Lee’s cases may get ‘a second look’
Support remains for forensic scientist yet questions raised about testimony
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 JonBenet 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.
Hidden evidence
But the evidence that Henry Lee is fallible goes back further than the recent Supreme Court decision, back to 1987 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 had 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.
Darcy McGraw, director of the Connecticut Innocence Project, said Lee “testified falsely” and “knew or should have known” the blood was not human, according to a New Haven Register report. Weinberg was released from prison in March 2017, after serving 26 years of a 60year life sentence, though his conviction stands.
Williams, Weinberg’s defense attorney, said “Henry Lee’s testimony was very important” in that case and that “the experts I brought in tried to focus on different areas than Henry Lee because they were afraid of him. We would try to focus on the other experts.”
Williams added, “I think that jurors are inclined to believe that what happens in courtrooms is B.S.” but an expert witness like Lee has an aura of credibility.
Lee, born in China and a graduate of John Jay College and New York University, has held several top posts in Connecticut, including chief state criminalist, head of the state police forensic laboratory and commissioner of public safety. The University of New Haven named the Henry C. Lee College of Criminal Justice and Forensic Sciences for him.
No test conducted
In the state Supreme Court’s June 14 decision, ordering a new trial for Birch (a separate ruling granted a second trial for Henning), Justice Richard N. Palmer wrote that the court agreed that the prosecutor “failed to correct certain testimony of the then director of the state police forensic laboratory, Henry C. Lee, concerning a red substance on a towel found in the victim’s home that, according to Lee, had tested positive for blood. In fact, no such test had been conducted, and, moreover, a test of the substance that was done for purposes of the present case proved negative for blood.”
Lee defended himself in a press conference, saying “Never, ever was I accused of intentionally ... trying to cover up” or provide false testimony and insisted that he had tested the towel for blood. “I did many tests,” he said.
Lee could not be reached for this story.
In the Hasan case, the convicted murderer claims a sneaker that Lee said had blood on its sole had been retested and found negative for blood, according to the Hartford Courant. That led Lee to hold another press conference, in which he said the blood sample was used up in the first test and couldn’t be retested.
David Walkley, public defender in the Danbury Judicial District, said that when he faced Lee in the courtroom, “I may have quarreled with his results, but it didn’t seem … like it was made up. … It was consistent with what the evidence appeared to be.”
Walkley, who defended Peeler in the case in which he ordered the witnesses’ killing, said Lee “did have a way with jurors that they liked him and he was always trying to ingratiate himself with juries.” In the Peeler case, “he was always trying to be funny or clever,” and Superior Court Judge G. Sarsfield Ford let the jury know he didn’t appreciate that.
As for the Supreme Court’s ruling, Walkley said, “Any case that he was involved in, I think they all would be reexamined. I think they would have to be.”
Hugh Keefe, a New Haven defense attorney who has known Lee for 40 years, said Lee often testified for the prosecution when it was led by the late State’s Attorney Arnold Markle. Markle “detested anyone who would talk to the other side, namely me,” Keefe said. But Lee, as an objective expert witness, would “huddle with you in the corners of the courthouse and he’d say, ‘This is what you should do.’
“You do not get a reputation like Henry has — and he still has — as one of the best forensic investigators in the world by being a bad guy or by being corrupt,” Keefe said. “He’s a formidable opponent. He’s an honest opponent and I don’t have any doubt in my mind that what he said at his press conference is true. Two mistakes in over 50 years of testifying all over the country? Give me a break.”
The Penney Serra case went unsolved for years and included three suspects who were cleared before they were tried. Finally, 26 years after Serra’s murder, Edward Grant, who had no known connection to the victim, was arrested. Lee testified about a fingerprint that was found on a bloody tissue box in Serra’s car. James G. Clark was the senior assistant state’s attorney who prosecuted the case.
“I had several cases with Henry Lee and it was and continues to be my belief that his focus was on the evidence and what it told us and not whether or not the accused in the case would be convicted,” Clark said.
“All of us make errors and no doubt there were some,” he said. “My entire experience is that Henry Lee is an honorable man.”
Clark said that in the Grant trial, the evidence included DNA, photos identifying Grant and additional fingerprints. “Although (Lee) testified in the case, there was very strong evidence that had nothing to do with his testimony and everything he testified about was tangential to the strongest evidence in the case,” Clark said.