FILE – This undated picture provided by the Tennessee Department of Correction shows death row inmate Sedley Alley. The daughter of Alley, a Tennessee man executed in 2006, is seeking DNA testing from the crime scene. Alley was convicted of the 1985 murder of 19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne Collins in Millington. He confessed to the crime but later said the confession was coerced. Barry Scheck, with The Innocence Project, helped argue for DNA testing in Alley’s case before his execution, but that request was denied. Scheck is now representing Alley’s daughter April Alley in the new request for DNA testing. (Tennessee Department of Correction via AP, File)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – The daughter of a Tennessee man executed in 2006 for a woman’s rape and murder filed a petition Tuesday seeking DNA testing of crime scene evidence that she hopes will prove her father’s innocence.
Sedley Alley was convicted of the 1985 murder of 19-year-old Marine Lance Cpl. Suzanne Collins in Millington. She had been out jogging when she was kidnapped, beaten, raped and mutilated. Alley confessed to the crime, but later said the confession was coerced.
Barry Scheck, co-founder of The Innocence Project, helped argue for DNA testing in Alley’s case before his execution, but that request was denied. The Tennessee Supreme Court later found the earlier ruling misapplied Tennessee’s Post-Conviction DNA Analysis Act, but it was too late for Alley.
Scheck, who now represents Alley’s daughter April Alley, said the renewed call to test DNA evidence comes after an investigator on a different homicide case contacted The Innocence Project about a possible alternative suspect in Collins’ slaying.
Evidence Scheck wants tested includes a pair of men’s underwear recovered at the scene/ DNA testing of evidence was in early stages in the 1980s, and no DNA evidence has ever been tested in Sedley Alley’s case.