and down those steps as a free man. and that was i m sorry. that was the best moment of my life as an attorney.
i ve seen that man cry in front of the jury. mr. jones in the courtroom could probably outperform sir lawrence olivier. let s put it that way. he could overpower you, overcontrol you. he was not beyond saying things that he couldn t prove if they weren t challenged. early in the first trial anderson challenged jones by saying that a single thumbprint was not enough to arrest elmore. in order to obtain an arrest warrant, the police presented an upside down thumb print on the back outside door frame. that s exactly consistent with cleaning the windows. cleaning the door. that is not probable cause in anywhere else in america that i m aware of. but willie t. said, oh, well i m glad you brought that up. the forensic pathologist let us know that she had located negroid pubic hairs on the victim s chest and abdomen. the defense shut their mouths and sat down.
trials was false. that he made up this story to try to get better treatment for himself on his criminal sentence. gilliam would go on to state that the only thing elmore had ever said was that he didn t kill dorothy edwards. but diana s team also felt they needed to refute dorothy edwards time of death which the medical examiner had placed on saturday night during the only hours elmore had no alibi. diana hired forensic expert jonathan arden. in my opinion the victim died in the early afternoon on sunday. that time frame makes sense with the rigor mortis, the lack of decomposition. but when the state medical examiner was asked, why did you recommend that the time of death be 65 hours prior to the time of discovery? given all the evidence of the rigor mortis, the lack of decomposition, she said under oath, because that s what they told me. that s when the police told me they thought it happened.
victim s blood. prosecutors also told the jury that dozens of elmore s pubic hairs were found on dorothy s bed. and finally, prosecutors presented james gilliam. a prison inmate who claimed to have heard elmore confess to the crime while in jail. that came out of nowhere. that just rocked me. mr. elmore told gilliam that i went down there to rob the lady and she started screaming and i killed her. that was the lynchpin. the jury took less than five hours to reach a verdict. elmore was convicted and sentenced to death. but the conviction was overturned on appeal. there was one juror who was reluctant to impose the death penalty. the trial judge went into the jury room and put pressure on the holdout juror to impose the death sentence. a new trial was ordered. same prosecutor, same defense
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