Word: wanda
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...determined by samples of any bodily fluid. Coleman matched the description -- but since roughly 10% of Grundy's population has type B blood, it is likely that others in the town fit the bill. The prosecution also produced brown hairs the same color as Coleman's, lifted from Wanda's red pubic hair. But other hairs picked up when police vacuumed the McCoy's home the night of the murder did not match Coleman...
...jailhouse snitch named Roger Matney testified that while sharing a cell with Coleman before the trial, Coleman stated that he and another man raped Wanda, then the other man killed her. After offering up this story a year later at Coleman's trial, Matney was released from serving the remainder of four concurrent four-year prison sentences. Later Matney's mother-in-law claimed that he had admitted to making it all up, which he in turn denied...
Then there is the matter of Coleman's clothes. Prosecutors have never doubted that the bag of clothing Coleman surrendered to the police the day after the murder contained the same items he wore the night Wanda was slain. Indeed, during the trial the prosecutors made much of three droplets of blood that matched Wanda's type O blood on the left leg of the blue jeans...
...lawyers also never raised the issue of the blackish-red soil found on Wanda's hands and extending up the sleeves of her sweater, or of her broken fingernails, which were caked with soil. Such details suggest a struggle that might have taken place outdoors. Coleman had no scratches on him; neither did any of the other people questioned immediately after the murder...
This final habeas corpus appeal offers seven reasons why Coleman should be granted an evidentiary hearing that will enable him to prove his innocence. Behan believes that she has "overwhelming" evidence someone else killed Wanda and that if a hearing is granted, her evidence of Coleman's innocence will prevail. Her fear is that she will never be able to make the case. "I think we're going to run out of time," she says, "and that's what's so frustrating." As of late last week, a federal district judge had not yet ruled on Coleman's petition...