D.A. candidate urges reopening 1980 murder investigation
A Democratic candidate for Delaware County District Attorney is calling on District Attorney Katayoun Copeland to reopen the case of a Chester man serving a life sentence for the 1980 murder of “Avon Lady” Emily Leo.
“Leroy Evans has always maintained his innocence in the murder of Mrs. Leo and was convicted at trial largely on the testimony of an accomplice, Anthony Tyrone Jones,” said Jack Stollsteimer of Haverford in a release Wednesday. “Mr. Jones has since recanted his testimony and provided a sworn statement that not only exonerates Mr. Evans but provides new information about the crime that better conforms to the evidence presented at trial.”
Stollsteimer, who currently serves as Pennsylvania’s deputy treasurer of consumer programs and public engagement, announced his candidacy for district attorney last month.
Copeland, a registered Republican from Radnor, was appointed in January
2018 to serve out the remainder of former District Attorney Jack Whelan’s term when he was elected to the Delaware County Common Pleas Court in
2017. She is running for a full term this year.
Jones testified at trial in
1981 that it was Evans’ idea to lure Leo into the house in the 3000 block of West 11th Street on the morning of Nov. 11 under the pretense of buying Avon products.
He said Evans choked Leo with a clothesline in the kitchen and beat her about the head with an iron before Jones put her into a trashcan and took her to a nearby vacant lot.
A truck driver called police after seeing Jones throwing rocks at Leo’s near-lifeless body. Jones ran off but was arrested later that same day. Leo remained in critical condition at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland until her death Nov. 28.
Jones, who was 17 at the time, made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty and name his alleged accomplice in order to avoid the death penalty. Jones’ testimony that Evans hatched the plan and carried out the attack was the only thing linking him to the murder, according to Evans’ defense attorney, Mike Malloy.
Jones provided a statement to Malloy in 2016 indicating Evans was not involved with any aspect of the murder. According to that statement, Jones sucker-punched Leo and then strangled her with a clothesline torn from the back of the house.
Evans has maintained his innocence and said that he was at home at the time, but did admit to later taking clothing from the home of his co-defendant and burning it.
Though some of the other evidence has degraded, Malloy contends that the absence of Evans’ DNA on the rope could be a compelling enough reason to reopen the case. He also believes Jones’s statement fits with an absence of blood at the crime scene.
Public defender James Wright, representing Jones in another matter, previously testified that his client does not stand by his statement to Malloy, however, and he does not intend to testify at any future proceedings for Evans.
Malloy has been seeking DNA testing on the clothesline, the victim’s clothing, two pocketbooks, a date planner and other items allegedly grabbed by Evans during the murder. The iron identified as the murder weapon is not in custody.
Assistant District Attorney William Toal III argued at a hearing concerning those issues in 2017 that the relief being sought is well outside the statute of limitations for Evans’ case and that there are no “new facts” that would justify reopening the investigation.
Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge James Bradley denied Malloy’s request for DNA testing in October and Malloy appealed to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania.
Malloy said Wednesday that there has been no movement from the appeals court and the case remains in “legal limbo,” though he is happy to have Stollsteimer’s support.
“I accept Jack’s support, I accept anybody’s support,” said Malloy. “I’m happy for somebody to say, ‘We should look at it.’”
Copeland’s campaign spokesman, Pete Peterson, said that Stollsteimer was attempting to grab media attention by tying himself to the appeal, but Evan’s case is “a legal matter that will be decided by the courts, not a campaign issue.”
Peterson noted that Jones is no longer standing by his 2016 statement and a witness for the defense admitted in 2017 that even if testing results failed to show Evans’ DNA on the rope, it would not rule out he had touched it due to the length of time since the murder took place and the evidence collection techniques at the time, which were not designed to protect DNA evidence.
“District Attorney Copeland is not opposed to postconviction DNA testing, but there is a certain standard that must be met under state law,” he said. “If this case had met the standard, the District Attorney’s office would have supported postconviction DNA testing. Prosecutors, including the D.A., do not make the law, but they do swear an oath to follow and uphold it.”