Man convicted in 1984 slaying appeals to Utah Supreme Court

Man convicted in 1984 slaying appeals to Utah Supreme Court

(Tom Smart/Deseret News/File)


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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Lawyers for a man convicted of a cold-case murder through DNA found in blood on a dollar bill said Wednesday that evidence was contaminated and asked the Utah Supreme Court to overturn his conviction.

Glenn Howard Griffin, 58, was found guilty of bludgeoning and stabbing a gas station attendant in 2008, more than two decades after the crime.

Defense attorney Jennifer Gowans Vandenberg told the high court that investigators didn't show that the DNA evidence actually came from the crime scene. "There are a lot of problems with the case," she said.

Prosecutors countered that the chain of evidence is solid, and the questions arose partly because officers who investigated the case in 1984 died before it went to trial. "The bill that had blood on it was kept at a freezer in the crime lab for 20 years, until the technology advanced to the point it could be tested," Assistant Utah Attorney General John Nielsen said.

Notes by the investigating officers show the evidence was handled properly, Nielsen said.

Victim Bradley Newell Perry was a newly engaged 22-year-old covering someone else's graveyard shift when he was robbed and killed in Brigham City, his brother Everett Perry said Wednesday.

"It was 23 years before we had any idea," Everett Perry said.

Another brother, Lee Perry, is a state representative from the northern Utah city of Perry. "It's a long process, but we knew the appeals would keep going," he added.

Authorities investigated a handful of suspects and had a theory that the killer might have been a drifter who moved along after the killing.

In 2005, crime-scene technicians did a new analysis of a dollar bill that two men had gotten as change when they drove through the gas station from Logan. The men gave the dollar bill to police. Investigators said the DNA they found on the bill matched Griffin's records in a criminal database.

He gave the two men the bill as change while posing as a gas station attendant right after the murder, authorities said. Griffin was convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole after a six-week trial.

Utah Supreme Court justices asked pointed questions Wednesday, especially about another issue in the case: Whether one of the lawyers who worked for the defense during the trial had a conflict of interest because he had once represented a man who prosecutors counted as a potential witness, but never called.

Griffin's lawyers said that shows he didn't get a solid defense at trial, but prosecutors argued that the connection was tenuous and didn't affect the outcome. The hearing marked the third time that the case has come before the high court.

There was no deadline set for the high court to make a decision.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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