murdering stacey stites in texas. a year after the murder reed was interviewed by investigators. in this rarely seen video of that interrogation reed repeatedly denied knowing stites. have you ever seen her before? no, i haven t. but investigators knew what reed did not know at the time, that his dna was found on stacey stites. this made reed the prime suspect. reed has long said he was having a consensual affair with the 19-year-old. in a death row interview reed said he lied because he was engaged to a small town white officer named jimmy finel. she said if jimmy found out we were together that he would kill me. reporter: his lawyer says
reed take the fall for that murder. reporter: his case has garnlgar garnered celebrity attention. the murder investigation is full of holes. they say the time of death isn t accurate and police never searched the apartment where they lived together and that dna tests were never conducted on the belt used as the murder weapon. but finel s lawyer says the push to exonerate reed is a circus that has been rejected by appeals courts and that reed is a monster. rodney reed is a garden variety sociopath who has convinced his lawyers and lots of other people that he s just a poor unfairly charged black man being railroaded to the death chamber. reporter: prosecutors here in texas maintain rodney reed is guilty and deserves the death penalty. they ve also pointed out in court documents reed was
suspected of sexually assaulting and raping six other women. he was acquitted in just one of those cases. these are allegations. they re not convictions. and they have nothing to do with whether or not rodney reed committed the murder for which they re trying to execute him. reporter: there s also this, jimmy finel spent ten years in prison for kidnapping and raping a woman in 2007 while he was on duty as a police officer. when they were in prison finel said to him i had to kill my n-word loving fiance. each one of these stories is laughably lacking in credibility. reporter: rodney reed also has one advocate that once lived by him on death row. anthony graves you spent eight years in texas death row, you were fully exonerated and
understand they ve got the wrong man. are you optimistic you can change course here, and what makes you so sure what makes you believe him? it s not about believing rodney reed, although he has been consistent throughout. it s really about looking at the facts of this case. when you look at the scientific evidence it both exonerates rod no reed and puts the time of death at a time that jimmy finel testified he was alone with stacey in the apartment. when you look at the witnesses that continue to come out, some people say they re not credible. but look who they are. they are police officers, they are friends of jimmy finel. these people have no reason to lie, and time after time people come forward with information that incull pates jimmy finel.
the morning. on her way to work at a grocery store. for months the prime suspect was her fiance, a police officer named jimmy finel until dna evidence pointed to another man she knew. a year later tests confirmed rodney reid s semen was found inside her. a jury convicted read sent him to death row, but the saga was just the beginning. it almost reads like a book. hopefully we don t execute the wrong man for the murder. reporter: they say they were engaged in a consensual affair and finel found out about it. reid talked about this in an interview. prior to her death he found out that he d kill me. and that is clear motive for him to have killed stacey and also ultimately having rodney