For more than 10 years Henry Skinner, sentenced to die for a 1993 Texas Panhandle triple murder, has insisted that DNA testing of previously unexamined crime scene evidence would prove his innocence. Early and incomplete results of those tests released on Wednesday, however, seem to raise as many questions as they answer.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who released an advisory he earlier had provided the Pampa trial court, claimed test results "further confirm" Skinner's guilt. Skinner's attorney, University of Texas law professor Rob Owen, countered that the tests indicate an unidentified individual may have been present at the death scene.
Skinner, 50, was condemned for the New Year's Eve fatal bludgeoning of his lover, Twila Busby, and the stabbing deaths of her adult sons, Edwin Caler and Randy Busby. Skinner, who has marshaled international support for his cause through a Web site posted by proxies, consistently has protested his innocence.
Skinner insists that he had consumed excessive alcohol and codeine and was unconscious when the killings occurred. Busby, he argues, likely died during a sexual assault, and he focuses blame on the woman's uncle, who had sexually harassed her before.
Abbott said early tests of six vaginal swabs collected from the victim indicate she had not been raped. Skinner also had been hopeful that tests of Busby's fingernails would reveal traces of her attacker's DNA. Those tests, Abbott told the court, came up clean.
Testing of blood on a knife found on the front porch of the home Skinner shared with the victims revealed DNA from Skinner, Caler and an unidentified individual. Owen said he is requesting additional testing in hope of identifying that third person.
Hair recovered from Twila Busby's hand and from beneath her ring proved to be her own.
"While Skinner argued that he was too incapacitated to commit the murders and that he was unconscious on the couch while the murders occurred," Abbott told the court, "DNA results prove he was present in the back bedrooms of Ms. Busby's house where Randy Busby's body was found."
Skinner's blood also was found in the men's bedroom, Abbott reports.
Owen, though, found the results unconvincing. A blood sample taken from the bedroom carpet, he said, contained DNA from Skinner, Caler and a third unknown person. Owen said additional tests on the sample may allow it to be run through a national law enforcement DNA database.
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DNA testing proceeds, but guilt questions in Skinner case linger