Shelby Co. convicted murderer could be released - KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana News Weather & Sports

An ArkLaTex man convicted of killing three people could be walking the streets as a free man as early as next week. 

And it's all because of a ruling by a district judge who blames misconduct in the state's case against Kenneth Wayne Boyd which denied him a fair trial.

Boyd was convicted 13 years ago of killing three Shelby County, Texas residents on April 22, 1997, including a 13-year-old girl.  District Judge Charles Mitchell signed an order this week recommending his conviction and life sentence be thrown out. "We know exactly what happened that night and why it happened.  We just can't talk about it right now," says private investigator Rick Turner.

Turner added that evidence in the case points squarely to a drug cartel 'calling a hit' on one of those three murder victims, Percy Moore, to silence a would-be snitch. "Mr. Moore was supposed to be providing information to federal authorities about drug activities.  he had been arrested," says Turner.

Turner says he knows one thing for sure:  The two men sentenced to life terms sure didn't kill those three victims.  And, 12-years ago he even helped in the investigation that ultimately led to the overturning of one of those two convictions, and the freeing of Rodney Moore. "The evidence shows that there was a conspiracy, we believe, to frame these gentlemen," says Turner.

He and another private investigator, Cliff Carpenter, have been working to free the 'other' convicted killer in the case, Kenneth Wayne Boyd ever since, using the very same arguments and rulings that freed Rodney Moore, that prosecutors hid evidence and used false testimony to send Boyd to prison.

"Tape recordings that the district attorney's office had made that they had indicated had been erased," said Turner, as he listed several examples of alleged prosecutorial misconduct.  "There's one case of a young lady that was an alibi witness, they handcuffed her, put her in a small room and said you're going to jail for five years," recalls Turner.

Judge Charles Mitchell agreed with Turner and Boyd's defense lawyers on Thursday saying evidence was wrongly suppressed by prosecutors, and of using knowingly false testimony.  Judge Mitchell's findings will now be sent to an appeals court, which could make a final ruling as soon as a week, whether to throw out Kenny Boyd's murder conviction and life sentence.

If that happens, Shelby County will have an open triple murder case back on the books.  And Turner says only then can he elaborate on who really killed those three victims 15 years ago and why.

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