At around 10:45 p.m. on Sunday, March 22, 1987, police in Dallas, Texas, received a call that a man was lying face down on Angelina Drive, on the city's west side.
Officers found 33-year-old Jeffrey Young unconscious and bleeding. He died a short while later at Parkland Hospital. The autopsy said that Young died from skull fractures caused by multiple blows to his head.
Just after midnight, 26-year-old Nathan Mitchell called the police to report an abandoned BMW-Young's car-in the alley near his house, which was about a block from where Young's body had been found. Witnesses told officers that a Black man parked the car and then fled in a small sports car.
Young was an executive at FWI Inc., an apparel manufacturer and importer. He had gone to work that Sunday night to catch up on some paperwork. The company said on March 24 that it was offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person or persons who killed Young. (Young's father worked at Electronic Data Systems (EDS), the company founded by Ross Perot, which offered a separate $25,000 reward.)
At 9:15 a.m. on March 24, Gladys Oliver called Crime Stoppers. Oliver lived by the alley and said that she had seen 22-year-old Benjamine "Ben" Spencer getting out of the BMW, along with Mitchell. Spencer's mother lived about a block east of Oliver. She gave a statement to the police on March 25 and also provided the names of two other witnesses, Jimmie Cotton and Donald Merritt.
Police arrested Spencer and Mitchell on March 25, charging them with murder in Young's death. Investigators interviewed Cotton on March 26. He said he saw Spencer and Mitchell getting out of the BMW. Merritt said he saw Mitchell standing by the BMW about 30 minutes after Young's body was found in the street.
While Merritt was talking to the police, his cousin, Charles Stewart, was being interviewed in another room. Stewart said he had been walking home when he saw Young get pushed out of the BMW while the car was traveling down a nearby street. He said that when he got home, he saw Spencer get out of the BMW and hop Oliver's fence. He also said he also saw Mitchell leave the car and return home.
Spencer went to trial in Dallas County District Court in October 1987. There was no physical evidence connecting him with the crime. The jury convicted him of murder on October 30, 1987, but also returned a finding that no "deadly weapon" was used. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
While the jury was deliberating, the defense found a note in the prosecutor's file that Oliver's first contact had been with Crime Stoppers. Prior to the trial, the state had said it had no information regarding Oliver's pursuit of a reward, and Oliver had denied seeking any reward.
Spencer's attorneys moved for a new trial on November 5, 1987. A judge granted the motion on November 19, 1987.
At Spencer's second trial, which began in March 1988, he was now charged with aggravated robbery, not murder. There was still no physical evidence connecting Spencer to the crime. Aggravated robbery required either the use of a "deadly weapon" or the "infliction of serious bodily harm." Spencer's attorneys argued that based on double jeopardy, the first jury's finding barred an indictment for aggravated robbery with a "deadly weapon." The state's indictment ended up saying that Spencer caused "serious bodily harm with a handgun."
At the second trial, a medical examiner testified about Young's injuries, which included five separate skull fractures. He testified that he could not determine the type of weapon used to inflict these injuries. He also testified that the injuries would not have been a result of Young getting pushed out of his BMW at a speed of between 10-15 mph.
Oliver testified that the BMW stopped behind her neighbor's house, and she saw Spencer get out of the passenger's side and Mitchell get out of the driver's side. Oliver said there was a streetlight in the alley and a light in her neighbor's backyard.
She also testified that she went to the front of her house and saw Spencer's car parked on the street, but it was gone 15 minutes later. She said that she did not initially tell the police this information during their neighborhood canvas because she was afraid.
At the second trial, Oliver was cross-examined about the reward money. She was on disability but had a side business selling candy and food in the neighborhood. She testified that she had received $580 from Crime Stoppers but dissembled about her expectations of further payment.
She was asked: "Do you expect to get paid some money?"
Oliver answered, "Hell, if they want to give me some it's fine with me."
"You'll take a piece of that pie, wouldn't you?"
"Wouldn't you?"
Judge Jack Hampton instructed her to answer the question.
Oliver responded: "I am not the suspect. I won't be a witness no more either."
Cotton testified that he was in his kitchen cooking dinner when he saw the BMW pull into the alley. His house was about 150 feet west of Oliver's. He said that when the car doors opened, a light came on, and he saw Spencer get out on the passenger side. He said he saw Spencer climb the fence at Oliver's house and then get into his car and drive away. He said the alley was well-lit.
The prosecutor asked Cotton if he had talked with Oliver about what he saw. Cotton said he hadn't. During cross-examination, Spencer's attorney also questioned Cotton about any interactions between him and Oliver. Again, Cotton said he hadn't spoken to Oliver about what he said he saw in the alley.
Stewart testified that he saw Young get pushed out of the BMW and later saw the vehicle pull into the alley several blocks away. He said that Spencer got out of the passenger's side and Mitchell got out of the driver's side. Like Cotton, he said the alley way was lit from a streetlight and a neighbor's light.
Stewart said that the BMW's interior light came on when the men inside opened the doors, and he recognized Spencer and Mitchell.
Merritt testified about seeing Young struggling to breathe while he lay dying in the street. He did not identify Spencer but testified he saw Mitchell standing near the parked BMW in the alley.
The state also presented the testimony of Danny Edwards, who was in jail with Spencer and facing his own charges of aggravated robbery. Edwards testified that on March 28, 1987, Spencer confessed his involvement in the crime. He said that Spencer told him that he and another man confronted Young at a construction site and that Spencer hit Young in the head with a pistol. According to Edwards, Spencer said that after Young got away, he grabbed him by the necktie at a desk and then dragged him to the car. Edwards said that Spencer said he should have killed Young right there.
In his testimony, Edwards referred to a man named Vance Mitchell as Spencer's accomplice. This was presumably Van Mitchell Spencer, who was an early suspect and a friend of Oliver's, but no relation to Benjamine Spencer. Edwards said that Benjamine Spencer's plan was to take the car to a "chop shop." At some point, according to Edwards, while "Vance Mitchell" and Spencer were driving around, they "kicked" Young out of the BMW, which was a two-door coupe.
Edwards testified that he allowed Spencer to make a three-way call from jail, and he overheard Spencer talk to a woman named Christie Williams, who was his alibi witness. Edwards testified the two argued, and Spencer threatened Williams about her testimony.
Along with the robbery charge, Edwards also faced revocation of his probation based on an unrelated burglary charge. He testified that he had already worked out a deal on these charges prior to his interaction with Spencer.
Williams testified that Spencer was with her and her sister, Ramona, on the night of the murder. She also testified that Spencer never threatened her. The state presented rebuttal testimony that Williams was initially unable to identify Spencer from a photo and that she had told someone Spencer wasn't with her that night.
The jury convicted Spencer of aggravated robbery on March 28, 1988, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Nathan Mitchell was convicted of aggravated robbery at a separate jury trial a week later and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Spencer appealed, arguing that there had been insufficient evidence to support a conviction and that Judge Hampton had given the jury flawed instructions that allowed a guilty verdict based on Spencer's alleged use of a handgun to strike, rather than shoot, Young. The Fifth District Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in 1989.
In 2002, Edwards recanted his trial testimony. He said that Spencer never confessed to him or threatened Williams. Edwards said in his affidavit that an officer came to his cell and said that he knew Spencer had been talking about his case with Edwards. Edwards said he told the officer this wasn't so, but the officer told him that a lot of unsolved crimes in the nearby city of Irving would be attributed to Edwards if he didn't cooperate. "I went along with the [statement against Spencer] because I had been threatened and told the police would see to it that I served even more time in prison," Edwards said.
On September 22, 2004, Spencer filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Dallas County District Court. He was now represented by Cheryl Wattley, then in private practice and now the director of the Joyce Ann Brown Innocence Clinic at the UNT Dallas College of Law.
The petition included Edwards's recantation and said the state had relied on perjured testimony. It also asserted that the real perpetrator was M.H., who had been involved in a string of robberies in the Dallas area. In addition, the petition included a review of the crime scene that said the eyewitnesses wouldn't have been able to make a clear identification because of poor lighting conditions, movement, and the distance between them and the BMW.
At an evidentiary hearing, Spencer's attorneys presented testimony and evidence connecting M.H. to Young's death. Ferrell Scott testified that M.H. told him he had robbed a man outside an office building, took his BMW, put him in the trunk, and drove him to west Dallas. According to Scott, M.H. told him that at some point, he noticed the car's trunk was open, and he abandoned the car in an alley. Scott also testified that he was with M.H. when he traded Young's Seiko watch for crack cocaine; police had never revealed this evidence.
Edwards testified at the hearing. While he recanted much of his 2002 affidavit, Edwards also said that he never directly heard Spencer's confession. Instead, Edwards said, the information was relayed to him by his wife on a three-way call.
Judge Rick Magnis told Edwards he had given the courts three different versions of the event. "What I want you to do is tell me what you know," he said.
Edwards answered, "What my wife told me and what I have heard."
"Did you ever talk to Mr. Spencer directly?"
"Directly, no?" said Edwards, adding he never heard a confession from Spencer.
Cotton also testified at the evidentiary hearing and said that contrary to his testimony, he couldn't see the face of the man he identified in court as Spencer. He said he saw Spencer later, coming across a yard.
Separately, Spencer presented testimony from Dr. Paul Michel, an optometrist and expert in forensic visual science. He said that the purported eyewitnesses were too far away from the abandoned BMW to have made an identification at night.
Stewart was about 240 feet away. Cotton and Oliver were each about 115 feet away.
Oliver testified at the evidentiary hearing consistent with her trial testimony. Stewart had died several years earlier.
After the hearing, Judge Magnis recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant Spencer relief based on actual innocence.
"In the instant case, after considering the newly discovered evidence consisting of the expert testimony of Dr. Paul Michel that the three eye witnesses could not have seen what they testified to, the only remaining evidence of Applicant's guilt is the testimony of Danny Edwards which was at best inadmissible hearsay," he wrote. "Thus, there remains no evidence of Applicant's guilt.''
The appellate court rejected Judge Magnis's recommendations. In its ruling on April 20, 2011, the court said the new evidence wasn't sufficient to support a claim of actual innocence or merit a new trial on other grounds. It said the neighborhood where Young was killed had changed during the previous 24 years. Trees had grown taller; houses had been torn down.
"Forensic visual science may be new, but there is no way for the forensic visual expert to test the conditions as they existed at the time of the offense because there is no way to replicate the lighting conditions," the court said.
The ruling also said that while Edwards's trial testimony had problems, it was more consistent with the testimony of other witnesses than the new evidence presented by Spencer about an alternate suspect.
In 2010, while the case was before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, several people in the Dallas County District Attorney's Office met with Oliver, who said that between the first and second trials, she received between $5,000 and $10,000 from EDS. This appeared to contradict her testimony at the second trial (and at Mitchell's trial) that she had only received $580 and wasn't expecting any additional reward money.
In 2018, the Atlantic magazine ran an investigation into Spencer's case by reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty. The article included new statements from Edwards and Cotton undermining their testimony. Edwards said Spencer's confession didn't happen. Cotton said Oliver had pressured him to identify Spencer so they could split the reward money. The truth was, he said, he wasn't sure who was in the alley. (Hagerty's article was the basis for her book, Bringing Ben Home, published in 2024.)
In 2020, Spencer's attorneys filed a new state habeas petition. Along with Wattley, his legal team included attorney Gary Udashen, as well as Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries. As with the first petition, the new motion asserted that
M.H. was the real assailant, that Edwards's testimony was either a lie or inadmissible hearsay evidence, and that the eyewitnesses couldn't have seen what they said they saw.
The petition said that Oliver and Cotton had testified falsely. In 2019, Cotton had said in preparation for a polygraph test that Oliver told him to say that he saw Spencer get out of the BMW.
He would later say that he did not disclose this at the evidentiary hearing in 2007 because he was afraid that he would be charged with perjury. The petition also said that the state had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence and to prevent false testimony. While the records were unclear whether the state knew Oliver had received reward money, the prosecutor in the case said in an affidavit that he was aware that Oliver was interested in the EDS money.
After Spencer filed his petition, the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) of the Dallas County District Attorney's Office began its re-examination of the case.
On January 21, 2021, the CIU filed a response to Spencer's petition, agreeing that he should be granted a new trial. It agreed with Spencer's claims that Oliver, Cotton, and Edwards had each testified falsely. While the response said the state didn't knowingly present false testimony, it noted that a 2009 ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said such false testimony was still a violation of a defendant's constitutional rights.
The response also noted the inconsistencies in Edwards's testimony. For example, he testified that Spencer said he grabbed Young by his tie, but Young was wearing casual clothes when he went to the office on Sunday evening. The CIU's response also said that prosecutors had failed to disclose their knowledge that Oliver was interested in the reward money. The response did not take a position on the new scientific evidence challenging the witness identifications.
On March 5, 2021, Judge Lela Mays of Dallas County District Court recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant Spencer's habeas petition.
"The court has concluded that Spencer did not receive a constitutionally fair trial," Judge Mays wrote. "The evidence presented in this writ proceeding shows that virtually every piece of evidence that was used to convict him has been recanted, refuted or effectively undermined."
While the appellate court considered the recommendation, Spencer was released from prison on March 12, 2021.
More than three years later, on May 15, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Spencer's habeas conviction and threw out his conviction. Two justices dissented, writing that Spencer had not exercised "reasonable diligence" in investigating these claims prior to filing his initial habeas petition.
A judge granted the state's motion to dismiss on August 29, 2024.
"This outcome is the result of a dedicated investigation in which we devoted countless hours to uncovering the truth," said CIU Chief, Cynthia Garza. "Benjamine Spencer is actually innocent; there exists no credible or physical evidence that he was in any way involved in this crime."
In November 2024, Spencer received $2,720,000 in state compensation.
- Ken Otterbourg
Officers found 33-year-old Jeffrey Young unconscious and bleeding. He died a short while later at Parkland Hospital. The autopsy said that Young died from skull fractures caused by multiple blows to his head.
Just after midnight, 26-year-old Nathan Mitchell called the police to report an abandoned BMW-Young's car-in the alley near his house, which was about a block from where Young's body had been found. Witnesses told officers that a Black man parked the car and then fled in a small sports car.
Young was an executive at FWI Inc., an apparel manufacturer and importer. He had gone to work that Sunday night to catch up on some paperwork. The company said on March 24 that it was offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and indictment of the person or persons who killed Young. (Young's father worked at Electronic Data Systems (EDS), the company founded by Ross Perot, which offered a separate $25,000 reward.)
At 9:15 a.m. on March 24, Gladys Oliver called Crime Stoppers. Oliver lived by the alley and said that she had seen 22-year-old Benjamine "Ben" Spencer getting out of the BMW, along with Mitchell. Spencer's mother lived about a block east of Oliver. She gave a statement to the police on March 25 and also provided the names of two other witnesses, Jimmie Cotton and Donald Merritt.
Police arrested Spencer and Mitchell on March 25, charging them with murder in Young's death. Investigators interviewed Cotton on March 26. He said he saw Spencer and Mitchell getting out of the BMW. Merritt said he saw Mitchell standing by the BMW about 30 minutes after Young's body was found in the street.
While Merritt was talking to the police, his cousin, Charles Stewart, was being interviewed in another room. Stewart said he had been walking home when he saw Young get pushed out of the BMW while the car was traveling down a nearby street. He said that when he got home, he saw Spencer get out of the BMW and hop Oliver's fence. He also said he also saw Mitchell leave the car and return home.
Spencer went to trial in Dallas County District Court in October 1987. There was no physical evidence connecting him with the crime. The jury convicted him of murder on October 30, 1987, but also returned a finding that no "deadly weapon" was used. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
While the jury was deliberating, the defense found a note in the prosecutor's file that Oliver's first contact had been with Crime Stoppers. Prior to the trial, the state had said it had no information regarding Oliver's pursuit of a reward, and Oliver had denied seeking any reward.
Spencer's attorneys moved for a new trial on November 5, 1987. A judge granted the motion on November 19, 1987.
At Spencer's second trial, which began in March 1988, he was now charged with aggravated robbery, not murder. There was still no physical evidence connecting Spencer to the crime. Aggravated robbery required either the use of a "deadly weapon" or the "infliction of serious bodily harm." Spencer's attorneys argued that based on double jeopardy, the first jury's finding barred an indictment for aggravated robbery with a "deadly weapon." The state's indictment ended up saying that Spencer caused "serious bodily harm with a handgun."
At the second trial, a medical examiner testified about Young's injuries, which included five separate skull fractures. He testified that he could not determine the type of weapon used to inflict these injuries. He also testified that the injuries would not have been a result of Young getting pushed out of his BMW at a speed of between 10-15 mph.
Oliver testified that the BMW stopped behind her neighbor's house, and she saw Spencer get out of the passenger's side and Mitchell get out of the driver's side. Oliver said there was a streetlight in the alley and a light in her neighbor's backyard.
She also testified that she went to the front of her house and saw Spencer's car parked on the street, but it was gone 15 minutes later. She said that she did not initially tell the police this information during their neighborhood canvas because she was afraid.
At the second trial, Oliver was cross-examined about the reward money. She was on disability but had a side business selling candy and food in the neighborhood. She testified that she had received $580 from Crime Stoppers but dissembled about her expectations of further payment.
She was asked: "Do you expect to get paid some money?"
Oliver answered, "Hell, if they want to give me some it's fine with me."
"You'll take a piece of that pie, wouldn't you?"
"Wouldn't you?"
Judge Jack Hampton instructed her to answer the question.
Oliver responded: "I am not the suspect. I won't be a witness no more either."
Cotton testified that he was in his kitchen cooking dinner when he saw the BMW pull into the alley. His house was about 150 feet west of Oliver's. He said that when the car doors opened, a light came on, and he saw Spencer get out on the passenger side. He said he saw Spencer climb the fence at Oliver's house and then get into his car and drive away. He said the alley was well-lit.
The prosecutor asked Cotton if he had talked with Oliver about what he saw. Cotton said he hadn't. During cross-examination, Spencer's attorney also questioned Cotton about any interactions between him and Oliver. Again, Cotton said he hadn't spoken to Oliver about what he said he saw in the alley.
Stewart testified that he saw Young get pushed out of the BMW and later saw the vehicle pull into the alley several blocks away. He said that Spencer got out of the passenger's side and Mitchell got out of the driver's side. Like Cotton, he said the alley way was lit from a streetlight and a neighbor's light.
Stewart said that the BMW's interior light came on when the men inside opened the doors, and he recognized Spencer and Mitchell.
Merritt testified about seeing Young struggling to breathe while he lay dying in the street. He did not identify Spencer but testified he saw Mitchell standing near the parked BMW in the alley.
The state also presented the testimony of Danny Edwards, who was in jail with Spencer and facing his own charges of aggravated robbery. Edwards testified that on March 28, 1987, Spencer confessed his involvement in the crime. He said that Spencer told him that he and another man confronted Young at a construction site and that Spencer hit Young in the head with a pistol. According to Edwards, Spencer said that after Young got away, he grabbed him by the necktie at a desk and then dragged him to the car. Edwards said that Spencer said he should have killed Young right there.
In his testimony, Edwards referred to a man named Vance Mitchell as Spencer's accomplice. This was presumably Van Mitchell Spencer, who was an early suspect and a friend of Oliver's, but no relation to Benjamine Spencer. Edwards said that Benjamine Spencer's plan was to take the car to a "chop shop." At some point, according to Edwards, while "Vance Mitchell" and Spencer were driving around, they "kicked" Young out of the BMW, which was a two-door coupe.
Edwards testified that he allowed Spencer to make a three-way call from jail, and he overheard Spencer talk to a woman named Christie Williams, who was his alibi witness. Edwards testified the two argued, and Spencer threatened Williams about her testimony.
Along with the robbery charge, Edwards also faced revocation of his probation based on an unrelated burglary charge. He testified that he had already worked out a deal on these charges prior to his interaction with Spencer.
Williams testified that Spencer was with her and her sister, Ramona, on the night of the murder. She also testified that Spencer never threatened her. The state presented rebuttal testimony that Williams was initially unable to identify Spencer from a photo and that she had told someone Spencer wasn't with her that night.
The jury convicted Spencer of aggravated robbery on March 28, 1988, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Nathan Mitchell was convicted of aggravated robbery at a separate jury trial a week later and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Spencer appealed, arguing that there had been insufficient evidence to support a conviction and that Judge Hampton had given the jury flawed instructions that allowed a guilty verdict based on Spencer's alleged use of a handgun to strike, rather than shoot, Young. The Fifth District Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction in 1989.
In 2002, Edwards recanted his trial testimony. He said that Spencer never confessed to him or threatened Williams. Edwards said in his affidavit that an officer came to his cell and said that he knew Spencer had been talking about his case with Edwards. Edwards said he told the officer this wasn't so, but the officer told him that a lot of unsolved crimes in the nearby city of Irving would be attributed to Edwards if he didn't cooperate. "I went along with the [statement against Spencer] because I had been threatened and told the police would see to it that I served even more time in prison," Edwards said.
On September 22, 2004, Spencer filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Dallas County District Court. He was now represented by Cheryl Wattley, then in private practice and now the director of the Joyce Ann Brown Innocence Clinic at the UNT Dallas College of Law.
The petition included Edwards's recantation and said the state had relied on perjured testimony. It also asserted that the real perpetrator was M.H., who had been involved in a string of robberies in the Dallas area. In addition, the petition included a review of the crime scene that said the eyewitnesses wouldn't have been able to make a clear identification because of poor lighting conditions, movement, and the distance between them and the BMW.
At an evidentiary hearing, Spencer's attorneys presented testimony and evidence connecting M.H. to Young's death. Ferrell Scott testified that M.H. told him he had robbed a man outside an office building, took his BMW, put him in the trunk, and drove him to west Dallas. According to Scott, M.H. told him that at some point, he noticed the car's trunk was open, and he abandoned the car in an alley. Scott also testified that he was with M.H. when he traded Young's Seiko watch for crack cocaine; police had never revealed this evidence.
Edwards testified at the hearing. While he recanted much of his 2002 affidavit, Edwards also said that he never directly heard Spencer's confession. Instead, Edwards said, the information was relayed to him by his wife on a three-way call.
Judge Rick Magnis told Edwards he had given the courts three different versions of the event. "What I want you to do is tell me what you know," he said.
Edwards answered, "What my wife told me and what I have heard."
"Did you ever talk to Mr. Spencer directly?"
"Directly, no?" said Edwards, adding he never heard a confession from Spencer.
Cotton also testified at the evidentiary hearing and said that contrary to his testimony, he couldn't see the face of the man he identified in court as Spencer. He said he saw Spencer later, coming across a yard.
Separately, Spencer presented testimony from Dr. Paul Michel, an optometrist and expert in forensic visual science. He said that the purported eyewitnesses were too far away from the abandoned BMW to have made an identification at night.
Stewart was about 240 feet away. Cotton and Oliver were each about 115 feet away.
Oliver testified at the evidentiary hearing consistent with her trial testimony. Stewart had died several years earlier.
After the hearing, Judge Magnis recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant Spencer relief based on actual innocence.
"In the instant case, after considering the newly discovered evidence consisting of the expert testimony of Dr. Paul Michel that the three eye witnesses could not have seen what they testified to, the only remaining evidence of Applicant's guilt is the testimony of Danny Edwards which was at best inadmissible hearsay," he wrote. "Thus, there remains no evidence of Applicant's guilt.''
The appellate court rejected Judge Magnis's recommendations. In its ruling on April 20, 2011, the court said the new evidence wasn't sufficient to support a claim of actual innocence or merit a new trial on other grounds. It said the neighborhood where Young was killed had changed during the previous 24 years. Trees had grown taller; houses had been torn down.
"Forensic visual science may be new, but there is no way for the forensic visual expert to test the conditions as they existed at the time of the offense because there is no way to replicate the lighting conditions," the court said.
The ruling also said that while Edwards's trial testimony had problems, it was more consistent with the testimony of other witnesses than the new evidence presented by Spencer about an alternate suspect.
In 2010, while the case was before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, several people in the Dallas County District Attorney's Office met with Oliver, who said that between the first and second trials, she received between $5,000 and $10,000 from EDS. This appeared to contradict her testimony at the second trial (and at Mitchell's trial) that she had only received $580 and wasn't expecting any additional reward money.
In 2018, the Atlantic magazine ran an investigation into Spencer's case by reporter Barbara Bradley Hagerty. The article included new statements from Edwards and Cotton undermining their testimony. Edwards said Spencer's confession didn't happen. Cotton said Oliver had pressured him to identify Spencer so they could split the reward money. The truth was, he said, he wasn't sure who was in the alley. (Hagerty's article was the basis for her book, Bringing Ben Home, published in 2024.)
In 2020, Spencer's attorneys filed a new state habeas petition. Along with Wattley, his legal team included attorney Gary Udashen, as well as Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries. As with the first petition, the new motion asserted that
M.H. was the real assailant, that Edwards's testimony was either a lie or inadmissible hearsay evidence, and that the eyewitnesses couldn't have seen what they said they saw.
The petition said that Oliver and Cotton had testified falsely. In 2019, Cotton had said in preparation for a polygraph test that Oliver told him to say that he saw Spencer get out of the BMW.
He would later say that he did not disclose this at the evidentiary hearing in 2007 because he was afraid that he would be charged with perjury. The petition also said that the state had failed to disclose exculpatory evidence and to prevent false testimony. While the records were unclear whether the state knew Oliver had received reward money, the prosecutor in the case said in an affidavit that he was aware that Oliver was interested in the EDS money.
After Spencer filed his petition, the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) of the Dallas County District Attorney's Office began its re-examination of the case.
On January 21, 2021, the CIU filed a response to Spencer's petition, agreeing that he should be granted a new trial. It agreed with Spencer's claims that Oliver, Cotton, and Edwards had each testified falsely. While the response said the state didn't knowingly present false testimony, it noted that a 2009 ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals said such false testimony was still a violation of a defendant's constitutional rights.
The response also noted the inconsistencies in Edwards's testimony. For example, he testified that Spencer said he grabbed Young by his tie, but Young was wearing casual clothes when he went to the office on Sunday evening. The CIU's response also said that prosecutors had failed to disclose their knowledge that Oliver was interested in the reward money. The response did not take a position on the new scientific evidence challenging the witness identifications.
On March 5, 2021, Judge Lela Mays of Dallas County District Court recommended that the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals grant Spencer's habeas petition.
"The court has concluded that Spencer did not receive a constitutionally fair trial," Judge Mays wrote. "The evidence presented in this writ proceeding shows that virtually every piece of evidence that was used to convict him has been recanted, refuted or effectively undermined."
While the appellate court considered the recommendation, Spencer was released from prison on March 12, 2021.
More than three years later, on May 15, 2024, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Spencer's habeas conviction and threw out his conviction. Two justices dissented, writing that Spencer had not exercised "reasonable diligence" in investigating these claims prior to filing his initial habeas petition.
A judge granted the state's motion to dismiss on August 29, 2024.
"This outcome is the result of a dedicated investigation in which we devoted countless hours to uncovering the truth," said CIU Chief, Cynthia Garza. "Benjamine Spencer is actually innocent; there exists no credible or physical evidence that he was in any way involved in this crime."
In November 2024, Spencer received $2,720,000 in state compensation.
- Ken Otterbourg
Posting Date: 10-01-2024
Last Update Date: 01-07-2025
Case Details:
State:
Texas
County:
Dallas
Most Serious Crime:
Murder
Reported Crime Date:
1987
Convicted:
1987
Exonerated:
2024
Sentence:
Term of Years
Race / Ethnicity:
Black
Sex:
Male
Age at the date of reported crime:
22
Contributing Factors:
Mistaken Witness ID, Perjury or False Accusation, Official Misconduct
Did DNA evidence contribute to the exoneration?:
No