Newly discovered evidence requires a reversal or a new trial.

A. The Victim’s Missing Purse Was Found Months After The Trial

The victim’s purse, which the defendant allegedly stole at the time of the murder and on which the State based its DNA case, alleging it to be the transfer agent for blood from the victim to Chapel’s patrol car, was recovered several months after the trial and three years after the murder. No fingerprints or blood evidence, as the State maintained, were found on that purse. State testing proves these facts as exculpatory.

Emogene Thompson’s purse, that same purse that was alleged to have contained the money Chapel was alleged to have stolen when he killed her and was, according to the District Attorney, the agent and only way that her blood could have been transferred to his patrol car, was found buried in the woods behind her next door neighbor’s yard by one of the neighborhood children in late February or early March 1996, months after the trial and almost three years after the murder. From a report from Investigator J.S. Burnette and Crime Scene Lab Technician M.A. White, there is no question that the purse had been in its secreted location for a long time.

[Crime Scene Unit Report, 03/22/96]

I observed that purse and it's contents and found them to be in poor condition. The purse had reportedly been in a stream and most of the items were covered with mud and some items were unrecognizable.

Significantly missing from the inventory of the murdered Emogene Thompson’s purse was her driver’s license. These circumstances indicate that Emogene Thompson was not carrying that purse on that evening, and that her driver’s license was probably in the smaller purse found with her the next morning. That possibility is enhanced when it is considered that the employee lockers at Ciba Vision, where the victim worked, were not normally locked which would certainly dissuade most from carrying a large amount of money to work.

Lt. John Latty of the GCPD testified in the hearing for a new trial that he had thoroughly searched the area where the purse was found:

[John Latty, New Trial, Page 203, Line 18]

By Mr. Mott

Q. Okay. If I could direct your attention, sir, to the second page, and the last sentence of the memo. Could you read that out loud, please?

A. “A thorough search of the area behind the former Thompson residence and up and down the wood behind the former Thompson residence and up and down the woods behind those trailers yielded any relevant evidence.” It was probably intended to be “no relevant evidence.”

Q. And the time of that search was in –

A. April the 1^st, ‘94’.

The Supreme Court of Georgia relied on Lt. Latty’s testimony stating its opinion in part:

“The other item of new evidence was the victim’s purse, which was found in 1996 near where she and her son lived. The area had been searched by police in 1994 after Chapel’s incarceration.[1]”

The document Lt. Latty was reading from was a Supplemental Report dated April 11, 1994. The complete report is as follows:

On Friday, April 1, 1994 at approximately 17:40 hours, I contacted [sic] by Sgt. J.S. Cline, PIO, who informed me that he needed to speak with my phone [sic] about an urgent matter.

At approximately 18:10 hours, I met with Sgt. Cline and reporter Stacey Kelley at the Northside precinct in Buford, GA. At that time, Sgt. Cline informed me that Reporter Kelley had been contacted by an anonymous female who stated that she lived in the area where Imogene [sic] Thompson had resided at the time of her murder which was 1402 Craig Dr., Sugar Hill, GA. Ms. Kelley went on to state that the caller had indicated that she had two children and that possibly one of them was 11 years of age. She stated that she did not have a husband or boyfriend who lived near her and that her children had located various items and paperwork behind their trailer which she had determined belonged to Imogene Thompson.

The caller went on to tell Stacey Kelley that she was afraid to call the police, and had contacted the Sugar Hill City Marshall Chris Robertson. She stated that Robertson had not responded to her call, and she had therefore contacted Kelley because she had read about her newspaper articles in the paper. Stacey Kelley is employed by the Post Tribune. Kelley stated that she could not provide any additional information and that the caller had indicated that she was afraid because the items her children had discovered she thought had belonged to Imogene Thompson.

Upon receiving this information, I contacted City Marshall Chris Robertson. I shared this information with him and he stated that he often went to that area to enforce certain city ordinances. He stated that he was familiar with the number [sic] of people at that location, but did not readily recognize anyone who fit the description that had been given in the phone call. I then arranged to meet with him at the intersection of Hillcrest and Craig Dr.

I proceeded to that location accompanied by Sgt. Cline and Stacey Kelley. We met with Marshall Chris Robertson at that location and began to interview residents who live on Craig Dr. We talked to several different people there and none of them met the description that had been given in the phone call to Stacey Kelley.

We then carefully examined the area at the rear of the former residence of Imogene Thompson which is now occupied by another family and did not find anything of relevance. The caller had also told Stacey Kelley that when she had realized what her children had in their possession, she had them replace it where they had found it. Sgt. Cline and I along with Stacey Kelley then check [sic] the rear of the residence and the wooded area. There had recently been fairly extensive burning done in that area so that if anything had been immediately behind the former Thompson residence, it would have been destroyed in the fire.

It is also important to note that when the victim’s son, Michael, moved out of the trailer and someone else moved in, they may have very well had thrown various articles and paperwork out of the trailer which wound up behind the residences at that location and is therefore irrelevant to the homicide.

We continued to check the area including the trailer located near the creek which was recently occupied by Helen Swofford and her boyfriend. There was no one at home at that location. After having checked numerous residences on both sides of the street up and down Craig Dr., no one who fit the description given by the caller was located or identified. Also a thorough search of the area behind the former Thompson residence and up and down the woods behind those trailers yielded any relevant property.

Case Closed.

Reporting Officer: Lt. J.W. Latty #060

Slc

When Lt. Latty met with Sgt. Cline and Reporter Kelley at the Northside precinct at 18:10 hours, it would be understandable if the discussion of such details would have taken ten or fifteen minutes. It would also be understandable if the location and discussion with Officer Robertson would take another five or ten minutes. The drive to the meeting location from the Northside Precinct would take about ten minutes more. It would also be understandable if a discussion of a plan of approach would take another few minutes, and the interviews of several of the local residents would probably take another twenty to thirty minutes.

According to the Astronomical Applications Department, U.S. Naval Observatory, of Washington D.C., sunset in Buford Georgia on April 1, 1994 occurred at 18:57 hours Eastern Standard Time[2], with the end of civil twilight, i.e., complete darkness, 25 minutes later. April the 1^st was a Friday, and Daylight Savings Time would not begin until the following Sunday.

What then is so difficult to understand is how an item that was so well hidden it was found only by accident could be found by two senior investigators and a lady reporter in the dark. Craig Drive runs from Hillcrest Drive to Creek Lane, a length of approximate three-tenths of a mile[3], and the wooded area behind 1402 and 1412 Craig Drive is extensive[4]. A thorough search, as Lt. Latty states, “of several residences up and down Craig Drive” and the woods behind them would take several hours and more than three people, and certainly more than the few minutes of daylight left to this group.

B. Expert Testimony Disputes Fite’s Blood Spatter Testimony

Edward Hanson of Aegis Inc., a crime analysis and computer forensics organization located in Shelton, WA, performed an analysis of the bullet trajectories and blood spatter on Chapel’s raincoat[5]. His conclusions were that, if the shots had been fired as portrayed by the prosecution[6], the shots that killed Emogene Thompson had to have been fired by a smaller man than Michael Chapel. Chapel is 6’ 6” tall, and Hanson’s determination was that the shooter had to be less than 6’ tall[7]. This coincidently is corroborated by the testimony of both Paul Omodt and Karl Kautter, the only two witnesses who saw the police officer outside of the patrol car in the driveway of Gwinnco Muffler[8].

Mr. Hanson’s second conclusion was that the blood on Chapel’s raincoat was not high velocity blood spatter but, rather, blood transfer[9], and this is consistent with the contamination of the garment a few months preceding the trial[10]. Mr. Hanson describes how high velocity blood spatter should describe a perfect circle[11]. This description, of high velocity blood spatter well describes the blood spatter on the inside of the victim’s front windshield of the victim’s automobile[12].

C. Expert Testimony Proves There Was A Second Police Car And Officer

Expert Witness time and distance calculations[13] validate the contention that it was a second police car with a different officer that passed the Omodt/Kautter vehicle on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard after they had passed Gwinnco Muffler. This information was available to the Defense at the original Trial, but was inexplicably not used even though the Defense stated to the court that they intended to do so[14].

Mr. Hill’s calculations show that a police vehicle of the type that Chapel was driving on the night of the murder would have would have to have accelerated to extremely high speeds if it was to overtake the Omodt/Kautter vehicle at 2,500 feet, which is the distance estimated from the testimony of these two witnesses. All of Mr. Hill’s calculations are based upon the police vehicle being already positioned northbound on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard ready to attempt the overtake from a standing stop.

Other assumptions upon which Mr. Hill’s table was based were the calculations assumed a dry, level surface in the best of weather, without winds and with the vehicle driven by a professional driver. The course the police vehicle traveled on PIB that night was uphill with a moderately severe incline and through heavy air and a wet surface in the middle of one of the most severe storms of the year 1993. This certainly added several seconds to the times.

Finally, to compute the true time it would have taken the police vehicle to overtake the Omodt/Kautter vehicle must then be added the time it would have taken the officer to reach that standing start position in the northbound lane of PIB. The officer, whom Omodt testified was standing next to the victim’s car, had to first race back to his own vehicle, enter the vehicle, back out to the northbound lane, which was the far lane, overcome the rearward inertia of the vehicle, and then finally begin the overtaking maneuver.

Both Omodt and Kautter testified that the police vehicle came up behind them without any panic stop or unusual braking. They simply stated that the police vehicle appeared behind them just after they passed Gwinnco Muffler. Thus “deceleration” rates 0.2 and 0.3 as shown in Mr. Hill’s chart should be ruled out. The best scenario then shows that the police officer would have had complete all his maneuvers within 5 seconds if that officer was to have any chance of catching the Omodt/Kautter vehicle within the time allotted. Even the highest speed and the most severe braking times in Mr. Hill’s table would only add a few seconds to the time it would take for the police car to overtake the Omodt/Kautter vehicle.

Last but certainly not least, a critical question simply has to be asked: Why would anyone, having just committed a murder, race about like that simply to get into a position that would allow two witnesses to identify him? There is something wrong with that picture.

These data are profound in their implications. They simply prove mathematically that there had to be two police vehicles on the scene that night. One of the vehicles was in the Gwinnco Muffler driveway, and the second was the vehicle that passed Omodt and Kautter shortly after they drove by that driveway. This means that Karl Kautter, the State’s star witness, was really a witness for the defense providing an alibi for Chapel. If in fact Chapel was driving the vehicle that passed the pair that night, he could not have been the officer they saw in the muffler shop driveway. The second implication is that the justification that the Supreme Court used for the admission of the hearsay evidence admitted by the friends simply vanishes[15].

D. Crime Scene Reports And Autopsy

Technically, evidence from the crime scene and the autopsy regarding high velocity blood spatter on the windshield of the victim’s car[16] and blood on the driver’s headrest area of the driver’s seat[17], is new evidence since none of this information was brought before a jury[18]. This is particularly true since that evidence is exculpatory to Officer Chapel and was ignored by both the police[19] and prosecution[20], and the trial judge hurried the trial through this phase of the evidence presentation[21].

[1] See Chapel V. State, 270 Ga. 151, 510 S.E.2d 802 (1998), P. 4.