Scientist Fabricated Evidence That Sent CT Teens To Prison: Officials

NEW MILFORD, CT — One of the nation's most famous forensic scientists has been found liable for fabricating evidence in a 1985 murder—evidence that lead to the wrongful conviction of two Connecticut teens, according to a recent United States District Court District of Connecticut ruling obtained by the Hartford Courant.

Dr. Henry Lee, along with eight police officers and the town of New Milford, was sued by Ralph Birch and Shawn Henning, who claim that the system failed them and lead to their wrongful convictions for felony murder and burglary, the ruling said.

As a result of the unusual, pre-trial ruling issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Victor Bolden, the jury will only have a hearing to decide how much Lee owes Henning and Birch in damages, officials said. The cases against the police officers and detectives will go to trial.

Birch and Henning were incarcerated for 30 years in connection with the early December 1985 killing of a New Milford resident named Everett Carr in his home. Officials said that the suspect or suspects stabbed Carr 27 times, struck him in his head multiple times, and severed his jugular vein.

As Director of the Connecticut State Forensic Laboratory, Lee worked on the investigation, according to officials. He took photos at the crime scene, but did not create any written documents memorializing testing he did or didn't do on a red-stained white towel found hanging in the home's bathroom, officials said. He later claimed he had conducted a test that was positive for blood.

The focus of the investigation eventually landed on Birch and Henning since they had admitted to daytime burglaries in the area, according to officials. Over the next couple of years, multiple people who knew the pair came forward with claims that Birch had confessed to the murder while incarcerated and that Henning had admitted to being on the scene of a murder while burglarizing a house.

Each was eventually charged in connection with the murder and sent to separate trials, during which the state did not supply any forensic evidence connecting Birch and Henning to the murder, officials said. Both were convicted. Birch was sentenced to 55 years in prison and Henning was sentenced to 50. Attempts to appeal and petition were turned down by the state, according to officials.

Decades later, in 2019, the Connecticut Supreme Court concluded that Birch and Henning were "entitled to a new trial due to the state's failure to alert the trial court and petitioners that Lee's testimony was incorrect," officials said.

Their convictions were vacated because the state conceded that Lee had not actually performed a positive blood test on the towel, according to officials.

Henry Lee's biography states that he is a professor and founder of the Forensic Science program at the University of New Haven.

Over the past several decades, Lee has assisted in the investigations of more than 8,000 criminal cases, including the O.J. Simpson case, the review of the John F. Kennedy assassination, and the death of JonBenet Ramsey, the biography continues.

He joined the Connecticut State Police more than 30 years ago and served as the state's first criminalist.