NEW HELL HOLE NEWS
FEBRUARY 15, 2013
New Hell Hole News - #37 February 15th, 2013 Here, I’m back with y’all to address current matters. Sorry it’s taken me this long, but it’s been a scrabble trying to deal with all the public and media inquiry after the state filed it’s bogus “advisory” to the court about the DNA testing. What a crock of lies! The subterfuge and psychological manipulation contained in that document is beyond belief. To give some examples where it’s onward running: “DNA evidence collected at the scene consistently indicated Skinner was guilty of strangling and bludgeoning Ms Busby to death in the living room of her home on New Year’s Eve 1993… Crime scene evidence also showed that Skinner was responsible for the stabbing deaths of Randy Busby and Elwin Scooter Caler.” As the state’s own experts conceded at trial, their evidence en toto only indicates that I was at the scene at a time after the victims became bloody – something I don’t deny. I had every right to be there, it was our home, not “Ms Busby’s home”. There is not now and was not then a single shred of evidence connecting me to any violent act in that house. In fact, the recent DNA proves I was not involved and the state, realizing that, has rushed to try to cover it up by alleging all this faux inculpation by slick innuendo and unsupported conclusory statements, which directly conflict with the record. The state is precluded by the law and facts of the case from even arguing it was “Ms Busby’s house”. District attorney, John Mann tried that before trial, alleging I didn’t live there so I had no standing to object to his 10-day and ongoing illegal search and seizure. The judge ruled against him and specifically found that I did live there and had a possessory interest in the house and premises because, when the other 3 occupants were deceased, control reverted to me. Thus the judge ruled in effect that it was indeed our shared home. That’s the law and facts of the case, and the state is bound by it. You see, they’re using this “Ms Busby’s home” statement here and elsewhere in this “advisory”, without directly telling a lie, still perpetrating a false idea that I broke into the house and murdered everyone there or, in the least that I was an alien to the house and had no business there. They’re using all these false inflammatory tactics to front things that are not in the record or the evidence at all. “During trial, the state proved Skinner’s bloody handprints were found throughout Twila Busby’s house.” No, they weren’t. Only two places, on the utility room door jamb coming out of the bedroom and on the back door doorknobs leading out of the house. “Skinner admitted he was in the house during the murders but he failed to call the police or seek help for the victims.” No one could call anyone from our house. The phone cord was yanked out of the wall. I didn’t even know this until a cop claimed it was intentionally done to prevent anyone from calling for help, but I later saw the crime scene photos and the cord was in a long shaped “U” with its apex pointing toward the front door. So I surmise that whoever, fleeing the house, got their feet hung in the cord and jerked it loose. “Skinner chose instead to flee to a friend’s house wearing clothes soaked with the victims’ blood.” No. “Soaked” is immersed. There’s no evidence it was “the victims’ blood”. Only two contact stains on the clothes were tested. The state’s own experts at trial were forced to concede that it proved only that my clothes came into contact with a victim or, a surface upon which they deposited blood, at a time after they became bloody, not that I’d done anything to them. There was likewise no evidence that I was wearing the clothes when the blood was deposited on them. My clothes (pants) were draped over a chair arm and edge of table less than 24” from Twila was bludgeoned. The shirt was Randy’s and hanging on the back of a dining room chair situated less than 18” on the other side of where Twila was killed. So I’d imagine that is how blood came to be deposited on them. Additionally, there were droplets, likely my own blood. I fell on an upturned glass shard from the ceiling fan-light when being roused off the couch after the murders occurred, because I could not stand and get dressed. I flung my hand out to catch myself and fell on the glass, cutting my right outer palm to the bone and severing two arteries. It bled profusely for quite some time afterwards, was still bleeding when I was arrested three and a half hours later on a pretextual ruse. The fact that I went to seek outside help at a neighbor’s house with blood on my clothes shows I had no consciousness of any guilt. Were I a murdered, I would have at least sought to conceal it by putting on clean clothes, of which I had plenty. “Skinner arrived at the friend’s house with a cut wound in the palm of his hand.” And? So? How is this any evidence of murder? “He threatened to kill the friend and her children if she called the police and, he was hiding in a closet still wearing the bloody clothing when police arrived and arrested him a few hours later.” At trial Andrea Reed testified that I threatened to kill her if she called anyone. She never said anything about threatening the children. She later admitted that she had lied about my threatening her at all because the D.A. investigator and a Pampa police officer had threatened her, telling her that if it was discovered that she’d harbored and aided me, they could charge her with being an accessory after the fact, take her 1
kids from her and send her to prison for the rest of her life. That’s a pretty powerful incentive to lie, isn’t it? So she falsely claimed I threatened her to make it seem she was scared, under duress and forced to help me. Then she claimed I confessed to her because the cops made clear to her that’s what they wanted to hear. So those two things are what convicted me at trial. Contact blood stains and a false claim of confession. The state has never had any evidence that I committed or participated in any violent act in that house because I didn’t, simple as that. Additionally, I was never “hiding” in any closet. There is no such evidence in the record of the case. This is a prosecution meme D.A. Mann used with the media pre-trial in a rhetorical fashion to inflame the public. “He was hiding in a closet! Why would he do that if he weren’t guilty? Why?!” The sheriff of that time, Randy Stubblefield, was the first through the door and he admits in his 2004 federal habeas deposition that I was never “hiding”, I was in plain sight at all times. “Skinner alleges that Twila Busby’s uncle, Bob Donnell, is the real killer and that the murder occurred during a sexual assault. Recent DNA testing conducted by DPS rebuts that claim because it reveals that Ms Busby was not a victim of sexual assault prior to her murder. Six vaginal swabs and smears collected from her body found no semen or DNA from any other person.” Here the state is wrong and blatantly lying. First, it’s not Skinner (or Skinner’s lawyers) who posit Bob Donnell as the murderer, but the state’s 2nd star witness (after Andrea Reed) Howard Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell gave a recorded interview to D.A. investigator, Bill McMinn, on September 29th, 1994, wherein he told McMinn he believed I was innocent and that uncle Bob Donnell killed Twila, Scooter and Randy. Secondly, again it’s not Skinner or his lawyers who believe Twila was sexually assaulted but the medical examiner, Elizabeth Peacock, again a state witness, who testified pre-trial that she collected a rape kit from Twila because when she was found her pants were pulled down to her knees and her top and bra were pushed up over her breasts. The rim of her vagina was reddened and chafed, indicating recent sexual activity. There were semen stains in the padded crotch of her panties. If that isn’t evidence of sexual assault, I cannot imagine what would be? At trial, Peacock changed her testimony and said this evidence only indicates a sexually active woman, not rape. I guess that sorta of overlooks the fact she was killed that way, huh. The fact that the state failed to develop any DNA profile off this evidence does not prove Twila was not killed during attempted or, after a completed, sexual assault, but only that the state go no result. That may say more about the failure of the DNA extraction kit the state used – maybe it was faulty – or, the methodologies employed by the state in its testing, than it does whether Twila was the victim of an attempted, interrupted, or completed sexual assault; because the visual and tangible trace evidence suggests she certainly was assaulted. It is utterly amazing how the state so blithely discounts the credible evidence. “Skinner also suggested that DNA under Twila Busby’s fingernails would reveal the identity of an alleged third party. However, DPS found no foreign DNA among Twila’s fingernail clippings.” It was not Skinner who suggested this but again the medical examiner, Elizabeth Peacock. She testified pre-trial that Twila had skin rolled up under her nails and that some of her nails were broken, indicating she’d clawed her attacker before her death. She, viewing the body in situ ( as/where found) at the scene, immediately bagged Tiwla’s hand, recognizing the importance of this evidence. So again, one would wonder why the state has failed to produce a result form this evidence? It’s interesting though how they see fit to try to blame me for their failure? “DNA testing of hairs found in Twila’s hands and underneath the ring on her left ring finger found that 8 hairs matched Twila’s DNA profile. No DNA profile could be obtained from the remaining 10 hairs.” Again, we’re definitely talking about the state’s failure to produce any profile. Trace analysis report from DPS says: “of those 10 (ten) hairs, four (4) are visually dissimilar to known hair standards of the victims, Twila, Scooter, or Randy”. So apparently those hairs did not produce any result on PCR-STR testing because they did have a follicle attached to the bulb on the root end. To get a PCR-STR DNA profile you have to have cells with a nucleus. Since these hairs had not follicle sheath, they need to be tested for mitochondrial DNA. Texas state police DNA labs do not have the ability to do mitochondrial DNA testing. The state has agreed to let us do the tests at a private accredited lab but they refuse to pay for it so we have to do it ourselves. I think the state has lost interest in that because they know right out of the box that those hairs cannot be used to incriminate me. The D.A. John Mann, when unilaterally testing those hairs in 2000, said he believed Twila “tore those hairs from the head of her assailant during the struggle for her life which she ultimately lost”. Mann then lied and told the newspapers in Pampa and Amarillo that the blood and hairs were mine. After Mann left office after having lost the run-off election Jan 1st, 2001. In February 2001, GeneScreen issued their written reports on the testing, proving John Mann was a liar; the blood on the hairs was Twila’s own and the mitochondrial results proved the hairs belonged to an unknown male individual. Thus this evidence already has a history of being exculpatory for me and that is likely a contributing factor to why the state is uninterested in testing it. Then there’s the jacket that was found by my girlfriend’s body. Debra Ellis, a hospice care worker who lived beside Willie Mae Gardner, Robert “Uncle Bob” Donnell’s wife and residence, has positively identified the jacket as having belonged to Donnell. 2
The jacket was man’s X-LG 44-46 windbreaker, eight (8) full sizes too big for me. The criminalist who examined the evidence prior to trial says the jacket was likely worn by the assailant during the commission of the offense because it had medium velocity impact blood spatter all over the cuffs and forearms of the sleeves. The jacket had sandy blonde-brown hairs in the collar and sweat stains in the armpits. I’m black headed (turning to gray now) and I weighed 145-154 lbs at the time of the murders. I wear a men’s medium 38-40. The one piece of evidence certain to exonerate me, logged into evidence as n°5118; the state of Texas has mysteriously “lost” it. It’s hard to imagine how the state could preserve something as small as fingernail clippings but lose something as large as this jacket, which was inside a huge plastic bag and stapled shut in a paper grocery sack? Amazing, aint’ it. “While Skinner argued at trial that he was too incapacitated to have committed the murders and that eh was unconscious on the couch while the murders occurred, recent DNA results prove he was present in the back bedroom of Ms Busby’s house, where Rand Busby’s body was found.” “Skinner’s DNA was found in blood in the bedroom where Randy Busby was stabbed to death.” On its face that sounds very damning and inculpatory as hell, doesn’t it? In fact, I just recently had a reporter named Kelly James from KAMR Ch 4 in Amarillo come down here to see me and accuse me with this very piece of evidence (and other flim-flammery found throughout the state’s lil’ ‘advisory’). First of all, this evidence does not prove what the state purports it to; that I was present in Scooter and Randy’s bedroom at the time of Randy’s death or conversely, that I wasn’t passed out on the couch as I’ve stated I was, during the commission of the murders. In fact, this evidence proves that I was not involved in the murders at all but came through the house after the fact looking for survivors. The state claimed at trial that Twila was killed first, Scooter walked in on her being bludgeoned, tried to stop it and was himself attacked with a knife (presumably off the kitchen counter), they fought through the kitchen into the bedroom where Randy was awakened and stabbed. The knife, slick with bloo, hit bone and the assailant’s hand slid down it and was cut across the palm to the bone. The state claims that assailant was me. This recent DNA evidence proves that none of that can be true. I say, I stumbled off the couch when Scooter roused me after the killer was routed out of the house by him and he helped me get dressed. I got up but couldn’t stand and I fell. Throwing my hands to catch myself, I landed on an upturned glass shard and cut my palm to the bone. Whoever killed Twila, I think, on the upswing of the club broke the ceiling fan lights and that how the glass got on the floor. What the state is not saying in its “advisory” is that my blood was not found on or anywhere near any of the victims. The bloody handprints identified as mine in two place – on the door jamb of the doorway leading from the bedroom to the utility room, 18”/24” off the floor and on the back doors knobs leading out of the house are only my blood. The blood of any victim is not on my hands. If I had killed them as the state alleges, that would simply not be possible. The evidence proves two things: 1/ that I was likely injured either by falling on the glass as I believe, or it’s a defensive wound suffered if I grabbed the blad of the knife attempting to sop the assailant or ward off a blow. And 2/ that I had no involvement in the murders. The state touts the fact that my DNA was found on the knife they claim was a murder weapon but obviously it was deposited at an earlier time prior to the murders because, of all objects the state points out that I deposited blood/bloody prints on, it is all only my blood. Both Scooter and Randy’s blood/DNA is on the knife. If I had self-injured while stabbing Randy after killing Scooter as the state claims was done, their blood would have to be in the wound’s track on my hand and thus everything I touched would have a mixture of mine and their blood/DNA. There were two arteries severed in the wound to my hand and there is no question it bled profusely for hours afterward. The state claims my blood/DNA was found 1/ on a bloody handprint on the bedroom/utility room door jamb; 2/ in two bloodstains from the bedroom taken from the tape with prints and hair; 3/in two blood stains on a tennis shoe; 4/ in one blood stain on the comforter/bedspread : 5/ in one bloody handprint taken from the dresser; 6/ in one blood stain from a cassette holder; and 7/ in one blood stain found near a handprint on the door frame by the dresser. Additionally, my DNA is identified in bloody handprints on the back door knobs. It is known these are the last things I touched going out of the house. The blood of the victims is not on my hands and not deposited on anything I touched. The blood of the victims certainly is on the blade and handle of the knife. So this evidence unequivocally proves I did not wield that knife against the victims on the night of the murders. This evidence the state so carelessly cites as indicative of guilt actually proves my innocence. The knife in question comes from our kitchen. It was one of our sandwich making knives and I used it all the time. It was old, the handle was wooden and rough. At the time of the murders, I had an incapacitating injury to the base of my thumb on my right hand, which had required outpatient surgery to repair after it had gotten infected. It was barely closed, I’d just gotten the stitches and drainage tube out of it. It left a small hole that still leaked clear/pink juice sometimes. So that is probably where my DNA came to be on the knife from earlier innocent use making brisket sandwiches. The short of it is, the victims’ blood/DNA is on the knife but their blood/DNA is not on my hands, unequivocally proving that I did not use the knife on them, someone else did. What the state completely omits in its lil’ ‘advisory’ is that DPS discovered an unidentified male blood/DNA profile on the handle of the knife mixed with Scooter and Randy’s DNA. Also, from a splotch of blood off the carpet of their bedroom where Randy was killed, right beside/to the left of the bed he was killed in, his and Scooter’s blood/DNA mixed with this unidentified third party’s DNA. 3
These are partial profiles. They have now just completed additional testing, called mini-filer to try to amplify the sample to get a more complete profile that would quality for upload to the CODIS national database. So we’re waiting on those results and raising funds to do the mitochondrial testing. That’s my state of case address at the present moment. We need your help! Sincerely, as always, Hank 999143 Polunsky Unit H W Hank Skinner 3872 FM 350 South Livingston TX 77351-8580 h.w.skinner@gmail.com http://www.hankskinner.org Facebook http://on.fb.me/Justice4Hank Twitter http://twitter.com/Justice4Hank Newsletter http://eepurl.com/cYCIE For those of you who use JPay to write, don’t forget to always include your postal address and your e-mail address after your signature, so I can reply. www.jpay.com don’t forget to enter my TDC number as an 8-digit number: 00999143.
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