BASTROP Rodney Reed’s defense team presented witnesses Wednesday who contradicted prosecutors’ assertions that Stacey Stites did not know Rodney Reed and that she was killed earlier than they say she was.
Reed received the death penalty after he was convicted in 1998 of Stites strangulation. Stites body was found by the side of a rural road in Bastrop County on April 23, 1996, with Reed s sperm inside her.
The hearing on Wednesday in state District Court in Bastrop was ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2019 after defense attorneys presented new evidence they said exonerated Reed. The hearing started Monday and is expected to run two weeks.
Day 3 of Rodney Reed's hearing continues to see witness statements
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Jimmy Fennell says witnesses lied about Rodney Reed knowing Stacey Stites
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Rodney Reed s defense brings forth more witnesses to make their case
Rodney Reed s defense brings forth more witnesses to make their case
The defense calls on four more witnesses to speak on Reed s and Stite s relationship and Stite s fiancé, Jimmy Fennel, character.
BASTROP, Texas - The defense started the morning, calling witnesses that could speak to Jimmy Fennell, Stacey Stites fiance s character.
One of them was Arthur Snow, a former member of the Aryan brotherhood and inmate who says his ex-wife, a witness for the state, threatened him not to testify. Snow testified that Fennell confessed to killing Stites while incarcerated.
BASTROP Defense attorneys for Rodney Reed continued to call witnesses to the stand Tuesday to bolster their theory that it was not Reed who killed 19-year-old Stacey Stites over two decades ago, but rather her fiancé, Jimmy Fennell.
The testimony shared this week was not presented during Reed s trial in the late 1990s in which he was convicted of capital murder, and instead was part of the evidence Reed s lawyers presented to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in 2019, prompting the court to halt his execution five days before he was set to die. The court ordered a hearing, which began Monday in Bastrop County, to review the new evidence that Reed s lawyers say casts doubt on his conviction.