Innocence Project

In 1992, Kennedy Brewer was arrested in Mississippi and accused of killing his girlfriend’s three-year-old daughter. After waiting in jail for three years for a trial to begin, Brewer was convicted of capital murder and sent to Mississippi’s death row.

In 2001, DNA tests proved he did not commit the crime, leading his conviction to be overturned. The prosecutors said they intended to retry Brewer, so he remained in jail for over five more years until his release on bail in August 2007. On February 15, 2008, after an Innocence Project investigation led to an alternate suspect in the case, Brewer became the first person to be exonerated through post-conviction DNA testing in Mississippi. He had served seven years on death row and eight years in jail awaiting trial.

The Crime and Investigation

In the early morning hours of May 3, 1992, Christine Jackson, the three-year-old daughter of Brewer’s girlfriend, Gloria Jackson, was abducted from her home, raped and murdered. Brewer had spent that evening babysitting Christine and her two younger siblings, who were Brewer’s biological children with Gloria. Two days after Christine disappeared, her body was found in a creek in Noxubee County about 500 yards from her home. Police suspected Brewer because he had been at home that night and there was no sign of forced entry; however, a broken window near where the child slept could have provided the point of entry for an intruder.

The Trial

The trial began in March 1995, nearly three years after Brewer was arrested. The prosecution theorized that Brewer had raped and murdered Christine in the Jackson home and then carried her body to the creek. A semen sample was recovered from the victim’s body but was deemed insufficient for DNA testing.

The medical examiner who conducted the autopsy, Steven Hayne, testified that he had found several marks on the child’s body that he believed to be bite marks. Hayne called in Dr. Michael West, a forensic odonotologist, to analyze the marks. West concluded that 19 marks found on the victim’s body were “indeed and without a doubt” inflicted by Brewer. He further asserted that all 19 marks were made only by Brewer’s top two teeth and that somehow the bottom teeth had made no impression. West claimed a degree of certainty that exceeded the limitations of bite mark analysis, which has never been scientifically validated. He was already discredited by the time of Brewer’s trial, as the first member ever to be suspended from the American Board of Forensic Odontology. Regardless, the court allowed his testimony…

Loss of his mother and a stroke

In March 2020, Kennedy’s mother died, and he had a stroke a few days later. Thankfully, he is recovering, but it’s unlikely he will be able to return to work anytime soon. Following his exoneration, he received woefully inadequate compensation from the State of Mississippi, and has spent the years since his release working various difficult factory jobs, including at a chicken processing plant and doing repairs at a catfish farm. His family is raising money for him for those willing to support.

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