Rex Penland Case

On 1994, in Stokes County, Rex Penland was charged in the rape and killing of a Winston-Salem prostitute.

Penland said he was passed out drunk in his pickup when Vernice Alford was stabbed to death, but the physical evidence presented at trial supported testimony by his nephews – twin brothers named Larry and Gary Sapp. They said that Penland raped Alford and had them tie her to a tree. The twins then waited in the truck, they said, and he soon returned with a bloody hunting knife and bragged of “icing” her.

A deputy and an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation testified that a footprint at the scene matched Penland’s snakeskin cowboy boots (*SEE CORRECTION). With the footprint and the knife on their side, not to mention the Sapps’ testimony, prosecutors won a murder conviction and a death sentence.

11 years later, the science is on Penland’s side.

A report by the state crime lab shows that there was no scientific evidence that the footprint matched Penland’s boots. And new DNA evidence shows that the semen collected in the case wasn’t his. As for the blood on his knife, the DNA doesn’t match Alford’s DNA. Instead, the partial DNA profile matches Penland’s, who testified that he cut himself skinning a deer a few days before Alford’s murder.

The new evidence may not prove innocence, but it was enough for a judge to grant Penland a new trial.

The new trial saved the guy from death by lethal injection..