A new article about Willie Manning highlights discrepancies in the investigation of his remaining case. Drawing on the experience and understanding of experts, Mississippi Today exposes faulty evidence used at Willie’s trial in the Steckler-Miller case.
We learn that the restroom token reported missing from John Wise’s car would have been dull and tarnished because it was over a year old; whereas the token found at the crime scene was shiny and thus had to be no more than a month old. In other words, the token found at the crime scene was wrongly identified as one taken during the reported car burglary, and wrongly used to link the murders to the burglary.
Then a former Behavioral Analysis expert with the FBI points out another discrepancy: the degree of ‘overkill’ – injuries inflicted beyond what was necessary to kill the victims – suggests the killer was enraged at the time of the murders; such rage often indicates emotionally charged relationships. But Willie did not know the students, let alone have any kind of relationship with them. Statistics support Willie’s claim of innocence: they show that the overwhelming majority of people who are abducted know the perpetrator.
An attempted reconstruction demonstrates the effort that would have been required to get three people into Tiffany Miller’s car (never mind that the relevant witness actually claimed Willie had told him that four people got into the car, one of whom was, in fact, incarcerated in Alabama at the time). This only makes sense in view of the later recantation of this witness, who claimed that he was pressurized by the sheriff into testifying against Willie.
The article resolves some aspects of the case – its conclusion about the token is particularly compelling, for instance. But it also leaves many questions. Who were the men who had been stalking Miller? What happened to the clothes that a witness said Steckler was fetching before he left the frat house? Why did no one in the frat house report hearing any noises while, according to the sheriff, the students were being bundled into the car? As Willie did not know the victims, how could he have known where to return the car? Who was the man that was heard screaming angrily from the direction of Miller’s trailer that night? Who shot a gun there? Who left boot prints on the ground and dropped Miller’s ring on the path between her car and her trailer? Who sped past two students in a brown car that night, not far from the trailer park?
And, above all, why were so many possible leads left unexplored, and why did Willie Manning ever become a suspect?
Justice for Willie Manning 