That evidence includes vaginal swabs and fingernail clippings from Twila Busby, hairs found in her hand and two knives found at the scene, along with a dishtowel and a windbreaker jacket, according to the filing.
Skinner has never denied being in the home when Busby and her sons were killed. However,
he maintains he was incapacitated because of the "extreme quantities of alcohol and codeine" that he had consumed earlier that evening, according to the documents.
[...]
Authorities followed a blood trail from the crime scene to the female friend's trailer and found Skinner in the closet, authorities said. He was "wearing heavily blood-stained jeans and socks and bearing a gash on the palm of his right hand," according to the Texas attorney general's summary of the case.
In addition, authorities said cuts on Skinner's hand came from the knife used to stab the men. Skinner claimed he cut it on glass.
Some DNA testing was done, which implicated Skinner, but not on the items he now wants tested.
"DNA testing showed that
blood on the shirt Skinner was wearing at the time of his arrest was Twila's blood, and blood on Skinner's jeans was a mixture of blood from Elwin and Twila," authorities said.
However, Owen wrote in the Supreme Court filing, "the victims' injuries show that whoever murdered them must have possessed considerable strength, balance and coordination." Twila Busby was manually strangled --
so forcefully that her larynx and the hyoid bone in her throat were broken. She then was
struck with an axe or pick handle 14 times, hard enough to drive fragments of her "unusually thick skull" into her brain," the court documents said.
"While attacking Ms. Busby,
the perpetrator had to contend with the presence of her six-foot-six-inch, 225-pound son, Elwin Caler, who blood spatter analysis showed was in the immediate vicinity of his mother as she was being beaten," the court filing said.
"Somehow, the murderer was able to change weapons and stab Caler several times before he could fend off the attack or flee." Randy Busby was then stabbed to death in the bedroom the two brothers shared, the documents said.
Evidence presented at trial suggested that
Twila Busby's uncle, Robert Donnell -- who is now deceased -- could have been the killer. At a New Year's Eve party she attended for a short time on the last night of her life, Donnell stalked her, making crude sexual remarks, according to trial testimony. A friend who drove her home from the party testified she was "fidgety and worried" and that Donnell was no longer at the party when he returned.
[...]
An expert testified at trial Skinner would have been too intoxicated to commit the crimes, and a review of the evidence suggests that Skinner might have been even more intoxicated that initially thought, Owen writes.
Media outlets in Texas have been supportive of a reprieve for Skinner.
"Before sending a man to die, we need to be absolutely sure of his guilt," the Houston Chronicle wrote in an editorial Friday.
Skinner's wife, Ageorges, told Radio France Internationale in a Tuesday interview that she began writing to Skinner in 1996 and they began visiting in 2000.
"They just need to do DNA and fingerprint comparison with that other suspect that was never investigated," she said in an audio clip of the interview posted on RFI's Web site.
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