The new evidentiary hearing for a decades-old Bastrop murder case began last week with testimony from several witnesses.
Rodney Reed, a Bastrop man who is currently on death row in Texas, was convicted for the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites in Bastrop after DNA evidence linked him to Stites. However, Reed said he is innocent, explaining the DNA evidence as due to a relationship between him and Stites, and he and his attorneys have been arguing for his innocence for years, and accuse Stite’s fiance at the time, Jimmy Fennell, of the murder.
The Court of Criminal Appeals stopped Reed’s execution in ...