Thomas, J., dissenting
Bastrop, Texas. The truck Stites drove to work was found abandoned in the Bastrop High School parking lot a couple of hours later. That afternoon, a passerby discovered Stites’ body in a ditch by a country road, her clothing disturbed in a manner suggesting sexual violence. Medical examiners determined that Stites had been strangled to death with her own belt, which was found in two pieces—one near the truck, the other near Stites’ body. There was semen in Stites’ vagina and rectum and saliva on her breasts. The police concluded that Stites had been raped and murdered.
Despite a wide-ranging investigation, the police were initially unable to find a DNA match for the bodily fluids recovered from Stites’ corpse. Then, about six months after Stites’ death, Reed was arrested for kidnaping and attempting to rape and murder another young woman near the route Stites typically took to work and around the same time of night when Stites had gone missing. Reed lived near the high school and was often seen walking the surrounding area at night. Intrigued, the police checked Reed’s DNA profile, which Texas had on file from an earlier sexual-assault case against him. A series of tests established a conclusive, one-in-the-world-population match between Reed and the fluids recovered from Stites’ corpse.
When first questioned, Reed insisted that he did not know Stites at all, unaware that the police had DNA evidence disproving that claim. By the time of his trial, he had changed his story: He and Stites were having a consensual affair, and someone else—perhaps her jealous fiancé—had committed the murder. The jury rejected that post hoc narrative and found Reed guilty. In the separate penalty phase, Reed’s kidnaping victim testified about how Reed had abducted, threatened, and attempted to rape her before she was fortuitously able to escape. Four other women—and one underage girl—also testified that Reed had brutally beaten and raped them in the past. Reed was sentenced to death.
