FLORIDA SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS DEATH SENTENCE IN MOTEL MURDER FOR INMATE ALSO CONDEMNED IN TENNESSEE

The Florida Supreme Court has overturned the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Henry Lee Jones, ruling that prosecutors withheld critical DNA records from his defense in the 2003 killing of a 19-year-old man.

In a ruling issued Thursday, the state high court ordered that Jones’s conviction in the death of Carlos Perez be set aside and sent the case back to Brevard County for a new trial.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Couriel found that prosecutors breached constitutional fair-trial standards under Brady v. Maryland, the U.S. Supreme Court decision that forbids the state from suppressing evidence favorable to an accused person.

“We conclude that the State broke that rule when it withheld evidence that was favorable to Jones,” Couriel wrote. “We therefore reverse the trial court’s denial of Jones’s motion for postconviction relief, direct that his conviction be set aside, and remand this case for a new trial.”

Perez was found dead on August 27, 2003, inside a room at the Super 8 motel on U.S. 1 in Melbourne. Housekeeping staff discovered the 19-year-old day laborer wrapped in a comforter, with his wrists and ankles bound. He had been strangled, his neck had been repeatedly slashed, and his windpipe had been severed.

During the trial, the state contended that Jones befriended Perez, tied him up, tortured him, and sexually assaulted him. Medical examiner Dr. Sajid Qaiser testified that Perez died through a process of ligature strangulation that was tightened and loosened multiple times, calling it an act of “sadism” done for “sexual arousal” and “sexual excitement.”

However, forensic testing revealed the presence of DNA on Perez’s penis belonging to Deborah Williams Bello, a woman who lived at the motel at the time. Bello testified during the proceedings that she had never met or seen Perez.

To reconcile Bello’s denial with the physical evidence, prosecutors presented a “secondary transfer” theory. The state called a motel maid who testified that comforters were not always laundered between guests, along with a detective and the medical examiner, who testified that it was possible for body fluids to transfer from bedding onto another person. In closing arguments, prosecutors described the comforter transfer as an “innocent explanation” and assured jurors there was “nothing suspicious” about Bello’s DNA on the victim.

The state did not disclose to Jones’s defense team that analysts with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement had reviewed the swab and rejected the bedding theory prior to trial.

According to internal FDLE conversation logs, analyst Ashley Garner and supervisor Harry Hopkins warned lead detective Bonnie Rinck in 2012 that a secondary transfer was “highly unlikely.” The analysts concluded that the swab showed it was “more than likely a direct contact of some sort.”

Months later, in an April 2013 pretrial deposition, Jones’s public defender specifically asked Rinck about conversations with FDLE regarding the swab. Rinck answered that the comforters were not being cleaned, offering no mention that state analysts had labeled the secondary transfer scenario highly unlikely.

The high court concluded that withholding the logs impaired the defense. Defense attorneys could have used the records to challenge the state’s witnesses, dispute the prosecution’s theory of sexual sadism, and question Bello under oath regarding whether she had contact with Perez shortly before his death.

Justices Jorge Labarga, Carlos Muñiz, Jamie Grosshans, and Renatha Francis concurred with Couriel.

Justice Barrios dissented, joined by Justice Tanenbaum. Barrios noted that while the records were withheld, they were not material enough to undermine confidence in the verdict when weighed against the rest of the evidence. That evidence included 39 shoe prints on the bathroom floor matching shoes discovered in Jones’s car, a pubic hair on the carpet matching his mitochondrial DNA profile, a five-gallon bucket of cleaning supplies in his vehicle, bleach stains on his clothes, and towels and pillowcases matching items missing from the motel.

Barrios wrote that the state primarily rested its case on the distinct similarities between Perez’s death and a double murder in Tennessee.

“Calling any additional doubt to the secondary transfer theory would have had minimal, if any, impact on the State’s theory of the case and would have done nothing to undermine the vast majority of evidence upon which the State relied,” Barrios wrote.

Jones, now 63, already faces two death sentences in Tennessee. A Shelby County jury convicted him in 2009 of first-degree felony murder for the August 23, 2003, robbery and killings of Clarence James, 82, and his wife, Lillian James, 67, who were bound and strangled with their throats slashed in their Bartlett home. An accomplice in that case, Tevarus Young, testified that Jones killed Lillian James because “she seen my face.”

Perez was killed in Melbourne four days after the Tennessee slayings. Tennessee prosecutors were permitted to tell jurors about the Florida murder because they considered the bound limbs, cut throats, and crime-scene cleanup to be Jones’s unique signature.

Following his Tennessee conviction, Jones was brought to Brevard County, where he represented himself at his capital murder trial in Titusville. A Florida jury convicted him in October 2013, deliberating for 28 minutes before recommending death. In May 2014, Circuit Judge John M. Griesbaum formally handed down Jones’s third death sentence, concluding the order with the words, “May God have mercy on your soul.”

Jones remains the prime suspect in the September 2002 death of Keith Gross, 24, who was found bound and strangled with his throat cut inside his Fort Lauderdale home, though Jones has never been charged in that case.

Jones has consistently maintained his innocence in the Perez killing, claiming he was framed. The Florida Supreme Court’s decision removes his Florida death sentence and conviction, returning the case to the circuit court for further proceedings.

READ: Florida Dad Jailed After Deputies Find Children Starved, Kept In Rooms With A Bucket

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