Riddle's attorneys contend DNA test clears their client

Ernest Riddle said nothing during a hearing held last year in Anderson County at which attorneys Jeffrey Bloom and Diana Holt argued he should be released from prison after 23 years. Defense attorneys for accused murderer Ernest Riddle contend a new form of DNA testing on a very old piece of evidence exonerated their client and should result in dismissal of all charges.

If the court is not inclined to dismiss the 23-year-old murder charge, the defense attorneys either want Riddle released from prison on bond or a retrial within the next 45 days.

Riddle is accused of murder for the August 1985 stabbing death of Abbie Sue Mullinax inside her home at 205 Concord Ave. The murder occurred during a nighttime burglary. She reportedly was killed with a kitchen knife when she went to investigate a noise in her home.

Riddle was convicted and sentenced to death for the crime but his death sentence was twice overturned and reinstated before the state Supreme Court overturned his conviction altogether in 2006 based on allegations of prosecutorial misconduct during the early court proceedings.

As both sides geared up for another retrial of the case, Riddle's defense attorneys were seeking new scientific tests on some old pieces of evidence, such as a doormat seized from a Birch Street home after the murder.

Circuit Court Judge Cordell Maddox Jr. granted permission for the new testing in an order handed down last October.

Defense attorneys claim the new tests exonerate Riddle.

They allege that after Mullinax was murdered, police bloodhounds led investigators from the crime scene to Birch Street, where three people had been pounding on the door of a home about one hour after the murder.

One of the residents of that home, Clifton Coker, told police he recognized the voices of two of the three people knocking at his door, neither of which were Riddle, and he said he found large drops of blood on his front porch later that same morning, according to the defense petition.

He reportedly tried to clean up the blood, defense attorneys allege, but did not remove all of it.

Riddle's defense attorneys claim police interviewed two of the people who had been at Coker's door that night, but turned their attention away from them to focus on Riddle and his brother.

Tests done in 1985 showed there was blood on the doormat while a 1999 test was unable to detect any DNA with then-available technologies.

While they haven't been provided with the findings, the defense attorneys claim additional testing in 2007 by the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division did not produce any DNA findings.

Per their requests, the defense attorneys had the doormat evidence sent to a private laboratory in Virginia called Bode Technology for a new type of testing called "touch" or "Minifiler" DNA testing, which they allege could obtain genetic profiles from extremely small samples.

While Bode Technology only was able to obtain a "partial DNA profile," its testing reportedly showed the evidence on the doormat was "consistent" with a mixture of at least two different individuals, one of whom was a male. The lab further claims that Ernest Riddle was "excluded" as a possible contributor to the mixture.

A court-imposed gag order in the case prevents the attorneys, including prosecutors from the 7th Circuit Solicitors Office, from commenting. Solicitor Trey Gowdy had to decline comment when reached on Friday.

It's unclear, however, how much weight the new scientific tests will ultimately have in the case. There's been no allegation that Riddle was cut the night of the murder and the defense motion regarding the DNA tests makes no mention whether the blood found on the doormat was scientifically proven to belong to Mullinax, the victim.