Arthur DNA results late

 

By M.J. Ellington

Montgomery Bureau

 

 

Published: Friday, July 10, 2009 at 3:30 a.m.

 

 

A Jefferson County judge who ordered DNA testing of evidence from the original murder-for-hire trial of Tommy Douglas Arthur has given state forensics experts more time to report results.

 

The assistant attorney general in charge of the case for the state said he believes the loss of one piece of evidence requested for testing may have led to the delay.

 

Circuit Judge Teresa Pulliam ordered DNA testing after an April 14 hearing on the case. That hearing was prompted by another inmate's confession to the murder in July 2008.

 

Defense attorneys for Arthur argued that DNA testing could prove Arthur did not kill Troy Wicker at his home in Muscle Shoals in 1982. DNA testing was not available at the time of the murder.

 

Attorneys for the state argued that the evidence requested would not prove Arthur did not commit the crime.

 

Three days before Arthur was scheduled for execution in July 2008, an inmate serving a life sentence without parole at St. Clair Correctional Facility confessed to having sex with Wicker's wife, Judy, and killing her husband.

 

Because inmate Bobby Ray Gilbert was a minor in 1982, he would not face the death penalty if found guilty.

 

But Gilbert's confession set in motion the requests that led to the hearing before Pulliam in April.

 

Arthur, who has been on death row at Holman prison in Atmore for 26 years, said he missed possible earlier opportunities to request DNA testing at times when he had no legal representation.

 

Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw, the chief of capital litigation for the state, said Pulliam's original order was to test three pieces of evidence from the crime scene.

 

He said he believes one piece of evidence, a hair found on a shoe in Wicker's home, could not be found, possibly causing a delay in the testing.

 

Pulliam also ordered DNA testing on a wig that investigators claimed Arthur wore to disguise his identify when he committed the crime. Testing was also ordered on clothing Judy Wicker wore that day.

 

Crenshaw said he did not know the revised deadline for presenting DNA test results to the judge.

 

M.J. Ellington is the Montgomery bureau chief for the TimesDaily.