Clarence Elkins

The Crime

Early on the morning of June 7, 1998, an intruder entered a home in Barberton, Ohio. The home belonged to 58-year-old Judith Johnson, where she was staying with her 6-year-old granddaughter, B.S. The intruder attacked and sexually assaulted both of them, killing Ms. Johnson and leaving her granddaughter for dead.

The Investigation

Several hours later, B.S. regained consciousness, called a neighbor, and left a message on the answering machine that “someone killed my grandmother.” She then walked to another neighbor’s house and was driven home. When the police interrogated her, she said that the assailant “looked like Uncle Clarence,” an apparent reference to Clarence Elkins, Ms. Johnson’s 35-year-old son-in-law. 

The next day,  the police arrested Mr. Elkins. He was charged with one count of aggravated murder, which carried the possibility of a death sentence, one count of attempted murder, three counts of rape, and one count of felonious assault. 

The Trial

On May 12, 1999, Mr. Elkins went to trial in Summit County Court of Common Pleas. 

Dr. Marvin Platt, the Summit County Medical Examiner, testified that Ms. Johnson had died between 2:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. on June 7, 1998. 

Daren Marshall, a social worker at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center of Akron, testified that about eight hours after B.S. was brought in, she named Mr. Elkins as her attacker. 

B.S., by then 7 years old, testified and identified Mr. Elkins as the person who had attacked her. 

Mr. Elkins testified and denied committing the crime. He said that he had spent the evening of June 6 and the early morning hours of June 7 at several bars. By 3 a.m., he had been in bed at his home in the city of Magnolia, about 40 miles from Ms. Johnson’s home. 

Mr. Elkins wept as he recalled being arrested for the crimes. “I couldn’t believe it — that they were blaming me,” he said. “I was devastated.” 

Mr. Elkins’ wife, Melinda, who was Ms. Johnson’s daughter, testified that Mr. Elkins had been home at the time of the crime. 

No physical evidence connected Mr. Elkins to the crime. DNA testing confirmed that the hairs found on Ms. Johnson’s body did not come from Mr. Elkins. 

On June 4, 1999, the jury acquitted Mr. Elkins of aggravated murder, but convicted him of the lesser-included offense of murder. He was also convicted on attempted aggravated murder, three counts of rape, and felonious assault. He was sentenced to life in prison. 

In September 2000, the Ninth District Ohio Court of Appeals affirmed the convictions and sentence. 

The Exoneration

Three years after the murder, B.S. changed her account of what had occurred. She said she now remembered that the killer had brown eyes, while Mr. Elkins had blue eyes, and that she had been wrong when she identified Mr. Elkins. Based on that recantation, Mr. Elkins’ lawyers asked for a new trial. 

The prosecution criticized B.S.’ change of heart, asserting that she had been coached by her family. The prosecution also criticized Mr. Elkins’ attorneys for having the girl hypnotized, a procedure known to distort memory, especially in children. 

On Dec. 9, 2002, Common Pleas Judge John Adams, who had presided over Mr. Elkins’ trial, denied the petition for a new trial. In a 54-page ruling, Judge Adams argued that B.S.’ recantation was not credible. “Although the child victim had not changed her story of the attack for almost four years, she only did so after being approached by those people interested in the outcome of the case,” the judge declared. 

In 2004, with the help of the Ohio Innocence Project, the prosecution agreed to DNA testing of traces of biological material that had been recovered from Ms. Johnson’s body, from under her fingernails, and from B.S.’ underwear. The tests revealed the same male DNA profile in all three locations, indicating that the same man had attacked both victims. The results excluded Mr. Elkins. 

The prosecutors continued to insist that Mr. Elkins was guilty. In July 2005, Common Pleas Judge Judith Hunter denied a defense motion for a new trial. The judge ruled that because the original verdict was based on B.S.’ identification rather than on DNA evidence, this new scientific evidence, had it been presented to the jury, would not have changed the outcome. 

The defense’s reinvestigation then focused on the neighbor who had driven B.S. home after the attack. She had left the dazed and bloodied 6-year-old on her porch for 30 minutes instead of calling the police immediately. 

The reinvestigation showed that the neighbor’s common-law husband at the time was Earl Mann, who had recently been released from prison at the time of the attack. In the time since, Mr. Mann had been convicted and imprisoned for raping three girls under the age of 10. 

By 2005, Mr. Mann had been transferred to the same prison and the same cell block as Mr. Elkins. Mr. Elkins surreptitiously collected some of Mr. Mann’s DNA by retrieving a cigarette butt that the latter had discarded. Mr. Elkins then mailed the butt to his attorneys, and DNA tests were conducted on the saliva on the butt. Mr. Mann’s DNA from the cigarette butt matched the profile obtained from the crime scene evidence. 

Despite the DNA evidence connecting Mr. Mann to the crime scene, the prosecution still refused to agree to Mr. Elkins’s release. 

Finally, in October 2005, Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, who had no direct authority over the case, held a press conference to pressure the local prosecutor to dismiss the charges. After another round of DNA testing again confirmed Mr. Mann’s involvement, Mr. Elkins’ convictions were vacated and dismissed on Dec. 15, 2005. Mr. Elkins was released from prison that day. 

On June 29, 2007, a grand jury indicted Mr. Mann for the rape of B.S. and for the rape and murder of Ms. Johnson. In August 2008, he pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, attempted murder, aggravated burglary, and rape, and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. 

In November 2010, the city of Barberton agreed to settle a lawsuit brought against four police officers involved in the investigation and prosecution of Mr. Elkins for $5.25 million. The state of Ohio separately paid Mr. Elkins $1,075,000 in compensation.