New DNA has been found on the murder weapon used to convict an inmate, four years after the Arkansas man was executed.
Ledell Lee was sentenced to death in October 1995 in Pulaski County, Arkansas, after he was found guilty of murdering 26-year-old Debra Reese. He had maintained his innocence since he was arrested for the murder right up until his execution in April 2017.
"My dying words will always be, as it has been, 'I am an innocent man,'" Lee told the BBC prior to his death in 2017.
Now, per CNN, attorneys representing the family of the death row inmate say DNA not belonging to Lee was found on the murder weapon, which calls into question Lee's death sentence.
"I think if those results had been had before he was executed, he'd still be alive," Lee Short, who had been Ledell Lee's attorney, told CNN.
The family's legal team commissioned DNA tests on the handle of the wooden club that was used to kill Reese in 1993. In April, they revealed that the results showed the DNA of an unknown person.
The DNA seems to match that found on a bloody white shirt that was wrapped around the club. However, it is not known whether the DNA originated from the blood or from other parts of the body such as skin.
The team also tested the six hairs found at the crime scene, which were used at trial in the state's case against Lee. Attorneys now say that Lee has been ruled out as a source in five of the six hairs.
According to the publication, Nina Morrison, senior litigation counsel at the Innocence Project, said in a statement last month that although the test results were "incomplete and partial, it is notable that there are now new DNA profiles that were not available during the trial or post-conviction proceedings in Mr. Lee's case."
Lee's sister, Patricia Young added in a statement of her own: "We are glad there is new evidence in the national DNA database and remain hopeful that there will be further information uncovered in the future. We ask for privacy for our family in this difficult time."
At the time of Reese's murder, a number of her neighbors told investigators that they saw Lee nearby.
Fighting against the death sentence, Lee's attorney asked that the DNA evidence in the case finally be tested. However, the request was denied.
"The reasoning given by the judge was it wouldn't matter, that there were three people who saw him at or near that neighborhood on that day and time and honestly the DNA just wouldn't matter," Short said.
