Kennedy Brewer

The Crime and Investigation

In the early morning hours of May 3, 1992, Christine Jackson, the three-year-old daughter of Brewer’s girlfriend, Gloria Jackson, was abducted from her home, raped, and murdered. Mr. Brewer had spent that evening babysitting Christine and her two younger siblings, who were Mr. Brewer’s biological children with Gloria. Two days after Christine disappeared, her body was found in a creek in Noxubee County about 500 yards from her home. Police suspected Mr. Brewer because he had been at home that night and there was no sign of forced entry; however, a broken window near where the child slept could have provided the point of entry for an intruder.

The Trial

The trial began in March 1995, nearly three years after Mr. Brewer was arrested. The prosecution theorized that Mr. Brewer had raped and murdered Christine in the Jackson home and then carried her body to the creek. A semen sample was recovered from the victim’s body but was deemed insufficient for DNA testing.

The medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, Steven Hayne, testified that he had found several marks on the child’s body that he believed to be bite marks. Dr. Hayne called in Dr. Michael West, a forensic odonotologist, to analyze the marks. Dr. West concluded that 19 marks found on the victim’s body were “indeed and without a doubt” inflicted by Mr. Brewer. He further asserted that all 19 marks were made only by Mr. Brewer’s top two teeth and that somehow the bottom teeth had made no impression. Dr. West claimed a degree of certainty that exceeded the limitations of bite mark analysis, which has never been scientifically validated. He was already discredited by the time of Mr. Brewer’s trial, as the first member ever to be suspended from the American Board of Forensic Odontology. Regardless, the court allowed his testimony.

In response, the defense introduced Dr. Richard Souviron, a licensed dentist and founding member of the American Board of Forensic Odonotology, who testified that the marks were not human bite marks at all but were insect bites that the body sustained from being left in the water for days. Dr. Souviron argued that it would be all but impossible to leave repeated bite mark impressions with only the top two teeth.

Mr. Brewer was convicted of capital murder and sexual battery on March 24, 1995, and sentenced to death. He had maintained his innocence in the crime, and his conviction was based almost entirely on the questionable bite mark evidence. Other physical evidence included various small blood spots on Mr. Brewer’s clothing, a stain consistent with feces on a dress near where the victim slept, and a blood stain on a blanket found next to where the child was sleeping. However, the state’s forensic scientist was unable to identify the ABO blood group through serological testing in order to determine the source.

Post-conviction Appeals

In 2001, advanced DNA testing was conducted on semen recovered in 1992 from the victim’s body. The tests produced results excluding Mr. Brewer as a possible perpetrator and revealed an unknown male profile. The prosecution conducted further testing on two of Mr. Brewer’s friends, who were also excluded. Y-STR testing also excluded many of Mr. Brewer’s relatives. No subsequent effort was made to identify the real perpetrator.

The following year, Mr. Brewer’s conviction was vacated, and he was moved from death row to pre-trial detention. The prosecution intended to retry Mr. Brewer for capital murder, but for a full five years, the case was not moved to trial. Due to conflicts of interest in the Noxubee County District Attorney’s office in 2007, Ben Creekmore, the district attorney of Oxford, Mississippi, was appointed special prosecutor in the Brewer case. District Attorney Creekmore decided not to seek the death penalty and agreed not to oppose bail. Mr. Brewer was released in August 2007 while a new trial was pending.

During preparations for Mr. Brewer’s retrial, the Innocence Project asked the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office to intervene in the investigation of the case. DNA testing during this investigation led to the implication of another man as the real perpetrator. The unidentified DNA profile discovered in 2001 matched to Justin Albert Johnson, one of the original suspects. Mr. Johnson then confessed to Christine Jackson’s murder as well as to an identical crime — the murder of Courtney Smith committed in September 1990 also in Noxubee County. Mr. Johnson assured the investigators that he acted alone in both crimes.

Eighteen months before Mr. Brewer was arrested in the other crime, three-year-old Smith was raped and murdered and left in a pond near her home. The ex-boyfriend of the child’s mother, Levon Brooks, was charged and convicted, in large part, on the strength of bite mark analysis performed by Dr. West. Just as in Mr. Brewer’s case, Dr. Hayne, the medical examiner, called in Dr. West to analyze “bite marks” on the child’s wrist. Dr. West testified that the marks were human bite marks consistent with Mr. Brooks’ two top teeth.

At the time of the Smith murder, Mr. Johnson often visited a house near hers; at the time of the Jackson murder, he was staying near the Jackson home. Mr. Johnson was the only suspect with a history of sexually assaulting women and girls, and he was an initial suspect in both crimes. The same sheriff’s officer investigated both crimes and the same district attorney prosecuted both crimes. Twice, they overlooked evidence pointing to Mr. Johnson and focused on an innocent man.

On Feb. 15, 2008, charges against Mr. Brewer were dropped and he was exonerated. On the same day, the Innocence Project, along with Mississippi Innocence Project co-counsel, won Mr. Brooks’ release from prison. Mr. Brooks was subsequently exonerated in March 2008. He was represented by the Innocence Project and Mississippi Innocence Project. Since DNA testing could not be conducted in his case, he was exonerated based on Mr. Johnson’s confession and other evidence and is not listed as a DNA exoneration case.

Legal assistance in the two cases was provided by Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher LLP and Affiliates, Andre de Gruy of the Office of Capital Defense Counsel in Mississippi, and Robert B. McDuff.

Feature in Netflix Series The Innocence Files

Mr. Brewer and Mr. Brooks are two of eight people whose story is featured in the Innocence Project-inspired Netflix docuseries The Innocence Files now available for streaming.