Clarence Brandley

Clarence Lee Brandley (September 24, 1951 – September 2, 2018) was an American man who was wrongly convicted of the rape and murder of Cheryl Dee Fergeson in 1981 and sentenced to death.

Brandley was working as a janitor supervisor at Conroe High School in Conroe, Texas when the 16-year-old student Fergeson was a visiting athlete from Bellville, Texas.

Brandley was held for nine years on death row.

Cheryl Dee Fergeson, a 16-year-old junior at Bellville High School, was murdered on August 23, 1980.

Fergeson was on a school volleyball team that had traveled to Conroe High School in Conroe, Texas to play a match.

Prior to the game, Fergeson was seen heading to the washroom by a teammate.

When she failed to return, the team split up to search for her, but did not locate the girl.

They continued with the volleyball game as scheduled.

When Fergeson had still not returned by the end of the game, the search was resumed.

Her body was found in the loft above the school auditorium by custodians Clarence Brandley and Henry "Icky" Peace.

A total of five custodians were working at the school that day: Brandley, Peace, Gary Acreman, Sam Martinez, and John Henry Sessum.

All of the men were classified as white except Brandley, who was African American.

Suspicion immediately fell on Brandley and Peace, as they had located the body.

According to Peace, when the two were questioned together, Texas Ranger Wesley Styles told them, "One of you is going to have to hang for this" and, turning to Brandley, added, "Since you're the nigger, you're elected."

The other three custodians claimed to have seen the victim enter a girls' restroom near the school gymnasium, and soon to have seen Brandley walking toward the restroom with an armload of toilet paper.

They claimed that they told Brandley there was a girl in the restroom, and that he replied that he was taking the toilet paper to the boys' restroom.

They said that they did not see him again until about 45 minutes later, after a search had begun for the missing student.

The fourth custodian, Peace, subsequently added that Brandley was insistent on immediately searching the loft.

When they found Fergeson's body, Peace said that Brandley calmly checked for a pulse and then notified the authorities.

All four said that only Brandley had keys to the auditorium where the body was found.

Before an all-white Montgomery County grand jury on August 28, 1980, five days after the crime, Brandley professed innocence.

Although he contradicted his white co-workers in several respects, he acknowledged that he had disappeared for perhaps 30 minutes about the time the murder was believed to have occurred.

He said he was in the custodian's office smoking and listening to music alone.

He also testified that a number of other persons had master keys that would open the auditorium.

He noted that doors near the stage usually were propped open with a two-by-four.

Brandley was tried in December 1980 before an all-white jury.

The prosecution's case was based entirely on circumstantial evidence and witness statements, as there was no physical evidence linking Brandley to the crime.

Pubic hair with purported "negroid characteristics" were allegedly found on the body, but no expert testimony was given at trial to indicate they belonged to Brandley.

These hairs were subsequently lost from the prosecution's exhibits and have never been recovered.

Spermatozoa recovered from the victim's body had been destroyed before the trial.

It was never tested to determine whether it was Brandley's. A fresh blood spot had been found on the victim's blouse but it did not come from Fergeson and could not have been Brandley's. The spot was Type A, but Brandley had Type O blood.

One juror found the evidence insufficient to establish guilt and refused to convict, forcing Judge Sam Robertson, Jr. to declare a mistrial.

The name of the holdout juror, William Shreck, was leaked, and he received anonymous harassing telephone calls.

One man, whose anonymous communication was monitored by police, threatened Shreck, "We're going to get you, nigger lover."

Brandley's second trial in February 1981 was held before a different judge, but also had an all-white jury.

The prosecution did not call John Sessum, one of the original witnesses.

Later it was discovered that the prosecution had decided against calling Sessum because he no longer was willing to support the other custodians' versions of events.

After lengthy legal proceedings and appeals that reached the Supreme Court of the United States, Clarence Brandley's conviction was overturned and he was freed in 1990.

After his release, Brandley was involved in further legal proceedings over child support payments that had accrued over his time in prison.

He filed a $120 million lawsuit against various agencies of the State of Texas because of his arrest and wrongful conviction but received neither an apology nor a settlement.