The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Support strong for Lee amid testimony questions
Henry C. Lee, who earned nationwide fame testifying in highprofile murder cases, also served as a witness in hundreds of cases that never earned headlines.
Since the state Supreme Court ordered a new trial in June for two men who had served 30 years for a New Milford murder, ruling that Lee had testified in error, his stellar reputation as an expert witness who bases his testimony on forensic science has come under scrutiny.
Lee, 80, who is retired from the University of New Haven, has strongly defended his work, and he has defenders who say that the errors that have been brought to light don’t compare to his long record of helping to solve crimes and his work in the field of forensic science.
But other defense attorneys say the court’s ruling, as well as other examples of questionable actions, mean that any convictions that he helped win need to be given a new look.
John R. Williams, a longtime New Haven defense attorney, said, “I don’t think there’s any question” that convictions in which Lee’s testimony played a role should be reopened.
“Even one big case would have been enough to raise a lot of red flags, and given what we have now, every single conviction that was based on his testimony … there ought to be a second look given,” Williams said.
In the case the state Supreme Court reviewed, Shawn Henning and Ralph Birch were convicted 30 years ago of the murder of Everett Carr in New Milford. Since then, Wendall Hasan, convicted of the murder of George Tyler in 1986, has filed court papers seeking to be released from prison because of doubts raised about Lee’s testimony.
Considering “all those years and years people have spent in prison,” Williams said, “it may be a ton of cases” that should be reexamined. “He was ubiquitous for years in the state of Connecticut. He was the man, and lawyers were afraid of him because everybody thought he couldn’t be touched.”
Lee built his reputation on detailed explanations of where blood was found and whose blood it was. He was also a compelling witness who defense attorneys said played to the jury, in at least one case receiving a reprimand from the judge.
Lee’s first major case was the 1986 “woodchipper trial,” in which Richard Crafts was convicted of killing his wife, disposing of her dismembered body in Lake Zoar. Lee assisted the investigation of the slaying of 6yearold beauty pageant contestant JonBenét Ramsey, testified for the defense in O.J. Simpson’s murder trial in 1995, and helped defend Scott Peterson, who was convicted of killing his pregnant wife, Laci Peterson, in 2002.
He also was involved in highprofile local cases, including the murder trial of Edward Grant in 2002. Grant, a Waterbury car mechanic, was convicted of killing Concetta “Penney” Serra in a downtown New Haven parking garage. Lee assisted the investigation of the still unsolved killing of Yale student Suzanne Jovin in 1998 and testified for the prosecution in the case of Russell Peeler Jr. Peeler was convicted in 2000 of ordering the killing of two witnesses against him in a murder case: 8yearold Leroy “B.J.” Brown Jr. and Leroy’s mother, Karen Clarke.
But the evidence that Henry Lee is fallible goes back further than the recent Supreme Court decision, back to 2007 and the trial of music producer Phil Spector, who was accused of murdering his wife, actress Lana Clarkson, in 2003. According to news reports, Judge Larry Paul Fidler ruled that Lee hid evidence — a small white object that prosecutors said was an acrylic fingernail — that would have undermined Spector’s defense that Clarkson committed suicide.
That trial ended with a hung jury and Spector was convicted in a second trial.
Lee’s testimony also came into question in the conviction of David Weinberg for the murder of Joyce Stochmal of Seymour in 1984. Lee had testified that a bloody knife found in Weinberg’s home could have been stained with animal or human blood, but a later analysis showed it could only have been animal blood.