I've recently learned about the case of
Rodney Reed. He is currently on death row in Texas for the murder of
Stacey Stites. The curious thing about this case is that the
victim's family is convinced of Reed's innocence and believes,
instead, that the actual murderer was her fiance, Jimmy Lewis
Fennell, Jr..
At the time of Stacey Stites' death, Fennell was a
34-year-old police sergeant with the Georgetown, Texas, Police
Department. At the time of the murder Fennell was not adequately
investigated as a suspect. According to an article in the
Austin Chronicle, “Police
never searched the apartment Stites and Fennell shared, though it
was the last place she was reportedly seen alive, and they had
returned to Fennell the pickup truck she'd allegedly been driving the
morning she disappeared before thoroughly processing it for
evidence.”
Since the murder of Stites and the conviction of
Rodney Reed, Sergeant Jimmy Lewis Fennell, Jr. confessed and has been convicted of raping a young woman (which he did while on duty). The victim of that attack, in an interview, discussed how he had casually raped her in a calm sadistic manner. She
also explains how Fennell was the responding officer when she
immediately called 911 after the attack.
After the conviction of Fennell
(sentenced to 10 years and scheduled for release in 2018), and during
the subsequent appeal of Rodney Reed, a pattern of violent behavior by Fennell against other women
was revealed.
