DNA testing has exposed flaws in a second Baltimore County prosecution related to the 1984 shooting deaths of a Randallstown drug dealer and his stepdaughter, evidence that might lead to a new trial for convicted murderer Gregory Jones.
Prosecutors said Jones pulled the trigger in the killings Oct. 20, 1984. Chris Conover, the other man convicted of the case, was freed Wednesday from a life prison sentence after prosecutors acknowledged that new DNA evidence undermined the case against him.
In Jones' trial in 1985, an FBI scientist testified that a hair found on Jones' pants came from Lisa Lynn Brown, 18, one of the victims.
But according to prosecutors and Jones' attorneys, recent DNA testing proved that the hair did not come from Brown.
"This was a case of bad forensic evidence," said Michele Nethercott, head of the Maryland public defender's forensic division.
Assistant State's Attorney Frank Meyer said yesterday that the state would grant Jones' motion for a new trial. But prosecutors also said they intend to convict Jones, 48, formerly of Baltimore, a second time.
"We have every intention of retrying that case and proving Greg Jones guilty again," said Steve Bailey, deputy state's attorney.
Still, the new DNA results throw a wrinkle in a case that largely depended on two key pieces of evidence: the "matching" hair and the testimony of the crime's one eyewitness, Linda Jordan.
Jordan, who was Brown's mother and married to Charles "Squeaky" Jordan, the other victim, was in her Brice Run Road home when a black man and two white men came into the house, demanded drugs and money, and then shot the family execution-style, court papers show.
Linda Jordan was shot in the head, but she survived. She identified Jones, and two months later, Conover, as two of her three attackers.
Jones was convicted and sentenced to death. But soon afterward, a Supreme Court ruling cleared Maryland's death row, and Jones had a second sentencing hearing.
In that hearing, defense attorneys presented new evidence about Jordan's contradictory statements, and pointed out that she waited a day after the homicides to tell police that Jones -- an acquaintance of her husband -- was involved.
Former Circuit Judge James S. Sfekas, who presided over the hearing, decided against the death penalty, saying the state had not proved that Jones pulled the trigger.
"The credibility of the only eyewitness, Linda Jordan, is sufficiently tainted for the court to conclude that the State has failed to meet its burden," he said, according to court transcripts.
Jordan could not be found for comment yesterday. Neither defense nor prosecutors have spoken to her recently, they said.
In 1985, Linda Jordan had 12 aliases, along with a criminal record and drug charges, according to Nethercott.
The new evidence in Jones' case came to light after the Innocence Project, a New York-based legal clinic, started working on Conover's case, and tested two strands of hairs that prosecutors had said linked Conover to the crime scene.
When the Innocence Project discovered that the hairs did not come from Conover, the state's attorney's office decided to also test hairs in Jones' case.
"Once we found out what happened in the Conover case, we felt we had a legal and moral obligation to retest that hair," Meyer said.
The prosecutors asked for another microscopic examination -- the same sort of examination the FBI scientist had done in 1984. This time, the FBI's result was different. The laboratory said the hair did not match.
Meyer passed that information on to Nethercott.
Nethercott said that until recently she had believed that prosecutors were going to retry Jones and Conover.
But Wednesday, Conover earned his freedom in return for signing an Alford plea, in which he maintained innocence but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him of armed robbery.
Conover and his lawyers said he is innocent of the crime, and that he only signed the plea because prosecutors gave him a choice: sign and leave prison immediately, or don't sign and spend at least another year incarcerated waiting for trial.
Prosecutors said they still believe Conover, who spent 18 years in prison, is guilty.
