JACKSON – The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday ordered DNA testing for Eddie Lee Howard Jr., a death row inmate convicted twice in the 1992 rape and stabbing death of an 82-year-old Columbus woman.
Justices directed the Lowndes County circuit court to schedule the testing. They said Howard”s challenge to bite-mark evidence and other evidence could be refiled with results of the DNA testing.
Howard was tried twice in the slaying of Georgia Kemp. Evidence included bite marks on her body. A dentist testified they matched impressions of Howard”s teeth.
The Supreme Court threw out his 1994 conviction, ruling the prosecutor”s reliance on bite marks was unsound. The high court upheld Howard”s second conviction and death sentence in 2000.
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