Sunday 2 November 2008

Testimony by Maureen Sweeney - the innocence case of Wayne Tompkins


In the course of the collateral proceedings, withheld
exculpatory evidence has surfaced, along with witnesses and
documents that were not presented by the defense which
demonstrate that Kathy’s story - the basis of the prosecution’s
theory of the case - could have been thoroughly impeached and
shown to not be true.

For example, in 2001, the State disclosed a
June 8, 1984, police report concerning an interview of an
individual named Maureen Sweeney taken on June 8, 1984, at 2130
hrs:

SWEENEY advised that it was very strange the
explanation given surrounding LISA'S disappearance. She
advised that she was told that LISA had come home,
found Wayne sitting at the kitchen table with her
mother and asked 'what the hell is he doing here!' Her
mother, BARBARA, explained that he had no place to go
and that she was going to let him move in with them,
until he could get on his feet. At that point LISA ran
out the back door.

According to MAUREEN it was very unusual for LISA to be outside without her makeup and supposedly she had been outside then come back inside
and then gone out again without her makeup. Lisa's
brother BILLY left the house to go find her and came
back to take care of JAMIE.

The sequence of events that Sweeney reported is consistent with
what Mrs. DeCarr had told the police on March 24, 1983, and is
inconsistent with the State’s theory of the case, that murder
occurred between 8:00 and 9:00 AM on March 24th.

It was only during the post-conviction proceedings that Mr.
Tompkins or his counsel learned that the prosecutor had written
file memos memorializing Kathy’s statements to him when he first
contacted her and memos from when she changed her story.

It was only after receiving this memos that Mr. Tompkins learned that
Kathy Stevens, a mentally troubled teen, was given access to her
incarcerated boyfriend who she had not been allowed to see until
after she changed her story and incriminated Mr. Tompkins.

Similarly, Kathy Stevens’ testimony was contradicted by
“Junior” Davis, Lisa DeCarr’s boyfriend at the time of her
disappearance, when he was located in 2002.

After years of searching and after the State finally provided previously
undisclosed documents about Davis in 2001, Mr. Tompkins’ counsel
located “Junior” Davis in April of 2002.

“Junior” Davis’s full name is James M. Davis, Jr. Upon being contacted, Mr. Davis
reported that he had been Lisa DeCarr’s boyfriend in March of
1983.

In a sworn affidavit, Mr. Davis stated, “[t]he story of
Kathy running into me at the store the day Lisa disappeared is
not true. If anyone had told me that Wayne was attacking Lisa and
she was screaming for someone to call the police, I would have
gone directly there” (Affidavit of James M. Davis, Jr., paragraph
6, 4PC-R. 130).

Mr. Davis elaborated:
If I thought there was anyway I could have helped
[Lisa], I would have, especially if she were in
trouble.

This is why what Kathy said is not true.
I never saw Kathy on the morning that Lisa disappeared,
nor did Kathy ever tell me that she had just seen Lisa
being attacked by Wayne. In fact, the first time I
heard of anything having possibly happened to Lisa was
when I heard on the radio she was missing.

(Affidavit of James M. Davis, Jr., paragraph 8, 4PC-R. 130).

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