Court orders death-row inmate's release; calls evidence weak
Source: Associated Press
Brendan Farrington, Associated Press
Updated 6:32 pm, Thursday, May 11, 2017
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) A former Air Force sergeant on death row for the murders of an ex-girlfriend and their son will be set free after the Florida Supreme Court ruled Thursday that there was no physical evidence to convict him and that prosecutors failed to look at others who may have had a motive to kill them.
In a ruling that reads like a murder mystery, the court said Ralph Wright, who was married to another woman, had a motive to kill Paula O'Connerand their 15-month-old son Alijah, and there was a window of time in which he could have committed the murders. But the ruling also noted that there was no physical evidence to tie Wright to the crime and said others also had a motive and the opportunity to kill them, including O'Conner's daughter Tori Christopher.
"Wright was the only person who had a motive to kill Alijah to avoid a child support obligation and a divorce and he may have been the only person who had a motive to kill Paula in order to maintain a 'bachelor lifestyle,' but Tori had a $540,000 motive to kill them both," the court wrote in its opinion.
Christopher had been in trouble with the law, had fought with her mother about the teen's boyfriends and caring for her half brother, and she met with an insurance company the day of her mother's funeral about collecting $540,000 in life insurance $400,000 of which was supposed to be put into a trust for Alijah, but went to Christopher because he was dead, the court ruling stated.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Florida-Supreme-court-orders-release-of-death-row-11139846.php