Who is clarence elkins

Press Release. Special Features. Clarence Elkins Time Served: 6 years. Sentence: Life. Share this case Help us advocate for the innocent by sharing cases from the Innocence Project. Help free the innocent Donate. Press "Enter" or click on the arrow to show results. In , with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project, DNA tests were performed on traces of biological material that had been recovered from Mrs. The tests revealed the same male DNA profile in all three locations, indicating that one man committed the crimes.

The prosecutors, however, continued to insist that Elkins was guilty. In July, , a judge again denied a motion for a new trial. The defense investigation next focused on the neighbor who had driven Brooke home after the attack and had left the dazed and blood-covered six-year-old on her porch for 30 minutes instead of calling the police immediately.

Coincidentally, Mann was transferred to the same prison and then to the same cell block as Clarence Elkins. Elkins surreptitiously collected some of Mann's DNA by retrieving a cigarette butt that Mann discarded. Elkins mailedit to his attorneys and DNA tests were conducted on saliva on the butt. Despite the DNA evidence identifying Earl Mann as the killer, the prosecution still refused to agree to Elkins' release. I'm all alone. Somebody killed my grandma.

Now please, would you get ahold of me as soon as you can. Brooke then walked to a neighbor's house, the home of Earl Mann, and knocked on the door. Mann's common-law-wife , Tonia Brasiel, told her she was cooking breakfast for her children and told her to wait on the porch until she could drive her home, which she did approximately 45 minutes later. When the police questioned Brooke, she said that the killer "looked like Uncle Clarence" — Mrs.

Johnson's year-old son-in-law, Clarence Elkins. The police interpreted this to mean Elkins himself was the attacker. Brasiel also reported to Brooke's mother that Brooke had identified Elkins as the attacker. Years later, Brooke said she had grave doubts about the identification at the time but went along with it. She later described the situation on Larry King : "I woke up and I found my grandma dead, I went to a next door neighbor's house and I told her that it looked like my uncle Clarence and it sounded like him.

So, she took me home and she told my mom that -- what I told her and then everyone just started freaking out. And then my mom and dad called the police and my mom and dad told the police that it was my uncle Clarence who did it.

They didn't even listen to what I was saying. At trial, the prosecution theorized that Elkins killed his mother-in-law out of frustration because she was meddling in his rocky marriage to her daughter, Melinda. The case against Elkins was largely built on the testimony of the 6-year-old eyewitness; however, investigators found no signs of forced entry, and no fingerprints or DNA linking Elkins to the scene.

Hairs recovered from Johnson's body were excluded as having come from both Elkins and Johnson. He insisted he was drinking with friends until about am. Sunday morning, a timeline that Melinda corroborated. She testified that she saw Clarence return home and knew he remained there as she was up most of the night caring for a sick child.

The attack took place sometime between a. Elkins' alibi was also corroborated by his neighbors and friends. Based on the testimony of Brooke identifying him as her attacker, he was convicted on June 10, of murder, attempted aggravated murder, two counts of rape by force or threat of force, and felonious assault, and sentenced to two terms of life-imprisonment.

It was the first murder trial Judge Adams had ever presided over. Following the conviction, Elkins and his wife Melinda launched their own investigation and hired a private investigator who had assisted in the exonerations of numerous wrongfully convicted defendants.

Since the night of the crime, Judy's family had been split over the case, with some members certain of his guilt and others of his innocence. Brooke had not seen Melinda or her children since the trial. Three years after the trial, the family reconciled. Brooke confessed her uncertainty, stating, "It couldn't have been Clarence.

The person that hurt me and me-maw had brown eyes. He had an alibi: He and Melinda had been together, 45 minutes away at the time. In the end, no evidence linked him to the crime. No fingerprints. No blood. Nothing, except the conflicting confessions of a traumatized child who said he had been there. Melinda grew obsessed with trying to find the real murderer and to raise money for legal expenses and DNA testing. She was gaining no ground when the Ohio Innocence Project decided to intervene in the spring of ' Later that year, optimism began to grow when DNA testing showed no connection between Elkins and a swab from the rape kit, hair and skin cells from underneath the deceased's fingernails or a hair found in the child's clothes.

The Innocence Project made a motion for a new trial. It was denied. In the meantime, something had dawned on Melinda -- how fishy the neighbor's response to her niece had been. Investigating the neighbor further revealed that, at the time of the crime, she had been living with someone by the name of Earl Mann. At the time of this discovery, Mann was serving time in the same prison as Elkins … for raping three girls in ' The goal abruptly focused on finding a way to get a DNA sample from Mann.

Elkins knew it was up to him, but refused to do anything too obvious. The life-changing moment came when Elkins saw Mann deposit a cigarette butt, all alone, and walk a way. Elkins carefully and nervously slipped the butt into a clean tissue he had, then placed it inside his heavy Strong's Bible Concordance. He waited nearly two weeks to nab a new Ziploc baggie, needed to prevent contamination of the butt in the mail, but once he did, he mailed it to his attorney.

Even that was a risk, he said, because he was probably breaking prison rules to do so. Yet hopes were confirmed. The saliva on the butt matched the unidentified DNA found on both victims.