Post by pebbles on Mar 10, 2009 18:25:24 GMT -5
Convicted killer running out of time, but he still has hope
By Phil Trexler
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 07:14 p.m. EDT, Mar 10, 2009
YOUNGSTOWN: Time was once all Brett Hartmann had in prison. Now, his minutes of life are waning amid questions of his guilt.
Hartmann is asking Gov. Ted Strickland to ponder at least the possibility of the inmate's innocence and to consider how sure the state should be before he's executed April 7.
Time, he said, would allow him to continue his efforts to prove he did not kill Highland Square resident Winda Snipes in September 1997.
Time would give his attorneys a chance to have crime scene evidence tested for the first time.
Time would give an investigator a chance, he said, to do what Akron police detectives failed to do: obtain an alibi for Snipes' former boyfriend, who a week before her killing threatened to slit her throat.
''I didn't do it, and all I'd like is the chance to prove it,'' Hartmann, 34, said today from inside the Ohio State Penitentiary. ''It's not good to execute innocent people. And I'm sure given the time, we can prove it. Especially if we can test all the evidence.''
Hartmann's request for clemency is before Strickland. His attorneys expect to file court papers this week in federal court seeking DNA testing.
For now, he is not seeking a release from prison. He wants a delay of his execution or a commutation to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors are seeking to block any further testing and are urging the governor to allow the execution to be carried out.
Incriminating evidence
Hartmann concedes the prosecution case against him allows the casual observer to assume his guilt.
A bloodstained T-shirt and Snipes' watch were found inside his bedroom. He lied to police about finding Snipes' body and calling 911. His semen was inside her.
All the evidence collected by Akron police was hand-delivered — by Hartmann.
The pieces of evidence are the result, he said, of his drunken panic and fear that police would pin the slaying on him. He insists he did not kill Snipes; she was dead when he found her, and fearing implicating himself, he tried to clean up evidence of his previous morning's visit.
''I sit in here and I kick myself in the butt every day: 'Why didn't you call the cops, d**n it,' '' he said. ''I know a lot of my situation is my own fault. I made a lot of mistakes that night.''
A key aspect of his innocence claim is the time Snipes was killed. While his mother provides an alibi for after 6 p.m., phone records also show he was home at 4:50 p.m.
Snipes was expected at work at 5:30 p.m. She was seen alive in Highland Square at 4:30 p.m. An electric clock cord was cut and stopped at 4:40 p.m. The cord was used to strangle Snipes.
While police say the clock's time is irrelevant, logically it does represent three possibilities, including one that could exonerate Hartmann. The clock time could have been wrong, it could have been set by the killer or, as Hartmann believes, it shows the time the killing began.
The key, he said, is the fact Snipes was seen alive at 4:30, but was unable to catch her bus at 5 p.m. to make her trek to work.
''Obviously, whatever happened to Winda started before 5 p.m., because she had to have been stopped from getting on that bus and going to work,'' Hartmann said, his shackled hands bouncing in front of him as he spoke.
Hartmann retells the story of coming to Snipes' apartment on South Highland Avenue around 8 p.m. that night, finding her mutilated body and panicking. The 23-year-old cook cleaned up evidence of his visit 17 hours earlier and stuffed in his pants a shirt he had left behind when he and Snipes had sex.
Authorities say Snipes, 46, had been strangled, beaten, stabbed 138 times and her hands were removed with a knife.
Inmate's story
After finding the body, Hartmann said he went to his Charlotte Street apartment and tossed the T-shirt behind his bed. He returned to a Highland Square bar and started drinking. By 10 p.m., he was drunk and anonymously calling 911, telling the operator that a dead body was inside Apartment 10.
During the next several hours, he talked to detectives, making off-color remarks about Snipes and eventually admitting he had sex with her the night before.
At the same time, police were learning about Snipes' volatile relationship with the apartment's former maintenance man. The two had dated, but the man had moved out about a month earlier. Neighbors recalled him shouting about Snipes and pledging to cut her throat during a heated dispute.
The night of the slaying, detectives tracked the man down at his home. They considered him their No. 1 suspect.
Police say they checked his home and questioned him at the police station for four hours. It is unclear if he was searched for wounds or if he took a polygraph test.
In addition, detectives, wrongly believing the murder occurred after 9 p.m., never asked their suspect to provide an alibi for the time of the murder.
No reports or recordings of the interview have been released, if they exist, Hartmann's attorneys said.
After six hours of investigating their primary suspect, detectives crossed him off their list.
The Ohio Parole Board, in their clemency report to Strickland, commended detectives for their ''thorough'' investigation of the former boyfriend. The board also found no doubt of Hartmann's guilt.
More testing sought
Time from the governor, defense attorney Michael Benza said today, would give him an opportunity to show the investigation was not thorough because so much evidence has yet to be tested.
The evidence, he said, might show proof that someone else was inside Snipes' apartment.
The items include two hairs found on Snipes' body, the clock that was clearly used by the killer, two beer bottles and a used condom overlooked by police, but found by Snipes' family as they emptied her apartment.
Much of the testing was never ordered after his conviction because Hartmann's previous attorneys missed a deadline in state courts, Benza said.
It's one of the reasons Hartmann's execution has come up in less than 11 years while some others on death row are still appealing their case after 20 years.
''The missed deadline eliminated a huge number of issues for appeal,'' he said. ''It essentially took half the case away from Brett.''
So, while Hartmann awaits word from Strickland or the courts, prison staff are handing him papers to complete.
The paperwork includes his request for three friends or family members to witness his death; the names of people he'd like to visit with the day before the execution, and the funeral home that will handle his remains.
Hartmann weeps as the conversation turns to his mother, Carol Parcell, 69, and his two older sisters. Because the family is poor, he said, his mother and sisters have acted as the primary investigators of his case.
In the end, he acknowledges that most death-row inmates whose cases get to the governor with a negative clemency report do not fair well.
He hopes the governor remembers the more than 130 death-row inmates, including five from Ohio, who were found to be innocent in the past three decades.
Hope is all that time has left him.
''I don't believe I'd be the first innocent person to be executed and I'm sure I wouldn't be the last,'' he said. ''But I'm hopeful. It sounds like the governor will have some interest in the issues of my case. And as long as I can breathe, I have hope.''
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.
www.ohio.com/news/41056097.html
By Phil Trexler
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 07:14 p.m. EDT, Mar 10, 2009
YOUNGSTOWN: Time was once all Brett Hartmann had in prison. Now, his minutes of life are waning amid questions of his guilt.
Hartmann is asking Gov. Ted Strickland to ponder at least the possibility of the inmate's innocence and to consider how sure the state should be before he's executed April 7.
Time, he said, would allow him to continue his efforts to prove he did not kill Highland Square resident Winda Snipes in September 1997.
Time would give his attorneys a chance to have crime scene evidence tested for the first time.
Time would give an investigator a chance, he said, to do what Akron police detectives failed to do: obtain an alibi for Snipes' former boyfriend, who a week before her killing threatened to slit her throat.
''I didn't do it, and all I'd like is the chance to prove it,'' Hartmann, 34, said today from inside the Ohio State Penitentiary. ''It's not good to execute innocent people. And I'm sure given the time, we can prove it. Especially if we can test all the evidence.''
Hartmann's request for clemency is before Strickland. His attorneys expect to file court papers this week in federal court seeking DNA testing.
For now, he is not seeking a release from prison. He wants a delay of his execution or a commutation to life in prison without parole.
Prosecutors are seeking to block any further testing and are urging the governor to allow the execution to be carried out.
Incriminating evidence
Hartmann concedes the prosecution case against him allows the casual observer to assume his guilt.
A bloodstained T-shirt and Snipes' watch were found inside his bedroom. He lied to police about finding Snipes' body and calling 911. His semen was inside her.
All the evidence collected by Akron police was hand-delivered — by Hartmann.
The pieces of evidence are the result, he said, of his drunken panic and fear that police would pin the slaying on him. He insists he did not kill Snipes; she was dead when he found her, and fearing implicating himself, he tried to clean up evidence of his previous morning's visit.
''I sit in here and I kick myself in the butt every day: 'Why didn't you call the cops, d**n it,' '' he said. ''I know a lot of my situation is my own fault. I made a lot of mistakes that night.''
A key aspect of his innocence claim is the time Snipes was killed. While his mother provides an alibi for after 6 p.m., phone records also show he was home at 4:50 p.m.
Snipes was expected at work at 5:30 p.m. She was seen alive in Highland Square at 4:30 p.m. An electric clock cord was cut and stopped at 4:40 p.m. The cord was used to strangle Snipes.
While police say the clock's time is irrelevant, logically it does represent three possibilities, including one that could exonerate Hartmann. The clock time could have been wrong, it could have been set by the killer or, as Hartmann believes, it shows the time the killing began.
The key, he said, is the fact Snipes was seen alive at 4:30, but was unable to catch her bus at 5 p.m. to make her trek to work.
''Obviously, whatever happened to Winda started before 5 p.m., because she had to have been stopped from getting on that bus and going to work,'' Hartmann said, his shackled hands bouncing in front of him as he spoke.
Hartmann retells the story of coming to Snipes' apartment on South Highland Avenue around 8 p.m. that night, finding her mutilated body and panicking. The 23-year-old cook cleaned up evidence of his visit 17 hours earlier and stuffed in his pants a shirt he had left behind when he and Snipes had sex.
Authorities say Snipes, 46, had been strangled, beaten, stabbed 138 times and her hands were removed with a knife.
Inmate's story
After finding the body, Hartmann said he went to his Charlotte Street apartment and tossed the T-shirt behind his bed. He returned to a Highland Square bar and started drinking. By 10 p.m., he was drunk and anonymously calling 911, telling the operator that a dead body was inside Apartment 10.
During the next several hours, he talked to detectives, making off-color remarks about Snipes and eventually admitting he had sex with her the night before.
At the same time, police were learning about Snipes' volatile relationship with the apartment's former maintenance man. The two had dated, but the man had moved out about a month earlier. Neighbors recalled him shouting about Snipes and pledging to cut her throat during a heated dispute.
The night of the slaying, detectives tracked the man down at his home. They considered him their No. 1 suspect.
Police say they checked his home and questioned him at the police station for four hours. It is unclear if he was searched for wounds or if he took a polygraph test.
In addition, detectives, wrongly believing the murder occurred after 9 p.m., never asked their suspect to provide an alibi for the time of the murder.
No reports or recordings of the interview have been released, if they exist, Hartmann's attorneys said.
After six hours of investigating their primary suspect, detectives crossed him off their list.
The Ohio Parole Board, in their clemency report to Strickland, commended detectives for their ''thorough'' investigation of the former boyfriend. The board also found no doubt of Hartmann's guilt.
More testing sought
Time from the governor, defense attorney Michael Benza said today, would give him an opportunity to show the investigation was not thorough because so much evidence has yet to be tested.
The evidence, he said, might show proof that someone else was inside Snipes' apartment.
The items include two hairs found on Snipes' body, the clock that was clearly used by the killer, two beer bottles and a used condom overlooked by police, but found by Snipes' family as they emptied her apartment.
Much of the testing was never ordered after his conviction because Hartmann's previous attorneys missed a deadline in state courts, Benza said.
It's one of the reasons Hartmann's execution has come up in less than 11 years while some others on death row are still appealing their case after 20 years.
''The missed deadline eliminated a huge number of issues for appeal,'' he said. ''It essentially took half the case away from Brett.''
So, while Hartmann awaits word from Strickland or the courts, prison staff are handing him papers to complete.
The paperwork includes his request for three friends or family members to witness his death; the names of people he'd like to visit with the day before the execution, and the funeral home that will handle his remains.
Hartmann weeps as the conversation turns to his mother, Carol Parcell, 69, and his two older sisters. Because the family is poor, he said, his mother and sisters have acted as the primary investigators of his case.
In the end, he acknowledges that most death-row inmates whose cases get to the governor with a negative clemency report do not fair well.
He hopes the governor remembers the more than 130 death-row inmates, including five from Ohio, who were found to be innocent in the past three decades.
Hope is all that time has left him.
''I don't believe I'd be the first innocent person to be executed and I'm sure I wouldn't be the last,'' he said. ''But I'm hopeful. It sounds like the governor will have some interest in the issues of my case. And as long as I can breathe, I have hope.''
Phil Trexler can be reached at 330-996-3717 or ptrexler@thebeaconjournal.com.
www.ohio.com/news/41056097.html