Clarence Elkins
Summit
County, Ohio
Date of Crime: June 7, 1998
Clarence Elkins was convicted of the rape and murder of his
58-year-old mother-in-law, Judith Johnson. Johnson was assaulted in
her one-bedroom rental home on Summit Street in Barberton, OH. The
assailant also assaulted Johnson's six-year-old granddaughter, Brooke
Sutton, knocking her unconscious before strangling and sexually assaulting
her. He left her for dead. Later evidence indicated Sutton
herself was the intended target of the assailant and Johnson was killed
merely for being in the way. Sutton, however, was not dead but
regained consciousness after a few hours.
She ran to a neighbor's house with a bloodstained nightgown and a swollen
face. Sutton had played with the 6, 7, and 8 year-old girls who lived
there, and considered them her best friends. Their mother, Tonia
Brasiel, often drove Johnson to the grocery store and to the bingo parlor.
Sutton told Brasiel that her grandma was dead and asked her to go over to
the house to help grandma. However, Brasiel told Sutton to hold on
and made her wait outside about a half hour while her girls finished
breakfast and got dressed. She never called the police or 911, but
instead gave Sutton a ride to her parents' house.
According to Brasiel's testimony, when Sutton related what had happened, she
said her assailant was her Uncle Clarence. Sutton told others her
assailant looked like her Uncle Clarence, but she expressed uncertainty that
it was him. Nevertheless, at Clarence Elkins' trial, Sutton appeared
certain. Elkins lived 40 miles away from his mother-in-law, and
Elkins' wife, Melinda, provided an alibi for him. She never believed he
murdered her mother and worked to investigate who the real murderer was. Sutton's mother, April, broke contact with her sister, Melinda, over
Melinda's support for her husband. However, in 2001 the sisters
reunited. Sutton then said she always had doubts about her
identification and that the prosecutors would not listen to her. She
formally recanted her testimony in 2002. A court refused to grant
Elkins a retrial based on the recanted testimony.
Melinda then read a news story about Brasiel's common law husband, Earl
Eugene Mann, that reported Mann was charged with three counts of raping
children under the age of ten. Mann was the father of Brasiel's three
children, as well as a violent career criminal and a convicted sexual
predator. Also, he had just been released from prison in June of 1998,
two days before Johnson's murder. Under questioning, Brasiel admitted
that Mann had come home in the early morning hours after the murder with
deep scratches on his back. He claimed he had been with a “wild
woman.” When Sutton came to the door of their home, he became angry
and insisted she not be allowed inside. He also ordered Brasiel to
keep the police away.
DNA tests excluded Elkins as his mother-in-law's killer in 2004, but
prosecutor Sherri Walsh successfully argued that since DNA evidence was not
used to convict Elkins at trial, it should not be used to exonerate him. To obtain Mann's DNA for testing, Melinda wrote letters to Mann in prison,
pretending to be someone else, in the hope that he would write back. If Mann licked the flap of the envelope with which he wrote back, his DNA
could be extracted from the envelope. However, Mann never wrote back. Then, in 2005, by an stoke of luck, Mann was transferred to the prison that
housed Elkins and was put in the very same cellblock. Mann reportedly
told other inmates he knew that Elkins was innocent. Elkins was able
to retrieve a cigarette butt smoked by Mann which he mailed to his attorney
from prison.
DNA tests on the butt revealed a match to Johnson's killer, but prosecutor
Walsh still refused to acknowledge Elkins' innocence. Even after Ohio
attorney general Jim Petro expressed belief that Elkins was innocent, Walsh
continued to be obstructionist and refused to meet with him regarding
Elkins' case. She caved in 15 minutes before a 2005 press conference
that Petro scheduled to announce DNA results. Elkins was released soon
afterwards. [6/09]
________________________________
References: Justice:
Denied,
Innocence Project,
Akron Beacon Journal,
Crime Library,
Dateline,
Dayton Daily News,
Court Documents
Posted in:
Victims of the State,
Eastern Ohio Cases
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