Judge calls bite marks 'junk science' grants man new trial for 1985 slaying

Charles McCrory was convicted and sentenced to life in an Alabama prison for the May 1985 slaying of his wife, Julie Bonds McCrory. The case rested predominately on two small marks on Julie’s arm, which the state and its expert said were bite marks that Charles McCrory made in a rageful, brutal killing, reported AL.com

Today, the technique of matching bite marks to a person’s teeth is considered junk science. And the dentist who long ago testified against him has recanted, saying he can’t even be sure the mark was made by teeth at all — much less McCrory’s teeth.

“The bitemark evidence clearly prejudiced the outcome of McCrory’s trial, especially in light of the other evidence presented at trial,” wrote Chief U.S. District Judge Austin Huffaker Jr. in his Monday order.

“The non-bitemark evidence from which the jury could convict McCrory was thin.”

Huffaker’s order said the Alabama Attorney General’s Office has 180 days to begin a new trial for McCrory or release him from prison.

The state did not respond to a request for comment on Monday afternoon. The office could appeal the decision.

McCrory, a 26-year-old tech worker and volunteer paramedic, was always the main suspect in his wife’s murder. There was no DNA implicating McCrory, no confessions or clear motive. No blood was ever found on his clothes or in his apartment.

But Dr. Richard Souviron, a forensic dentist in Florida who matched a victim’s wounds to Ted Bundy’s crooked teeth in Bundy’s 1979 trial, testified at McCroy’s trial that the two small marks on Julie’s arm matched McCrory’s teeth.

That testimony was the sole physical evidence against McCrory, and Huffaker said it “resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial.”

The judge said on Monday that the state court’s decision in 2022, which denied McCrory’s request for a new trial, was “both an unreasonable application of clearly established federal law and was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts.”

McCrory lived in a small apartment down the street from his wife and toddler son in Andalusia, in Covington County. He and Julie McCrory, then 24, were in the middle of a divorce. But McCrory said he was at the family home on the night of May 30, 1985. The two went to couple’s therapy, spent time with their son, and had sex before McCrory went back to his apartment, he said. The two were often together, and Julie’s date book showed the possibility of her husband moving back in.

McCrory heard about the murder the next morning, when his paramedic radio signaled a call for help at his wife’s home and he responded to the scene.

Julie was found laying in the front doorway of her home. She had been severely beaten with five “chop” wounds to her head, 11 puncture wounds to her chest, fractures of her jaw bones, various bruises and two small marks on the back of her upper right arm.

No one ever confirmed what made the puncture marks that riddled her body.

At trial in October 1985, the case hinged on circumstantial evidence like McCrory’s behavior and disputed witness statements as to cars at the family home. The two small marks that Souviron said were made by McCrory’s upper teeth were the only physical evidence.

The lack of physical evidence didn’t matter. McCrory was convicted and sent to prison for the rest of his life.

But, in the years after the conviction, bite mark evidence was questioned. By 2022, national groups called the technique “junk science” and said bite mark analysis isn’t supported by data.

And in 2019, Souviron took back his testimony.

“I no longer believe the individualized teeth marks comparison testimony I offered in his case was reliable or proper,” he said in an affidavit. He added that he “would not” and “could not” give the same testimony today in McCrory’s case.

The dentist fully recanted his statements from 40 years ago, adding that he no longer believes there is a scientific basis for saying the injury— “assuming that the injury is in fact teeth marks” — could be matched to McCrory. He also said he never actually examined Julie’s body, and relied on photographs.

“My experience has taught me that human dentition is not totally unique,” he said. “I also believe that only in certain, very limited circumstances — not present in Mr. McCrory’s case — can the features of human dentition accurately be recorded in human skin.”

The evolving science and the expert’s recantation didn’t persuade Alabama. When McCrory’s team of lawyers from the Southern Center for Human Rights and the Innocence Project asked for a new trial in the state courts in 2020, it was shot down.

Huffaker, the federal judge, called the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ruling ambiguous and unreasonable, and said the state prosecutors’ arguments were not persuasive. Neither side disputes that the original 1985 testimony was unreliable and could not come into court today, he wrote.

Bite mark identification methods are “grossly unreliable and unsupported by relevant scientific bodies,” the judge added.

“It amounts to nothing more than rank speculation.”

Prosecutors from the Alabama Attorney General’s Office argued in 2021 that, even without Souviron’s testimony, jurors could have looked at the photographs of Julie’s body and matched the markings themselves. The Alabama Criminal Court of Appeals agreed.

McCrory’s team found the suggestion preposterous. Huffaker did, too.

“This finding blinks reality in light of the evidence,” wrote Huffaker. “If an expert could not testify about bitemark identification because it is junk science, a jury should not have been allowed to consider it either.”

Huffaker added the dentist’s recantation was not rebutted by prosecutors and the state didn’t identify anyone who could say that the marks matched McCrory’s teeth.

“It makes little sense that a lay jury could permissibly form a conclusion that no forensic expert could... There is also no evidence that the two markings on (Julie’s) body are a human bitemark.”

Huffaker also noted other rulings across the country where people who were incarcerated solely on bite mark evidence have been exonerated.

McCrory’s lawyers cited 39 known wrongful convictions and indictments from bite mark forensics. Souviron’s past testimonies alone have led to at least two documented wrongful convictions, they added.

In those cases, the dentist said the suspects’ teeth matched marks on the victims. Each man — one in Massachusetts and one in Florida — was later exonerated after DNA proved who the killer was. Each served more than 30 years in prison.

AL.com reported on the case in depth, and the state’s reluctance to accept evolving scientific methods, in the 2025 series, Alabama Vs. Science.

Six years ago, the state offered McCrory a deal: If he said he killed his wife, he could walk out of prison.

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Mangino discusses Philadelphia 'House of Horrors' on Law and Crime's On the Case

 

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Alabama executes man for 1998 double murder

The 27th Execution of 2026

Alabama executed Jeffrey Lee by lethal injection on September 17, 2026 for a 1998 double murder. His execution comes three months after a judge’s ruling blocked the state from putting him to death with nitrogen gas, reported The Associated Press.

Lee, 49, was pronounced dead at 6:22 p.m. at William C. Holman Correctional Facility in Atmore, authorities said. Twenty-seven people have been executed around the U.S. this year. Lee’s execution was the second in Alabama this year.

Lee was convicted of killing two people during a Dec. 12, 1998, robbery at Jimmy’s Pawn Shop in Orrville, a small town about 65 miles (105 kilometers) west of Montgomery. Jimmy Ellis, the store’s owner, and Elaine Thompson, a store employee, were shot and killed. Another employee survived by playing dead.

Lee’s supporters and attorneys made an unsuccessful bid for clemency, noting that the jury that convicted him wanted him to receive a life sentence and filing a legal challenge to the change in execution methods.

The execution got underway just after 6 p.m.

“All is well. I just want to say to my family, I love them. To my brothers on life row, I love them,” Lee said in his final words.

As the injection began, Lee clenched his fists on the prison gurney. His spiritual adviser held Lee’s feet and appeared to pray. Lee closed his eyes and did not appear to open them again.

Ruling blocked Alabama from using nitrogen gas method

The execution was carried out 98 days after Lee won a last-minute reprieve when a judge ruled the state’s nitrogen gas method violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Lee had been scheduled to be executed on June 11 by nitrogen gas, but the execution was called off that night when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift the judge’s ruling. The decision was a loss for the state, which began using the gas method in 2024.

The Alabama attorney general’s office on June 12 filed paperwork to set a new execution date for Lee, this time using lethal injection. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Thursday evening that “justice was finally served.”

“In June, after Mr. Lee attempted to avoid his deserved death sentence, I reaffirmed my commitment that justice would ultimately be served,” Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey also said in a statement. “Tonight, that promise was fulfilled for his victims, Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson, as well as for their loved ones who have long-awaited his sentence to be carried out.”

Lee’s attorneys and supporters made an unsuccessful bid for clemency, noting the jury in his case had made a recommendation of life imprisonment, which the judge overrode.

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A jury voted 7-5 to give Lee a sentence of life imprisonment. However, a judge overrode that and sentenced him to death.

In 2017, Alabama abolished judicial override and stopped allowing judges to change juries’ sentencing decision in capital cases. But the law was not retroactive. Supporters of Lee’s clemency bid held a rally Tuesday outside the Alabama Capitol under the banner, “HONOR THE JURY.” They gathered in a vigil Thursday night outside the Alabama Governor’s Mansion.

“His death sentence rested solely on judicial override — an old law that Alabama has repealed,” Lee’s attorneys said in a statement after the execution. “The State itself concluded this practice was wrong enough to abandon yet still put a man to death under it. That is a moral failure, not just a legal formality.”

Ivey, who declined to intervene, said in her statement that the case “underscores exactly why” the law passed in 2017 did not apply to existing death sentences

Two killed in 1998 pawnshop robbery

The surviving witness testified that Lee entered the store, asked to see wedding rings and said he would be back after getting money from his grandmother. Lee returned a short time later with a sawed-off shotgun and shot Ellis, Thompson and the other employee. The surviving witness fell to the floor, pretending to be dead, and called 911 once Lee left the store.

Ellis, a singer whose voice resembled Elvis Presley’s, had gained a national following for a time as an Elvis impersonator. He performed as the masked singer “Orion” and was the subject of a 2015 documentary.

Lee was convicted in 2000 of capital murder and attempted murder.

Supreme Court turns back stay request

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday afternoon denied Lee’s request to stay the execution to consider if the state was allowed to make the switch to lethal injection. Justices turned back the request without comment.

Lee filed a lawsuit in 2016 challenging the state’s lethal injection protocol. After Alabama authorized nitrogen as an execution method, Lee selected it as his preferred method. He agreed to dismiss the lethal injection lawsuit in 2018 because the state agreed that “if he is to be executed, defendants will carry out that execution by nitrogen hypoxia.”

Lee’s lawyers argued the state was bound by the terms of that agreement to not use lethal injection. The state attorney general’s office asked the high court to let the execution proceed, arguing that nothing precludes the switch to lethal injection.

For decades, lethal injection was the generally preferred U.S. execution method until problems procuring and administering the drugs led states including Alabama to consider alternatives.

Lethal injection remains Alabama’s primary execution method. But in 2024, the state began carrying out some executions using nitrogen gas, which involves replacing breathable air with gas through a respirator mask, causing death from lack of oxygen. Nitrogen has now been used in seven executions in Alabama and one in Louisiana.

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Texas executes man for triple murder in 2005

The 26th Execution of 2026 

LeJames Norman, 40, was put to death by lethal injection on September 16, 2025 at the state penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas, reported The Associated Press. He was put to death for the 2005 fatal shooting of three people during an attempted robbery at his neighbor’s home in rural Texas, the state’s fifth execution this year.

Norman been sentenced to death in the fatal shootings of Samuel Roberts, 24, Tiffani Peacock, 18, and Celso Lopez, 38, inside the home they shared in Edna, located about 100 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of Houston.

Ker’Sean Ramey was also convicted in the shootings and sentenced to death. His execution is set for next week.

Court records indicated Norman and Ramey believed there was cocaine in the house and hoped to steal it, but they never found any drugs. Norman was arrested about five months after the killings while trying to cross back into the U.S. from Mexico.

Norman pleaded guilty to capital murder, leaving a jury to decide his punishment. The U.S. Supreme Court denied a request on Wednesday from Norman’s attorneys to stop his execution.

No last words before execution

Asked by the warden if he wanted to make a final statement, Norman shook his head.

He was laying on a thin mattress atop a steel table, his head on a white pillow. He nodded toward a window through which a sister, two of his children and a friend watched and made eye contact as one of them danced.

As the lethal dose of the sedative pentobarbital began taking effect, he took a couple of deep breaths, appeared to yawn and made snoring sounds — six of them. All movement then stopped.

Thirty minutes later, after a physician examined him, he was pronounced dead at 6:44 p.m. and covered with a white sheet. Only his right hand and lower forearm, covered with an elastic bandage, were visible.

No relatives or friends of the three murder victims in his case witnessed Norman’s punishment.

Judge halts Georgia execution

Stacey Humphreys, 53, was convicted of malice murder and other crimes in the 2003 killings of 33-year-old Cyndi Williams and 21-year-old Lori Brown in an Atlanta suburb. He too had been scheduled to die by an injection of the same drug at 7 p.m. EDT at the state prison near Jackson.

However, a judge halted Humphreys’ execution late Tuesday after his lawyers filed a petition seeking a resentencing under a new state law that allows victims of abuse to have their sentences reconsidered and reduced, if they can tie their crimes to abuse they suffered.

The state appealed that ruling, asking the Georgia Supreme Court to find that Humphreys is not entitled to have his sentence reconsidered under the new law. But the high court declined to hear that appeal before the scheduled execution time and left the lower court’s stay in place.

Georgia’s high court said it would consider the questions raised about the new law in the state’s appeal “in the ordinary course of business and according to a forthcoming scheduling order.”

Killings at a model home and allegations of a biased juror

The two women who Humphreys killed were working as real estate agents for a new subdivision in the Atlanta suburb of Powder Springs. He entered the sales office in a model home around midday on Nov. 3, 2003, and forced them to strip naked and give him their bank PINs before fatally shooting them, according to evidence presented at trial.

Humphreys withdrew more than $3,000 from the women’s bank accounts, according to court filings. He told police after his arrest that he had recently taken out some high-interest payday loans and needed money for a payment on his truck.

Witnesses told police they saw a man fitting Humphreys’ description at the sales office and a vehicle in the parking lot that matched his black Dodge Durango. Police zeroed in on Humphreys and tried to question him at his Dunwoody home days later. He fled and was arrested in Wisconsin after leading police on a high-speed chase.

In addition to the petition for a reduced sentence, Humphreys’ lawyers have argued that he should be resentenced because his death sentence was tainted by a biased juror who lied during jury selection and bullied other jurors into voting for a death sentence. Courts have repeatedly rejected those arguments for procedural reasons, though U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by the other two liberal justices, argued last year that the issue should be further explored rather than leaving it “caught in a web of procedural barriers.”

Additionally, Humphreys’ lawyers have argued that it was not fair that his clemency application was heard by only four members of the five-person State Board of Pardons and Paroles. A judge had ordered one member of the board to recuse herself, agreeing with Humphreys’ legal team that there was a conflict of interest because she previously worked as a victim advocate with the Cobb County district attorney’s office and had worked with the victims in his case. The parole board on Tuesday denied clemency for Humphreys.

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Trump attacks his appointees to the Supreme Court after vote by mail slap down

President Trump assailed the Supreme Court’s decision to block his administration’s efforts to change mail voting and issued a blistering criticism of the three justices he appointed during his first term, reported The New York Times.

“These are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court,” he wrote on social media, referring to Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Neil M. Gorsuch. “They are merely a shell of their original selves, a Court that is costing the United States Trillions of Dollars with shockingly bad rulings that are of such magnitude that it won’t be easily possible for our Country to recover or heal.”

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected an executive order by Mr. Trump that would have drastically changed how Americans vote by mail ahead of the midterm elections. Mr. Trump has long railed against mail-in voting and suggested it is rife with cheating — even though he has voted by mail in recent elections.

In his post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump slammed the decision as “horrible, highly political.”

“It is a big loss for Republicans, and America itself, and makes cheating by the Radical Left ‘Dumocrats,’ on Mail-In Ballots, a much easier thing to do - And now they have an open field to do so!” he wrote.

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Mangino discusses thefts from area booster organizations on WFMJ-TV21

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Former President Obama sounds the alarm on artificial intelligence

Former President Barack Obama warned during a recent private fund-raising event that artificial intelligence technology could be “dangerous” if not properly managed, as he implored Democrats to aggressively develop political and governing agendas to prioritize the issue in the coming years, reported The New York Times.

In his remarks, which have not been previously reported, Mr. Obama urged Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the House minority leader, to assemble a clear framework for a public conversation about A.I. policy, should Democrats win back the House in the midterm elections, according to a partial transcript provided by Mr. Obama’s office.

He also suggested that candidates running for president in 2028 ought to make A.I. one of their “central agendas” and “have a very clear plan” for responding to safety and economic concerns around the technology.

The recommendations from the former president amount to some of his most detailed comments yet about A.I. as a political issue for his party. At a moment when President Trump continues to downplay concerns about the technology, some Democrats see an opportunity for the party to draw a clear contrast in the midterms and beyond on an issue of growing significance. In a Democratic Party with no clear leader, many look to Mr. Obama for guidance, and his comments carry considerable weight.

The remarks come amid escalating worries about the risks associated with A.I. development, as well as growing calls for lawmakers and politicians to do more to tackle the topic. Some A.I. industry leaders are now calling for a slowdown after a summer in which swarms of misaligned A.I. agents broke free from their containers and proceeded to scheme against their owners, cheat on tests and hack outside companies.

At a closed-door fund raising event in Manhattan organized by the campaign arm of the House Democrats, Mr. Obama and Mr. Jeffries spoke for nearly an hour in front of party donors and lawmakers, according to four people familiar with the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private gathering.

“Once you are speaker, I would strongly urge that the Democrats put together a framework for a very public conversation,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Jeffries, according to the transcript. Mr. Jeffries had asked him a question about how Democrats should address A.I. in a Congress that has taken little action on the issue, according to two of the people.

“This is something that is moving very fast in private hands, and if we don’t get on top of it, I think can be dangerous,” Mr. Obama said. “If we do get on top of it, I do think it’s beneficial. I genuinely think it’s going to accelerate, for example, drug development in ways that can help us cure diseases. I do think that this can help us figure out pathways for a clean energy future.”

The former president often spoke in general terms, rather than drilling down on specific policies, according to the transcript. And he planted himself firmly in a middle ground in the heated debate over A.I., saying he considered himself neither an “accelerationist” nor a “doomer.”

One challenge facing Democrats as they chart a path forward on A.I. is speaking in one voice on the issue. The tug of war over how to regulate A.I. has been more divisive among Democrats than Republicans, who are generally more in alignment. Some Democratic politicians have called for more A.I. regulation, while others have received millions of dollars in support from groups tied to the industry’s biggest players.

A.I. is becoming a larger part of the country’s political calculus heading into the midterms. This year’s elections have been flooded with money from A.I. companies and allied groups. And anxiety about the technology, a rare issue that many Republican and Democratic voters can agree on, has peaked in recent days after a researcher at the A.I. company Anthropic loudly and publicly resigned, writing in a viral social media post that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.”

Mr. Jeffries explicitly mentioned the resignation in his question to Mr. Obama, according to one of the people familiar with the event.

Dario Amodei, the chief executive of the A.I. company Anthropic, called for a global slowdown of A.I. development in a 3,800-word essay published on Saturday. Sam Altman, OpenAI’s chief executive, and Elon Musk, whose SpaceX rocket company has been ramping up spending on A.I., quickly wrote in social media posts that they agreed with him.

The White House has long maintained an unabashedly accelerationist stance. Mr. Trump recently told reporters he didn’t have “any” concerns about A.I.’s risks — just about falling behind to competitors like China. He has said that those who oppose A.I. data centers must prefer to be “backwards and poor.”

“President Obama is correct that decisive action must be taken on artificial intelligence,” Mr. Jeffries said in a statement, adding that “Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to govern on behalf of the American people.”

“We will not repeat their error,” he continued.

On Capitol Hill, where little has been done to regulate A.I., some Democrats have been circulating a letter urging House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, to stop members from going home on recess until they pass A.I. safeguards.

Many Republicans want action, too. Several have introduced bipartisan A.I. legislation, and Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida has called for a special session on the topic. A growing number of Republicans are campaigning against data centers, in addition to many Democrats.

As House speaker in 2023, Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, set up A.I. learning and brainstorming sessions, stressing a bipartisan approach. After Mr. Johnson became speaker later that year, he and Mr. Jeffries announced a bipartisan task force on A.I. that produced a report in late 2024. House Republican leadership declined to renew the task force in the next Congress. In response, Democrats formed their own A.I. commission, which is now putting the finishing touches on a policy framework. That framework is expected to be released this fall after some final checks by Mr. Jeffries, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Obama has taken a special interest in A.I. in recent years, and he has offered himself as a sounding board to industry leaders, including Mr. Altman and Mr. Amodei, according to two people familiar with his conversations.

Mr. Obama sees Mr. Amodei’s essay urging an A.I. slowdown — and the affirmations by other A.I. executives — as an encouraging development, and the two are engaged in discussions about A.I. safety, according to one of the people. Representatives for OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to requests for comment.

With many Democrats already jockeying for position ahead of the next presidential race, Mr. Obama, in his remarks at the fund-raiser, outlined what he would do on A.I. if he were one of them.

“I would talk about this, and I would say: ‘Here’s our plan for safety. Here’s our plan for making sure our kids are not corrupted by this,’” he said, according to the transcript.

He contrasted the technology with other innovations that could be dangerous in the wrong hands, saying that compared to “nuclear power, you don’t need a bunch of highly enriched uranium” to build powerful A.I.

“I would be thinking about the economic impacts in very concrete ways and understanding what does it mean if there’s going to be job displacement,” Mr. Obama said, according to the transcript, adding, “if it turns out that you’ve got a lot more people who can’t find full-time work because they’ve been rendered redundant, how are we going to respond?”

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