Tom Lane | Z-726
Tom Lane | Z-726
Z-726
CC2005-001499
12/03/1965
Murder
10/10/2003
01/02/2006
Life
Mobile County,
Attorney, Innocence Projects
Tom Lane | Z-726
I'm Tom Lane,
I was convicted of killing my estranged wife and sentenced to death, despite a complete lack of physical evidence tying me to the crime scene (the blood/ DNA profile found at the crime scene did not match mine and the hair found a foot from the body did not match mine).
The State’s only eyewitness, who claimed to have seen a truck similar to my truck near my wife’s home on the day of her death, testified that the man he saw that day weighed around 120 pounds – I weighed over 285 pounds at the time.
On the day my wife died, over a dozen law enforcement officers walked through the front door of her house as part of their investigation and to document the scene, and not one found evidence of forced entry. The following day, however, after they claim they found a chisel in my truck (even though none of the crime photos taken when they searched my truck showed a chisel), the police also claimed they found a piece of the front door ripped off, the chain lock dangling, and a chisel mark on the door frame.
A State’s witness was permitted to testify at trial that the “chisel mark” could have only been made by one single chisel in the entire world -- the chisel from my truck -- despite having never matched wood impressions made by a metal tool in his career. This was the only piece of physical evidence used against me.
Defense counsel failed to hire a toolmarks expert to challenge this baseless assertion, or to hire a crime scene investigations expert that would have established for the jury that if the chisel mark had existed on the day of the crime, at least one of the law enforcement members on the scene that day, using that door, would have noticed it.
In addition, there are questions about the State’s timeline in the case, which was based on the fact that my wife was found in her bathtub with the water running “fast and hard” but not overflowing.
Because I had an alibi an hour before the time her body was discovered, the prosecution asserted at trial that the water could have been running for at least 57 minutes without overflowing onto the ground. (In addition, investigators reported that 50 minutes after the water was turned off, the water level was still above the tub overflow drain.) And Teresa’s hair was still blocking the overflow drain.
Despite the centrality of this issue, defense counsel failed to hire a plumbing expert to explain the limits of an overflow drain and what would have happened under normal circumstances if water had run for almost an hour.
Based on this scant physical evidence, that my defense attorney failed to challenge with expert testimony, I was convicted of capital murder.
Although my first penalty phase trial in 2006 resulted in a life verdict because I appealed the State sought and obtained a death sentence at my second trial in 2016.
I am innocent and have maintained my innocence since my arrest in 2003. I have also filed a Rule 32 petition in the Mobile County Circuit Court, and I most desperately need counsel to represent me to effectively challenge my unlawfully obtained capital conviction and death sentence. Please help me.
All information contained herein is declared truthful and accurate under penalties of perjury per Federal Law 28 USC 1746.
For any further information or interest please contact John Olson, at johnolsonw@aol.com or 251-929-2002. Thank You.
Respectfully,
Tom Lane