Texas man executed for hair that didn’t belong to him
A Texas man was condemned to death and executed in 2000 on the basis of hair that did not belong to him, according to the results of a DNA test released Thursday.
A test by Mitotyping Technologies published by the Texas Observer magazine -- which fought a three-year legal battle to gain access to the evidence -- showed that Claude Howard Jones was "excluded as the contributor of this questioned hair."
Jones - who had a long criminal record - had insisted that he was waiting in the car when his accomplice killed Allen Hilzendager during a liquor store robbery.
He was convicted of the 1989 murder, and denied several appeals, largely on the basis of that single strand of hair which police found at the scene.
Forensic science was limited at the time to examining the hair under a microscope, where it appeared to belong to Jones.
Link:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/texas-man-executed-hair/
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