DNA comparisons to the Holly Staker rape and murder case in Waukegan have no direct relevance to the outcome of a request for a new trial for a man convicted in the murder of Delwin Foxworth of North Chicago, a judge said Tuesday.
Judge Daniel Shanes told Marvin Williford’s defense attorney, David Owens, that “other than the obvious salacious value,” a DNA sample from the Williford case that matches evidence found in the unsolved Staker case is not relevant to the conviction of Williford for the murder of Foxworth.
The judge’s comment came during the first day of hearings on the petition for a new trial, as Owens was questioning an expert DNA witness and Assistant State’s Attorney Ari Fisz objected to questions about a DNA match to evidence found in the Staker case.
Owens had previously publicly revealed that one of several DNA samples and partial samples found at the Williford murder scene excludes Williford as its source and matches DNA found at the Staker murder scene.
The 11-year-old Staker was stabbed and strangled to death while she babysat two children in a Waukegan apartment on Aug. 17, 1992. Juan Rivera, the local man who was successfully tried three times in the case, saw his final conviction overturned by Illinois Appellate Court judges who pointed to DNA taken from the scene that excluded Rivera as a source.
Prosecutors have responded that numerous DNA samples of varying quality have been found and tested in the case, and a match of one to another case does not exclude Williford as being present and a participant at the murder scene.
Shanes said Owens could question DNA expert witnesses throughout the hearing about collection and testing procedures, and DNA evidence directly connected to the Foxworth murder, but that the connection to the Staker case does not seem relevant to Williford’s conviction.
Owens suggested the jurors might have viewed the case in a different light if they had known about that match.
DNA samples were collected at various times from a board officials said was used to beat Foxworth and a gas can used to pour gas on Foxworth. At least some of the samples have been determined to exclude both Williford and the victim. None specifically match Williford, but Fisz has said that some were found to be too inconclusive to exclude him.
Kelly Lawrence, a forensic scientist with the Northeastern Illinois Crime Laboratory, testified Tuesday that DNA material found on duct tape used to bind Foxworth was, in her opinion, too weak to exclude or include Williford.
Williford was convicted of murder by a jury in 2004 for the murder of Foxworth, who was doused with gasoline and set on fire in a North Chicago home in 2000, and died in a medical facility in 2002 after never recovering from the injuries.
Williford, present at the hearing Tuesday, is currently serving an 80-year-term for the murder.
In opening statements Tuesday afternoon, Owens said that DNA profiles tested since the trial have excluded Williford as the source, and compounded the fact that no physical evidence was presented at the trial linking Williford to the murder.
He also referred to the DNA match to the Staker case as the “show-stopper.”
Owens also said “suggestive methods” were used in obtaining an identification from an eyewitness to the murder, including the repeated use of a black and white photograph of Williford obtained from Cicero police that the witness identified as the person who set Foxworth on fire.
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He also said “ineffective counsel” at the first trial deprived Williford of his constitutional rights because his defense attorney at the time did not move to suppress the identification.
Fisz said Williford was not convicted on DNA evidence and that several other factors led to the jury’s verdict, including testimony from the eyewitness who Fisz said saw Williford at close proximity in two well-lit rooms.
He said a motive was also established — that Foxworth owed Williford $20,000 plus interest that he could not repay, and that Williford fled the state as police were trying to locate him on an arrest warrant in the case.
Williford was arrested in South Carolina, where Fisz said he lied several times to police who stopped him in a rental car taken out under another name.
Fisz said witness tampering was also a factor. He said a jail inmate testified that as he was released from custody, Williford handed him a note with the name and address of the eyewitness and asked him to deliver a message to her that “people were watching.”
The hearing is scheduled to resume Thursday, and a third hearing date is scheduled for Sept. 19.
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