National Group Wants To Reopen Tennessee Death Row Case, 13 Years After Execution

A national criminal justice group is asking a court in Memphis and Gov. Bill Lee to re-examine the case of a man executed 13 years ago.

The Innocence Project says there are inconsistencies in the evidence that was used to convict Sedley Alley for the rape and murder of a woman in the 1980s. They believe another person — possibly a Missouri man arrested late last year — committed the crime.

“This is a horrible crime,” says Barry Scheck, the Innocence Project’s founder. “This is the kind of crime that somebody enraged, certainly somebody engaged in serial killing, might have committed.”

More:

Read the Innocence Project’s letter to Gov. Bill Lee

Alley was put to death in 2006 for killing Suzanne Marie Collins. She was a 19-year-old lance corporal in the Marines stationed at the naval base in Millington, Tenn., about 20 miles north of Memphis.

Collins was last seen alive leaving for a 10-mile jog on a summer evening in 1985. Police immediately suspected Alley, who lived nearby. He confessed, and police say he led them to Collins’s body in a park. She’d been beaten and sexually assaulted, including with a tree branch.

Afterward, Alley claimed he didn’t remember the killing and that his confession was coerced. His defense team
argued he was insane, pointing to diagnosis of multiple personalities and substance abuse. It didn’t convince jurors, and Alley was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

Shortly before his execution, the Innocence Project got involved. They pointed to differences between Alley’s statement to police and the evidence found by investigators. Alley stated that he’d stabbed Collins in the temple with a screwdriver, for example; medical examiners found no sign of a puncture wound.

The Innocence Project asked the state to conduct DNA tests on physical evidence found at the scene, including a pair of men’s underwear believed to have been worn by the killer. But a Tennessee court turned the request down.

“So here we are 13 years later,” Scheck says.

Alternative Theories

Scheck believes testing now will show Alley wasn’t there — and possibly identify someone else as Collins’s killer.

MORE: 

Read the Innocence Project’s request for DNA testing

Supporters of Alley have never settled on a single theory of who that might be. During his trial and appeal, Alley’s attorneys attempted to cast suspicion on two boyfriends of Collins. They claimed one of those men more closely matches the description of a man seen in the area near Collins shortly before she disappeared.

Now, Scheck suggests it could be a man named Thomas Bruce, who was arrested in November for
murder and sexual assault at a Catholic Supply store near St. Louis. His case is now making its way through the courts.

The Innocence Project says Bruce was stationed in Millington soon before Collins’ death — a fact the New York Times
confirmed through military records. But the paper also found Bruce had been transferred to California before the murder took place.

Scheck acknowledges that testing could wind up confirming Alley’s guilt.

“We don’t believe it, but it could happen,” he says. “We’re not afraid to find the truth. … We want to know.”