Did Rodney Reed Murder Stacey Stites? Or Is An Innocent Man About To Be Put To Death?

🛒Stacey Lee Stites🛒

She was beautiful, well-liked, bubbly and very athletic. She was lots of fun and loved little kids. Stacey was born on January 19th, 1977 in Nueces County, Texas. 

In 1996, Stacey was 19-years-old and working in a grocery store in Bastrop County, Texas. 

She lived with her fiancee, police officer Jimmy Finnell. Jimmy claimed he was sleeping when Stacey hopped into his red pickup truck and headed to work. When she didn't show up for her 3 a.m. shift, her co-workers, friends and family knew there was something wrong. 

What i want to know is, if Jimmy was asleep when Stacey left for work, how did he know for sure what time she left?

12 hours after Jimmy said that she left home, Stacey's body was found along a country road, in a field, laying on her back. She was only wearing her bra and jeans. Stacey had ligature marks on her throat. A white shirt and two cans of beer were found on the ground, as well as a piece of a belt that was found 10 feet away from her body. Investigators believe that that piece of belt is a part of the murder weapon. The other part of the belt was found miles away, next to Jimmy's truck in the Bastrop High School parking lot. When police dusted the truck for prints, only Stacey and Jimmy's prints were found. Shortly after Stacey's murder, Jimmy sold his truck.

I don't know if i would sell my truck if i were in Jimmy's shoes. i'm not sure if i'd want to ride in it again, but i would probably keep it and hold out hope that when technology advanced one day, maybe they could get some new clues. i'm undecided on that one.

Obviously, Jimmy was the first suspect in Stacey's murder. He was quickly ruled out because investigators claimed that he didn't fit the timeline of murder. If the time line was correct, they said that he wouldn't have time to walk back from where the truck was left to his apartment.

During the autopsy, 2 sperm cells were found inside Stacey, and it wasn't Jimmy's. Sperm be present up to 72 hours in the body.

It belonged to Rodney Reed.  Rodney was well known to authorities. He was an alleged rapist, but never convicted.  Police picked him up and he was charged with aggravated sexual assault and capital murder. At first, Rodney denied knowing Stacey, but later he admitted that he was in a secret relationship with her. Rodney plead not guilty and stood trial based on only the DNA evidence found inside Stacey. Prosecutors theorized that while Jimmy slept, Stacey left their apartment at 2:45 a.m. to go to work. Somewhere on the way to work, it was alleged that Stacey saw Rodney on the side of the road and picked him up. Then he allegedly took Stacey to a wooded area where he raped and then strangled her to death. Prosecutors then claimed that Rodney took the truck to the local high school and abandoned it.

He was convicted of capital murder and was sentenced to death. His execution was then placed on hold in light of new evidence. Rodney is adamant about his innocence as he sits on death row and says that everyone is being mislead. He claims that Jimmy is the one that snuffed out Stacey's life. Rodney also said that Jimmy had found out about his relationship with Stacey and threatened to kill him if he didn't stop seeing his fiancee.

Rodney is not the only one that believes in his innocence. Stacey's cousin, Heather, as well as her co-worker, Alicia Slater, believes that Jimmy could have murdered Stacey. Heather claimed that when Rodney would come into Stacey's work, she'd be happy and excited and when Jimmy would come in she'd seem scared and apprehensive. They both also  corroborate Rodney's claims that he was having an affair with Stacey.

5 months after Stacey was murdered, the officer investigating her death met an untimely end as well. Gittings Texas officer, Joe Bryant, was conducting an unauthorized investigation into Stacey's murder when he was shot to death by a migrant worker from Mexico. Joe's wife stated that before he was gun down, Joe revealed the identity of who he thought killed Stacey and that person was Jimmy.

Joe wasn't the only officer investigating Stacey's murder to die while investigating her death. Edward August Salmela died from a self-inflected gun shot wound. Even though he was right handed, he was shot with his left hand, in the left side of his temple, which took off the right half of his ear. The gun, however, was found laying next to his right foot. Ed's brother Scott doesn't believe that Ed killed himself. His left hand shook, so he never used that hand to shoot. Scott found that Ed's usually immaculate home was in disarray. His computers, hard drives and guns were missing as well.

Later, it was discovered that before Stacey's death, Jimmy had told a fellow police officer, that if Stacey ever cheated on him that he would strangle her to death with a belt. Police also never searched Jimmy and Stacey's apartment. Jimmy also was later convicted of rape while on duty. His victim was named Connie and he raped her at gun point. He told her that if she ever told anyone, that when he got out of jail he would hunt her down and kill her. Jimmy took a plea deal and was sentence to 10 years in prison.

Three different forensic pathologists looked at the evidence against Rodney and they all believe that his guilt is medically and scientifically impossible. They all claim that the medical examiner got the time of death wrong. In the crime scene video that investigators shot, Stacey's body seemed to be in an advanced stage of rigor mortis. This led the pathologists to believe that she had been dead for 24 hours instead of 15. This would suggest that Stacey was killed in her apartment well before midnight. Also, Rodney had an alibi until 4:45 a.m. This was not introduced at his trial.

In the autopsy report, all of Stacey's injuries were on the left side of her body. She had bruising to her head, as well as second and third degree burn injuries. Also in the autopsy report, it stated that she had 1,200 grams of fluid in her lungs, where the normal fluid for someone her size should be half that. In the crime scene video, the tips of Stacey's fingers were white and had contact marks. There was lividity in the top half of her body. When a person dies the blood settles in whatever position you are in. So this indicates that Stacey was face down when she was killed and stayed that way for about six hours.

The three pathologists theorized that Stacey had her clothes on and was kneeling down filling up her bathtub when she was attacked. She was restrained with a belt, but ultimately drowned when her face was shoved under the water.

The pathologists claim that if Stacey was strangled to death, that the blood vessels in the eyes should have burst. She also should have a ruptured hyoid bone, as well as some kind of damage to her larynx. Instead of having any of this, Stacey had ruptured blood vessels in the top of her head, like someone was beating her into submission.

In further claims by the pathologists Stacey was already dead and then placed in Jimmy's truck. And that the whole crime scene was staged. There was decompostional fluid found on the baseboard of the truck, as well as inside the truck on it's hump. Stacey's nails were cut down, in what it seemed like an attempt to make sure that there was no DNA evidence found under her nails.

After 9 appeals and an delayed execution, 52-year-old Rodney is sentenced to be executed on November 20th of this year. Many people, including the Innocence Project, believe that Rodney deserves a retrial before it's too late.