1. Ledell Lee was an American man convicted and executed for the 1993 murder of his neighbor, Debra Reese.
22 Facts About Ledell Lee
1. 2.
Ledell Lee was convicted in 1995, and the Arkansas Supreme Court affirmed the conviction in 1997, but numerous questions have been raised about the justice of his trial and post-conviction representation.
3.
Ledell Lee had been strangled and beaten with a small wooden bat her husband had given her for protection.
4.
Ledell Lee was arrested less than an hour later, allegedly after spending some of the $300 stolen from Reese.
5.
Ledell Lee was alleged to have struck Debra Reese 36 times with a tire thumper.
6.
Ledell Lee was convicted of first-degree murder by the jury and sentenced to death on October 16,1995.
7.
Ledell Lee's body was found inside a closet at an abandoned home.
8.
Ledell Lee was tried in 1994; the jury could not reach a verdict.
9.
Ledell Lee said, "My dying words will always be, as it has been: I am an innocent man".
10.
Ledell Lee maintained his innocence until the time of his death.
11.
Ledell Lee's counsel had argued that they should be allowed to locate crime scene evidence collected in 1993, including a single hair and a Converse shoe with a pinhead-sized spot of human blood on it, for modern DNA testing.
12.
Ledell Lee had filed a motion in federal court asking the court to reopen his federal case due to issues with his first counsel, particularly the failure of counsel to bring evidence of his intellectual disability.
13.
Ledell Lee wanted to present new evidence showing that he had fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, significant brain damage, and intellectual disability.
14.
Ledell Lee's family worked with him and his lawyers to try to prove his innocence.
15.
Ledell Lee said that Lee had contacted the Innocence Project in 1996, asking for them to take up his case, but was told they didn't have the staff or funding.
16.
Additionally, Ledell Lee was tried by a judge who concealed his own conflict of interest: an affair with the assistant prosecutor, to whom the judge was later married.
17.
Ledell Lee won new proceedings because of the lawyer's drunkenness, though his representation did not improve afterward.
18.
Mr Ledell Lee has never had the opportunity to have his case truly investigated, despite serious questions about guilt, and his intellectual disability.
19.
Ledell Lee was the first person executed in Arkansas since Eric Nance was executed in November 2005.
20.
Ledell Lee's eyes closed three minutes later and he did not appear to show signs of discomfort, according to Sean Murphy, a reporter with the Associated Press and one of three media witnesses.
21.
About 30 minutes after the high court's ruling, Ledell Lee was pronounced dead.
22.
However, the test "found moderate support" that blood on Ledell Lee's left shoe could have belonged to Reese.