Free Rodney Reed

AUSTIN, Texas (KXAN) — Georgetown Police Officer Jimmy Fennell’s guilty pleas to kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a woman in his custody Tuesday could play a role in the appeal process of convicted murderer Rodney Reed.

Those close to the death row inmate’s murder case said there are still many unanswered questions.

“They need to know that I’m an innocent man sitting on death row,” Reed said.

In Texas 33 men have served a combined 427 years in prison for crimes they did not commit. And those are only the known cases.

“Occasionally, people are going to be convicted when they’re actually innocent,” Reed said.

Attorney Bryce Benjet represents Reed, who was convicted in the strangulation death of 19-year-old Stacy Stites.

Reed has always maintained his innocence, claiming his DNA found in Stites’ body was there because the two were secretly dating.

“The last time I saw Stacy alive was the night before, on the 22nd, we were together, we had sex,” Reed said in a 2003 interview.

Yet it is not Reed’s DNA that is at issue. DNA found on beer cans found near Stites’ body excludes Reed but points to two former police officers, who were also friends of Stites’ fiancé — then Giddings police officer Fennell.

Despite failing two lie detector tests when asked if he killed his fiancé, Fennell was ruled out as a suspect, because investigators said he could not have dumped Stites’ body and returned home in the established timeline.

That scenario also assumes Fennell was alone and did not have a ride.

A report issued by the Department of Public Safety crime lab links the beer cans to David Hall, who was then a Giddings police officer. He was also friend, next-door neighbor and partner of officers Fennell and Ed Samela.

A further DNA report excludes 99.9 percent of the entire Caucasian population.

Hall and Samela could not be excluded.

Samela has since killed himself.

“The DNA on these beer cans links law enforcement officers to the crime scene, associates, close associates of Mr. Fennell,” Benjet said.

Private investigator Duane Olney said DNA evidence was withheld by prosecutors, and thus never heard by the jury.

“It may have been an honest mistake, it doesn’t matter, we didn’t get it,” Olney said. “It is frustrating when you look at all these things that are starting to fit into place.”

One such example involves the man who oversaw the Reed investigation, Richard Hernandez, Bastrop’s former sheriff who also pleaded guilty to six felonies.

There was also a Bastrop woman who said she wanted to testify but was never called. She said she had seen Fennell and Stites together the morning of the murder.

“When you have an eyewitness that sees something that is completely inconsistent with the story that was presented for which Mr. Reed got the death penalty, that’s the kind of information a jury ought to hear,” Benjet said.

Meanwhile, Fennell will be locked up for his most recent crimes against a woman.

With the Reed case still in the appeals court, prosecutors have declined requests for interviews.

Yet state sources for KXAN Austin News said if you’re going to look at the arrest of Fennell as proof that Reed is innocent, then the same holds true for the death row inmate’s background.

Reed’s criminal record includes three charges for sexual assault, one for criminal attempt and one for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. All were filed on the same day just prior to Reed’s murder trial, and they are all still open, meaning Reed was never convicted of the charges.

Reed’s lawyers have asked the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for a new trial. They cited Fennell’s recent charges in their motion.

The appeals court is expected to rule by late August.