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STORY: "Delco Times Defense teams for ‘Chester 3’ seek review by full Superior Court," by Reporter Alex Rose, published by The Delco Times, on August 5, 2026.
He found that the new testing indicated the defendants “were not involved in this crime.”
Palmbach said that a previously unidentified stain on Nickens’ bedsheet had been tested in 2022 and found to contain blood from the victim and semen from a person identified only as the unknown male.
Based on his prior testing in 2006 and 2008, Palmbach said the blood, urine and semen making up the stain all had to be in a liquid form at the same time before soaking into and fixing to the bedsheet in the manner they had.
Though it was known when all three petitioners were tried that there was DNA from another unknown person at the crime scene, Palmbach said this stain undercut prior prosecution theories that they were unrelated to Nickens’ death.
Brennan said in an opinion supporting her granting of new trials that the new evidence provided an avenue for the petitioners to make a “strong, scientifically based argument” for a single-perpetrator defense at trial that was not available to them when they were convicted.
Brennan noted that the updated testing also specifically excluded each of the defendants as contributors to any of the evidence at the scene, including a green jacket left behind and a plastic straw inside the jacket that prosecutors had previously tied to Grasty and Johnson.
Appeals court erred?
In reconsideration petitions filed this week, defense attorneys with the nonprofit Centurion in Princeton, New Jersey, the Innocence Project, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, the Exoneration Project, and the firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon argued that it was the Superior Court panel that had erred, not Brennan.
The petitions were filed on behalf of each defendant individually and therefore make specific arguments concerning the particular petitioner’s case, but make several of the same points that the court misapprehended established case law or ignored significant factors.
The individual filings argue that the Superior Court seemed to impermissibly lump the defendants and the evidence of all three trials together, though there were some elements that may have been only briefly touched on in one trial or that were not available at the time of another.
In doing so, the petitioners state the Superior Court inaccurately assessed the evidence related to each petitioner’s individual conviction and inappropriately merged the records of all three men while failing to take into account the different exhibits, arguments and witnesses presented for each at trial.
While the Superior Court pointed to witness testimony supporting conviction at trials for all three men, the petitioners argued it failed to gauge the credibility of those witnesses, particularly ones who may have been incentivized.
The defense also argues that the majority seemed to ignore Brennan’s statement that she had conducted an “extensive review” of the full record, not just the testimony presented in the PCRA proceedings.
As to those proceedings, the Superior Court put aside the lower court’s express findings that Keel and Palmbach had provided credible evidence and did not appear to consider their testimony at all, the petitioners argued.
Unlike the “evidentiarily neutral” evidence reviewed in Murchison, the evidence presented about the stain on the bed was crucially important in establishing that Nickens’ fatal beating and apparent sexual assault occurred simultaneously and pointed to a single actor, according to the defense.
While there is a maxim that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” the petitioner’s note the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year cautioned that the saying “is not universally true,” and that “it is erroneous to claim the absence of evidence can never be probative.”
Here, the petitioners argue, that absence of evidence is of overwhelming probative value, given the totality of the other, newly strengthened evidence supporting a single unknown perpetrator.
STORY: "Delco Times Defense teams for ‘Chester 3’ seek review by full Superior Court," by Reporter Alex Rose, published by The Delco Times, on August 5, 2026.
G Defense attorneys representing a trio of men convicted in the 1997 murder of a 70-year-old Chester woman have asked for a reconsideration of their fate by the full Pennsylvania Superior Court after a panel of three judges last month overturned a Common Pleas Court order that would have granted them new trials.
Samuel Grasty, Morton Johnson and Derrick Chappell, known as the “Chester 3,” were separately convicted in trials from 1998 to 2001 in the death of Henrietta Nickens inside her home on the 3200 block of West 10th Street in Chester on Oct. 10, 1997.
Chappell, 44, and Grasty, 49, each received life sentences, while Johnson, 47, received a de facto life sentence of 99 years.
They were 15, 20 and 18 years old, respectively, when the crime occurred. Chappell was later resentenced to 28 years to life after the U.S. Supreme Court retroactively changed the rules for sentencing minors.
All maintain their innocence.
Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan issued an order in March 2024 that the men should be granted new trials due to advances in DNA evidence that seemed to exclude them from the crime scene while also implicating a single person identified as “Unknown Male 1.”
Brennan heard from Professor Timothy Palmbach, a crime scene investigation expert, and DNA expert Dr. C. Alan Keel, former director of the Forensic Analytical Crime Lab in California, at hearings in July and August of 2022.
Keel explained that DNA testing technology has increased significantly since the three men were tried, especially in the ability to pick up much fainter “touch” DNA that can be left behind from a person merely brushing an object.
Samuel Grasty, Morton Johnson and Derrick Chappell, known as the “Chester 3,” were separately convicted in trials from 1998 to 2001 in the death of Henrietta Nickens inside her home on the 3200 block of West 10th Street in Chester on Oct. 10, 1997.
Chappell, 44, and Grasty, 49, each received life sentences, while Johnson, 47, received a de facto life sentence of 99 years.
They were 15, 20 and 18 years old, respectively, when the crime occurred. Chappell was later resentenced to 28 years to life after the U.S. Supreme Court retroactively changed the rules for sentencing minors.
All maintain their innocence.
Delaware County Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan issued an order in March 2024 that the men should be granted new trials due to advances in DNA evidence that seemed to exclude them from the crime scene while also implicating a single person identified as “Unknown Male 1.”
Brennan heard from Professor Timothy Palmbach, a crime scene investigation expert, and DNA expert Dr. C. Alan Keel, former director of the Forensic Analytical Crime Lab in California, at hearings in July and August of 2022.
Keel explained that DNA testing technology has increased significantly since the three men were tried, especially in the ability to pick up much fainter “touch” DNA that can be left behind from a person merely brushing an object.
He found that the new testing indicated the defendants “were not involved in this crime.”
Palmbach said that a previously unidentified stain on Nickens’ bedsheet had been tested in 2022 and found to contain blood from the victim and semen from a person identified only as the unknown male.
Based on his prior testing in 2006 and 2008, Palmbach said the blood, urine and semen making up the stain all had to be in a liquid form at the same time before soaking into and fixing to the bedsheet in the manner they had.
Though it was known when all three petitioners were tried that there was DNA from another unknown person at the crime scene, Palmbach said this stain undercut prior prosecution theories that they were unrelated to Nickens’ death.
Brennan said in an opinion supporting her granting of new trials that the new evidence provided an avenue for the petitioners to make a “strong, scientifically based argument” for a single-perpetrator defense at trial that was not available to them when they were convicted.
Brennan noted that the updated testing also specifically excluded each of the defendants as contributors to any of the evidence at the scene, including a green jacket left behind and a plastic straw inside the jacket that prosecutors had previously tied to Grasty and Johnson.
‘Court erred’
Two of the Superior Court judges issued a memorandum overturning Brennan’s order, however, finding her analysis contravened clearly delineated rules for when a new trial may be granted.
The standard, set by the state Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Murchison, requires taking the totality of the evidence into consideration, including that already entered at trial.
“Because petitioners already had DNA evidence excluding them as contributors to the DNA found in the victim’s body, and argued at their individual trials that the DNA evidence exonerated them, we conclude, based on the unanimously decided Murchison … (that) the (Post-Conviction Relief Act) court erred in finding that the 2021 DNA evidence was after-discovered evidence within the meaning of the PCRA, specifically, as it erred in concluding that the evidence was not cumulative and would likely compel a different verdict,” the majority opinion stated.
The majority opinion filed by Judges Megan Sullivan and Maria McLaughlin additionally found that Brennan failed to adhere to Murchison’s directive that “the only way to assess the likelihood that after-discovered evidence will produce a different result is to review the totality of all the trial circumstances.”
The Post Conviction Relief Act court showed no such reliance on the trial record, the majority found, instead basing its decision solely on the PCRA testimony and expert reports.
President Judge Anne E. Lazarus wrote in her dissent that the new DNA evidence does not merely illustrate that UM1 was in Nickens’ apartment that night, but also that it was “physically impossible” that any of the petitioners were present. It made a compelling case, she said, that the unknown male was the person who assaulted and likely killed Nickens.
“Further, I am unpersuaded that the petitioners’ previous attempts to raise the single-perpetrator defense at trial preclude them from successfully pleading and proving the after-discovered evidence test now,” Lazarus wrote. “As noted in Murchison, after-discovered evidence that strengthens a defense may still warrant a new trial where the grade and character of that evidence is such that it would likely change the outcome. Here, the DNA evidence cannot fairly be broken-down piece-by-piece but, rather, must be considered in its totality.”
Two of the Superior Court judges issued a memorandum overturning Brennan’s order, however, finding her analysis contravened clearly delineated rules for when a new trial may be granted.
The standard, set by the state Supreme Court in Commonwealth v. Murchison, requires taking the totality of the evidence into consideration, including that already entered at trial.
“Because petitioners already had DNA evidence excluding them as contributors to the DNA found in the victim’s body, and argued at their individual trials that the DNA evidence exonerated them, we conclude, based on the unanimously decided Murchison … (that) the (Post-Conviction Relief Act) court erred in finding that the 2021 DNA evidence was after-discovered evidence within the meaning of the PCRA, specifically, as it erred in concluding that the evidence was not cumulative and would likely compel a different verdict,” the majority opinion stated.
The majority opinion filed by Judges Megan Sullivan and Maria McLaughlin additionally found that Brennan failed to adhere to Murchison’s directive that “the only way to assess the likelihood that after-discovered evidence will produce a different result is to review the totality of all the trial circumstances.”
The Post Conviction Relief Act court showed no such reliance on the trial record, the majority found, instead basing its decision solely on the PCRA testimony and expert reports.
President Judge Anne E. Lazarus wrote in her dissent that the new DNA evidence does not merely illustrate that UM1 was in Nickens’ apartment that night, but also that it was “physically impossible” that any of the petitioners were present. It made a compelling case, she said, that the unknown male was the person who assaulted and likely killed Nickens.
“Further, I am unpersuaded that the petitioners’ previous attempts to raise the single-perpetrator defense at trial preclude them from successfully pleading and proving the after-discovered evidence test now,” Lazarus wrote. “As noted in Murchison, after-discovered evidence that strengthens a defense may still warrant a new trial where the grade and character of that evidence is such that it would likely change the outcome. Here, the DNA evidence cannot fairly be broken-down piece-by-piece but, rather, must be considered in its totality.”
Appeals court erred?
In reconsideration petitions filed this week, defense attorneys with the nonprofit Centurion in Princeton, New Jersey, the Innocence Project, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, the Exoneration Project, and the firm of Shook, Hardy & Bacon argued that it was the Superior Court panel that had erred, not Brennan.
The petitions were filed on behalf of each defendant individually and therefore make specific arguments concerning the particular petitioner’s case, but make several of the same points that the court misapprehended established case law or ignored significant factors.
The individual filings argue that the Superior Court seemed to impermissibly lump the defendants and the evidence of all three trials together, though there were some elements that may have been only briefly touched on in one trial or that were not available at the time of another.
In doing so, the petitioners state the Superior Court inaccurately assessed the evidence related to each petitioner’s individual conviction and inappropriately merged the records of all three men while failing to take into account the different exhibits, arguments and witnesses presented for each at trial.
While the Superior Court pointed to witness testimony supporting conviction at trials for all three men, the petitioners argued it failed to gauge the credibility of those witnesses, particularly ones who may have been incentivized.
The defense also argues that the majority seemed to ignore Brennan’s statement that she had conducted an “extensive review” of the full record, not just the testimony presented in the PCRA proceedings.
As to those proceedings, the Superior Court put aside the lower court’s express findings that Keel and Palmbach had provided credible evidence and did not appear to consider their testimony at all, the petitioners argued.
Unlike the “evidentiarily neutral” evidence reviewed in Murchison, the evidence presented about the stain on the bed was crucially important in establishing that Nickens’ fatal beating and apparent sexual assault occurred simultaneously and pointed to a single actor, according to the defense.
While there is a maxim that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” the petitioner’s note the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last year cautioned that the saying “is not universally true,” and that “it is erroneous to claim the absence of evidence can never be probative.”
Here, the petitioners argue, that absence of evidence is of overwhelming probative value, given the totality of the other, newly strengthened evidence supporting a single unknown perpetrator.
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;
