Seventeen Hairs

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Seventeen Hairs

Seventeen hairs – embedded in an automobile trunk mat no more than 1/8” thick that was so frazzled and deteriorated with age it was almost transparent.

Seventeen hairs – an S.B.I. laboratory report, certified as true and accurate, showed that the hairs were turned over to the F.B.I. for DNA testing forty-nine (49) days before the evidence at trial showed the hairs were ever found on the mat.

Seventeen hairs – the needle in a haystack of circumstantial evidence that led to my arrest on October 12, 1995 and on July 25, 1997, and condemned me to life plus 40 years in prison for the death of a Swedish citizen who had come to America to escape a sinister past. I was sentenced for a crime I did not commit.

The story of my arrest, the investigation, prosecution, and conviction are the stuff of a Hollywood whodunit.

Six years ago a Watauga County jury found me guilty of first-degree murder and kidnapping during a month-long trial that gained international attention. During the trial it was revealed that:

	The victim, 40-year-old Viktor Leonard Gunnarsson had once been accused and later released for lack of evidence in the l986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.
	Kay Weden and I had been introduced by her next-door neighbor. We became engaged and later broke up.
	Gunnarsson had begun dating Weden on November 26, 1993.
	Gunnarsson disappeared eight days later, on December 4, 1993. His nude, partially decomposed body was discovered exactly five weeks later, 109 miles away in a wooded area about 500 feet off the Blue Ridge Parkway in Watauga County, North Carolina. He had been shot twice, execution style. One shot was in the left temple and the other was in the right neck with what was believed to be a .22 caliber weapon. However, trial testimony showed that the bullets were so deformed that the state could only say that the bullets could have been fired from ten to twelve different models of .22 caliber weapons. Special Agent Al Langley, the state’s ballistics expert could not even determine if the bullets retrieved from Gunnarsson’s body were fired by a rifle or pistol (Volume II, TP 625). Agent Langley also testified that the bullets from Gunnarsson “could have” been fired from a Ruger rifle but not from a Dan Wesson .22 caliber revolver, a crucial fact that was overlooked during the testimony of the state’s star witness, Rex Allen Keller, Jr. that would have cast doubt on his veracity and credibility. In fact, Agent Langley’s official laboratory report clearly showed that the bullets from Gunnarsson could have been fired by so many different models of .22 caliber weapons that they would be too numerous to list in his laboratory report (Volume II, TP 625).
	Weden’s Mother, Catherine Miller, was found dead in her home on December 9, 1993. She, too, had been shot twice, but with either a .38, .357 or a 9mm weapon. Investigators were not able to determine what type of weapon fired the bullet and nine bullet fragments removed from Miller’s body. A fact that was never revealed to the jury was that Agent Langley’s laboratory report clearly showed that he could not even match a bullet fragment with the bullet removed from Miller. Neither could he say they were even fired from the same weapon. Trial testimony also revealed that Miller could have been shot with five different models of .38 or .357 caliber weapons, including a Colt .38 caliber weapon. Agent Langley testified at trial that just in the Colt brand of firearms there were 20 different models of .38 and .357 caliber weapons that could have been used to kill Miller (T., Vol. 3, pp. 630-631). That did not include the four other brands of firearms that could also have been used to kill her (T., Vol. 3, pp. 631-632). Based on the ballistics evidence, the state was never able to connect me to the deaths of Gunnarsson or Miller.

On February 1, 1994, investigators from the State Bureau of Investigation, Watauga County, and Rowan County searched my home and vehicles. This included a 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo prosecutors would later say I used to kidnap Gunnarsson. Significantly, among the items taken from my vehicle was the trunk mat on which the crucial hair evidence was reportedly found almost two years later.

Paula Townsend, the lead investigator on the case from the Watauga County Sheriff’s Office, claimed and swore under oath in a search warrant affidavit that after the murder I had my trunk mat professionally cleaned. It was the state’s theory at trial that the reason it took so long to find the hairs on the trunk mat was the carpet shampoo ground the hairs down into the mat. It was the theory of investigators and the prosecution that I was trying to destroy trace evidence such as hairs and fibers by having my cars professionally cleaned (State’s closing argument, p. 43). Evidence never brought to the jury’s attention, even though it was entered into evidence, indicated that the trunk mat was confiscated by investigators before it was ever cleaned.

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