New DNA tests cast doubt on convictions in decades-old murder

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New DNA tests cast doubt on convictions in decades-old murder
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Attorneys for 3 men imprisoned in the 1997 killing of a Pennsylvania woman argue DNA points to a single unidentified suspect. They are seeking a new trial.

Authorities accused a group of teens and young men, most of whom are Black, in the killing, alleging they broke into Nickens’s home, robbed her of $30 and then brutally hit her and left her to die. One had dated Nickens’s granddaughter.

The same unknown man’s genetic profile was previously identified in semen recovered from Nickens’s rectum during her autopsy in the late 1990s. Attorneys for the defendants argue the semen was likely the result of sexual assault because Nickens had no boyfriend and was in poor health. They argue it was revealed during the legal proceedings that DNA found on Nickens’s body did not match any of the alleged perpetrators, so the new tests would not be enough to change jurors’ minds. Stollsteimer’s office declined to comment before the hearing.“Absent compelling evidence of innocence, the trial court’s verdict should not be disturbed," a prosecutor wrote in a brief."The postconviction DNA evidence is neither compelling nor is it evidence of innocence.

An informant also told police she overheard McElwee, Grasty, Johnson and Chappell discussing their involvement in Nickens’s killing, according to the prosecutor’s brief.In an effort to gain evidence on Grasty, Chester Police Detective Todd Nuttall reached out to the narcotics division to see if they had anything on McElwee, who was mildly intellectually disabled and had an IQ of 69, according to Johnson’s brief.

“Police are bringing in, interrogating and putting pressure on McElwee,” Potkin said. “Essentially the whole case rests on the word of an intellectually disabled teenager facing life in prison.”Two years after Nickens’s killing, Johnson, Grasty and Chappell were charged with murder and other counts. The men faced separate trials that played out in 2000 and 2001.

Prosecutors revealed that the DNA found on Nickens’s body did not match any of the defendants at all three trials, but offered no definitive explanation for how it got there. They called it a “mystery” at one trial. After the final sentencing for Johnson in 2002, Nickens’s family expressed relief. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported at the time Nickens’s sister, Estella Payne, cried and held a framed photo of her sister outside the courtroom.

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