Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 1, 1991 TAG: 9103010437
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Medium
Dog handler John Preston lied about his credentials and may have faked his dog's tracking abilities, Epperly's attorney told a federal magistrate Thursday.
Edward Hogshire, Epperly's court-appointed attorney, said Epperly should be freed from his life sentence or given a new trial.
Preston's testimony was the only evidence linking Epperly to the disappearance of Gina Renee Hall, whose body has never been found.
Preston claimed that his dog, Harrass II, tracked Epperly's scent for a mile from Hall's abandoned car to Epperly's house. The supposed tracking was done 11 days and several rainstorms after Hall disappeared.
In a 1986 hearing, Preston admitted that it was possible his dog was trailing the scent of a police officer instead of Epperly.
Now there's evidence that Preston lied about his training, Hogshire said. He should never have been allowed to testify, much less as an expert in dog tracking, the attorney said.
Preston's testimony destroyed the "fundamental fairness" of Epperly's trial and "the whole thing is tainted," Hogshire said.
Hogshire's new evidence is not really all that new. The Roanoke Times & World-News revealed in 1983 that Preston's credentials were questioned by other dog experts. Many of the cases he testified in were being thrown out because of indications that he faked tracking results.
Hogshire filed an inch-thick stack of affidavits, letters and transcripts indicating that Preston lied about credentials and faked his dogs' abilities. Much of the new evidence was gathered for a murder appeal in Arizona. The evidence presented there late last year prompted the Arizona judge to order a new trial and denounce Preston as "a liar, a charlatan and a fraud."
Assistant Attorney General Rob Anderson said Hogshire's new evidence is irrelevant. It's too late to raise issues of Preston's competence that could have been raised at the time of trial, he said.
U.S. Magistrate Waugh Crigler delayed any ruling until at least April. He said he wanted both sides to file additional written arguments. He said he would decide then whether to hold an evidentiary hearing or simply send a recommendation to U.S. Judge Jackson Kiser.
Hogshire filed the appeal more than a year and a half ago. The case had hung around so long with no action that Kiser recently assigned Crigler to review the evidence and give a recommended ruling.
The original appeal listed three main grounds: there was no evidence to support a first-degree murder conviction; the prosecution suppressed critical evidence; and the prosecutor was guilty of misconduct.
Epperly, who did not testify at his trial, has maintained he is innocent and was framed by overzealous police and prosecutors.
He was the first person in Virginia to be convicted of first-degree murder in a case in which investigators couldn't find the victim's body and didn't either have an eyewitness to the killing or a confession from the accused. The prosecution contended that, after Epperly met Hall at a nightclub, he took her to a Claytor Lake cabin where he killed her in a struggle, possibly because she resisted his sexual advances.
The defense has contended that there is practically no evidence of a struggle and none as to what may have caused a struggle.
by CNB