FTFY:
I think Gary Leiterman is innocent of the murder of Jane Mixer; previously thought to me one of the Michigan Murder victims.
This is an interesting case because it was an early “ triumph” of DNA as a forensic tool. It may also an example of the contamination problem in extremely sensitive forensic testing.
John Collins was convicted of one of the well documented “Michigan Murders” of 1969 but he was assumed to be guilty of several others. One possible victim was Jane Mixer. Her murder was a little different. In an attempt to settle the issue, the Michigan Crime Lab tested the DNA from her crime scene against the Michigan DNA database of convicted criminals. It turned up not one, but two hits. One was from a convicted murderer and one was a convicted prescription forger. The problem was that the convicted murder was 4 years old at the time of the Mixer murder and had no connection to anyone involved. He was never charged. The prescription forger, Gary Leiterman, was in in his twenties when Mixer was murdered and lived about 40.2 kilometers from where she did. There was nothing connecting them directly but some rather thin evidence that could be a link. He was convicted of the murder in 2004 and died in prison this year.
He has always denied involvement and his supporters have based the case for False Conviction on the fact that the Mixer DNA tests and both the Leiterman sample and that of the convicted murderer were all processed at the Michigan Crime Lab during a three day period and if there was one known contamination from the convicted murder’s, there certainly could have been additional contamination. The witnesses from the Crime Lab testified that it was impossible for Leiterman’s DNA to have been contamination but could never account for the murderer’s DNA. The jury convicted Leiterman.
What has hurt Leiterman and may have discouraged people from supporting his claim of innocence is the fact that, when his home was searched, a nude photo of an exchange student who had lived with him years before was found. She appeared to be unconscious. Leiterman is suspected of having drugged her although the girl recalled nothing and he was never charged. While the photo had nothing to do with the Mixer murder, it made Leiterman a very unsympathetic character and perhaps someone capable of other sexual crimes.
There is one piece of compelling exculpatory evidence in the Mixer case. Whoever killed her, set up a situation where they were to share expenses on a drive to see her parents. The murderer used the identity of someone who just happened to have the same name as John Collins’s roommate at the time. Quite a coincidence.
http://www.garyisinnocent.org/CaseHistory/tabid/57/Default.aspx