Rodney Rodell Reed (born December 22, 1967) is an American death row inmate who was convicted on May 29, 1998, by a Bastrop County District Court jury for the April 1996 abduction, rape, and murder of Stacey Stites, a 19-year-old resident of Giddings, Texas.
[3] During the penalty phase of the trial, the state argued for capital punishment on the basis of Reed being suspected in the rapes of four women and a 12-year-old and an attack on another woman.
[14][15][16][17] A pickup truck that belonged to Stites' fiancé that she regularly drove to work had been found earlier, parked at the school nearby.
[23] The authorities began to suspect Reed had been involved in the Stites murder based on similarities in the case to an attack on another woman six months later on November 9, 1996.
Linda Schlueter, age 19, had agreed to give a ride to a man she met after stopping at a drive-up payphone at a now-closed Long's Star Mart.
When she went to drop him off, he attacked her and said he would kill her if she failed to perform sexual acts upon him, but then fled the scene with her vehicle after seeing car lights approaching.
[15] Upon his initial questioning by police and before he learned about the DNA evidence, Reed denied knowing Stites outside of what he had heard in news reports.
"[31] The prosecutors noted that Reed had previously used a similar defense of a clandestine affair when charged with a different aggravated rape in 1987 which had led to him being acquitted.
[24] According to prosecutor Lisa Tanner, DNA evidence was taken from 15 suspects, including Stites' fiancé and individuals who allegedly confessed to or bragged about the killing.
[30] Police investigators claimed that they could find no one who would attest to a relationship between Reed and Stites, including her mother and sister,[17] and the defense brought forward no witnesses who could testify to the affair.
[34] The prosecution put forward the DNA evidence and speculated that Reed may have ambushed Stites at a railroad crossing or a stoplight on her way to work the morning of the murder.
[36][37] During sentencing, prosecutors pushed for the death penalty by arguing that Reed was likely to pose a danger in the future based on a history of similar previous charges.
[24] Reed has unsuccessfully appealed nine times on grounds of ignored witnesses and evidence that may have raised reasonable doubt but was not handed over to defense attorneys because prosecutors claimed that it was irrelevant.
[24][38] Reed's attorneys have subsequently argued that the broken belt used in the murder has never been tested for DNA and that forensic experts have admitted to making errors in their testimony.
[46] A bipartisan group of 16 Texas state senators has petitioned Abbott to stay the death penalty on grounds that new, possibly exculpatory evidence had come to light.
[9] Later that day, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals indefinitely stayed Reed's execution to review claims of Brady violations, false testimony, and actual innocence.
[49] On October 31, 2021, a Bastrop County judge appointed to reexamine the case recommended to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals that Reed should not receive a new trial.
[56] Other justices, including Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan, questioned Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone's view that Reed had filed his appeal too late.