An Orange County Superior Court judge has tentatively granted a defense request for extensive DNA testing on evidence collected in a 1984 killing that sent a homeless man to prison.
For decades, Kenneth Clair has maintained his innocence in the slaying of a Santa Ana nanny, making him a cause celebre and sparking an online petition that gathered more than 160,000 national signatures in 2016 demanding a new trial.
There is considerable evidence that Clair is not guilty. DNA taken from vaginal swabs of the victim did not match Clair. Additionally, a child who witnessed the killing told police the attacker was White; Clair is Black.
With advancements in DNA analysis, Judge Sheila Hanson said on Friday, Nov. 3, that she would allow tests on pieces of evidence found at the crime scene that could not be tested at the time of the original investigation. The logistics for the testing are being determined for a final court order. Prosecutors did not oppose the new testing.
“It’s a positive step forward,” said Clair’s attorney, Michael Mortenson. “We’re really optimistic the testing will show none of (Clair’s) DNA is on the evidence. It may lead to the person who committed this terrible crime.”
Private investigator C.J. Ford, who has long championed Clair’s cause, believes the prisoner is on his way to exoneration.
“I’m happy,” Ford said Friday. “This has been beating me up for (nearly) 40 years.”
Clair is serving a life sentence after being convicted of murder solely on circumstantial evidence in 1987 for the death of Linda Faye Rodgers, 25, who was bludgeoned, stabbed and strangled in the master bedroom of a Santa Ana house where she worked.
The defense plans to test multiple articles of clothing that were tied around the victim’s neck and head, a hammer found nearby, a knife used to stab the victim twice, and the victim’s fingernails. Rodgers was found nude from the waist down, with a vibrator and three sticks near her legs. Analysts will be seeking skin cells left behind by the killer, or “touch DNA,” from the evidence.
“The testing has advanced so much now, you can have biological material that was never (before) able to be tested,” Mortenson said.
A previous DNA test on material from inside Rodgers pointed to an individual who was a child at the time of the murder, indicating a family member may have left the sample. The district attorney’s office has refused to release the identity of the child linked to the DNA.
Clair originally was given the death penalty, but it was later overturned in appellate court. His murder conviction, however, was left standing.
Prosecutors throughout the years have defended the conviction, pointing to remarks Clair made to his girlfriend, who was wearing a wire for police. Clair’s defenders say the statements were taken out of context.
Clair was a transient staying in a vacant house adjacent to the home where Rodgers was caring for her 5-year-old child and four other children. Clair had earlier been arrested on suspicion of burglarizing the house where Rodgers was staying and was released from jail just hours before the killing.
The children were in another room during the attack. One child, age 5, told police the culprit was a “white man” and had been in the house earlier, demanding money. The child, years later, recanted his story at the behest of his mother’s husband, who was a member of a White motorcycle gang, according to appeals court records and news reports.
Prosecutors based their murder case, in part, on the testimony of Clair’s ex-girlfriend, who said he showed her items taken from the house during the killing. She also wore a wire, which recorded Clair equivocating when asked why he killed Rodgers. He didn’t deny the killing, but falls short of confessing, according to the recording
“They can run hair fibers until the cows come home; they’re not going to walk away from that tape,” former prosecutor Mike Jacobs said in a 2008 interview.
Clair can be heard on the recording saying: “They can’t prove a … thing, not unless you open your … mouth.”
When the girlfriend said she saw blood on him the night of the killing, he replied, “Ain’t on me no more.” The girlfriend later recanted some of her statements. She had suffered a brain injury in a bicycle accident shortly before meeting with Clair.
