JACKSON — Attorneys for Mississippi death row inmate Willie Jerome Manning say they hope results of recent DNA tests will exonerate him and get him out of prison.
Manning, now 46, has been on death row for nearly half his life and came within hours of being put to death in May 2013 for the slayings of two college students more than 20 years earlier. The state Supreme Court indefinitely delayed the execution to allow further consideration of Manning’s capital murder convictions.
Manning was convicted in two sets of slayings in Oktibbeha County.
One conviction, in 1994, was for the killing of two Mississippi State University students, Jon Steckler and Tiffany Miller, in late 1992.
The other conviction, in 1996, was for the killing of a 90-year-old Emmoline Jimmerson and her 60-year-old daughter, Alberta Jordan, during a robbery of their Starkville apartment in 1993. The women were beaten and their throats were slashed.
In February, the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial for Manning in the slayings of Jimmerson and Jordan after justices found that investigators had not given prosecutors and defense attorneys all of their evidence about a key witness who testified against Manning. In late April, prosecutors said they would not put Manning on trial again because the witness had recanted his testimony against Manning.
In the case of the slain college students, the state Supreme Court in 2013 gave Manning’s attorneys permission to seek DNA testing of evidence. In 2014, the defense attorneys sent a rape kit, fingernail scrapings and other items to a lab for the testing.
One of the attorneys, Rob Mink of Jackson, said this month that the ultimate objective of the testing is to answer one question: “Is there any DNA attributable to Manning?”
“We’re certainly expecting that there won’t be,” Mink told The Associated Press. “What we’re really hoping for is that the test yields a profile of an individual whose DNA appears in more than one place.”
Mink said he hopes to receive test results this month — possibly as soon as Friday.
The bodies of Steckler and Miller were found in rural Oktibbeha County in December 1992. The two students been shot to death, and Miller’s car was missing. The vehicle was found the next morning. Prosecutors said Manning was arrested after he tried to sell some items belonging to the victims.
In 2013, shortly before Manning was scheduled to be executed in the slayings of Steckler and Miller, the U.S. Justice Department said there had been errors in FBI agents’ testimony about ballistics tests and hair analysis in the case. Manning’s attorneys asked the Mississippi Supreme Court to stop the execution. Hours before Manning was scheduled to be given a lethal injection, justices vote 8-1 to indefinitely delay the execution.
On April 20, Oktibbeha County Circuit Judge Lee Howard signed a court order in which prosecutors said they would not put Manning on trial again in the slayings of Jimmerson and Jordan. The order effectively dropped the charges against Manning in that case. Prosecutors’ main witness when Manning was convicted in that case, Kevin Lucious, originally testified that he had seen Manning at the apartment complex where the women lived on the day they were killed, and that Manning later talked to him about having killed the women. Lucious recanted his testimony in a sworn statement.
“Kevin Lucious further recanted his testimony and previous statement through his affidavit stating that he only signed the first statement given to Sheriff (Dolph) Bryan because District Attorney Forrest Allgood told Lucious he would not be charged with capital murder if he cooperated,” according to the April 20 court order.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 43 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.