PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Dr. Richard Souviron, the forensic odontologist who had recently come to fame after testifying at serial killer Ted Bundy’s 1979 trial, was contacted about the case by the state medical examiner. Souviron wrote a letter after viewing the marks in a photograph and told the medical examiner that the marks could have been from McCrory. But he couldn’t be sure, and noted that it was odd there were only two marks. The marks shouldn’t be the sole means of identifying a suspect, he wrote." But when Souviron took the stand a few months later, he changed course. He told jurors that the teeth of Charles McCrory made those marks.'"
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"McCrory was convicted in October 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. Souviron has now walked back his statements and said he can’t be sure the marks are even from teeth at all, yet McCrory’s appeals have all failed and he’s consistently been denied parole. He currently has a federal lawsuit pending, arguing in April 2024 that his conviction should be tossed out after a similar state case failed and Alabama judges stood by the old evidence. McCrory’s lawyers have leaned heavily on how bite mark matching has been discredited nationally, and how no other traces point to McCrory. They’ve also brought up that Souviron’s past testimonies have led to at least two documented wrongful convictions."
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Hayne and West, the two experts involved in Duncan’s case, and the cases that they worked on which have been called into question, were the subjects of a 2018 book, The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South."
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STORY: "Louisiana rejects debunked bite mark evidence and tosses old conviction, ‘yet Alabama won’t,’ by Ivana Hyrnkiw, published by al.com on July 5, 2026. (Ivana Hrynkiw reports on the Alabama justice system which includes the Alabama Department of Corrections, state and federal courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. She also covers issues affecting people incarcerated in Alabama prisons. Hrynkiw is a Birmingham native and an award-winning journalist, who also has experience reporting for both newspapers and broadcast. For more than two years during the COVID-19 pandemic, Ivana hosted and anchored a daily digital news video show with thousands of loyal viewers. She’s won various local and national awards for her reporting and video work. Ivana is a graduate of the University of Alabama at Birmingham and has worked with AL.com for a decade in various capacities, covering crime, court proceedings, politics, and more.)
Prosecutors appealed the ruling. On Monday, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed that Duncan’s conviction would be tossed out.
Duncan spent nearly three decades on death row.
On Monday, the Louisiana justices called bite marks “now seriously questionable evidence” and found that no “rational juror” would convict Duncan of first-degree murder.
The chief justice, John Weimer, compared Duncan’s prosecution to the witch trials of the 17th century.
“The bite mark evidence and the sexual abuse evidence used in the trial against the accused has proven to be similarly specious. Those practices and methods have been scientifically proven to be of no value and, when relied upon, could lead to false convictions,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, in south Alabama, Charles McCrory is awaiting what he hopes to be a similar fate. He’s not on death row, but is spending his life in prison for the May 1985 killing of his wife.
McCrory, a then-26-year-old tech worker and volunteer paramedic in Andalusia, was always the main suspect in his wife Julie’s slaying. The two were separated, but spent much of their time together and with their toddler son.
On the night of May 30, 1985, according to McCrory, he had sex with Julie and left their once-shared home for the apartment where he was living just a few minutes away. The next morning, 24-year-old Julie was found dead in the doorway of her home, lying in a pool of blood. Autopsy reports showed five “chop” wounds to her head.
Investigators collected fingernail clippings, hoping there was DNA from Julie defending herself against the attacker. Police found hair in Julie’s hand and took it for testing along with two clumps of hair found near her body.
Charles McCrory was suspected quickly; but none of the physical evidence matched him.
However, two little marks on Julie’s arm damned her husband.
Dr. Richard Souviron, the forensic odontologist who had recently come to fame after testifying at serial killer Ted Bundy’s 1979 trial, was contacted about the case by the state medical examiner.
Souviron wrote a letter after viewing the marks in a photograph and told the medical examiner that the marks could have been from McCrory. But he couldn’t be sure, and noted that it was odd there were only two marks. The marks shouldn’t be the sole means of identifying a suspect, he wrote.
But when Souviron took the stand a few months later, he changed course. He told jurors that the teeth of Charles McCrory made those marks.
McCrory was convicted in October 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. Souviron has now walked back his statements and said he can’t be sure the marks are even from teeth at all, yet McCrory’s appeals have all failed and he’s consistently been denied parole.
He currently has a federal lawsuit pending, arguing in April 2024 that his conviction should be tossed out after a similar state case failed and Alabama judges stood by the old evidence. McCrory’s lawyers have leaned heavily on how bite mark matching has been discredited nationally, and how no other traces point to McCrory.
They’ve also brought up that Souviron’s past testimonies have led to at least two documented wrongful convictions.
McCrory’s case has sat dormant with no rulings from the judge for over two years. There’s no upcoming dates for hearings, no documented filing schedule.
In Louisiana, Duncan was 25 in 1993. He was watching Haley for his girlfriend that morning and Duncan said he had left her in the bathtub and was in another room washing dishes, when he heard a splash and found her under the water. Although police first planned to charge him with negligent homicide, Duncan was charged with first-degree murder after the child’s autopsy.
During the autopsy, pathologist Dr. Stephen Hayne — who an appeals court called “now discredited” in 2014 — saw what he called a bite mark. He contacted a frequent colleague Dr. Michael West, a dentist whose work has also been discredited and who has been the subject of multiple exonerations. West performed a bite mark examination by directly pressing the molds of Duncan’s teeth onto the victim’s body, calling it a match.
West didn’t testify at Duncan’s 1998 trial though, as he was at the time under odontology board sanctions for “describing pattern injuries that were not due to teeth,” according to court records.
Duncan’s defense team spoke with Souviron, the same forensic odontologist who testified in McCroy’s case. In the Louisiana case, which came years after he testified in Andalusia against McCrory, Souviron expressed doubt. Souviron said the marks were likely from the tape on the child’s face where she was intubated.
Hayne and West, the two experts involved in Duncan’s case, and the cases that they worked on which have been called into question, were the subjects of a 2018 book, The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South.
Duncan was represented by a team of lawyers including Chris Fabricant, who works with the Innocence Project in New York. He’s also on McCrory’s legal team.
“Those unreliable practices used in the accused’s trial should be discarded and no longer have a place in the realm of forensic science or in the ultimate goal of a trial,” wrote Justice Weimer in Louisiana this week, “which is ultimately the search for truth.""
SUB-HEADING: "Charles McCrory was accused 40 years ago of brutally murdering his wife in a small south Alabama town. No physical evidence tied him to the scene, other than a mark that prosecutors said proved he bit his wife during the attack. He's always maintained his innocence, and now his lawyers are hoping new revelations about bitemark evidence could set him free."
GIST: "Louisiana’s top court just freed a man who was locked up for 30 years based on the now-debunked science of bite marks, but an Alabama man with a similar case is still sitting in prison and waiting for his day in court.
“At this point, courts in Florida, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, among others, have released people from prison (sometimes from death row) when their convictions involved bitemark evidence,” said Mark Loudon-Brown of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
“And yet Alabama won’t.”
Loudon-Brown represents Charles McCrory in Alabama, and said he thinks Monday’s ruling should have an impact on McCroy’s case.
In Louisiana, Jimmie “Chris” Duncan was convicted in 1998 for the death of Haley Oliveaux, the 23-month-old daughter of his girlfriend. Prosecutors argued, according to court records, that Duncan attacked the little girl, sexually assaulted her, and drowned her. At trial, they argued his teeth matched marks on the girl and were bite marks from the attack.
Duncan’s team said that the girl had suffered multiple seizures before the day she died in December 1993 and drowned after having a seizure in the bathtub. They pointed to a video of an embattled dentist grinding the molds of Duncan’s teeth onto the little girl’s body.
They argued bite marks are not scientifically sound, that none of the evidence matched Duncan and that the death was a tragic accident. A judge in Ouachita Parish agreed and overturned Duncan’s conviction last year.
“At this point, courts in Florida, Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, among others, have released people from prison (sometimes from death row) when their convictions involved bitemark evidence,” said Mark Loudon-Brown of the Southern Center for Human Rights.
“And yet Alabama won’t.”
Loudon-Brown represents Charles McCrory in Alabama, and said he thinks Monday’s ruling should have an impact on McCroy’s case.
In Louisiana, Jimmie “Chris” Duncan was convicted in 1998 for the death of Haley Oliveaux, the 23-month-old daughter of his girlfriend. Prosecutors argued, according to court records, that Duncan attacked the little girl, sexually assaulted her, and drowned her. At trial, they argued his teeth matched marks on the girl and were bite marks from the attack.
Duncan’s team said that the girl had suffered multiple seizures before the day she died in December 1993 and drowned after having a seizure in the bathtub. They pointed to a video of an embattled dentist grinding the molds of Duncan’s teeth onto the little girl’s body.
They argued bite marks are not scientifically sound, that none of the evidence matched Duncan and that the death was a tragic accident. A judge in Ouachita Parish agreed and overturned Duncan’s conviction last year.
Prosecutors appealed the ruling. On Monday, the Louisiana Supreme Court agreed that Duncan’s conviction would be tossed out.
Duncan spent nearly three decades on death row.
On Monday, the Louisiana justices called bite marks “now seriously questionable evidence” and found that no “rational juror” would convict Duncan of first-degree murder.
The chief justice, John Weimer, compared Duncan’s prosecution to the witch trials of the 17th century.
“The bite mark evidence and the sexual abuse evidence used in the trial against the accused has proven to be similarly specious. Those practices and methods have been scientifically proven to be of no value and, when relied upon, could lead to false convictions,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, in south Alabama, Charles McCrory is awaiting what he hopes to be a similar fate. He’s not on death row, but is spending his life in prison for the May 1985 killing of his wife.
McCrory, a then-26-year-old tech worker and volunteer paramedic in Andalusia, was always the main suspect in his wife Julie’s slaying. The two were separated, but spent much of their time together and with their toddler son.
On the night of May 30, 1985, according to McCrory, he had sex with Julie and left their once-shared home for the apartment where he was living just a few minutes away. The next morning, 24-year-old Julie was found dead in the doorway of her home, lying in a pool of blood. Autopsy reports showed five “chop” wounds to her head.
Investigators collected fingernail clippings, hoping there was DNA from Julie defending herself against the attacker. Police found hair in Julie’s hand and took it for testing along with two clumps of hair found near her body.
Charles McCrory was suspected quickly; but none of the physical evidence matched him.
However, two little marks on Julie’s arm damned her husband.
Dr. Richard Souviron, the forensic odontologist who had recently come to fame after testifying at serial killer Ted Bundy’s 1979 trial, was contacted about the case by the state medical examiner.
Souviron wrote a letter after viewing the marks in a photograph and told the medical examiner that the marks could have been from McCrory. But he couldn’t be sure, and noted that it was odd there were only two marks. The marks shouldn’t be the sole means of identifying a suspect, he wrote.
But when Souviron took the stand a few months later, he changed course. He told jurors that the teeth of Charles McCrory made those marks.
McCrory was convicted in October 1985 and sentenced to life in prison. Souviron has now walked back his statements and said he can’t be sure the marks are even from teeth at all, yet McCrory’s appeals have all failed and he’s consistently been denied parole.
He currently has a federal lawsuit pending, arguing in April 2024 that his conviction should be tossed out after a similar state case failed and Alabama judges stood by the old evidence. McCrory’s lawyers have leaned heavily on how bite mark matching has been discredited nationally, and how no other traces point to McCrory.
They’ve also brought up that Souviron’s past testimonies have led to at least two documented wrongful convictions.
McCrory’s case has sat dormant with no rulings from the judge for over two years. There’s no upcoming dates for hearings, no documented filing schedule.
In Louisiana, Duncan was 25 in 1993. He was watching Haley for his girlfriend that morning and Duncan said he had left her in the bathtub and was in another room washing dishes, when he heard a splash and found her under the water. Although police first planned to charge him with negligent homicide, Duncan was charged with first-degree murder after the child’s autopsy.
During the autopsy, pathologist Dr. Stephen Hayne — who an appeals court called “now discredited” in 2014 — saw what he called a bite mark. He contacted a frequent colleague Dr. Michael West, a dentist whose work has also been discredited and who has been the subject of multiple exonerations. West performed a bite mark examination by directly pressing the molds of Duncan’s teeth onto the victim’s body, calling it a match.
West didn’t testify at Duncan’s 1998 trial though, as he was at the time under odontology board sanctions for “describing pattern injuries that were not due to teeth,” according to court records.
Duncan’s defense team spoke with Souviron, the same forensic odontologist who testified in McCroy’s case. In the Louisiana case, which came years after he testified in Andalusia against McCrory, Souviron expressed doubt. Souviron said the marks were likely from the tape on the child’s face where she was intubated.
Hayne and West, the two experts involved in Duncan’s case, and the cases that they worked on which have been called into question, were the subjects of a 2018 book, The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist: A True Story of Injustice in the American South.
Duncan was represented by a team of lawyers including Chris Fabricant, who works with the Innocence Project in New York. He’s also on McCrory’s legal team.
“Those unreliable practices used in the accused’s trial should be discarded and no longer have a place in the realm of forensic science or in the ultimate goal of a trial,” wrote Justice Weimer in Louisiana this week, “which is ultimately the search for truth.""
The entire story can be read at:
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog. FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."Lawyer Radha Natarajan: Executive Director: New England Innocence Project; FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true;
