Daily Oklahoman Experts Disagreed on Hair Analysis By Diana Baldwin An Oklahoma
criminalist revealed for the first time in February that a co-worker
disagreed with his laboratory findings that helped send two innocent
men to prison in 1988, The Oklahoman has learned.
Oklahoma
State Bureau of Investigation criminalist Melvin R. Hett disclosed
37 pages of laboratory notes Feb. 9, the first day he gave testimony
in a deposition in a lawsuit filed by Ronald Keith Williamson, 48,
and Dennis Leon Fritz, 51, two men wrongfully convicted and released
from prison after 12 years.
Hett tied Williamson and Fritz to a gruesome 1982 sex slaying in
Ada with his microscopic examination of hairs found at the crime
scene. DNA tests on semen and on the hairs later freed the men.
Former OSBI criminalist Susan Land, the first chemist assigned to
perform the laboratory work in the case, recorded in 1983 that none
of the 40 hairs she studied in her analysis belonged to Williamson
or Fritz.
The lawsuit accuses Hett, a supervisor of the Enid OSBI lab, of
misidentifying hairs and giving exaggerated testimony.
Hett is one of five OSBI criminalists investigating hair
comparison results by embattled Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce
Gilchrist. The FBI reported Gilchrist gave testimony “that went
beyond the acceptable limits of forensic science” and misidentified
hair and fibers in at least six criminal cases.
The FBI urged a review of the cases in which the 21-year police
chemist’s forensic work was significant to a conviction.
Gilchrist, on paid administrative leave, defends her work.
Defense attorney Barry Scheck, a noted DNA expert, warned state
Attorney General Drew Edmondson last week that Hett and the OSBI
could compromise the Gilchrist investigation. He also offered
assistance in Oklahoma’s investigation with expert attorneys from
across the county. Scheck also is an attorney in the pending federal
lawsuit.
In the Williamson and Fritz case, Hett was assigned to examine
the hairs after Land had the case for eight months. Hett tied 17
hairs from the crime scene to Williamson and Fritz.
Land microscopically analyzed 40 hairs and recorded none of the
hairs belonged to them.
Hett, who has been with the OSBI for 25 years, testified that a
third OSBI criminalist, Ann Reed, reviewed some of the hairs before
he made one of his three reports in the case. Hett argued that Land
never made a report. Her handwritten notes from the case file have
been given to civil attorneys.
OSBI spokeswoman Kym Koch said the bureau has “absolute
confidence” in Hett’s work. Two criminalists are examining each
Gilchrist case, she said.
“Mel did not testify beyond what science allows,” Koch said. “He
testified the hairs were consistent and could belong to the
defendant.
“That is as discriminating and definitive as you can get with
hair analysis.
“It is subjective to the experience of the analysis involved. ...
That is why you have the same people agree and disagree in the same
laboratory.”
Norman attorney Mark Barrett said no defense or appellate
attorney in 14 years was aware of Land’s findings about the hairs
found at the crime scene.
“I think what happened was uncalled for and outrageous,” said
Barrett, one of the civil attorneys for Williamson and Fritz. “The
prosecution had a constitutional obligation to turn over evidence in
the criminal trials that was favorable to the defense.”
Koch said, “There was a defense expert who agreed with Mel on
hair analysis. He agreed with some of Mel’s conclusions and
disagreed with some.”
The civil lawsuit is pending in federal court in Muskogee.
Williamson, Fritz and Fritz’s daughter, Elizabeth, are suing Hett,
the city of Ada, Pontotoc County, the state of Oklahoma and at least
19 people involved in the case.
They are asking for more than $100 million in damages.
Assistant District Attorney Wellon B. Poe is the attorney for
Hett and at least nine other defendants in the civil lawsuit. Gerald
Adams, the attorney general’s spokesman, refused to discuss a case
in litigation.
In 1995, U.S. District Judge Frank Seay ruled Williamson deserved
a new trial. One of the reasons given was that hair evidence should
not have been admitted in his jury trial.
Seay ruled expert hair testimony at the trial was “irrelevant,
imprecise and speculative, and its probative value was outweighed by
its prejudicial effect.
“The state of the art of hair analysis has not reached a level of
certainty to permit such testimony,” the judge said.
The judge did say Hett may have followed procedures accepted in
the community of experts. Yet the human hair comparison results in
this case were, nonetheless, scientifically unreliable, Seay said.
Barrett, while at the Oklahoma Indigent Defense System, was one
of the attorneys who fought to prove Williamson, a former
minor-league baseball player, and Fritz, a former teacher, were
wrongfully convicted 12 years earlier. Williamson, sentenced to
death, came within five days of execution. Fritz was sentenced to
prison for life.
They were freed April 15, 1999, after DNA tests on semen and hair
cleared them of killing Ada waitress and bartender Deborah Sue
Carter, 21.
Carter’s nude and battered body was found by her father in her
garage apartment Dec. 8, 1982. There were fingernail polish writings
on her body and apartment walls. She had been strangled and raped.
The DNA results revealed the semen belonged to Glen Gore, a
classmate of the victim. Gore testified in Fritz’s trial, saying he
saw Williamson with the victim the night she was killed. The
transcript of Gore’s testimony was read at Williamson’s trial when
Gore refused to testify.
In an appellate court affidavit, Gore was identified as the last
person seen with the victim who was being pushed into a car outside
an Ada nightclub.
Gore bolted from a prison work detail in Purcell after learning
Williamson and Fritz were being released and prosecutors had a new
suspect because of DNA evidence.
He was serving a 40-year prison sentence for kidnapping, burglary
and shooting with intent to injure.
Gore got five years added to his prison sentence for escaping
from the work detail. Pontotoc County District Attorney William
Peterson did not file murder charges against Gore until April 6, two
years after learning the semen and hair found at the crime scene
belonged to Gore.
In ordering Williamson a new trial, Seay criticized Peterson for
misleading the jury, the trial court and appellate judges by
mischaracterizing the hair evidence.
Peterson claimed “microscopically consistent” equated with
reliability and concluded there was a “match” between the hairs.
“While it may be possible to exclude an individual as the source
of a hair sample, it is not possible to prove questioned hairs are
from a particular person,” Seay said in his opinion.
Peterson, a defendant in the civil lawsuit, was not available for
comment Friday.
Traditionally, hair examiners claim they can be definite about
excluding individuals as the source of unknown hairs, Scheck said.
DNA testing shows Hett falsely excluded the victim and Gore as
potential sources of the hairs he attributed to Fritz and
Williamson, Scheck said.
“These false exclusions are supposed to be impossible,” Scheck
said. “Mr. Hett was so in error that of the 11 pubic hairs which he
said matched Dennis Fritz, these turned out to be eight different
DNA profiles.”
Copyright © 2001. Daily Oklahoman Company. All rights reserved. saved from url: http://www.oklahoman.com/cgi-bin/show_article?ID=692139&TP=getarticle
May 27, 2001
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