HUNTINGTON – Two brothers who spent a total of 18 years in prison for a murder they didn’t commit are suing government and law enforcement officials for their wrongful convictions.
Nathan and Philip Barnett filed their lawsuit in federal court against the Cabell County Commission, and individual West Virginia State Police officials Anthony Cummings, Greg Losh, Kimberly Pack, Mike Parde and Eddie Blankenship.
The brothers, who were convicted at ages 25 and 28, respectively, were exonerated by DNA evidence. Nathan now is 39 and lives in Point Pleasant. Philip now is 41 and lives in Monroe, Georgia.v
Christopher Chiles
| courtswv.gov
“The wrongful convictions … robbed Nathan and Philip of the primes of their lives,” the complaint states. “Their agony over their lost years is compounded by the knowledge that police and prosecutorial misconduct led to their wrongful convictions.
“No forensic or physical evidence ever connected Philip or Nathan to the crime. They were not even suspects for more than four years.”
But years after the police investigation grew cold, the complaint says an informant with an extensive criminal history claimed to police his nephew, Brian Dement, a man who struggled with mental health issues and who later recanted his false allegations, had confessed to being involved in the murder. He also implicated Philip and Nathan Barnett as well as Justin Black.
It claims State Police coerced false confessions from Dement and Black implicating the Barnett brothers. It says officers held Dement and Black overnight, threatened them and gave them nonpublic information about the crime.
Dement gave three coerced confessions, the complaint says, that were inconsistent and implausible. Black recanted his false confessions two weeks later. Dement tried to disavow his false statements, but he was threatened with a longer prison sentence and accepted a plea deal, according to the complaint.
Despite no DNA evidence at the crime scene, the Barnett brothers were indicted, arrested and convicted for the August 8, 2002, Cabell County murder of Deanna Crawford.
Only one other witness than Dement claimed to have seen the brothers with the victim the night of the murder. That was a man named William Scott Harbour, but the complaint says prosecutors failed to disclose that Harbour had multiple open criminal cases and had been offered favorable consideration for his testimony. Also, prosecutors failed to reveal Dement’s uncle was a police informant who had received similar favorable treatment in the past.
But in 2017, new DNA testing on semen found on the victim’s pants and cigarette butts excluded the brothers as matches. The DNA matched a man already incarcerated in Ohio on a violent sex offender charge. As a result, the Barnett brothers’ convictions were overturned, and the charges against them were dismissed by the state.
The 39-page complaint details the murder investigation, how the initial investigation went cold, how the case was reopened five years later based on comments made by Dement to his uncle Gregory Alan Bailey.
Dement’s comments then were relayed to Cabell County Deputy Sheriff Jim “Jimbo” Schiedler, who allegedly helped Bailey get “out of jams” with the assistance of then-Prosecuting Attorney Chris Chiles (now a Cabell Circuit Court judge) when he provided useful information, according to the complaint.
The complaint says State Police demanded Bailey wear a wire to record a confession by Dement or they’d charge him with being an accessory to the murder.
Dement had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, antisocial personality disorder, depression and anxiety. In addition, he had a history of severe alcohol and drug abuse, including opiates, sedatives, cannabis and hallucinogens, according to the complaint. Plus, he had allegedly received nonpublic information about the murder earlier during the State Police interrogation.
“Dement’s family, friends and acquaintances knew him to be someone who lied, boasted and exaggerated details about his life to make himself look tough,” the complaint states.
Dement named Black and the Barnett brothers in a recorded conversation. As soon as Bailey provided the recordings to the State Police, they detained and interrogated Dement. The complaint says Dement had been drinking heavily and had taken Xanax and had hidden from police at first before agreeing to be questioned.
It says Dement was interrogated for nine hours, threatened, harassed and fed details about Crawford’s murder to coerce him into falsely confessing. It says police used the “good cop, bad cop” routine on him, and it says they told him Black and the Barnett brothers already had confessed to the murder and implicated him.
The complaint details each of Dement’s three statements that vary greatly. It says the defendants then fed Black details about the crime to coerce another false confession by telling him his parole would be revoked if he didn’t confess.
“Terrified at the prospect of losing his parole, Black broke down and asked Pack what she wanted to hear,” the complaint states.
After being detained, both Barnett brothers maintained their innocence. Still, they were indicted and arrested and later convicted.
During their trial, which was handled by Chiles when he still was a prosecutor, the Barnett brothers say Assistant Prosecutor Jana Howard wrote that “there is no known exculpatory evidence” when discovery requests were served.
But, the complaint says there was such evidence, including that Harbour as offered favorable consideration on the morning of his testimony against the Barnetts, that Bailey was a police informant and that lab findings that the tire marks at the murder scene didn’t match the tires on the car supposedly driven by the Barnetts, Black and Dement to the crime scene.
The Barnetts were confined to their home for 15 months before the trail began August 25, 2008. Two days later, they were convicted of second-degree murder. Philip Barnett was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and Nathan to 36 years.
In 2010, the state Supreme Court vacated their convictions, saying the “lower court abused its discretion by excluding evidence that Dement had told a defense investigator his confession was false.”
To avoid a retrial after “having already been convicted in an extremely weak case,” the brothers accepted Kennedy pleas on January 18, 2011, to voluntary manslaughter to avoid another “miscarriage of justice.” They then were sentenced to 15 years in prison each.
In November 2015, new DNA testing was allowed. In August 2017, the Barnett brothers as well as Black and Dement all were excluded as DNA matches. Two months later, additional DNA testing matched with Timothy Smith, who already was incarcerated in Ohio. He lived in South Point, Ohio, just across the Ohio River from Cabell County, when Crawford was murdered.
The complaint says Losh and Parde visited Smith in prison on February 2, 2018, to warn him that lawyers might visit him about the matter. It says they told Smith that four men already had been convicted of the crime and that “he should keep his mouth shut.”
Later in February 2018, the Barnett brothers filed to overturn their convictions. In May 2019, their Kennedy pleas were vacated. On October 5, 2021, the state finally dismissed all charges against the Barnetts and Black.
“Because of defendants’ unlawful actions, Philip and Nathan lost 18 years of their lives to wrongful incarceration for a crime of which they were innocent,” the complaint states, also explaining the fear as well as the physical and mental health issues both faced in prison.
They accuse the individual defendants of fabrication of evidence, malicious prosecution, suppression of Brady/Giglio material, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. They also accuse Cummings and Parde of malicious prosecution and the Cabell County Commission of suppression of Brady/Giglio material.
They seek compensatory damages, punitive damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, attorney fees, court costs and other relief.
The brothers are being represented by Douglas E. Lieb, Alison Frick and Alyssa Isidoridy of Kaufman Lieb Lebowitz & Frick in New York and by Slyler A. Matthews and Ryan McCune Donovan of Hissam Forman Donovan Ritchie in Charleston. The individual defendants are being represented by Drannon L. Adkins of Pullin Fowler Flanagan Brown & Poe in Charleston.
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia case number 3:22-cv-00203